Conor Bateman
April 27, 2017 — By Conor Bateman

Stream On: Watching Artists’ Moving Image Online

A feature piece commissioned by RealTime Arts.

Video Art Treasure House On Demand

We all know that the web has forever transformed the way that films reach us by shifting eyes from the cinema to video-on-demand. But how is the distribution of video art changing in a digital age? Thanks to the internet, we’re able to access a mammoth quantity of film works within a few clicks. The sheer volume is deceptive; we persist with the illusion of a well-nourished collective media diet. But services like Netflix, which currently dominates the Australian streaming landscape, consistently push viewers to the familiar, whether through focus-group tested original television programming or selective acquisition of blockbuster films.