Art is intended to make us question ourselves: why we like art work; what art is supposed to represent; what even makes an art-piece? And so far, it has, but now, after we have worked through romantic, impressionist, modernism to post-modernism, where do we go from here?

When each movement has been created, it has been to experimentally challenge the viewer into a new way of thinking. It has shaped culture and curved opinions, caused people to die for beliefs and lead the best propaganda campaigns ever known. Some of the best pieces of artwork have only ever become famous after the artist’s death. Art has been used for comedy, action, politics and religion; where can it go now?

Well, one option could be through the new media available to us. Cubism and modernism became so enigmatic because of the new materials people could use. Andy Warhol created his death and disaster pieces because he saw a plane crash in a newspaper, and managed to get horrific photographs of car crashes to use in his silk screen prints. New media has created the biggest benefits in the way of artwork to date, and has expanded our minds further, in terms of self and world evaluation. For example, DuChamp’s “ready-mades” were originally created to make fun of the artistic pretentiousness of the art world, yet it created an awareness in oneself that the world is an artwork in itself, and every part of it should be studied.

So, the most fascinating new media we now have at our disposal is undoubtedly the Internet. The problem is, the Internet is a collaboration of artworks anyway. Every web page, every program, every pixel on the screen has been selected to become an artwork in correlation to all the others. There is no space to create a new artwork on the Internet, because the Internet is, in effect, a collaboration of art anyway.

Let us backtrack. Artwork had built upon past references and insights before it, creating the next step from the one before it. I mentioned Duchamp’s ready-mades, where he submitted a piece that was created by another, yet he signed it to make it his own. Well, add that to the idea that you change enough of a piece and its no longer a complete copy of another piece, and I think the Internet can become the new basis of art. One final addition is the idea of installation pieces from the 1950’s, where the viewer is encouraged to interact with the artwork, thus fully completing the piece through their own insights and choices. The view there was to hopefully to brighten their own perceptions upon the world or themselves dependent upon how they decide to react to the piece.

So, in this sense, the Internet cannot be used as a new piece of artwork. It’s the next step in interactive artwork, where the viewer themselves creates what they want to see on the screen. This, in my view, is what makes it such a beautiful investment for the artistic world; an art piece that is created by anyone, with anyone and for anyone. The Internet is the ultimate creation to expand ones mind for you can find anything out upon it.

If artwork is there to challenge and expand ones mind through any type of imagery or sculpture, the Internet is the omnipotent art, for what can you not learn from everything on the internet? After all, If you just read this article; I’ve expanded your thoughts, and thus, proved my point.