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Art, space and technology: how the digitisation and digitalisation of art space
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 Digital Creativity, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14626268.2015.1035448
Art, space and technology:
how the digitisation and
digitalisation of art space
affect the consumption of
art—a critical approach
Marisa Enhuber
Maastricht University
Downloaded by [Marisa Enhuber] at 02:30 02 May 2015
m.enhuber@alumni.maastrichtuniversity.nl
Abstract
In an increasingly digital world, art is transferred from a
physical to a virtual space. This essay examines three
effects of this digitisation (conversion of physical into
virtual content) and digitalisation (processing of digi-
tised content) on the consumption of art. In particular,
it analyses to what extent digital art space democratises,
educates and socialises the way in which art is con-
sumed. These three effects are critically assessed by a
review of literature, studies and projects. As a result,
digitisation democratises by making art collections
accessible without time, money or location barriers.
This, however, excludes audiences from underdeve-
loped areas. The implementation of digital technology
in museums enhances an active engagement with art,
thereby fostering art education, which yet increases
the importance and difficulty of content management.
And whilst finally the communication of museums
with their audiences through social media potentially
enlarges their sphere of activity, this socialising trend
is still in their infancy within the art world.
Keywords: digital, art, space, digitalisation, consump-
tion, (new) media, technology, digitisation, museum
studies, experience, engagement
# 2015 Taylor & Francis
1 Introduction
For museums [ . . . ] technology has created a
golden age of opportunity. Online access to
digitized objects, images, and records is demo-
cratizing knowledge, enhancing the visits of
the many who come to us in person, and
extending our reach to the millions who
cannot. Coupled with social media’s powers
of connection, digital technology exponentially
increases the capacity of individuals to engage
with our collections and upload their own
stories, claims Clough, secretary at Smithso-
nian Institution. (Clough 2013, 2)
Clough addresses the omnipresent shift from phy-
sicality to virtuality. Within this shift, real art space
is transformed into digital art space, conveyed in a
variety of forms, which can open up unprece-
dented possibilities and change the way in which
art is consumed. How in fact does digital technol-
ogy affect the consumption of art? Clough’s claim
suggests three focal appearances in which digitis-
ation and digitalisation impact how art is con-
sumed by implicating that digitally converted art
space enhances democratisation, education and
socialisation within the arts. This essay discusses
what these three assumptions actually mean. To
this end, it has been divided into three parts. The
 Enhuber
first part deals with the question whether digitis-
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ation projects can democratise art. It is examined
how developments within the digital revolution
promote a shift towards an extended accessibility
and distribution of digitised artworks via the Inter-
net. Supposedly, this has a democratising effect on
the consumption of art. The second part considers
how digitalisation stimulates art education as one
mode of art consumption. After conceptualising
the shift in visitor behaviour anticipated by the
concept of co-creation, Simon’s design of a parti-
cipatory learning approach in art institutions is
introduced with regard to the use and impact of
digital media in the arts (Simon 2013a). This
approach reflects on a new engagement and par-
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ticipation through a changed experience with art
due to technological advancements. Finally, part
three of this essay describes the synthesis of art
organisations with social media, exploring a shift
in interactivity and communication by a socialisa-
tion of the art experience. The three shifts in the
consumption of art are substantiated by the analy-
sis of specific case studies in order to critically
assess the hypothesis that digitisation and digitali-
sation have democratising, educational and socia-
lising effects on the consumption of art.
Digitisation is an intersected field, combining
media, museum and marketing studies. This
essay, therefore, interrelates humanities, econ-
omics and technology. In consideration of the
abundance of study fields, limitations have to be
acknowledged: this essay will not look into
specific digital devices used to consume digital-
ised art. It is of little value, since technology
changes too fast to make an analysis of lasting sig-
nificance. Furthermore, this essay refers to
museums specifically when speaking of art insti-
tutions or organisations, because the consideration
of other institutional forms of art is beyond the
feasible scope of the discussion.
2 Digital art space—approaching
democratisation in the ‘digital age’
Nothing has been proclaimed and ascertained
more often in the last decade than how digitalisa-
tion revolutionised (post)modern life. But what
2
does digital revolution mean? How has it affected
the arts, specifically? The following chapter starts
with an outline of the influence that the digital
revolution has in the present age. Afterwards, the
advent of the digital age is related to developments
in the arts. For this purpose, the terms ‘digitisation’
and ‘digitalisation’ are distinguished from each
other. Digitisation projects exemplify an approach
in democratising art by the implementation of
recent Web technologies. Finally, limitations in
the democratising effects through digitisation are
critically discussed.
2.1 Digital revolution: its impact on
contemporary society
It took only twenty years from when computers
first went on sales in the 1980s until now, where
computing and Web technology permeate almost
every human space. Yet not only the speed of
this third human revolution1 is impressive, but
also the massive impact computers and the Internet
have on postmodern society. As a result, global
accessibility and distribution of information and
communication have occurred, which are often
equated to a democratisation of knowledge
(Costa 2000; Acemoglu, Laibson, and List 2014;
Von Hippel 2005). By the late 1980s, personal
computers, which efficiently stored, processed
and shared data with multiple users via intranets,
had already been sold over thirty million times in
the USA alone (Trueman 2013). Increased data
and information processing marked the beginning
of the contemporaneous digital revolution. Start-
ing in the 1980s, the digital revolution ‘refers to
the advancement of technology from analogue
electronic and mechanical devices to the digital
technology’ (Janssen 2013). This shift towards
digital technology and virtual networks led to a
global distribution and accessibility of infor-
mation. In 1992, inter-connected information net-
works used hitherto by the US military and science
institutions became accessible to the public, and in
2012—within twenty years—a third of the world’s
population was using the worldwide web (Mini-
watts Marketing Group 2013).2 This is only the
beginning, as Peacock aptly summarises: ‘The
world emerging from the digital revolution,

whether described as a “Network Society” (Cas-
tells 1996), “Information Superhighway” (Negro-
ponte 1995), “Global Village” (McLuhan 1962) or
“Knowledge Economy” (Drucker 1969) remains a
work in progress’ (Peacock 2008, 333). The place
of cultural heritage and the arts within this new
world is in flux. The shift from analogue to
digital technology consequently has revolutio-
nised the art space, too.3 Two central terms are
digitisation and digitalisation, whose subtle differ-
ence needs to be explained.
2.2 Terminology and contextualisation:
digitisation and digitalisation in the
arts
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Digitisation is the
conversion of analogue information in any
form (text, photographs, voice, etc.) to digital
form with suitable electronic devices (such as
a scanner or specialized computer chips) so
that the information can be processed, stored,
and transmitted through digital circuits, equip-
ment, and networks. (Business Dictionary
2013)4
This is the simplest of technological enhance-
ments, which can be used to convert real artworks
to their digital projection or counterparts. Digitised
artworks are virtual, meaning ‘not physically
existing as such but made by software’ (Oxford
Dictionary 2013). Thus, digitisation creates
digital art space by virtually representing real art
space. As first step of digital enhancement, it
paves the way towards digitalisation. Digitalisa-
tion designates the use of digital technologies
and the integration of digital media into the arts
(Collin 2013). Digitalisation is, therefore, the use
of the digitised physical content in a richer,
virtual reality different from the original art
space. The first step of this process, digitisation,
is best exemplified by projects from several
renowned institutions.
2.3 Digitising projects in the arts
One prominent example for digitising art space is
the Google Art Project (GAP). Launched in 2011
by the Google Cultural Institute, the project digi-
3
Art, space and technology
tises artworks by converting original paintings
Digital Creativity
and objects into computer processable data
(Lugton 2011). Figure 1, for example, shows the
digitised version of Brueghel’s ‘The Harvester’
(1565) within the GAP. Using a ‘super-high resol-
ution technology’ (Brown 2011, para. 3), the
project has started collaborating with seventeen
museums in 2011 as an extension of Google
Street View, where real space is digitised and
displayed online, too. In 2013, already 151 insti-
tutions in 40 countries have placed their artworks
at the GAP’s disposal that has so far digitised
over 50,000 artworks, which are now available
online.
The GAP provides two functions for its users:
the first is to virtually walk through the digitised
version of real museum space, such as the Tate
Britain (see Figure 2). The second function is
that users can zoom into the digitised image,
which enables, for example, to study brushworks
or ‘a spotlight on a minor character in a dense nar-
rative painting’ (Cohen 2011, para. 9). This func-
tion reflects on the GAP’s aim to give people an
unrivalled opportunity to come very close to
great works of art. Through Google’s resources,
the GAP has the ‘ability to store vast amounts of
information in the remote servers, and just as
important, the ability to offer users that infor-
mation quickly, seamlessly, intuitively’ (Cohen
2011, para. 6).
Another digitising project is ‘Tate Insight’.
Launched in 1998, there are now over 65,000 art-
works accessible online (see Figure 3). According
to the project description, it was designed ‘to open
new paths into the Tate collection through a com-
prehensive database of indexed images accessible
through the Tate website’ (Tate 2013, para. 1). The
overall aim is to continuously update the digital
collection so that the whole Tate collection is sim-
ultaneously available online as well as in reality.
For Tate, as for the many other digitising projects,
a digital display of artworks has the advantage that
fragile objects and those not exhibited due to the
physical limitation of space are accessible via the
Tate’s website.
More and more art organisations digitise their
collections. According to the Digital Research
 Digital Creativity Enhuber
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Figure 1. ‘The Harvester’ (Brueghel, the Elder, 1565) within the GAP (3) (screenshot retrieved on December 17, 2013. http://www.
google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/the-harvesters/PAH1oMZ5dGBkxg?hl=de&projectId=art-project).

Figure 2. Museums View of Tate Britain via the GAP (4) (screenshot retrieved on December 17, 2013. http://www.google.com/
culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/tate-britain/0QGuXwBoan0jSg?hl=de&projectId=art-project).

and Development Fund for the Arts, which started exhibits and archives digitally available (Digital
to survey the use of technology within and its R&D Fund 2013). The majority of those projects
impact on English art organisations in 2013, declare one common aim: to make art accessible
60% of all English art organisations are making for a wider public. The possibility of easily and

4

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Figure 3. Tate Insight Project (4) (screenshot retrieved on
December 17, 2013. http://www.tate.org.uk/art).
5
Art, space and technology
quickly processing digitised content, enabled by
Digital Creativity
the digital revolution, allows a fast and relatively
cheap access and distribution of digitised art-
works. This reveals that digitisation seems to
have a democratising effect within the arts. Once
a painting has been digitised, everybody with a
data-processing device, for example a computer,
is able to view the virtual counterpart of an
artwork. On these grounds, 79% of English art
organisations agree that the Internet and digital
technologies have played a major role in ‘broaden-
ing the boundaries of what is considered art and
culture’ (Digital R&D Fund 2013, 33). Conse-
quently, when speaking of the democratising
effect of digitisation on the consumption of art, it
means that these technological advancements in
theory eliminate the limitations of consumption
in time, space and money. Digital art space de-
localises artworks, ‘[allowing] the user to experi-
ence the content of the museum [ . . . ] in a place
or time physically separate from the museum’
(Tonta 2008, 5). According to Lugton (2011), digi-
tisation, therefore, enhances the reach, interactiv-
ity, persistence, speed and flexibility of art.
2.4 Criticism: digitisation and
democratisation—a hypocrisy?
Internet ranking websites such as Alexa measure
the Internet performance of art organisations by
tracking where, which and why users searched
for websites of particular organisations. In order
to track the Internet performance of art organis-
ations that digitised their collections as, for
example, the Tate, its website was selected to
serve as exemplary museum, which engages in
digitisation projects.5 www.alexa.com was
visited on 17 December 2013 between 18:00 and
20:00 to collect information on audience geo-
graphics and demographics of www.tate.org.uk
with the results depicted in Figure 4.
An analysis of this data discloses that the Tate
website is daily visited by approximately 3% of
worldwide Web users and mostly by users from
the Western part of the world. The half of its
 Enhuber
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Figure 4. The Internet performance of Tate tracked in www.
alexa.com (5) (screenshot retrieved on December 17, 2013.
http://preview.alexa.com/siteinfo/tate.org.uk).
6
online visitors were tracked in the UK, the remain-
ing 50% are scattered around Europe and the globe.
However, only a few come in fact from outside
Europe according to the Alexa ranking: just 2.5%
of its online visitors for instance were from India,
1.5% from Australia. A global access and distri-
bution of knowledge on art would reveal a quite
different allocation of online visitors. As a result,
the Alexa geographical analysis casts a more sober
light on the global accessibility of art collections
through digitisation. A further demographical
analysis of the Tate online visitors attenuates the
claims that everybody accesses online art collec-
tions: according to Alexa, a noticeable proportion
of the Tate website visitors has a higher education
degree. Thus, in regard of these Internet perform-
ance results, a democratising effect facilitated by
‘remote access to art for the widest possible audi-
ence’ (Tate 2013, para. 1) in art consumption
remains questionable for the Tate digitisation
project—let alone the question whether digitally
opening access to all automatically implies con-
sumption by all. In this context, some critics have
already gauged the notion fallacious that the Internet
itself is free and all information on the Web is neutral
(Pariser 2011; Fingers and Dutta 2014). In accord-
ance with Morozov’s perception of a Net Delusion,
it is principally problematic to speak of a dispersion
of knowledge through digitisation and Web usage
(Doctorow 2011). As the Alexa ranking shows,
online information on artworks is not globally
accessed by everyone just because the Tate offers
it, and therefore does not allow equating the distri-
bution of information with the accumulation of
knowledge.
In addition and despite its efficacy, the Alexa
ranking itself suffers from the drawback that it
only tracks users who have a computer with
access to the Internet. The global accessibility of
art through digitisation is consequently always
restricted to the ability of being technologically
well equipped, which naturally excludes a con-
siderable amount of less developed countries and
less educated art consumers. Even if technological
developments advance, as for now, digitisation
remains a way to access art more easily for
certain, rather sophisticated societies.

Having considered some pitfalls on the con-
sumption side inherent to the digitisation of art
space, it is also reasonable to look at the ‘supply’
side that addresses a change in consumption by
digitisation. Lugton (2011) notices a tendency
towards a trivialisation of art if it is detached
from its real space: ‘A grand work of art deserves
to be viewed in a space that is suitably undistract-
ing, rather than being framed by my desk and other
debris of domesticity’ (para. 6). Other similar
critics blame digitisation for ‘evoking “cyber-
spaces” but not “places” [ . . . ] in other words [a]
lack of richness, association and affordances’
(Tan and Rahaman 2009, 148). The inability to
experience the real art space is consequently
Downloaded by [Marisa Enhuber] at 02:30 02 May 2015
seen as negative aspect of digitisation. In spite of
such criticism, Clough (2013) indicates that digi-
tisation raised the ‘awareness and desire to actu-
ally visit a museum’ (28). Digital art space
cannot, and in fact does not, aim to replace the
real visit experience but supplement it. However,
it is inevitable to look at the motivations behind
digitisation. To this effect, the next chapter exam-
ines how the use of digital technology for edu-
cational purposes in cultural institutions affects
the consumption of art in terms of enhancing the
visitor’s learning experience with art.
3 Art education: towards a shift in
participation and engagement via
digital technology?
This second part of the essay elaborates on how
digitalisation affects the consumption of art in
the context of art education. Especially in recent
years, there has been an extended interest in the
shift of engagement with and participation in art
supported by digital technology as its use increas-
ingly disperses, at least within Western societies.
The first section, therefore, introduces the key
concept of co-creation, which describes the
change from passive to active visitor behaviour.
Research in this field has experienced an upsurge
in the course of the digital age through altered
engagement and participation possibilities.
Along with this behavioural shift on the visitors’
part, art organisations also have intensified a parti-
7
Art, space and technology
cipatory strategy, a concept outlined by the
Digital Creativity
museum pedagogic Nina Simon. Exemplified on
the use of digital technology, it is demonstrated
how art organisations can enhance the role of art
mediation and education with regard to the co-
creational concept. In the last chapter of this
part, it is critically examined what quality this par-
ticipatory approach along digitalisation has.
3.1 Conceptualising co-creation and the
new value chain in the arts
Pine and Gilmore (1998) introduced the socio-
economic concept of ‘Co-Creation’, or identically
the ‘New Value Chain’ to the academic field in the
context of their in 1998 published article on the
Experience Economy, as a corollary of the digital
age. It highlights the consumer’s co-producing
role by an engagement with a product through an
emotional stimulation of the experience with the
product. Through this emotional experience,
‘the new value chain identifies the end user as
the crucial link, where value and meaning are ulti-
mately created’ (Bilton 2011, 147). Boorsma
(2006) applied this concept of co-creation to arts
marketing in designating an artwork as a typical
example for an experiential product because it is
consumed ‘primarily for intrinsic rewards—for
the experience itself’ (80). Boorsma (2006), fur-
thermore, describes the artistic experience as
hedonic as it can be exciting and challenging or
relaxing and entertaining at the same time. Either
way, within this concept, experiential art con-
sumption is the criterion that determines whether
the consumer, that is, viewer, adds meaning and
value to an artwork. Correspondingly and in
accordance with Pine’ and Gilmore’s concept,
Shusterman (2001) depicts the visitor in the arts
as crucial link of the value creation process: the
visitor’s ‘experience of art—and not the artefact
itself—is the final criterion of artistic value’
(101). Thus, the visitor co-creates an artwork by
adding meaning, value and experience to its com-
pletion.
Co-creation, therefore, requires active engage-
ment and participation on the consumer’s side. It
implies that the art consumer’s behaviour has
changed from a passive recipient to an active par-
 Enhuber
ticipant (Boorsma 2006). Art institutions,
Digital Creativity
especially museums, profit from this behavioural
change as they invite visitors to actively engage
as cultural contributors and step away from
being passive observers. Furthermore, this partici-
patory approach can alter and ultimately lead to
abandon the perception that museums are ivory
towers or mausoleums—a prejudice, which
museums still have to face broadly. Art organis-
ations have started to revitalise their relationship
to visitors by giving their experience and not the
collection the priority since enjoying a museum’s
art collection requires mutual and active engage-
ment on the visitor’s as well as the museum’s part.
In this context, Simon (2013a) designed ‘the
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participatory museum’ in her eponymous book,
in which she argues for a personalised and co-pro-
ducing approach rather than delivering the same
content to everyone. Simon (2013a) explains that
the main difference between the traditional and
participatory model is the ‘way that information
flows between institutions and users. [ . . . ] In con-
trast [to traditional visitor models] in participatory
projects, the institution supports multi-directional
content experiences’ (Simon 2013a, para.7). Con-
sequently, the shift towards a dynamic visitor
model, represented in Table 1, induced museums
to rethink what kind of experience their collections
provide in order to relate to their visitor. Within
this approach, the art institution ‘serves as a “plat-
form” that connects to different users who act as
content creators, distributors, consumers, critics,
and collaborators [ . . . ] [and which] provides
opportunities for diverse visitor co-produced
experiences’ (Simon 2013a, para. 7).
Visitor model
Traditional Dynamic/participatory
Consumer Participant/user
Passive Active
Authoritative museum voice Multiple voices
Table 1. Shift from a traditional to a dynamic visitor model
(own presentation-based on Simon’s participatory museum
(2013a, 7)).
8
The integration of digital technology can in
this way change how art is consumed in
museums and to this effect encourage the behav-
ioural shift in participation and engagement, as
well as provide an opportunity to reconsider a
museum’s educational role. As part of a continuum
of activities within which museums endeavour for
decades to challenge their status as temples of art
that primarily display inaccessible collections,
digital technologies are used as a means to restruc-
ture creative practices. The Tate, for example,
explains that ‘[f]or over a hundred years our
activity has been grounded in collections dis-
played in buildings. The affordances of digitalisa-
tion means we are rethinking this’ (Digital R&D
Fund 2013, 17). So how can museums implement
this approach to create a participatory learning
experience with the help of digitalisation?
3.2 Changing art education through
digital technology in theory and
practice
According to Pine and Gilmore (1998), an experi-
ence is the creation of a memorable event. Simi-
larly, museums try to create a memorable
encounter with their collection for their visitors.
They stimulate the hedonic experience and higher
engagement by the enhancement of education:
‘Museums now enable the public to explore collec-
tions for inspiration, learning and enjoyment’
(Kirezli 2011, 173). According to Clough (2013),
museums have a pioneering role when it comes
to informal and experiential learning and the tech-
nological advancements of digitalisation specifi-
cally promise to diversify the implementation of
the co-creational concept within art education.
Pine and Gilmore (1998), for instance, point out
in the context of their conceptual Experience
Economy that ‘[n]ew technologies, in particular,
encourage whole new genres of experience, such
as interactive [multiplayer] games, [ . . . ] motion-
based simulators, and virtual reality [ . . . ] enhan-
cing a “lifelike interactive” experience’ (Pine and
Gilmore 1998, 99). Experiential computing at its
ultimate makes it possible for visitors to ‘view,
hear, and touch-as well as walk [ . . . ] through
myriad product possibilities’ (Pine and Gilmore

1998, 99) and museum are already exploring this
engagement potential of digital technology.
Science museums seem to be at the fore here in
setting up virtual field trips by using interactive
data visualisation methods that allow visitors to
explore ‘what if’ environmental scenarios, which
create whole new experiences within digital art
space (Clough 2013). Accordingly, Clough
(2013) addresses an entirely new use of art space
through digitalisation, which is educationally
motivated: enabled by 3-D technology, holograms
showing three-dimensional objects and artworks
allow visitors to individually and more compre-
hensively engage with these objects. Moreover,
across the virtual experience of walking through
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the familiar environmental of popular museums
such as the Tate or Museum of Modern Art
(MoMA), the aforementioned GAP as other
example for implementing digitalisation can
make virtual reality within digital art space
lively. It enriches the art consumer’s experience
through technical finesse, such as exceptional
zoom function that literally allows a ‘deeper’
engagement with the artwork. In addition, the
aforementioned digitisation of art results in the
creation of vast digital databases, which then
could be transmitted in any data form via the
global connectivity of the Internet to any kind of
institution. Together with evolving technological
developments in 3-D printing, this might soon
allow copying museum objects and transferring
them into schools and universities, which facili-
tates participation, engagement and education of
art all over the globe. As a consequence, the ques-
tion arises, how exactly can digital technology
alter the learning experience and art mediation?
A study by Chang et al. (2014) offers insights
into the educational value that the integration of
digital technology can entail by comparing the
visitor’s experience in an art exhibition with and
without the use of digital media. In an experiment
with 135 college students from Taipei University,
Chang et al. (2014) divided the participants into
three differently equipped groups: the first
walked through the exhibition with a mobile aug-
mented-realty (AR) guide that enabled its users to
instinctively interact with the artwork and acquire
9
Art, space and technology
distinctive additional information, such as a
Digital Creativity
synopsis and analysis of the paintings’ elements
(line, colour, rhythm, etc.), an interpretation guide-
line exploring the paintings narrative or a judge-
ment section, where art criticism to the
respective painting was offered (Chang et al.
2014, 187). The second group was equipped
with an audio-guide and the third was not guided
at all. The study’s results show that the AR
mobile guide ‘enhanced visitors’ learning effec-
tiveness and promoted their flow experience’
(Chang et al. 2014, 185). This was measured by
the amount of time spent on each painting: com-
pared to the audio- and non-guided groups, the
first group spent a four times longer period of
time looking at each picture. The higher engage-
ment with the paintings defined as ‘enhanced learn-
ing’ and ‘flow experience’ (Chang et al. 2014, 191)
was specified by the willingness and the interactiv-
ity of the first group respondents to use the AR
device in order to acquire additional information
on each artwork. In interviews conducted after the
experiment, a subject confirms: ‘There is more
freedom with the AR guide, which promotes a
greater interaction between visitors and paintings’
(Chang et al. 2014, 193). This experimental com-
parison of experiencing art and learning with and
without digital media confirms that the use of
digital technology allows for an increased partici-
pation and engagement with art that can affect the
experiential learning approach. Although this
experimental environment must not reflect reality,
that is, for example that the research participants
readily accepted and actually consumed the
additional information offered by the AR device,
Chang et al.’s exemplary study reveals the potential
of using digitalisation as new educational means for
art mediation in museums.
As a result, it is hardly surprising that 70% of
English art organisations, galleries and museums
place significant importance on technology to
create new opportunities, distribute and exhibit
art, according to the Digital R&D Fund (2013).
Regarding the overall impact of digital technol-
ogy, 92% of English art organisations agreed
‘that digital technologies will be fundamentally
important to helping their organisation achieve
 Enhuber
its mission in the future’ (Digital R&D Fund 2013,
Digital Creativity
33).
As the role of learning is reshaped by digitis-
ation and digitalisation, each museum has to find
the appropriate application of digitalisation. To
the extent as it potentially enables a shift towards
a dynamic integration of individual learning
experiences with museum objects, a successful
implementation is, however, also depended on
the scope of technology at disposal and the
purpose or motivation behind its use. Moreover,
also only curiosity-driven learning on behalf of
the visitor can empower such an extensive art edu-
cation (Clough 2013). Additionally, implementing
innovative learning strategies through digitalisa-
Downloaded by [Marisa Enhuber] at 02:30 02 May 2015
tion is a complex and costly endeavour for art
institutions and requires an individual evaluation
with regard to the merits that digital projects
provide for each institution.
3.3 Criticism: edutainment and the
alienated visitor
With digital technology being embraced by more
and more museums, Henning (2006) denotes that
‘new media6 is everywhere [ . . . ] these days in
the form of hand-held information devices, infor-
mation kiosks, installation art, display purpose
and archiving systems, as a means to reorganise
working practises, and to keep track of visitors’
(302). Henning (2006) here portends what has
been largely denominated as ‘technology trap’
(Parry 2005, 333): if art institutions are not care-
fully and aptly integrating digital media into
their existing practices and if they are not con-
stantly pursuing maintenance on their digital
content strategy, a loss of value rather than an
enrichment of learning is conceivable. An inap-
propriate use of digital media could turn art edu-
cation into ‘edutainment’7 emulating latest trends
in virtual heritage practice, which in fact demon-
strates the ‘technical artistry and power of new
technology’ (Tan and Rahaman 2009, 149) but
may also lead towards a diminishing quality of
art education and an amorphous relationship
with real artworks that pre-empts the original co-
creative, educational motif. Several authors there-
fore have and still discuss the practical effects of
10
an alienated and rather isolated experience poss-
ibly caused by an alteration in the visitor’s atten-
tion away from the real object and participatory
learning experience towards a technology cente-
redness (Hein 2000; Hooper-Greenhill 2000;
Parry 2005). Tan and Rahaman (2009) in this
context warn that long-term effects of immersive
3-D and AR technology have not yet been fully
researched and as a result, the real value of the
implementation of the co-creational approach
through digital technology can at least at this
point not be generally validated.
Thus, even though the Digital R&D Fund
(2013) enthusiastically emphasises the digitalisa-
tion’s potential, the question is also whether all
museums are willing and able to acquire sufficient
knowledge on digitalisation strategies. Parry
(2005) as well as Tan and Rahaman (2009) high-
light practical limitations of integrating digital
media within art organisations such as ‘high
cost, development complexity, inaccessibility of
immersive [virtual reality] technologies [and]
intricacy in usability’ (Tan and Rahaman 2009,
146). Summarised, the scope of digital technology
and its potential for art organisation is capacious;
however, it also entails a number of problems
that the organisations, which aim at integrating
digital media, have to consider attentively.
4 The socialisation of the arts:
participation and engagement in
times of Web 2.0
After having examined how digital technology
affects the online accessibility and distribution of
art, as well as the experiential learning and art
education in museums, the third statement that
ultimately, digitisation and digitalisation socialise
art space is delineated in this section. Thereby the
integration of social media into art organisations is
theoretically outlined, exemplified and assessed,
inter alia, on the basis of a study conducted by
Padilla-Meléndez and del Águila-Obra (2013),
who analysed the online performance of several art
organisations on the basis of their social media use.

4.1 Social media as a new means of
relationship marketing
The previous section provided with insights into
how the integration of digital technology into
co-creational learning strategies of museums sup-
ports a different engagement, participation and
experience with art objects. Yet the museum’s
mission does not end with an improvement on
innovative learning through digitalisation. It is
rather the question how to increase interactivity
with the social space of visitors. Simon (2013b)
argues that as more people become accustomed
and enjoy participatory learning experiences,
they want to contribute more than ‘just “attend”
cultural events and institutions’ (para. 2). This
Downloaded by [Marisa Enhuber] at 02:30 02 May 2015
involves the notion that the museum should
become a social space, ‘a place where people
discuss the objects on display with friends and
strangers, sharing diverse stories and interpret-
ations [ . . . ] A place that gets better the more
people use it [ . . . ]’ (Simon 2013b, para. 2). She
therefore depicts the social Web that in her eyes
‘has ushered in a dizzying set of tools and design
patterns’ (Simon 2013b, para. 2), is making par-
ticipation more manageable than ever and intro-
duces social media as next stage of participation
and engagement.
Whilst a variety of definitions to the term social
media exists by now, a common definition first
suggested by Kaplan and Haenlein in 2010 is to
see them as ‘a group of Internet-based applications
that build on the ideological and technological
foundations of Web 2.0, which allows the creation
and exchange of user-generated content’ (Kaplan
and Haenlein 2010, 61). This dense definition is
clarified when knowing that in the first instance,
Web 1.0 companies and organisations created
websites on which they only provided own
content to users. Amazon and eBay then were
amongst the first companies, which opened their
websites up to an intermediate platform, where
content-providers and -users could exchange
opinions via guest reviews or online auctions (Sta-
noevska-Slabeva 2008). As a consequence, Web
2.0 represents the progress from static to a
dynamic online presence of organisation’s web-
sites, where users autonomously generate content
11
Art, space and technology
and independently enter into a dialogue with
Digital Creativity
each other. Accompanied by the shift from a
passive to active Web use, co-creating users are
also called pro-sumers, denoting the bipolar
categories of producer and consumer in the
context of Web 2.0, in order to underline their
‘increased production prowess’ (van Dijck 2009,
42). Conversely, the integration of digital and
social media8 supposedly empowers art organis-
ation to apply a full-fledged co-creational
concept by enlarging the sphere of the visitors’
involvement (Padilla-Meléndez and del Águila-
Obra 2013).
The use of Facebook, Twitter or other Web 2.0
applications within art organisations allows for
continuing the co-creational process online by
making art consumption a communicative act,
which is socially embedded into reciprocal inter-
action (Boorsma 2006). A socially active
museum facilitates sharing the visitor’s meaning,
value and experience with others. In fact, art
organisations now have the possibility to more
easily communicate with their visitors via Web
2.0. According to Padilla-Meléndez and del
Águila-Obra (2013), the reciprocal communi-
cation via social media raises the inclusivity of a
real and an online community and facilitates col-
laboration with the audience. Social media, there-
fore, support the social networking of museums, a
reason why art organisations use social media for
marketing purposes in order to promote them-
selves and to stimulate Word-of-Mouth (WoM).
Titled also as ‘buzz’ (Dye 2000) marketing or
‘word of mouse’ (Goldenberg, Libai, and Muller
2001), social media marketing is defined as ‘elec-
tronic word-of-mouth whereby some form of mar-
keting message related to a company, brand,
product or service is transmitted in an exponen-
tially growing way . . . often through the use of
social media applications’ (Kaplan and Haenlein
2011, 254). Thus, besides allowing to promote
exhibitions or other services at low costs and
with a chance of exponential penetration, social
media communication happens on the effective
basis of trusting on the experience of other satis-
fied consumers (Martin and Lueg 2013). An
example: more than 700,000 ‘like’ the Tate
 Enhuber
museum on Facebook.9 Whilst this means that the
Digital Creativity
Tate can reach 700,000 art consumers at one go,
this vast fan base effortlessly attracts new art con-
sumers as they feel reassured by such immense
follower numbers. Thus, social media marketing
can reduce the effort, risk and bias for receivers
to engage with a museum’s content online
(Smith et al. 2007). The applied electronic WoM
thereby interpersonally and informally influences
the art consumers’ decision-making and highly
effects potential consumers’ attitudes and behav-
iour (Williams and Buttle 2013).
4.2 The use of social media and its impact
on art organisations
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In light of this theoretical context, Padilla-
Meléndez and del Águila-Obra (2013) studied
how the world’s hundred most visited museums
use social media to create an online profile on
which they publish information on recent events,
art historical facts or ask their online audience
for their experience with certain exhibitions.
Some organisations such as the MoMA addition-
ally link their social media pages as Facebook to
online video portals such as Youtube in order to
provide Video on Demand (VoD). That is an inter-
active multi-media service allowing users to
access a variety of videos on various topics at
once (IT Wissen 2014). The MoMA10 uses this
inter-linkage of social media to offer online
courses on art, which enable their online audience
to individually explore art whilst simultaneously
encourages an exchange of these individual
online experiences through Facebook’s sharing
function (Droitcour 2013). Thus, Padilla-
Meléndez and del Águila-Obra (2013) quote the
MoMA amongst the best social media performers
in their study, since it offers to its online users tools
to personalise their Web content in the form com-
piling an individual profile with VoD applications
for educational purposes or a self-curated online
gallery. In terms of curatorial achievements, the
Austrian Essl museum has shown how partici-
pation and audience engagement via social
media can be taken even one step further by imple-
menting Facebook as a means of co-creational cur-
12
atorship: in their participative exhibition ‘Like
it’,11 the museum let their Facebook fans decide
via the Like-Button, which artworks to take into
the exhibition. Barbara Royc, Essl’s Marketing
manager, reports that 1,500 Fans voted by giving
overall 4,000 likes to all artworks (Präkelt 2014).
Against the Essl’s fear, this successful example
of virtual engagement was highly attended and
appreciated with no complaints coming from the
visitors’ side.
Consequently, Padilla-Meléndez and del
Águila-Obra (2013) identified a strong tendency
towards a socialisation of those museums who
engaged in this way via social media with their
virtual audience as half of those mostly visited
museums indicated to aim at establishing a
relationship with their visitors via social media
applications. Moreover, those museums who saw
their online presence as a complementary to their
on-site presence and who adopted social media
widely were ranked with the highest online visits
and had the highest number of followers (897).
The exemplary and supplementary usages of
social media highlight how museums can fulfil
the socialising mission by enhancing the inter-
action between them and their visitors as well as
amongst other online art consumers, which in
turn stimulates WoM and ultimately establishes
trust that attracts new users and so on. Thus, the
museums’ integration of social media marketing
empowers their visitors to participate in an
online co-creation as their online engagement
adds meaning through the valorisation that the
mutual communication entails.
Notwithstanding such enthusiasm, social
media in particular are prone to visualise the fal-
lacies that the diversely motivated use of digital
technology involves. Facebook specifically is
increasingly in the spotlight of criticism to capi-
talise its users’ online engagement. Conse-
quently, critical voices raise doubts on the real
value of social media communication. To what
extents do users really co-create? The next
chapter considers disparaging tendencies in the
socialisation of art organisations via the use of
social media.

4.3 Criticism: the content-creating user
between empowerment and
marginalisation
First of all, the communication via Web 2.0
applications is still in its infancy today. Part-
icularly in the arts, only a handful of even the
world’s hundred most popular museums enter-
tain a social media account (Padilla-Meléndez
and del Águila-Obra 2013). This might be
owed to the fact that a virtual relationship estab-
lishment via Web 2.0 applications does not
simply ‘happen’ but requires a high degree of
technological advancement and skilled staff in
order to connect the webpage with social
media applications and populate these communi-
Downloaded by [Marisa Enhuber] at 02:30 02 May 2015
cation channels appropriately, which is time-con-
suming and care-dependent. Since many of the
smaller museums often already struggle with
staff and budget, a heavy investment in an
online social media strategy is often considered
impossible. As negative consequence, the over-
representation of big players in the museum
sector on social media platforms could be that
these internationally famous museums become
even more popular through an increasing publi-
city on Facebook and Co, whereas unknown
local museums cannot compete with this trend,
at risk to fall behind.
Furthermore, the motivations behind the
usage of social media are often confused and as
diverse as the art institutions are. If implemented
to engage with visitors, that is, re-strengthening
the relationship, museums must be aware of the
target groups using social media. The present
tendency is that rather younger audiences
sojourn on social Web platforms who are used
to a lax, personalised communication via social
media (Bolton et al. 2013). This, however, does
not necessarily coincide with the broad range of
art lovers that a museum aims at appealing. If
then social media is used to reach global audi-
ences, the aforementioned problem of the
limited and delusive scope that digital technology
has at the moment could thwart such social
endeavours.
Finally, apart from immense amounts of
online fans, it is often not evaluable how success-
13
Art, space and technology
ful museums are in mutually communicating
Digital Creativity
with their visitors. Another critical aspect is,
therefore, the quality of the integration of social
media into the online value creation. Droitcour
(2013), a journalist for artforum, for instance,
tested some of the MoMA online courses
offered via Facebook and VoD and was disap-
pointed by the ‘bewildering’ (para. 6) effect the
lectures had, since the lectors tried to pack every-
thing in a ‘YouTube friendly’ (Droitcour 2013,
para. 6) format. As a result, discussions were
kept brief—an observation that controversially
conflicts with the MoMA originally aimed for
in their social media mission. This spotlights
the considerable amount of criticism on the
whole concept of an online value creation
through active prosumerism (Hellmann 2010).
Van Dijck (2009; 2013) illustrates the contro-
versy on social media engagement in the juxtapo-
sition of the metaphor of the participatory
culture, in which the individual user is informed,
empowered and networked in order to unleash
‘her need of self-expression and creativity onto
the digital spaces’ (van Dijck 2009, 54) and the
factual reality. Contrary to the popular opinion
in marketing literature, approximately only 15%
of Facebook’s users are monthly active and a
further minor 1% engages with companies and
institutions (Bennett 2014; Elliott 2014). Accord-
ingly, an emerging 1% rule of thumb argues that,
taken an online community of hundred people,
only one creates content, ten engage and
eighty-nine passively view it (Arthur 2006).
Moreover, in reality, user-generated Web 2.0
platforms are heavily commercialised and
mediated in order to acquire personal user data.
Monetising virtual engagement has successively
become Facebook’s main income source and as
a result, an average user’s personalised page
can consist of up to 70% advertisement
(Frommer 2012; Tassi 2013). In times of social
media conglomerates dominating the social
Web, there is a danger that the praised power
of co-creating user engagement is reduced to
their algorithm—producing functionality, which
makes users only valuable if they consume
advertisements. Whilst art museums have not
 Enhuber
only to compete against these attention-stealing,
Digital Creativity
commercial attempts of big companies to
exploit the users’ online activity on social
media platforms, social media audiences increas-
ingly become oversaturated and unwilling to
socialise with any institution online (Arora and
Vermeylen 2013).
5 Conclusion
Throughout this essay, the question of how digitis-
ation and digitalisation of art space affect the con-
sumption of art was discussed and the hypothesis
was assessed that digital technology in art has a
democratising, educational and socialising effect
Downloaded by [Marisa Enhuber] at 02:30 02 May 2015
on the consumption of art, with the results being
summarised on the following.
Firstly, the digital revolution enabled the con-
version of physical art objects into computer pro-
cessable data, thereby creating digital art space. In
conjunction with the expansion of the worldwide
Web, digitised art is globally distributed and made
accessible by digitising projects such as the GAP.
The democratising effect of such worldwide distri-
bution and accessibility of art is that a considerable
number of artworks are at disposal online at any
time and any place. However, consulting the
Alexa Web performance ranking of the Tate exemp-
lary website has shown that this democratisation in
art consumption is relational to a westernised allo-
cation of technology in the digital age. Therefore,
the actual accessibility and distribution is still
limited at this point of assessment.
Secondly, digitalisation in the museums sphere
impacts art education specifically on-sight through
the use of participatory learning devices. The
deployment of digital media, such as AR and
virtual reality technology, supposedly enables a
more immersive participation and deeper engage-
ment with artworks, resulting in the shift from a
passive to an active experience with art, which is
in accordance with the concept of co-creation.
Through the possibility of individually engaging
with art, digitalisation can lead to new participatory
learning approaches in art institutions. In spite of
this potential, limitations such as lack of knowl-
edge, funds and negative effects of false implemen-
14
tation causing the loss of content through
edutainment are an irrefutable risk.
Finally, the emergence of digital communi-
cation via social media supports a socialising
effect in art consumption. By linking art organis-
ation’s websites to Web 2.0 applications and inte-
grating social software on-site, visitors have the
possibility to share their experience with each
other. A shift in the interactivity of art institutions
through an integration of online audiences in
social media could lead to the conclusion that in
times of Web 2.0, mutual participatory engage-
ment on behalf of both, museum and visitor, is
taken into new heights. Through social networks,
museums can in fact reach at relatively low costs
a considerable amount of art consumers at once.
However, it is questionable to what extent online
follower’s really engage via social media and
whether this online relationship reflects the co-
creational approach, since social media platforms
are increasingly used by many other actors with
diverse motivations.
In conclusion, the integration of digital technol-
ogy is only a partial accomplishment. Especially,
the effects on art organisations, which are not able
to comply with such trends due to the lack of econ-
omic capacities or conceptual capabilities, have to
be reflected in future examinations. This assessment
represents, therefore, only a current snapshot—
perhaps we need to give it more time to see if,
how and what new paradigms the onset of digital
media in museums will develop.
Notes
1
The digital revolution is said to be the third evolution
after the agrarian in the ancient times and the
industrial from the eighteenth century onwards
(Schoenherr 2004).
2
On the basis of a world population of 7.06 billion
there are approx. 2.4 billion Internet users (PRP
2013).
3
Photography, the former medium of documentation
made the world’s artworks available more than a
century ago and therefore equally represented a
cultural shift in consumption (Galassi 1981).
However, even this medium of reproduction that
became art itself was altered by the advent of
digitisation and digitalisation.

4
Analogue information is converted into digital data
that is bits or 0-1-codes, the smallest unit of
computers (Collin 2013).
5
Unfortunately, the GAP was not properly ranked by
Alexa and can therefore not be analysed.
6
So-called new digital media as a contrary to
analogue media are widely transforming electronic
communication in the postmodern society (Parry
2005).
7
The portmanteau of education and entertainment was
designed to facilitate learning by the integration of
games, also referred to as learning by playing. Both
purports have to be balanced in order to fulfil this
concept (MedienHochschule 2013).
8
That are communication platforms such as
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Flickr and Instagram,
which are only regulating functionalities and
Downloaded by [Marisa Enhuber] at 02:30 02 May 2015
mostly a certain code of behaviour between their
users (Stanoevska-Slabeva 2008).
9
https://www.facebook.com/tategallery—‘likes’
taken on 16 November 2014 between 09:00 and
10:00 o’clock.
10
In 2014, the MoMA has 1,664,179 followers on
Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/Museumof
ModernArt].
11
http://www.essl.museum/jart/prj3/essl/main.jart?rel
=de&reserve-mode=active&content-id=136679054
1558&article_id=1374242651922.
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Marisa Enhuber studied international culture and
business in her Bachelor course in Germany and
went afterwards to the Netherlands to complete a
Master in Arts and Heritage: Management,
Policy and Education in 2014 with merit. Her
research focuses on the overarching effects of art
economics and art management/marketing. Cur-
rently, she lives and works in London in the com-
mercial art sector.