درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This paper aims to show the status of digital art in Iran and explain how the meaning of an artist has transformed in the digital age. The primary assumption of this paper is that the experience of digital art has again revived the collective experience in creating arts. Although, interactivity is considered to be the most important quality of digital art, their collective, collaborative and progressive qualities should as well be emphasized. These qualities have transformed all aspects of art. The present study focuses on the audience’s part in the foundation of producing art in new media art or digital art. Using Howard Becker’s idea of ‘the sociology of art’ we can show the process of change, that the notion of crowd production of art has undergone and almost reached its exact meaning. The current study is applying a qualitative approach using participation and interview techniques. The research was carried out during the Tehran Annual Digital Arts Exhibition (TADAX). The research data were obtained based on interviews with artists and participators in the four TADAX exhibitions from 2013 to 2016.

The social contract has been about rights and responsibilities in human societies. Facebook and its role in manufacturing and sustaining a global social contract, a new “we” is clearly one of the research areas that needs more attention. A new “we” is coming of age in the new age of connectivity and communication with a new outlook toward responsibility and rights at individual and collective levels. Facebook purports to build a new world based on connection and communication which is based on progress and prosperity. However, a fundamental factor and feature of Facebook that needs attention and more research is that people and users are becoming increasingly lonely, separated and independent from each other in this process while connecting and communicating with one another. This new social contract and “we” thus have the new features of the relationship between the human agency and his/her social structures. Cyberspace is the product of human agency and clearly creates and sustains a specific social structure. This research seeks to study the relationship between human agency, changing technical tools of communication and connection and emerging and evolving social structures and social contracts. Bandura’s “social cognitive theory” (2006) rejects a conflict and dichotomy between agency and social structure. As agency helps to build new social structures after destroying the old ones these new structures create and sustain a new social contract and “we” with a new sense of responsibility, obligations, and rights.