The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Commodification
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Digitization is taking over every sphere of life—including the arts. Through the process of digital commodity fetishism, major technology companies threaten to efface the very qualities that make creative expression—particularly the performing arts—distinct and meaningful. To resist or even question these forces, we must excavate an invisible digital politics that can displace (and replace) traditional sources of authority in the performing arts. By examining the basic mechanisms of the “creator economy,” this politics can be found and confronted—in the arts and beyond.
Amid our growing anxiety about the contributions of digital technology to the corrosion of truth, democracy, and mental well-being, relatively less attention has been paid to how internet-enabled computing has influenced what is often termed the “fine arts,” as well as the performing arts. While the initial rise of the commercial internet, its successor the social web, and the emerging decentralized web (or Web3) have all explicitly addressed questions of culture and entertainment, “the arts” as a conceptually coherent but broadly conceived professional and institutional practice of aesthetic production has not substantially figured into the conversation.
