Shamelessly conjuring up a hackneyed, tedious debate - "public art should be decided by the people", and "all public is shit" (I know, boredom) - but this article got me thinking... the web is also a public space... isn't it? Is the internet public or private? Obviously everything that is posted on the web is publicised in one way or another - it is no longer immediately private to the singular individual discloses - others may access it.
Our whole notions of what constitutes public and private are ruptured, as Andrea Slane (2007) writes,
"Many of the foundational socio-spatial practices of liberal democracy are challenged by cyberspace (private property, national boundaries, authority over the individual body), and these challenges have manifested themselves in legal battles over online trading in intellectual property; in the sanctity of homes intruded upon by spam, viruses, and unsavoury images; in jurisdictional controversies across national borders; and in the upsurge of legislative activity regarding online privacy (p. 85)".
Relating it to art, it makes me think that no art is not "public" art - every artwork has an audience, even if it is the creator alone is the audience... Perhaps labelling internet art as either public or not public is defunct when considering the capabilities intrinsic to the web as a communicative tool and medium for expression, or when imagining that which is "private" or "not public" in any externalised expression - which is in fact seems impossible. Even though the internet is a public space - perhaps internet art is not "public", considering our normative usage of the word preceeding another word, that being "art" - rather than positing all art/externalised expression as making public.
~ Works Cited ~
Slane, Andrea. "Democracy, Social Space and the Internet". University of Toronto Law Journal. 57(1), 2007, 81-105.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment