The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life by Lev Manovich: The Web 2.0 version has expanded the web from mainly professional produced videos, to more unprofessional users generated media content, possibly influenced by electronic companies and/or media-sites themsevles, as well as become a constant means of communication for the ever-growing web-based society.
Codecs and Capability by Sean Cubitt: The creative aspect of the production of art media, as well as the reproduction of older media being streamed on the web, is limited by codecs and formats that are regulated by media sites.
Both Manovich and Cubitt have determined that webwork is flourishing via customization. Popular media sites such as Facebook, myspace, and youtube uploading statistics are soaring with the expansion of the Web 2.0 and are projected to increase in the coming years. One of the reasons behind this successful expansion is that the media is now granting endless options for user customization. This customization trend is also spreading to products outside the web including well-known car and shoe brands, and consequently turning cultures into products. Cubitt further emphasizes how with this growing customization everyone can go online and find art pertaining to their own personal interest. The only problems with this customization process are the ones created by lack of tools. Manovich points out that defining strategies and tactics is becoming difficult to determine as media-based websites continuously develop new methods in order to encourage web users to upload as much media content of their own development and their own lives as possible, while still monitoring the formats in which they are allowed to upload this information . By limiting an artist’ tools, it is questionable how artistic media art created within web constraints really is. However, both authors acknowledge art has flourished with the development of Web 2.0, but is it ultimately benefitting artists or hindering them? The web allows design students to present their work to an accessible global audience and get feedback on their pieces, as well as easily observe other newly emerging art forms. However, the web restricts art in its natural form because despite the diversity of the content, when uploaded to sites such as Youtube, they are all converted to the same format. While this uniformity makes art more universally accessible, could this be viewed as standardizing the creative aspect of art? Despite artistic differences, all video art is produced using the same codes and similar programs. Because these programs and formats have restrictions such as color limitations and preset pixilations, is the media created off of them still classified as original and creative artwork? These formats are republishing art in lower resolutions and not only degrading their artistic value, but daring to dishonor the quality of their artists; sites such as Youtube portray artwork in incomplete forms. While new forms and codecs are constantly being created to lift these limitations, constant progression also makes it inevitably unpredictable.
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