High Art Makes Online Video ‘Connection’

The Guggenheim Museum and YouTube recently collaborated on YouTube Play, an event intended to elevate online video’s status and place it on the level of high art. The Vimeo Awards attempted something similar. The destination for online video auteurs honored some of the most creative talents in new media, and by doing so, showcased how “some little fat girl in Ohio” has transformed film into an art form.

While art institutions and video-sharing sites try to position online video onto the upper echelon’s of our creative cultural hierarchy, other art institutions are just starting to discover the medium. Last week, the Metropolitan Museum of Art launched a web series aimed to market the museum and educate the online masses.

Connections is an audio slideshow in the vein of MediaStorm or Magnum’s In Motion. Staff from the MET “offer their personal perspectives on works of art in the Museum’s vast collection.” Hear Melanie Holcomb explain how subway maps and Medieval Art allow us to – just for a moment – play God

or listen to Nadine Orenstein opine on the ideal man. Four minute installments of the series, meant to both advertise the museum and make its art more relatable, will be released weekly throughout 2011.

The MET’s Connections follows in the footsteps of other web shows dedicated to the discovery and dissemination of knowledge about high art. Sotheby’s hosts a fantastic series highlighting premier items from its upcoming sales. The world’s fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation has continuously produced the program since early 2007.