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ARTS & CULTURE<br />
41<br />
exception to this is uploading the occasional photo to her<br />
personal Facebook account for family and friends to see.<br />
"Sharing artwork on Facebook is more of an update about<br />
what’s happening in my life rather than showing people<br />
what I can do."<br />
When asked about her choice, Alena elaborates that part<br />
of the reason is because she does not wants to sell her<br />
artwork for a living and if she did would prefer to go through<br />
the traditional channel of having her work accepted in<br />
exhibitions or an art gallery to be displayed for clients on<br />
her behalf. Also, installations are incredibly hard to capture<br />
digitally and in Alena’s book, a photograph or video is a poor<br />
substitute for standing in front of a piece and feeling its full<br />
effect.<br />
Alena does keep photographs of her work and considers<br />
digital record keeping important for personal use. After<br />
throwing away a number of originals last year Alena now<br />
finds herself in the<br />
position of wishing she<br />
still has those works in<br />
case an exhibition that<br />
perfectly matches the<br />
theme of a piece comes<br />
along and acknowledges<br />
having photos would help<br />
her recreate them.<br />
Alena agrees there’s<br />
a similarity between<br />
physically discarding<br />
an artwork and erasing<br />
evidence of it online as<br />
she does sometimes feel<br />
the same need to edit<br />
or remove artwork she’s<br />
shared on Facebook.<br />
Although she isn’t<br />
particularly concerned about blurring the lines between<br />
what is private and what is personal, Alena states she will<br />
delete something if it no longer represents who she is as an<br />
artist. She talks about the issue of endangering professional<br />
prospects by misrepresenting yourself as an artist online.<br />
as the online basics; Facebook, Instagram and a website.<br />
First setting up an Instagram dedicated to his artwork at the<br />
end of 2013, Ryan says sharing artwork on social media and<br />
presenting an image on his website differs in the aspect of<br />
personal communication.<br />
"I don’t post photos of my life, it’s just for artwork... I<br />
don’t go personal with it but I let my personal self show<br />
through."<br />
His experiences with different social media and websites<br />
tell the development both of himself as an artist and trends<br />
in online platforms. Ryan first used a Tumblr blog to share<br />
examples of his work but abandoned it when it no longer<br />
engaged him. He returned to create a second blog based<br />
purely on his art-work on the site later on that he still leaves<br />
running but no longer updates. His brief flirtation with Twitter<br />
was a similar story and mentions he will likely try new artbased<br />
social media account again in the future.<br />
When asked if online<br />
records could accurately<br />
map his journey as an<br />
artist, Ryan is fairly<br />
confident they could. He<br />
doesn’t delete or curate<br />
his Facebook page - even<br />
the older, less developed<br />
works - but recently<br />
has begun to remove<br />
images from Instagram<br />
if it doesn’t relate to his<br />
present themes.<br />
www.ryanpola.com<br />
@ryanpola<br />
"Now that I’ve found<br />
my central footing I like<br />
everything I have online<br />
to relate back to that."<br />
For Ryan having an online<br />
presence is both a mode for expression and a substitute to<br />
physical networking as he finds the online opportunities are<br />
greater in comparison, allowing him to share work with the<br />
world without making trips interstate or overseas to exhibit.<br />
"Sometimes I go back and think ‘I don’t want anyone to see<br />
this work anymore’ so I delete it."<br />
Alena points out that she continually supports others who<br />
promote and display art on social media because she can<br />
imagine the difficulty of getting your name out there when<br />
the volume of artists using Facebook to promote their work<br />
means a lot of people mostly ignore it.<br />
"I support online artists, I’m just not one of them."<br />
Ryan Pola - Multi-medium artist focusing on collages<br />
and line work, currently completing a double degree in<br />
Education and Visual Arts at Clayton.<br />
"With the social platforms you can skip that step, you can<br />
network without having to make a physical appearance."<br />
Ryan keeps digital copies of all of his work and highlights<br />
how important this is for him personally as they sometimes<br />
outlast the originals. Without the digital space Ryan<br />
comments that his work would likely be incredibly different,<br />
as his ideas and themes would be pulled from narrower<br />
sources.<br />
"If technological did not exist my work would be influenced<br />
more by the people around me, I wouldn’t have the same<br />
amount of access to information and maybe not have the<br />
same cohesive core to my work."<br />
When sharing his work online Ryan uses what he refers to
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