Platforms are no longer just tools but the stage, gatekeeper and rulebook. As media art shifts from medium to infrastructure, visibility is no longer earned, it is engineered. Who controls the system now shapes both what we see and what we do not see.

Media art has always depended on technology but now the question is no longer just what tools artists are using, but what type of infrastructure is responsible for making their work visible, legible, and sustainable.

Today, the question of the medium is no longer tied to such categories as video, sound, code, or installation. Increasingly, the perception of the medium itself is shifting upwards from individual forms of expression to the systems that host, distribute, and contextualize them. In this sense, the platform is no longer a neutral actor for media art, but an important part connected to the condition of existence of a work of art.

If the 20th century was defined by institutions, perhaps we can say that the 21st will be defined by infrastructures. The question is not just who builds them, but whose are the realities that they make visible.

To contextualise the contemporary landscape of digital platforms and the solutions they are adopting, Art Focus Now spoke with Lev Manovich, Presidential Professor at The Graduate Center, CUNY, and a foundational theorist in the fields of new media studies, software studies, cultural analytics, and AI aesthetics. Recently, he became a member of the CIFRA Artistic Vision Council.

Today, platforms are more important than ever and one can even study them as a separate cultural layer. As Lev Manovich explains: “with the growth of social network use about 15 years ago, we saw the emergence of a new academic field called Platform Studies. This academic study examines how platforms influence the kind of content people generate, or how interfaces shape our interaction with this content”.

At the same time, it is impossible not to mention that platforms play an important role in the visibility and promotion of artists, especially for emerging ones. They provide exposure and new forms of engagement with audiences. However, this shift towards platforms comes with both advantages and limitations. As Manovich highlights, only a small number of artists actually benefit from established gallery systems and institutional exhibitions. For the vast majority, especially digital artists who work online, how they will be discovered depends heavily on platforms. Algorithms on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are determining whether an artwork is seen or not. Unfortunately, they are often unpredictable.

As a result, unpredictable algorithms have led to an expansion toward specialized platform infrastructures, which have formed an additional layer of the creative ecosystem. Some artists started by creating their own platforms. One of them ia 6x6 Project, an artist-run online infrastructure, which was originally founded by Dutch artist Mirelle Borra. It was a community-based model, enabling artists themselves to create circulation of their moving image artworks and visibility outside traditional institutions.

Also, for a long time, Vimeo was one of the key platforms for artists working with video, offering an environment free from the aggressive advertising associated with YouTube. However, Vimeo has adopted a paid storage model, requiring creators to pay for hosting their work, and shifted its focus away from supporting a creative community toward developing a technological service for businesses, positioning itself as a kind of “Figma for video.” This led to a situation where attention to artistic practices was replaced by commercial use.

One more example of a platform is Twitch, which was initially aimed at live-based digital practices, offering artists and creators a space for real-time engagement with the audience. Its focus on immediacy, interaction, and community-building has made it particularly relevant for different media, especially for those that blur the boundaries between art and video. However, Twitch operates within an ecosystem shaped by algorithms, streaming frequency, and audience metrics. As a result, it raises the risk that artistic practices will be affected by the platform’s logic of non-stop production and engagement, making it difficult for more experimental or less frequent work to gain sustainable visibility.

In contrast, platforms like CIFRA propose an alternative model, an environment totally dedicated to media art and its community, which is particularly valuable for artists working specifically in this medium. The purpose of such platforms is to become primary destinations for people interested in media art, who would directly go to the site, where discovery is then shaped internally rather than outsourced to external networks.

The development of platforms into coherent infrastructures focused on art has contributed to the emergence of curated environments characterized by hybrid formats that combine archive, exhibition, and distribution.

One of the interdisciplinary platforms like that is Inna Bazhenova’s TAEX, which is primarily focused on crypto art and digital collecting. It combines different formats, including an online marketplace, editorial content, curated exhibitions, and community-driven events. This approach is more effective than positioning crypto art solely as a financial asset, as it places the platform within a broader cultural and artistic discourse.

The same logic is being implemented here, which has recently launched the CIFRA Artistic Vision Council, an international advisory body designed to shape long-term artistic direction, research agenda, and institutional positioning. The council brings together leading figures in media art, including Olga Shishko, Lev Manovich, Daniela Arriado, David Elliott, Oliver Grau, Martin Honzik, and Christiane Paul, and provides structured input into seasonal programming, ongoing partnerships, editorial strategy, and public initiatives.

At the same time, beyond curatorial frameworks, algorithms are still playing an important role in influencing artist visibility. According to Lev Manovich, “as any platform, be it Facebook or this one, houses more and more content, it is inevitable that algorithms are used to help people discover it. You already have thousands of artists, and the number continues to grow. I think it is not even possible for curators to look at them all because this would necessitate days and days of watching. So, in fact, the only way to be more democratic and to help both curators and the audience to discover everything on the platform is to use smart algorithms”.

There are also some platforms entirely dedicated to the archiving and preservation of media art. However, most of them function as regional archival infrastructures focusing on particular countries and artists. Such examples include the Chinese platform MANA and the Dutch platform LI-MA. The latter is a clear example of an institutional model of platform development, considered the largest media art collection in the Netherlands, comprising more than 3,500 works by over 500 artists.

At the same time, platforms like CIFRA focus on a global framework, bringing together international artists and audiences while introducing diverse artworks across different geographies. This is also deeply connected to how recommendation systems are designed. Manovich draws a parallel with social media algorithms, which tend to favor what is already popular. If we look at music streaming platforms, they sometimes try to introduce unexpected content, balancing familiarity with discovery.

All of these algorithms are well known and, as the theorist notes, relatively easy to implement. That is why the platform not only shows familiar content to its users, but also opens up new things they do not expect to find. A key difference from platforms like TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube, however, is the emphasis on user agency. It can explain what algorithms are used and give users a degree of control over what is being recommended to them.