This article brings up the concept of art online vs art that is tangible. It highlights how people perceive digital art in relation to more traditional forms of art. First off, someone was willing to pay 58.4 million dollars for a large metal sculpture that looks like balloon art. However, this article was stating how ridiculous it was that someone would pay 5,800 for a GIF of this same piece of art. Even though there were no takers to buy Michael Green's GIF. I found it very interesting that while somebody would pay an astronomical amount of money for a sculpture, no one was willing to pay a fraction of that cost for digital art.
I think it is all about perception. Most people perceive everything on the internet as free. Free to look at, free to use whenever and wherever they want. However, tangible things are harder to think of as free. I think this brings up the whole concept of digital art and what digital art really means. There are so many different forms: video games, online advertising, photoshop, digital drawings, and of course GIFS count as well. Digital art has a PR problem, in that digital art as a whole category of consumer goods is not thought of as something you can buy. People think, someone made that on the internet anyone can do that, and anyone can find something on the internet and use it for free, why would I pay for it? Digital art needs to rebrand as a whole new category of art that you can buy and enjoy.
All this being said, I still don't think I would ever pay 5,800 for a GIF, but that's just me.
Here are 5 images that I thought went with this article:
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