A social gallery

Art, like many of the things we take for granted was once the reserve of the wealthy and aristocratic amongst us (well not quite amongst us). There were no public art spaces or free galleries that we can make a voluntary yet implicit domination to. If you wanted to see great art you would have had to either commissioned the artist yourself or be pally enough with whoever did so they would invite you round to see it. 

Nowadays, the spectrum of what falls under the umbrella of artistic expression is so vast that it is hard to walk down the street without being party to someone’s latest masterpiece, all be it tagged up on the shop wall by someone wearing a hooded jacket and baggy jeans.

In this technological age where everything is instantaneously available, anyone who has something to share with the world can do so at the touch of a button. It can be anything from a YouTube video containing somebody's latest attempt at pop stardom to someone exhibiting their canvas paintings streamed live from their bedroom, point being that it is all some form of artistic expression and it is there for the whole world to marvel at, critique and hopefully purchase in most cases.

One of the most readily available mediums if artistic expression today is photography, almost everyone from snotty nosed school kids to their 'hip' (possibly replaced) Grandparents have smart phones equipped with decent enough cameras to capture your environment, your mood, your dog stuck in a fence, whatever you want, and with so many social networking sites willing to "publish" people's instamatic snaps we can really all get in on the action.

Perhaps the most simple yet often overlooked avenue for creative expression is the profile picture and status on your social networking site account - yet this is where art can really flourish. For example; your profile picture could perhaps be; you on a night out  ‘half cut' pulling a stupid face or, it might be John Millias' Ophelia, there are no rules really (within reason). Your status 

could be an accurate description of what you're eating for your dinner, or it could be the opening line of a Maya Angelou poem, again, no rules.

What I'm really getting at is that it is entirely up to you what you do with all of the readily available data streaming opportunities but for those budding creative minds who are finding quirky and interesting ways to manipulate them to make the world a slightly artier place I say keep up the good work. If anything it is something different and fresh and we all need a bit of that from time to time.

David, TCC