Page 46 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2016

46distributed massively at a ordable prices in a similar way to lms, books and music in digital format. This is the strategy pursued by platforms such as Sedition and the digital picture frames commented on earlier [Fig. 9]. It may be inferred from the Hiscox report that artworks sold online do not fetch very high prices, but there is a larger volume of potential buyers. This situation points to the possibility of a ‘third market’ targetedat a large segment of consumers interested in acquiring but not reselling art, who pay more a ordable prices for less exclusivity (as large numbers of copies of each work are sold). These collectors acquire the right to access the works, which remain on the servers of the companies that supply them. As with other cultural products, art is becoming part of what Jeremy Ri in (2000) calls the ‘age of access’ in which ‘markets give way to networks’ and objects are no longer purchased; instead we pay for access to a service or experience (p. 6).For new media artists, the changes wroughtin the market by these platforms and devicesdo not automatically signify greater interest in their work, but they are establishing a context in which works in digital format can achieve greater recognition and enjoy a certain advantage. If, as gallery owner Steve Sacks states, in the future art collectors will have screens for displaying the items they have acquired (Waelder, 2010a, p. 71), it is only logical to assume that works created for these devices will be more widely accepted. At the same time, as we become used to living with digital devices, works that employ this technology will no longer seem aberrations but expressions of the art of our time. All in all, as Clay Shirky points out, the digital media needto be ‘boring’ enough for a spectator gazing ata picture on a screen to see not a technological device but a work of art.BibliographyArtTactic (2015). ‘The Hiscox Online Art Trade Report 2015’. ArtTactic. Retrieved from http:// www.arttactic.com/market-analysis/art- markets/us-a-european-art-market/699-hiscox- online-art-trade-report-2015.htmlBoll, D. (2011). Art for Sale. A Candid View of the Art Market. Ost ldern: Hantje Cantz.Chayka, K. (2011, 3 November). ‘Art Sales Tech Start-Up Art.sy Raises a New $6 Million in Funding’. Artinfo. Retrieved from http://blogs. artinfo.com/artintheair/2011/11/03/art-sales- tech-start-up-art-sy-raises-a-new-6-million-in- funding/Gamerman, E. (2013, 7 November). ‘Online Art Collecting Finds Its Footing’. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/ news/articles/SB1000142405270230337690457913 5850288529912Horowitz, N. (2011). Art of the Deal: Contemporary Art in a Global Financial Market. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.—(2012) ‘Internet and commerce’. At M. Lind & O. Velthuis (eds.). Contemporary Art and its Commercial Markets. A Report on Current Conditions and Future Scenarios (pp. 85–112). Berlin: Sternberg Press.Johnson, P. (2014, 2 July). ‘The Truth About the Murky Online Art Market’. Artnet news. Retrieved from https://news.artnet.com/market/the- truth-about-the-murky-online-art-market-53811Lieser, W. (2010). The World of Digital Art. Potsdam: h.f.Ullmann.Lind, M. and Velthuis, O. (2012) (eds.).Contemporary Art and its Commercial Markets. A Report on Current Conditions and Future Scenarios (pp. 17–50). Berlin: Sternberg Press.THE ART MARKET IN THE AGE OF ACCESS · PAU WAELDERSmart Culture: Impact of the Internet on Artistic Creation