Assignment 3 - An Outlook for Artistic Culture: Some Reflections in a Digital Age

By Nicole Basaraba

Art in the Machine Age

"In the days before machinery, men and women who wanted to amuse themselves were compelled, in their humble way, to be artists. Now they sit still and permit professionals to entertain them by the air of machinery. It is difficult to believe that general artistic culture can flourish in this atmosphere of passivity" (Huxley, 1927).

Aldous Huxley is stating that the “Machine Age” was causing a lack of creativity in American culture because people passively consumed what was produced by professionals.

Aldous Huxley via www.biography.com

Walter Benjamin, a 19^th century German theorist and literary critic, wrote a paper called “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, which addresses the topic of artistic culture in the Machine Age. Benjamin (1936) wrote, “for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual” (Benjamin, p. 224). He argued that mechanical reproduction eliminated the authenticity (or aura) of art, photography, and film. In other words from a rhetorical theory perspective, a work of art lost some of its ethos, its specific character or its originality because there were several copies.

Benjamin (1936) described film as “the promotion of a revolutionary criticism of traditional concepts of art” (p. 231). Due to the lack of aura (or cult value), audiences became critics of film instead of consuming them in awe. The masses could experience a work of art in many different contexts and it gave them the opportunity to think critically rather than being passive.

Although, the Machine Age encouraged critical evaluation, it did not allow viewers to participate in the creation. This aspect may account for Huxley’s argument that creativity and artist culture diminished during the Machine Age because art creation was managed by the “gatekeepers” namely museums and galleries curating artwork, film directors, music producers, and traditional publishing houses. The artists became part of an elite group, who were selected by ‘gatekeeping’ experts. The resulting pool of artists was small and definitive.

The ‘Digital Age’ shows that Huxley’s statement is outdated because the Internet has spawned an explosion of creativity in traditional and new formats.

Art in the Digital Age – Online publishing

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 and since then it has created a "global village" and given way to a new wave of artists. The Internet democratized art.

Clay Shirky refers to this democratization as “mass amateurization”. Shirky (2008) writes, “the future presented by the internet is the mass amateurization of publishing and a switch from ‘Why publish this?’ to ‘Why not?’” (p. 60). He points out that the definition of journalists in the Oxford Dictionary makes reference to the ‘gatekeepers’ and says, “journalists aren’t journalists unless they work for publishers, and publishers aren’t publishers unless they own the means of production,” (Shirky, 2008, p. 71). Writers, photographers, filmmakers, and other artists are no longer bound to publishers and their means of production, so it decreases the reliance on professionals.

Blogging and Citizen Journalism – Who are the professionals?

Blogs took off in 1999 when Blogger and Livejournal were created. The ‘blogosphere’ now has several other platforms like Wordpress, and Tumblr, which millions of people use to write, read, and share (wikipedia.org/blog). Blogs can be personal, but they can also be professional as many mainstream news organizations such as Huffington Post using them. Statistics showed that over 173 million blogs were on the Internet in 2011 (statista.com). So where is the line between blogging and journalism?

There is a categorization called citizen journalism. Mark Glaser (2006) explains, “the idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others.” Many bloggers write on the same topics covered by established media sources and often include the personal opinion of the writer(s). Blogging also gives the writers the ability to comment or report on issues not covered by the media.

Image via www.indymedia.org

Glaser (2006) notes, “there is some controversy over the term citizen journalism, because many professional journalists believe that only a trained journalist can understand the rigors and ethics involved in reporting the news.” Although, a prime example of successful citizen journalism is Indymedia.org. The Independent Media Center, originally created in 1999 to provide grassroots coverage of the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, is now a place where journalists can gather information, reports, photos, audio and video footage. Since it operates on a democratic open-publishing model, hundreds of media activists have set up Indymedia websites in several countries (indymedia.org).

Shirky (2008) asks: who is a journalist, who is a photographer, who is a publisher? In the Digital Age, the answer is anyone; anyone who has the digital literacies to operate and access the Internet and the associated tools (e.g. computers, software, etc.). Bloggers can be journalists, journalists can be bloggers, and citizens can be photographers and publishers. Contradicting Huxley’s statement, blogging and citizen journalism are two examples of people being active rather than passive consumers.

Peer Production Networks – Are artists still humble?

Not only have citizens passed the gatekeepers, the Internet allows users to produce on a grand scale. People are no longer confined to their immediate environment or basic tools. In the “global village” they can work together to create massive online projects. Yochai Benkler, Professor at Harvard Law School, defines 'commons-based peer production' as “a form of open creation and sharing performed by groups online that sets and executes goals in a decentratlized manner” (2012, p. 1). The term makes reference to the democratization or amateurization of art. People participating in peer production networks create new works from online encyclopedias to folksonomies.

Image via wikipedia.org

Benkler applies this term to online projects. Wikipedia launched on January 15, 2001 is a collaboratively edited, multilingual, free Internet encyclopedia with 30+ million articles (wikipedia.com/wikipedia). It is one of the most successful and most referenced piece of collaboratively produced online work. Another example is LibraryThing, which results in the creation of folksonomy. With LibraryThing users participate in social tagging and as a result, they create new categories and terms to aid in searching for books. Tim Spalding (creator of LibraryThing) uses the example of new book genres being recognized in LibraryThing, such as Cyberpunk, which is not recognized by traditional taxonomic libraries like the Library of Congress (youtube.com). People participating in peer production are not humble any more because their collective action can have large-scale results on culture.

Creative Commons Licenses – Facilitating the remix

Creative Commons licenses, founded by Lawrence Lessig, Hal Abelson and Eric Eldred with the support of the Center for the public Domain, give the public permission to share and use creative work with conditions chosen by the creator. These licenses encourage creatively, participation, and collaboration. Lessig (2008) explains, ‘they (or at least the “young people of the day”) add to the culture they read by creating and re-creating the culture around them” (p. 28). There is a huge quantity of art on the Internet in multiple formats. Lessig (2008) explains, “they remix, or quote, a wide range of “texts” to produce something new” (p. 68). People are participating and creating art independently and collaboratively.  

YouTube is a video-sharing website that allows users to upload and share video blogs (vlogs), short original videos, music videos, and remixes. Lessig (2008) says, “remixed media may quote sounds over images, or video over text, or text over sounds. The quotes thus get mixed together. The mix produces the new creative work—the “remix”" (p. 68). YouTube is one of the most popular online mediums for remixing. Even large media corporations use it to connect with the platform’s millions of viewers and independent vloggers have become millionaires. The Creative Commons licensing options lets users encourage others to use their work, build on it, and remix it to create new art. This art form is starting to gain more formal recognition through the YouTube Music Awards for example.

Produsage – Not passivity

Axel Bruns, Associate Professor at Queensland University of Technology (Australia), coined the term ‘produsage’ to describe the new and fluid nature of digital artistic culture. Bruns (2008) explains that the old language fails us because we have used terms such as 'production', 'consumer', 'product' and 'audience' for so long (tracing back to the industrial age) that they have become well-defined. Bruns (2008) writes, “the emerging user-led environments of today can no longer be described clearly and usefully through the old language only – and produsage is my suggestion for an alternative term” (henryjenkens.org). Bruns clearly identifies the issue with Huxley’s statement, it is now a matter of history. In the ‘Digital Age’ we are produsers, not passive. We evaluate, critique and create. Bruns (2008) defines produsage as “the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement” (henryjenkens.org). Although, he notes that it is only the starting point. We are not only improving but, as the examples of new media show, we are creating new art.

Digital-born narratives - Creativity flourishing

Image via www.last.fm

Since Internet technologies have allowed the masses to self-publish blogs, videos, and other media such as podcasts and digital photography collections, it has resulted in new art. When moving into new mediums, we tend to remediate traditional modes of creation first. Now digital-born narratives are growing and show how far artistic culture has come. An example of digital-born narratives is Inanimate Alice, a story written by Kate Pullinger that was created and published in the digital medium. It involves sounds, images, video, and text as well as active participation of the reader. Digital-born narratives show that artistic culture has in fact flourished into something new.

To transform Huxley’s words in conclusion: In the days of the Internet, people who want to amuse themselves are compelled to be artists in a public and sometimes large-scale way. Now they sit in front of their computers and make art to entertain themselves and others by the air of digital technology. It is easy to see that general artistic culture can flourish in this atmosphere of creativity.

References

About Indymedia. Retrieved from https://www.indymedia.org/or/static/about.shtml

Benjamin, W. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC15folder/WalterBenjamin.html

Benkler, Y., Shaw, A. and Hill, B.M. (2012). Peer production: A modality of collective intelligence. Retrieved from http://mako.cc/academic/benkler_shaw_hill-peer_production_ci.pdf

Blog. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogs

Glaser, M. (2006). Your guide to citizen journalism. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/09/your-guide-to-citizen-journalism270/

History. Retrieved from http://creativecommons.org/about/history

Huxley, A. (1927). The outlook for American culture: Some reflections in a Machine Age. Harper’s Magazine.

Pullinger, K., Joseph, C. and Campbell, A. (2012) Inanimate Alice. Retrieved from http://www.inanimatealice.com/about.html

Jenkins, H. (2008). From Production to Produsage: Interview with Alex Bruns. Retrieved from     http://henryjenkins.org/2008/05/interview_with_axel_bruns.html

Lessig, L. (2008). Remix: Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/LawrenceLessigRemix/Remix-o.txt

Number of blogs worldwide from 2006 to 2011 (in millions). [Graph]. Retrieved from http://www.statista.com/statistics/278527/number-of-blogs-worldwide/

Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations. New York: Penguin Group.

Spalding, T. (2009). What is Social Cataloguing 2/6. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt94e9mX320

Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

YouTube. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youtube