Hana's Critical Analysis

Critical Analysis of Text and Video Blog Series

Online Communities and the Arts

Hana Parkinson 10404608

This blog project was about how the prevalence of virtual communities is functioning to assist people working in the arts. Online forums, including MySpace, deviantART and fuel4arts.com, are enabling artists by allowing them “free” exposure to an almost unlimited audience.

The main objectives in this assignment were to uncover critical issues associated with the idea of a ‘new public sphere’ emerging in society that helps unsigned or unrecognised artists become known. I aimed to discuss this in relation to Habermas’s initial idea on the public sphere as well as theories on virtual communities from other theorists, in particular Howard Rheingold. I also addressed the negative aspects of being ‘unearthed’ on the Internet. Virtual communities are allowing artists access to a “free” arena to showcase their music, art or films but there are always hidden costs in the form of advertising and data mining. I wanted to address a number of issues that arise from this, namely; does advertising on individual web pages and the possibility of data mining ‘cheapen’ the overall product? This was explored over eight weeks in both written and video blogs.

The main aim of this series of blogs was to delve into the hype surrounding virtual communities. Particular interest is paid to the online forum MySpace Music, as it is the most famous of the music posting sites and attracts a worldwide audience and Second Life, where avatars can perform their music. An English lecturer at the University of Sydney, Angela Thomas has stated
“I have likened the atmosphere of Second Life to Bohemian times when artists, philosophers, musicians and so on all connected together to communicate, share and inspire each other.”
This is an example of common ideas about virtual communities, and although there are a lot of positives aspects, it is important to look objectively at this subject.

The Internet has enabled a new level of participatory culture and has enabled an increased connectivity between people. Howard Rheingold discusses virtual communities as
“…social aggregations that emerge from the net when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace…”(Rheingold, 1994, prgrph 22).
Rheingold offers a rather utopian ideal when discussing virtual communities, and although personal and business networks can be heightened online, there is a cost.

This series of blogs also discusses interactive art, and the consequences for this in participatory culture. As a significant proportion of the Internet is largely user-content based, this has meant that there have been some interesting developments in collaborative art projects, as well as new business opportunities. In an interview for new media weblog “We Make Money, Not Art”, artistic researcher Douglas Edric Stanley addresses the change in interactivity in what he sees as “…a move away from interactive objects as an end-all, and the emergence of a culture of software, instruments, and platforms for artistic creations”.

As virtual communities attract people from a large demographic, the audience for advertising and data mining is phenomenal, creating a potentially critical disjunction between public and commercial spheres. Does the privatisation of these ‘communities’ create a post modern, mass mediated sphere opening citizens to exercise a freedom of choice, or is it creating a vast consumer choice while at the same time creating an emergence of new regulations and restrictions? These questions are particularly important when discussing privatised virtual communities such as MySpace and YouTube that allow artists to post their work.

As stated in my fourth blog post, much of this hype around participatory culture stems from the ‘Web 2.0’ theory: the ‘second generation’ of web-based communities such as social networking and collaborative sites. The term refers to the different was in which software developers use the web as a platform for participatory culture sites. However, by describing ‘Web 2.0’ as a step forward for the original design on the web, it is misleading as the Internet has always been a collaborative space where people can interact. As Mark McGuire, lecturer for the University of Otago, states
“Although the term (Web 2.0) suggests a new, second generation
Internet, Web 2.0 is better described as a business strategy that
aims to cash in on the desire of individuals to engage with
others through communication and creative contributions” (McGuire, 2007, p.262).
The ability to contribute to the Internet has been made easier, with sites mentioned throughout this series of blogs. The main argument I am making is that in the privatised environment of the Internet, the interests are commercial and not social or collaborative.
The eight-week blog project meant that I could address some of these questions in both written and video format. The written blogs acted as a theoretical background to the next week’s video blog, which meant that I could explore both theories and explain the use of virtual communities effectively. For example, for blog and video post two, I discussed the hype surrounding MySpace Music and then conducted an interview with a musician to enable a first hand look at the experience of using the website. The video blogs enabled me to incorporate music from two bands that use online forums, to further enhance the theme.

Improvements that could be made include both content and structural changes. In terms of content, it would have been beneficial to include more interviews with other artists. I felt that the interview I conducted with Joel Woolerson gave an important first hand look at the use of MySpace Music, and it would have been interesting to talk to another artist in order to draw some contrasts and comparisons.

In order to create some diversity throughout my video blogs, it would have been interesting to include less shots of me just talking into the camera, and incorporated different shots. Having said that, many online blogs are created to little or no budget and that is an important aspect to online blogging. Also, as I was talking about the Internet, it was hard to not include photos of websites, which can be quite boring in a video. It would be useful to explore different ways to discuss websites in this fashion.

I found that in many cases, the pros of a musician or artist being able to create a website to directly stream their art or music out ways the cons of advertising and data mining from their site. I feel that this will change in the next few years, when the consequences of this will become more apparent and the artists will wish to maintain their artistic integrity. For example, if a conservative corporation is aiding the funding of an online forum with advertising, will artists still be able to post music containing swear words of the corporation does not approve? When if comes to business, the person with the money holds the strings.

References

Debatty, R. Interview with Douglas Edric Stanley, We Make Money Not Art, 2006.
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/008594.php Accessed 7th October, 2007.

McGuire, Mark 2007, “Virtual Communities and Podcasting: the emergence and transformation of the public electronic sphere” in The 7th International Digital Arts and Culture Conference: The Future of Digital Media Culture ed. Andrew Hutchinson, Curtin University of Technology, Australia pp. 255 – 267.

Rheingold, Howard (1994) The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, Harperperennial, New York.

Schaer, Cathrin. “A life less ordinary” Vogue Australia, May 2007, p 200.