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Perhaps not, because the new technologies have made the traditional concept of culture as a community activity seem old fashioned to many people. One of them appears to be Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who reportedly has bought the electronic rights to museum masterpieces for projection on the walls of his mansion-in-the making in Medina, Washington. Billionaires used to endow museums to care for their private art collections; amassing the digitalized holdings of such institutions for home enjoyment is not quite the same thing. With libraries moving online and 500 channels of interactive TV promised fairly soon, even modestly well-to-do and well-connected families may someday find leaving the house unnecessary.
Culture has flourished in the bustle and indrawing of public spaces; it has also defied the marketplace by outlasting initial unpopularities and triumphing in the verdict of history. What will it be like if the arts move exclusively into the privacy of high-tech living rooms? And should it become only a predictable, market-tested commodity, will it even qualify as culture?
--By Paul Gray
REPORTED BY David Bjerklie and Sharon E. Epperson/New York, Ann Blackman/Washington and Richard Woodbury/Denver. CHARTS RESEARCHED BY Deborah L. Wells, Kathleen Adams, Elizabeth L. Bland, Ratu Kamlani and Richard Rubin