It's no secret that a lot of YouTube video makers and community members aren't happy about site's mandated switch to Google+ for comments. And now users are flooding the comment sections of popular videos with variations of text art declaring war on the new system. The basic configuration of the viral comment is a tank and a militant (frequently called "Bob") with text on the right claiming Bob and his tank are "against Google+" and urging other uses to share the image across YouTube.
Google announced that it would be integrating their social network as the commenting platform for YouTube in September, but the change only came into effect last week. With the integration, users must sign up for a Google+ account to comment on videos. Although many YouTubers had already connected their accounts to Google more than a year ago when a box urging them to do so appeared during their login process, the wholesale shift was met with outcries â€" often in the form of YouTube videos. Videos ranging from profanity-ridden songs to detailed critiques claiming the integration has broken the site have received millions of views. One of YouTube founder's even questioned the move in his first comment on YouTube in years.
While the official reason for the switch is to increase the quality of conversations, many users and commentators believe it is an attempt to harvest YouTube's community to inflate the number of active users on Google+. Google claims 300 million users "active in the Google+ stream" per month, but those users aren't all people who are actively visiting the social network. Instead, it counts anyone who might incidentally involve themselves in the network by pressing a +1 link on another site or clicking the red notification bell in Gmail â€" and now, commenting on YouTube, if the text art tanks don't get their way.
Art video on the web has exploded over the past few years. Once just a bunch of PBS rips, we now have in-depth and original content spanning a number of genres and locations world wide. Can't make it that exhibition you're dying to view? No problem, there is a walk through on YouTube. There are plenty of artist profiles and even Thoughtz delivered by hilarious critics.
Phillips is one of the art world’s leading auction houses. It’s been around since 1796; Napoleon Bonaparte was an early client. Earlier this month, Phillips did something that those early patrons would have a hard time wrapping their wigged heads around: it held an auction dedicated entirely to digital art.
Paddles On - a collaboration between Phillips and Tumblr - included twenty pieces, cutting a wide path through the nebulous category. There was an interactive website, a YouTube video, a physical print with screens embedded in it, an animated GIF, a few sculptures and a pair of prints made from digital screenshots - one from combat video game, one from Google Maps. After the last whack of the gavel, there were bids for every single piece - a total of $90,000 in sales.
“It was a real breakthrough for the field,†says Lindsay Howard, the New York-based curator who chose the pieces for the sale. “For the last 20 plus years, this work has primarily been supported by non-profits and artist-run spaces and universities that have been incredible incubators. But it hasn’t had the same sort of market recognition it deserves…It broke down a barrier that may have existed between a larger contemporary art collector base and artists who have digital practices. The people who bid on these pieces looked at this work and they saw it as fresh contemporary art, which I think is an exceptional thing to happen for these artists.â€
But with new art comes new ideas about ownership. What does it mean, exactly, to buy and own a website or a rendering made in a 3D graphics program? “There was a lot of curiosity around that,†says Megan Newcome, Director of Digital Strategy at Phillips. “It’s a challenge for new collectors, or even seasoned buyers, to understand, ‘What am I owning? And what does the artist want me to do with this work?’â€
In many of the cases, buying a digital work meant getting a USB drive and certificate of authenticity. Other pieces came with their own unique terms. The collector who bought Rafael Rozendaal’s ifnoyes.com, an interactive website that looks a little bit like a digital sunset viewed through a broken mirror, will have to keep the site available for public use - and renew the domain name every year. “The artist has to make it really clear - is this an editioned work? Does this have to remain public?†says Newcome. “It’s up to the buyer and the artistâ€"they really have to have a contract with one another.†Annie Werner, Tumblr’s arts evangelist and co-organizer of the event, says that generating conversation around these issues was very much the point. “Education was a huge component of this project,†Werner says. “We wanted to make those things known and clear about collecting this art.â€
Still, many of the works will have a surprisingly traditional post-acquisition existence. Tumblr itself bought Jamie Zigelbaum’s Pixel, a physical work which renders the fundamental unit of digital representation as one square meter, touch-sensitive light box (it’ll go up in the company’s office). Howard says that collectors are already calling her up for recommendations on what types of monitors are best suited for displaying their new digital pieces. And in the case of some digital works, even the physical media used to store the things got some artistic attention. Joe Hamilton, whose computer-generated video and related Tumblr Hyper Geography was sold at the auction, created an elaborate display case for the USB drive that held the work.
“The video itself will remain free to float around anywhere online and maybe even change forms, so it was important for me to make the considered physical object to create something tangible for the buyer,†Hamilton says. “There are obvious difficulties in selling online works, so this was an attempt by me to bridge the gap so the artwork can co-exist online and in the art market without compromise.†Or, as Werner puts it, when you’re putting down one or two thousand dollars for a digital file, you don’t just get it on a standard Office Depot USB stick. “You get the Lexus of thumb drives.â€
Google announced that it would be integrating their social network as the commenting platform for YouTube in September, but the change only came into effect last week. With the integration, users must sign up for a Google+ account to comment on videos. Although many YouTubers had already connected their accounts to Google more than a year ago when a box urging them to do so appeared during their login process, the wholesale shift was met with outcries â€" often in the form of YouTube videos. Videos ranging from profanity-ridden songs to detailed critiques claiming the integration has broken the site have received millions of views. One of YouTube founder's even questioned the move in his first comment on YouTube in years.
While the official reason for the switch is to increase the quality of conversations, many users and commentators believe it is an attempt to harvest YouTube's community to inflate the number of active users on Google+. Google claims 300 million users "active in the Google+ stream" per month, but those users aren't all people who are actively visiting the social network. Instead, it counts anyone who might incidentally involve themselves in the network by pressing a +1 link on another site or clicking the red notification bell in Gmail â€" and now, commenting on YouTube, if the text art tanks don't get their way.
Art video on the web has exploded over the past few years. Once just a bunch of PBS rips, we now have in-depth and original content spanning a number of genres and locations world wide. Can't make it that exhibition you're dying to view? No problem, there is a walk through on YouTube. There are plenty of artist profiles and even Thoughtz delivered by hilarious critics.
Phillips is one of the art world’s leading auction houses. It’s been around since 1796; Napoleon Bonaparte was an early client. Earlier this month, Phillips did something that those early patrons would have a hard time wrapping their wigged heads around: it held an auction dedicated entirely to digital art.
Paddles On - a collaboration between Phillips and Tumblr - included twenty pieces, cutting a wide path through the nebulous category. There was an interactive website, a YouTube video, a physical print with screens embedded in it, an animated GIF, a few sculptures and a pair of prints made from digital screenshots - one from combat video game, one from Google Maps. After the last whack of the gavel, there were bids for every single piece - a total of $90,000 in sales.
“It was a real breakthrough for the field,†says Lindsay Howard, the New York-based curator who chose the pieces for the sale. “For the last 20 plus years, this work has primarily been supported by non-profits and artist-run spaces and universities that have been incredible incubators. But it hasn’t had the same sort of market recognition it deserves…It broke down a barrier that may have existed between a larger contemporary art collector base and artists who have digital practices. The people who bid on these pieces looked at this work and they saw it as fresh contemporary art, which I think is an exceptional thing to happen for these artists.â€
But with new art comes new ideas about ownership. What does it mean, exactly, to buy and own a website or a rendering made in a 3D graphics program? “There was a lot of curiosity around that,†says Megan Newcome, Director of Digital Strategy at Phillips. “It’s a challenge for new collectors, or even seasoned buyers, to understand, ‘What am I owning? And what does the artist want me to do with this work?’â€
In many of the cases, buying a digital work meant getting a USB drive and certificate of authenticity. Other pieces came with their own unique terms. The collector who bought Rafael Rozendaal’s ifnoyes.com, an interactive website that looks a little bit like a digital sunset viewed through a broken mirror, will have to keep the site available for public use - and renew the domain name every year. “The artist has to make it really clear - is this an editioned work? Does this have to remain public?†says Newcome. “It’s up to the buyer and the artistâ€"they really have to have a contract with one another.†Annie Werner, Tumblr’s arts evangelist and co-organizer of the event, says that generating conversation around these issues was very much the point. “Education was a huge component of this project,†Werner says. “We wanted to make those things known and clear about collecting this art.â€
Still, many of the works will have a surprisingly traditional post-acquisition existence. Tumblr itself bought Jamie Zigelbaum’s Pixel, a physical work which renders the fundamental unit of digital representation as one square meter, touch-sensitive light box (it’ll go up in the company’s office). Howard says that collectors are already calling her up for recommendations on what types of monitors are best suited for displaying their new digital pieces. And in the case of some digital works, even the physical media used to store the things got some artistic attention. Joe Hamilton, whose computer-generated video and related Tumblr Hyper Geography was sold at the auction, created an elaborate display case for the USB drive that held the work.
“The video itself will remain free to float around anywhere online and maybe even change forms, so it was important for me to make the considered physical object to create something tangible for the buyer,†Hamilton says. “There are obvious difficulties in selling online works, so this was an attempt by me to bridge the gap so the artwork can co-exist online and in the art market without compromise.†Or, as Werner puts it, when you’re putting down one or two thousand dollars for a digital file, you don’t just get it on a standard Office Depot USB stick. “You get the Lexus of thumb drives.â€
