Taking the magazine online

Even in the cacophony of mass media formats, the magazine has long stood out as a receptacle for niches, taste groups and sociocultural communities. Research by the Magazine Publishers of Australia points to magazines' broad audience reach, targeted address and, interestingly, that "magazines prompt online action".

Canvas Collective's layout, mode of address and general ideology are based around this long-valued media format. What we aim to do is translate the magazine for an online audience.

That project has been undertaken in all varieties of magazine media, from Rolling Stone to indie fashion mag Frankie. Our point of difference is to create a community-based hub, so that user-generated content, social media and collaboration play a significant role. Where the content is 'pushed' to our audience, that is, commissioned and produced by our own team of journalists, it will be tailored to the locations and tastes of our target audience - young, amateur artists and the art-interested.

Moreover, our layout plans are directly inspired by the 'classic' feature-based magazine cover style. A small amount of featured images and their related stories will constitute our landing page, rather than a blog-like index of long text. In that sense, we like to think of the landing page of Canvas Collective as a gallery wall.

Paintings at the Neue Pinakothek, Munich (Photo: Frank Kovalchek)

Having said this, a major priority is to avoid that sense of seeing art as a non-interactive subject. There is more to visual art, and to the users of our website, than viewing a work hanged on a wall. That's why Canvas Collective is less Google Art Project and more CanvasPaint.

When artists and art fans want to get involved in the conversation around art, or even take up a brush themselves, we aim to be their destination of choice.

Many hands make light work

Collaboration is one of the great advantages to the online media space. That collaboration can be social, political (for better or for worse) or, in our case, cultural and artistic.

Ever since the servers have been able to handle it, professional and amateur musicians alike have used the Internet to collaborate. Dedicated 'online band' websites like kompoz.com and MyOnlineBand.com serve as social networking portals for the musically inclined. Popular musos in collaboration sell records and win Grammys, it's just how the world works.

But can collaboration work in the realm of visual art? Well, yes and no. Through the long history of art, there are very few famous examples - it's not hard to imagine Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali ending up in a paint fight were they forced to share brush time on the same canvas.

20th and 21st Century technology, though, has opened up avenues to collaboration in previously impossible spheres. Yochai Benkler tells us about the advent of open-source software, and the collaborative development efforts that have grown out of it. Amanda Korman explained in The Berkshire Eagle earlier this year that even authorial collaboration on books has moved online, just as publishing is shaping to do the same.

It's hard to say with any certainty that visual artists are prepared to commit themselves to online collaboration. For that reason, Canvas Collective will not pin our hats on the exercise. Our main feature isn't a collaborative canvas.

But we are determined to offer a platform where cultural collaboration might blossom naturally. That means social media links, plugins, places to upload work, and comment boxes wherever possible.

After all, our website hopes to invite as many young and amateur artists into the artistic conversation as possible. What would our site be if it didn't offer artists the chance to converse with each other as well?

References

Benkler, Yochai (2006), 'Peer Production and Sharing', The Wealth of Networks, New Haven, Yale University Press.

Korman, Amanda (2011), 'Book collaboration goes online', The Berkshire Eagle, 26 February 2011, available http://ezproxy.library.usyd.edu.au/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/853899607?accountid=14757

Art in everyday spaces

Late last year, while preparing another project, I had the privilege of meeting some Newtown-based street artists and art enthusiasts. Most of these people aren't too forthcoming with their 'real' identities - like many inhabitants of the online space, they revel in anonymity. Their cultural product is more important anyway, and there's always a concern for the legal issues around street art. But turn one or two corners in the Newtown area, and this art is everywhere...

'I have a dream' mural, King St (Photos: Chris Martin)

TV in front of a stencil wall, Marrickville

"It's like a jungle sometimes," Enmore Rd

Some of these works are commissioned and legal, most are not. In an interview, one habitual Newtown street artist and graffiti tagger, Vars, told me the motivations behind his work are simple - that the walls are there, they look pretty boring when they're blank, and nobody gets hurt by a bit of paint.

The Newtown streets have plenty in common with the cultural environment of the online media. There's an infinite canvas of Internet wallspace to be decorated, and you have to go well out of your way if you want be a vandal.

Such is the concept behind our project. Canvas Collective (still a working title) will be the streets and alleyways of the online art community. With the advantages of the online format, we can create an easily accessible hub for artists and art fans to share their works and engage with others'. It's a leisurely walk around the back alleys of Newtown with a detour through the most prestigious national galleries, meeting the like-minded along the way.

And incidentally, even the community of artists painting Sydney streetscapes doesn't always wallow in lonesome anonymity. Just recently, the artist Heesco won the third series of Secret Wars, a live 'paint-off' competition involving some of the city's most talented street artists, and held in the suitably underground confines of the Oxford Art Factory.

It's exactly the kind of artistic community spirit for which Canvas Collective can provide a permanent home.

Internet and Interaction.

Julian Stallabrass, author of Internet Art: The Online Class of Culture and Commerce, suggests that ‘aside from being distributed data, Internet art has another feature that distinguishes it from much other art production - it is interactive’ (2003:60). After looking at the ways in which art is exhibited and traded in my last post, I had to consider the ways in which I myself, have experienced the participatory aspect of interactive Internet art.

One of the most ambitious collaborative Internet art projects that caught my eye is the Johnny Cash Project. This international project relies of crowd-sourcing to create a unique video of Johnny Cash’s “Ain’t No Grave”. Chris Milk, one of the organisers of the project explains that a unique tool for drawing and editing each frame of the video clip has been created for contributors, who are invited to be creative with their approach in order to pay homage to the album which deals with ‘with themes of mortality, resurrection, and everlasting life’. The ways in which users can interact with, and edit the various frames that form the completed Johnny Cash project echoes Stallabrass’ belief that ‘The spectrum of interaction on offer shades from the minimal choice involved in clicking through a set sequence of pages to permitting users to create the work themselves’ (2003:60), and illustrates the sheer simplicity involved in making a meaningful contribution to the collaborative work.

Direct link to this video can be accessed here.

What’s inspiring about collaborative works of art such as the Johnny Cash project is that it allows so many audiences to engage with the art world without a great deal of prior knowledge, experience or authority on art. Whilst the Johnny Cash Project represents the ways in which audiences can engage with online art on an international scale, I decided to explore what the Sydney art scene had to offer in the world of online art.

A brand new website titled The Canvas Project has given us new inspiration for our blog. Whilst unlike the Johnny Cash Project, it does not offer an opportunity for users to actually create digital art, it does present a forum for open communication about the Sydney art scene, as well as producing its own video channel that showcases the visions and practices of local artists. One of the goals of Art Attack will be to serve as an online hub for the art-interested, with a particular focus on the Sydney region, and The Canvas Project’s video-based website (promotional video featured below) presents an interesting model that has motivated us to further investigate art representation on a local level as well as on an international scale. Whilst the Canvas Project’s journalistic style employs the video medium, Art Attack will seek to vary the different formats in which content will be presented, to engage a broader audience and provide maximum interaction.

Direct link to this video can be accessed here.

References

Stallabrass, Julian (2003), Internet Art: The Online Class of Culture and Commerce, London, Tate.

Seeing is Believing.

They always say that seeing is believing, but how exactly are we to see art in today’s modern world? Are we to touch, feel, smell, or hear art too? Perhaps we are to make it ourselves? Do we participate or watch from a distance? These questions are important ones as we begin to consider the ways in which art is created, acquired and appreciated.

This month the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, released a statement about a release of an online collection of works that will compliment and existing collection. The 28 works that will be featured will form part of the ‘New Acquisitions in Context’ collection, and will aim to engage a broader audience through increased access to the gallery’s diverse collections. This presents a clear advantage to those who aren’t residents of the Sydney area, who will now be able to interact with the MCA’s collection from the comfort of their own homes. It seems that the MCA has followed a long list of galleries such as New York’sMuseum of Modern Art, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and London’s Saatchi Gallery.

Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, the Director of the MCA is pleased with the new online instalment, stating that the new-found accessibility of these works is vital as it ‘reflects the Museum’s ongoing commitment to providing high quality educative and accessible resources and the institution’s determination to disseminate the wealth of ideas encapsulated by artists in their work’. Indeed, there is a growing demand for such accessibility, and it is clear that the MCA is displaying a progressive approach to exhibiting art. The MCA has a well-established reputation for promoting new forms of digital art, and giving both net.art (a medium that focuses on programming and digital design) and locative art (art created through the use of gadgets, geo-positioning systems and mapping techniques) a place within the gallery space (Cubitt, 2007:1151-1152).

As galleries have begun to exhibit art in new ways, individuals have also decided to branch out online. The extremely popular online craft market Etsy has paved the way for digital trade, and has also encouraged many professionals to promote their works on the Internet. Websites such as Artspan allow professional artists and artisans to share original works whilst communicating with a broader art community around the world. Through Artspan, artists can engage potential buyers, curators and even followers, transforming the ways in which art is experienced! Whilst searching around for websites such as this, I was particularly curious about the website ImageBrief which presents an entirely new way for art buyers to search for works by compiling a brief of what they require, posting a price and waiting for artists to submit variations on the brief until they find one that they like! I’ve included an image from ImageBrief photographer Shaun Quinlan, whose works can be found on his online portfolio.

Image by Shaun Quinlan can be found here.

It would seem that with new forms of art comes a new online economy. The ways in which we traditionally view art are constantly changing, but what value does the museum space hold in today’s modern world?

References

Cubitt, Sean (2007), ‘Media Art Futures’, Futures, Vol. 39, pp. 1149-1158.

A Digital Direction

Art is one of the key facets of every culture, allowing individuals to create and negotiate the meanings attached to the world around them. Whilst art has traditionally be associated with a range of forms, it has, by default been associated with a presumed tangibility. With new emerging forms of online media and communication, art has been taken into a virtual simulacra of the Internet in which art can be created, distributed, modified, linked, shared and explored. With a plethora of new artistic opportunities, what then, is the role of digital art in our world?

Art has often been used as a means of social commentary. As Margaret Simons (2007:204-206) suggests, online publications provide a free way for users to engage and be informed about contemporary issues, and thus, we must look at the ways in which online art can become a vehicle for communication and political expression. Drew Berry, a biomedical animator uses scientific data to create medical animations in order to represent the ‘activities occurring within our bodies that could otherwise only be seen at a magnification of 100 million times’. Drew Berry uses digital art to educate individuals about the way the body works, whilst raising social awareness about diseases like malaria through powerful visualisations that deconstruct the disease and explain how it can be cured. Berry relies heavily on online communities to distribute his ideas, which are re-blogged and shared around the world by individuals and online communities.

TEDxCaltech - Drew Berry - Visualization: Biology and Complex Circuits: found here

Graham Meikle, who highlights the flexibility of online artistic expression through his analysis of Critical Art Ensemble, suggests that the many forms of digital art can be used to present criticism creatively by drawing on the construction of signs and symbols that pervade our modern world (2002:113-119). Digital artist David McCandless, uses infographics to synthesise a range of data, translating it into colourful and creative works of art that are relinked and redistributed throughout cyberspace. McCandless’ website, Information is Beautiful, uses online art to paint sharp, profound, and at times hilarious realities with the digital brush. For example, McCandless’ ‘Colours in Cultures’ graph (pictured below) allows audiences to questions their preconceived understandings of cultural symboles, whilst learning something new about how colour is seen within other cultures. Much like the work of Berry, McCandless’ art provides us with food for thought.

It would seem that through online art, we are heading in a new, digital direction that will allow us to better understand the world around us. Sharing our thoughts with online communities across the world presents a world of limitless possibilities, and this is only the beginning.

References

Meikle, Graham (2002), ‘Turning sings into question marks’, Future Active, New York, Routledge, pp. 113-139.

Simons, Margaret (2007), ‘The gift economy and the future’, The Content Makers: understanding the media in Australia, Camberwell, Victoria, Penguin, pp. 204-217.

The Commons

Exhibiting artwork online can raise a number of questions for artists, including ownership and protection of their work. Although copyright law states that it is not necessary to display the copyright symbol along with the work in order to show copyright ownership, this isn’t necessarily a guarantee that copyright law will not be infringed, especially online.

The risk of copyright infringement online raises another question though – does it matter if copyright is infringed if your work of art is being enhanced, changed, being ‘created’ with or extended? This is a point which is raised in Lessig’s keynote from the 2002 OSCON. Creativity, as hard as it is to define, is often seen as the backbone of a progressing society, eras of art often go hand in hand with eras of enlightenment and progression. Copyright laws, according to Lessig, hinder creativity and innovation, since they are often actions which build upon the past.

Creative commons licences are a way of mediating this – that an artwork will be used or referenced in future artworks – by giving the copyright owner a chance to decide the level of interaction the public can have with his/her work.

Are creative commons licences enough to give artists peace of mind? What happens if an artwork is found to have been used in a way that the artist does not agree with even if it obeys the licence stipulations? Should an artist have control over copyright, or accept creative commons as a way forward?

The Tragedy of the Commons

Could this be the future of creative commons too?

Comic source: http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1731

The Collective

Online art collectives offer artists the opportunity to have their artworks exhibited amongst peers, and give them the opportunity to receive critique and feedback on their works-in-progress, as well as locate other artists who they might want to collaborate with. An example of this kind of online art collective is slashTHREE, an art collective and platform for artists to ‘network, collaborate, give and receive feedback as well as increase exposure to their work on a global scale’ (slashTHREE).

Saad Moosajee, a freelance artist and creative director of slashTHREE, finds that online artist collectives act as both a place to collaborate and fuse styles, but also as a community for a dispersed group (see Moosajee’s article on online art collectives here). Collectives like slashTHREE hold their exhibitions online, and artworks are selected from across the globe – submitted, critiqued, and reworked online.

Work by Saad Moosajee and Chris Haines, produced by collaboration through the slashTHREE art collective

Collectives like these take advantage of new media and participatory cultures, as described by Flew (2008). Peer-to-peer communication is seen in peer critiques, the collective is not governed by an authoritarian body as large government-run physical galleries often are, and communication is not filtered by an organisation, although it may be filtered by the creative director as is the case with slashTHREE. Perhaps the most important characteristic of the online collective for artists is the ability to overcome geography.

Despite the number of advantages of participating in an online art collective, displaying one’s artwork online raises a number of questions. Is having a ‘creative director’ necessarily the best way to maintain and police the collective? If not, who will manage the collective and ensure that everyone is playing by the rules? Does exhibiting online restrict the kind of mediums which can be used to create the artwork? What are the dangers of displaying online?

Check out some other collectives here:

Depthcore

Intrinsic Nature

Evoke One

Democratic art

One of my favourite art galleries in Sydney is the tiny Gallery8 in Millers Point. It showcases unique contemporary art from around Australia, and is run entirely by artists, for artists. Although the standard white walls of Gallery8 make it no different to any other gallery in layout, the sense that the showcased art is done so with the artists’ best interests at heart (implied in ‘artist-run’) makes viewing the artwork seem almost an act of democracy – in the same way reading articles of citizen journalism feels.

Artists do not always have the opportunity to exhibit their work, whether due to cost, curation or lack of space. The online space, which is often spoken of as a liberating technology, gives artists the same opportunities as citizen journalists. Although some galleries, including the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Modern Art display some of their showcased collections online, our feature will seek to explore how artists whose work is not featured in a physical gallery use the online space, in terms of showcasing their work and connecting with other artists.

The web feature would act as a case study on how artists are using the online space. The web feature might also act as a hub for the artists and our target audience mimics Gallery8’s audience – of the artists, by the artists, for the artists.

Image source: Gallery Eight

Archibald Prize 2011 winner - Ben Quilty

Ben Quilty has just won the Archibald Prize 2011, which is regarded as the most important portraiture price in Australia. Since his first exhibition at the Step Gallery, Sydney in 2001, Quilty has been regularly exhibiting his work in solo shows. What's more, he has been regularly 'branding' himself in the online space.

According to Hearn (2008), self-branding involves the self-conscious construction through the use of cultural meanings and images, aiming to produce cultural value and potentailly material profit. For individual artists, the social media whether it be a blog, Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin profile act as a self-branding tool in helping them to promote themselves and sell their work. Quilty, emerging as one of Australia's favourite contemporary artists, is also self-branding himeself by actively engaging with the social media.


Ben Quilty with his winning portrait (image source found here)

Quilty has his own website where he shares his cv, artwork, and sells his book and designed T-shirts. In addition to launching his website, he has a Facebook page where he updates more frequently than the website. On the page he interacts with his fans, anounces his upcoming events, and shares links, videos, and photos of his recent work, various exhibitions and behind-the-scene shots. At the same time, he has a profile on Wikipedia that is easily found on any search engine by tying his name.

The following is a YouTube clip on Ben Quilty talking about painting the portrait of his friend Margaret Olley, that had made him win the Archibald Prize 2011:

References

Hearn, A. (2008). 'Meat, Mask, Burden': Probing the contours of the branded 'self'. Journal of Consumer Culture. vol 8, pp. 197-200.

The Success of Sydney Festival

Having mentioned about Sydney Festival last time, let us find out how exactly the social media has been helping to promote the festival.

Sydney Festival is Australia's largest and most popular annual cultural event running every January since it first took place in 1977. It was originally conceived by the Sydney Committee, the NSW State Government and the City of Sydney to attract people into the city centre during the holiday month. Its program features events including music, dance, circus, visual arts and artist talks, attracting over 200,000 people.

Sydney Festival 2011 (image found here on Sydney Festival Photo Gallery)

With its popularity, it established a YouTube channel in 2006 as a video guide to the festival for the public. Up to the present, it has attrated more than 20,000 channel views and 300,000 total upload views. In 2008, it joined Flickr to share photos of previous festivals, artists of the year and all the action in January. It has accumulated 217 photo albums until now. In 2009, it launched a Blog, Facebook and Twitter to keep the public up to date on every action of Sydney Festival, and a platform for conversation so people can have a say on what they are loving and hear what others say. Its Facebook page also supports its Flickr and YouTube with links attached to the page, and has now received more than 15,000 'likes' from Facebook users. Its Twitter has up to 17,000 Followers and more than 5,500 Tweets.

No matter Jill Colvin said that joining the social media is one of the smartest things that she had done. The Sydney Festival not only achieved great success in promoting Australian culture, but also in making use of social media to enhance the business.

Our project, Canvas Collective, will serve as an online hub for the art-interested, not only by providing information but also a place where people can interact with each other and share their ideas. To ensure the audience can be effectively addressed, promoting via social media is inevitable. Facebook and Twitter will be established for Canvas Collective to provide the audience easy ways to be notified on updates, and allow them to share and spread the news.

Let us look forward to benefiting from the power of social media.

Arts industry and the social media

Recently newspapers are publishing articles suggesting how social media has been helping the Arts industry in Australia. While keeping traditional forms of marketing, the Arts industry is increasingly integrating with social media to attract new audience.

Artists are using social media to showcase their art, share their techniques and life experiences, and support their gallery sites where they sell their work. Arts organizations are using social media to promote their events, provide a platform for discussion, answer questions, look after customers and get feedback from them. Arts organizations have also been inviting local bloggers as press to opening and events, who would then re-blog the event and spread it via their Facebook or Twitter. These bloggers are facebooking or tweeting during the event, after the event and even during the event itself.

Jill Colvin - Head of Marketing, Sydney Festival (image source found here)

"It's such a different method of communication compared to the more formal lines. You can afford to be more flippant and have fun," said Jill Colvin, Sydney's Festival's Head of Marketing in an interview with The Australian. "You're letting your customers help sell the product for you, traditional media doesn't do that. It's giving other people the tools to talk about the thing they love."

It seems that today it is a must for any industry including the Arts to be engaged with the social media. Do you happen to follow any Arts blog, Facebook or Twitter?

References
Crisp, L. (2010). 'Industry all a-twitter as new media helps put nums on seats' The Australian. 29th January 2010.