The Internet as an Alternative Gallery Space?

Well, I ask myself; can I think of anything intelligent to say on this my first and perhaps last blog?


David Hockney inspired me to consider the internet as a potential gallery space; as opposed to a straight forward sales opportunity for my photography. Stumbling across Hockney's ipod touch drawings, http://iphonepaintings.com/?p=23 motivated me to procure an ipod and start experimenting with the layers drawing package and the web. (This is not a critique of Hockney's art, purely an observation of a new material and process).

ipod sketch: Des Kilfeather

One thing led to another and I decided to undertake some serious, (for me), exploration into the relevance of the internet to fine art audiences.


For some time now I have, as a visual artist, been researching Aristotle's nicomachean ethics and it's relevance to contemporary society. This research has taken multiple directions and has multiple layers but more on this another day, if there is any interest. Another area of my research has been into Relational Art, with influences from the essays of Umberto Eco, Felix Guattari, Nicolas Bourriaud et. al. Hopefully my audience member will have worked out by now that my art is driven by its meaning. It is not my intention to be vain by assuming that there will be any audience for this blog, but of course "at least you must have read this otherwise it could not exist".


Anyway, (one of my catchphrases), my decision was to work with "akrasia" and relational art by placing what is, possibly, the first participative fine art project on flickr.com. Akrasia is about people that cannot stop themselves from doing absolutely the wrong thing, in the full knowledge that what they are doing is fundamentally wrong. I had already made paintings about akrasia, referring to British Airways and its war with the Trade Union movement in the UK.


The cyber-relational art project, Death of the Union, was intended to be controversial and current. It can be viewed at:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/28880384@N06/5105591932/ 


My objectives were and remain as:


1. Get this piece of art viewed and properly addressed by the widest possible audience.


2. Encourage participation by a wide audience, e.g. practicing artists and general public.


3. Have measurable results of the number of visitors and participants.


The project is intended to work as parallel art sub-projects driven both by subject and a cyber-audience experiment.


There are many issues that have come to light such as copyright, abdication of ownership and technical ability of a cyber-audience to participate, etc. These could be covered in future blogs if there is interest. But, interestingly the first most obvious factor to me was the audience did not seem motivated to participate through "action". I decided therefore to make my own interventions to make the controversy less narrow through the addition of more popular adaptations to the piece, e.g. Death of Education Equality as opposed to Death of the Union. But this did not improve matters and there remains very few interventions by the audience.


However the project is considered to have been a great success by its viewing statistics, as of today, 435+155+33 Total 623 viewings.


In discussing these results with mentors and peers it is a pity that we cannot gauge the types of audience. But physical galleries do not have much better information. Visitor books are rarely signed in even the most popular galleries.


This is a new project and things could change over time, for better or worse. However I personally am very pleased with the result. Over 600 people have, in theory, addressed my work and that objective has been clearly met. I could never hope to have that many people stop in a physical gallery and take the time to consider my work in isolation from others.


Does the internet work as a sales channel for Fine Art? Well, that is another question that we might also get to consider another day.