London’s Institute of Contemporary Art adopted the new .Art suffix last week, a sign that the art and culture business may at last be starting to come to terms with its future in the digital realm.
The ICA director, Stefan Kalmár, said the change of web address was not only logical but underlined the ICA’s position as an institution “that has always thought globally and opposes the current re-emerging of nationalism in the UK and elsewhere”.
Whether or not a more defined internet structure will help business remains to be seen. There were once just 22 top-level domains with type suffixes like .com, .net, .mil, and .gov, and a handful of geographic suffixes. According to ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, there are currently 1,216 delegated suffixes, including many, like .xxx, .tattoo, .bike, .attorney, .bingo, .broker, .lol, and .pizza, that are administered by and for commercial purposes.
Read MoreBut the costs of digital adaptation, or the failure to adapt, are becoming clear. This week, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Thomas P Campbell resigned, in part over problems related to rebranding and the expansion of the institution’s digital presence...
