There will be art. As long as there is emotion, there will be art. The medium may change, the audience may evolve, and the times may demand more of one generation than another, but whatever the circumstance, there will always be art.
Art does not occur alongside events, it occurs inside them, baked in the fires of happenstance, forged in the molten iron of history. So to say that art cannot coexist with so permeating an influence as the Internet is to not understand the purpose and abilities of art or of artists.
In fact, no medium has served art so well as the Internet. The Web is an interactive stage of image and sound, of ideas and speculation, of creation and inspiration. Radio brought music into our homes, television added the visual, and the Internet brought in the most valuable component of them all… human interaction.
From a purely utilitarian point of view, the Internet has been the natural progression from radio to television where promotion is concerned. Entire music albums, snapshots of sculptures, and art magazines online are common enough occurrences, arguably keeping the art lovers of the world informed about their respective passions. But these things cannot replace the art they discuss, nor give the reader or the listener the true sense of what it feels like to stand in the same room with a Picasso, or feel the dynamics of a live string quartet.
Browse quickly through any art magazine online discussion forum and you can read opinions from amateurs side by side with experts. Likewise with any literary art magazine online forum. Or architectural art magazine online forum. The common thread is, in fact, its commonality. The normalizing power of the Internet allows for the consumption and discussion of nearly all forms of art by nearly every level of interest. The domain of the critic is no longer sacrosanct, but rather where we all now reside, presenting our views for the world to judge.
Online arts magazines, streaming audio and video, and the Internet at large have leveled the playing field, and brought all art to the masses, where it belongs. And we, the consumers, the watchers, the listeners… we daily weave a net of critiques, opinions, and judgements, tightening ever more closely around the truth, and sparkling in the light of our brotherhood. And that is a masterpiece indeed.
