Deviantart and the Production of the Web by Daniel Perkel
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Making Art, Creating Infrastructure: deviantART and the Production of the Web by Daniel Perkel A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Information Management and Systems and the Designated Emphasis in New Media in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Nancy Van House, Chair Professor Paul Duguid Professor Jenna Burrell Professor Laura Sterponi Fall 2011 Making Art, Creating Infrastructure: deviantART and the Production of the Web © 2011, All Rights Reserved Daniel Perkel Abstract Making Art, Creating Infrastructure: deviantART and the Production of the Web by Daniel Perkel Doctor of Philosophy in Information Management and Systems and the Designated Emphasis in New Media University of California, Berkeley Professor Nancy Van House, Chair The development and widespread use of Internet technologies and platforms that are grouped under the labels “Web 2.0” and “social media” have led to celebratory accounts of their potential as tools to unleash human creativity. A “creativity consensus” has emerged that describes a vision of creative production via these new platforms as universal, democratic, communal, non-commercial, and revolutionary. The avant-garde of Web 2.0 creativity are said to be young, web-savvy media makers: a new generation that has embraced new technology and is upending old notions of creativity and related cultural practices. This dissertation challenges these views through an ethnographic investigation of deviantART, the self-described “world’s largest online art community.” The dissertation demonstrates how conflicting ideals of art, creativity, and the web, when put into practice, shaped the site as ideological and technical infrastructure for creative practice and the formation of members’ creative identities. In their use of the site, participants in deviantART actively, and at times contentiously, engaged with historical tensions concerning both art and the web. The dissertation explores tensions emerging around three sets of concerns: (1) gaining artistic recognition through visibility, popularity, or quality; (2) demonstrating artistic “seriousness” in relation to ways of improving at art; and (3) controlling and circulating work through the concepts of property, “sharing,” and “theft.” The dissertation argues that rather than upending Romantic conceptions of art and creativity, the web uneasily accommodates multiple conflicting ideologies. Intersecting with tensions in art are tensions around the web and its overlapping corporate, commercial, and communal uses. deviantART brought together a diverse set of art worlds and creative practices via a seemingly conventional set of interfaces, features, and functionality. In turn, participants on the site helped manifest, reproduce, and transform these tensions in art practice and web use. These findings illustrate flaws in conventional accounts of creativity in a world with the web—accounts that fail to recognize the active, contested, and ongoing work underlying the mutual production of creative practice and the web. 1 For Roxanne, who captured my hand, head, and heart i Contents Acknowledgments...........................................................................................................................vi 1. Introduction................................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 A practice approach to creative identities and infrastructure .............................................. 5 1.2 Research questions and objectives....................................................................................... 7 1.3 The Web 2.0 creativity consensus and critics...................................................................... 8 1.3.1 A creativity consensus................................................................................................ 10 1.3.2 Critical perspectives of Web 2.0 and the creativity consensus ................................... 15 1.4 A new generation of youth creators?................................................................................. 22 1.5 Outline of the dissertation................................................................................................ 26 2. A Sketch of deviantART .......................................................................................................... 29 2.1 An establishing shot.......................................................................................................... 29 2.2 Laying things out: key features and functionality ............................................................. 31 2.3 Providing shape: corporation, organization, and community............................................ 38 2.3.1 Origin stories............................................................................................................. 38 2.3.2 Corporate structure, sources of revenue, and “vertical” relationships......................... 40 2.3.3 Community management ......................................................................................... 43 2.3.4 Membership status and authority .............................................................................. 46 2.3.5 Member-driven organization..................................................................................... 48 2.4 Filling in color: deviantART between corporation, community, and art.......................... 49 2.5 Final touches..................................................................................................................... 52 3. Creative practitioners and infrastructure: a practice approach................................................... 53 3.1 A practice perspective....................................................................................................... 53 3.1.1 Communities of practice and social worlds ............................................................... 54 3.1.2 Boundaries, legitimation, participation, and reification............................................. 55 3.1.3 Identity as social process ............................................................................................ 58 ii 3.1.4 Tensions and the mutual constitution of identities and worlds.................................. 60 3.1.5 Technology in practice............................................................................................... 61 3.1.6 Summary and further implications............................................................................ 62 3.2 Recognition as creative practitioners and identities-as-artists........................................... 65 3.2.1 The emergence of the Romantic view of art, artists, and creative genius................... 67 3.2.2 A sociological view of art and artists.......................................................................... 70 3.2.3 Summary and implications........................................................................................ 73 3.3 Infrastructure in practice................................................................................................... 74 3.3.1 Qualities of infrastructure in practice ........................................................................ 75 3.3.2 Summary and implications........................................................................................ 78 3.4 Conclusion........................................................................................................................ 79 4. An ethnography of deviantART as infrastructure................................................................... 81 4.1 Approaching the field....................................................................................................... 81 4.1.1 Ethnography on, of, and with the Internet ................................................................ 82 4.1.2 An ethnography of infrastructure .............................................................................. 90 4.2 Phases and progression: sites, methods, and pragmatics ................................................... 91 4.2.1 Phase 1: making connections, encountering tensions, refining methods.................... 92 4.2.2 Phase 2: following the tensions and moving into other sites...................................... 97 4.2.3 Phase 3: wrapping up fieldwork............................................................................... 100 4.2.4 Summary................................................................................................................. 101 4.3 Conclusion...................................................................................................................... 102 5. Getting noticed, becoming popular, and the quality of recognition........................................ 103 5.1 Getting noticed and becoming popular.......................................................................... 105 5.1.1 Popularity(-ies) on deviantART .............................................................................. 106 5.1.2 “Bubbling up”: the promise of getting noticed and becoming popular.................... 108 5.2 Ways of getting noticed................................................................................................. 109 5.2.1 Networking and participation: ethics and dilemmas................................................ 111 5.2.2 Vote: the popularity algorithm and fair exposure....................................................