Internet as an Art Medium

The internet as a medium allows many users to bypass the obstruction of traditional art exhibition. Price writes that, unless a piece was a painting, the context of the work being art would be lost. Art existed as art only in the art world, and considered avant-garde required definition in order to be understood, artistically or otherwise. Distribution of art was limited to the its institution exclusively.

The internet, then, allows artists to bypass the traditional institution. And with the internet's unregulated nature, communication can spread rapidly between producers and receivers. As Shirky points out, information has a way of spreading in a way many cannot predict. The deadly earthquake which struck China resulted in media users, which then grew into a global campaign the Chinese government could not predict. Exposure through use of . In order to control what the people could, the Chinese government had to shut down  Price acknowledges the internet's free market model and users' ability to feign authorship, but the opportunities presented to artists through the use of the internet cannot be ignored.

The only way an artist would be able to gain exposure was through various physical exhibitions and the ways in which people responded to them. But the internet, with its boundless communication network, allows artists who would otherwise not receive attention in traditional institutions to thrive in the new medium. The lack of adherence to traditional markets then allows artists to work with disregard to norms, which then fosters creative inspiration in the vein of the article discussed earlier in the semester. Despite the free market nature of the internet, i.e., users posting information without crediting the source, the internet is serves as expressionistic and boundless medium for artists.