Culture and Technology

Has anyone conceived a role for the arts in the new web-based era? Every aspect of our culture is changing so rapidly, the traditional art-forms cannot hope to survive. Reference books are becoming obselete - printed dictionaries will exist only to provide a snapshot of a language at a given moment. There is something physically satifying about a book and they are still the best means to encompass a large subject. But what sense does a book of short essays have in the era of blogs and searchable archives?

Fiction writing may be changed most radically by a shift to web-based media. Will future "novelists" create fantasy blogs. Could groups of bloggers create collororative movie scripts?

The advent of photography prompted Walter Benjamin to question the basis for art. Who will define the role of "Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction" ?