Essential Reading: The Work of Art in the Age of Mediated Participation

Anyone interested in “the practice of using the Internet as a participatory platform to directly engage the public in the creation of visual, musical, literary, or dramatic [artworks]” should not miss Ioana Literat‘s fantastic paper, The Work of Art in the Age of Mediated Participation, freely available through the International Journal of Communication.

Among many other important insights, Literat’s paper presents a concise breakdown of what she calls “The Levels of Artistic Participation,” identifying the affordances of “receptive,” “executory,” and “structural” participation via a series of contemporary and historical examples.

Literat’s analysis can provide critical designers with important tools for working through the many ethical and practical challenges presented by what I’m calling “participation design.” For theorists, students, and designers alike, this paper is not to be missed.

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