Title:
|
A new canvas? : A study of social media and networking activity by arts professionals in the United Kingdom and Ireland 2004-2014: examining the post internet paradigm shift that has occurred in their behaviours, workflows and artefacts, and discussing the consequences for materiality, identity and ethics in visual art
|
This qualitative study draws a cross section through the social media activity of nine arts professionals working in the United Kingdom and Ireland c.2004-.2014. It employs a mixture of trans-disciplinary research methods: literature review, semistructured interviews, grounded theory coding and Practice as Research (PaR) to capture fresh information about visual artists’ increasing reliance on social media, both as professional practice/networking tool and as outputting vehicle for examples of their process and finished work. It acknowledges the author’s pivotal role as participant observer for providing original, in depth insights into the particular time and culture in which social media emerged.
Social media use has increased year on year with widespread consequences for contemporary visual arts practice. We have passed a tipping point and are now ‘post social media’, referring not to a time ‘after’ social media but rather to a state of mind that accepts it as a normal part of everyday life, as vernacular and ubiquitous. These study findings reveal some of the more significant consequences on studio practice, such as the conflation of social media and social networking on many platforms, and the profound change in the way many artists work, even abolishing the notion of a studio and of the art object as a material thing, thereby radically transforming the type
of work made.
The thesis describes and discusses current critical theory and art making instrumentalised via social media. It contributes significant new knowledge and analysis to an expanded discourse about the consequences of social media/ networking, particularly in relation to materiality, identity, ethics, risk aversion and cognitive dissonance since research in these areas is relatively new and the related literature is still limited. So this conceptual and analytical framework provides a foundation for future critical engagement and studies by students and educators in the
field.
|