One characteristic of the art institution in Adelaide is the deficiency or the lack of an artistic apparatus. There is a marked paucity of spaces to discuss, study, produce, display, and commercialise art in areas far away from consolidated art centres. It has meant that artists photographers and art professionals who decide to stay in their local area need to find creative solutions to overcome the precariousness of their institutional field—by organising artist-run spaces, exhibitions, magazines, and communities.
The turn to the internet (social media and the blogosphere) meant departing from the art institution's established art centres and its canonical rules, especially since these marginal spaces sometimes do not conform to (or are not interested in) the rules and narratives instituted by canonical art history. However, many fragmentary online spaces have a short-lived existence, and the instability of these art practices reflects the conditions of “liquid modernity”.
This institutional precariousness also acts to hinder artistic legitimisation and dissemination. without local institutional support, marginal production runs either the risk of becoming invisible and inoperative in constructing new artistic parameters, or of being incorporated uncritically into hegemonic art narratives around the canon of art photography.
The emergence of an underground online photo culture--photoblogs, online magazines, and digital galleries--- have revolutionized the way we look at photographs. Digitalised photographs are no longer restricted to the gallery wall or the printed page, photography now regularly (and sometimes exclusively) appears on computer screens enabling the discovery of new work, connecting different communities and information sharing.
This online photo culture, an online space that has become a vibrant public realm full of images and ideas, goes beyond presenting an online alternative to traditional photography ( predominantly printed medium) as it opens up an expansion of what photography could be.