Art Reboot

81 14 relative authentic ity It is time to see what the shift from object to process makes of the question of authenticity in art. The physical work of art itself can only be genuine or fake; it is a simple, binary question, even if a lack of data may prevent us from deciding. In the process-based approach, the message can be relatively authentic even if the physical art object is not. Once the end product of art is recog- nised as being evolved consciousness rather than a physical art object, we have the intriguing potential for authentic meaning to be conveyed by an inauthentic art object. Had Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus been destroyed shortly after it was produced in the late fifteenth century, leaving only a faithful copy produced entirely by studio assistants, the copy would carry a high degree of relative authenticity in terms of the meaning it conveyed, even if Botticelli never laid a brush on it. It might be indistinguishable from the original, having been painted in the same studio by artists skilled in Botticelli’s style, any of whom might have worked on the original as well. If the original and the exact studio copy survived, there would be a distinction at the level of the art object, but the copy would still convey a significant level of meaning. If the two were practically