The Gartner Hype Cycle and first word art/last word art have something in common at their cores: both concern novelty in their respective areas. But these areas converge. Novelty in art and technology go hand in hand, where people make art from the newest technology or develop the newest technology to make art. The technology doesn’t necessarily have to be recent; consider the rediscovering of perspective in Renaissance art.

What is made with the most hyped technology is the first word art. For example, the first art made with 3D printing at the Peak of Inflated Expectations is first word art. What could be the last word art when using the technology present in the cycle? What was made with the technologies in the Trough of Disillusionment before they ended up in the trough could be considered last word art, since last word art implies that whatever work that was made with those technologies couldn’t be overshadowed by another work made with the same media. Since the expectation couldn’t be beaten, people become disillusioned with the technology and kick it into the trough.

My interest is whatever is accessible at first glance. Craft comes from immediate access–if I have the technology in my immediate vicinity, and have an idea to do something with that technology, then I would execute it. I don’t particularly care for creating the first word art because those things happen naturally and most unexpectedly. It’s like history: full of pockets of anomalies driving events. (People would disagree with me.)

In that way, I relate to Schulze because he prefers to work in the Trough of Disillusionment. As he said in the talk, he sees the value in how cheap the technologies are in the Trough of Disillusionment, because they’ve all been done before. There are no expectations for whatever is in the trough. You don’t have to live up to what society deems to be “cool.” You are free to explore, and produce as much as you want, because no one’s really looking. In quantity lies experimentation, and experimentation is the cause of first word art (and a bit of innovation).