Crowdsourcing and the Evolving Relationship between Artist and Audience

The artist and audience depend on one another to fulfill their roles, artist as creator and audience as recipient. Sometimes they act as co-creators. While the first part of these observations remain true, the roles of artist and audience have been evolving as technology affects the relationship between artist and audience. Historically, as different technological tools are incorporated into the mainstream, the audience has been provided with more options and possibilities. These new possibilities can offer the audience the opportunity to become more involved in the process of art creation. Generally, this has brought the artist and audience closer together, no longer positioning the audience as just the recipient.

This article is an initial step into interrogating the current and future relationship between the artist and audience. Understanding how different technological advances have affected the relationship between artist and audience is also key to getting an idea of how the relationship has changed and what factors have contributed to the ways in which artists and audiences currently relate. The new methods and approaches that have followed these technological advances have shaped both the manner in which art is being created as well as the way in which art is being funded.