As a start... Snapchat should be contributing advertising revenue earned through this initiative towards the public parks and amenities that host artwork. Communities should be earning (and renting) through this digital lens. Why not partner with the Central Park Conservancy and use proceeds to pay for IRL (in real life) public art initiatives?
This could be a fascinating means for digital environments to impact physical ones.
Firstly, I just love that this conversation is continuing because this particular app raises such sticky issues. IMO you've hit the nail on the head here in demonstrating that Snapchat is simply using technology and creative equity for their own profits without really contributing anything to help support and regenerate this creative energy their profits depend on. This seems to be usual story and I like so much that @sndbox is dedicated to specifically challenging and creating alternatives to this paradigm.
And such a great idea to contribute towards public parks and IRL public art initiatives.....perfect.
I agree that an asset is being created in this instance. And that it should be shared. What worries me, though, isn't so much what happens when an artist works in the digital space carved out by a corporation. There are almost certainly commercial forces already planning to extend their media footprint that way. As a start, how about devoting digital public space to public good?
Right, definitely. The Koons sculpture in Central Park is worse than a one-liner. It has ZERO context. It's transient just as Snapchat is. (Which makes it a nice pairing.) < and maybe that's the point?
Anyway, we live in super-connected world. Why can't this digital public space experiment snowball into real and legitimate community empowerment? The tools and the audience are there.
OK, then, how about a competition to propose uses/projects that would explore the best possibilities? The rules of such a competition would sketch out rich areas for creatives to work in. Good results should put the Koons/Snapchat example in perspective as hardly an ideal example.
Well... think of a Steemit post as a competition... A lot of what STEEM Park sought to do is just this. There was a park in Brooklyn that needed amenities and momentum. @sndbox proposed using Steemit as a platform to share the narrative of the park and leverage storytelling / history to raise funds. Those funds then paid for planters and benches for the park. Today, the conservancy in Brooklyn is leveraging that project to continue to raise funds for signage.
We wanted a proof of concept that "stories" could be agents to manifest public art and build momentum for a community. Time will tell, but there's a lot of momentum building and change happening.
(Steemit blog posts are a lot like competitions, because they compete for Steem.)
amen