The online potential of art creation and dissemination: DeviantArt as the next art venue

Abstract

DeviantArt is an online community dedicated to sharing user-generated artworks. Launched in 2000, today this initiative has about 11 million members coming from over 190 countries. The website offers various web-based services to its members enabling and enforcing a strong social interaction. With its collection of around 100 million works, DeviantArt (DA) is the biggest art market of the world, presenting a new mode of displaying, evaluating and consuming arts. In that sense, DA generated a platform free of institutional and governmental politics, democratising the way arts are generated, shared and enjoyed. This paper discusses the collaborative aspects of this autonomous venue, and questions the potential of this initiative in becoming the new art venue of the 21st Century. DeviantArt. Online communities. Art market. Social network analysis. Collaborative art making.