How has digital art, blockchain and web3 been successful in subverting the existing power structure of the contemporary art system?

 

Playing around with the isometric perspective on the digital surface, TeamLab’s work celebrated an alternative approach of depicting space another than the dominating one-point perspective originated from the West. This is not only achieved through its aesthetic innovation but also its popularity among the public that renders itself one of most profitable exhibitions in financially challenged institutions. Olafur Eliasson once admitted that he wants the audience to experience the art without the mediation of wall label and curators’ interpretation. This attitude justifies his motivation of creating large-scale, immersive art that transforms museums into gigantic and outlandish playgrounds. Likewise, TeamLab also creates this unmediated experience for audiences to experience art with sensibility, rather than sense. The focus on the heightened awareness in immersive art installations place the role of curator on a project manager instead of an academic authority.

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Other interactive/immersive art, likewise, undercuts curators’ influence on how an artwork is perceived. Norman White’s Hearsay and Camille Utterback's Entangled both require the voluntary participation of audiences, further eliminating curator’s presence. Artist Auriea Harvey considers the digital file of her sculpture “the real sculpture” and the physical sculpture a temporal derivative of it, challenging the theoretical possibility for an institution to “collect” it. This digital-physical duality also recalls Plato's idea of the perfect circle that only exists conceptually. Blockchain and web3 both celebrated the notion of community development and a sense of collectivism, rejecting the cultural hegemony of museums. 

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I found it more interesting to view these artworks as a form of activism instead of aesthetics objects. On the other hand, it also alerts me with a disconcerting question - how do we construct a new understanding of art when we dispose the iconolatry in the past? Will art cozy up to the most mediocre, easily understandable, and kitschy position in the digital era when curators step down from the altar?