1-Why is art happening outside the usual art institutions--gallery, museum, art school? Where is it happening? Can you explain why it has shifted?

Art is happening outside the usual art institutions—gallery, museum, art school…etc, because it doesn’t fit in the “brick-and-mortar art world”.  Instead it is happening at MIT, in a science lab.  It has shifted because the art world cannot hang the art on the wall, they cannot display it on a table with a spotlight.  It seems like the only place the art can be shown is where it is being made: the lab.  We have shifted from traditional forms, like the canvas and paintbrush, to new media forms.  More money is going toward technology rather than traditional genres.    

2-According to the authors, is "art" still an important term? Do we still want or need to distinguish it from "non-art"? If so, why or why not?

Art is no longer an important term to artists.  Artists are now calling themselves “culture workers” and “utopian entrepreneurs”.  Alexei Shilgin said “Artists!  Try to forget the very word and notion art”.  (Pg. 8).  

However outsiders are starting to embrace the word.  They are beginning to call businessmen “conceptual artists”.

Yes, we still want to distinguish art from non-art.  Art is out of place, and room needs to be made for it if society is going to survive.  Art needs to defend us from technology.  If technology is the virus, then art is the antibodies.         

3-How is technology a virus, and if technology acts like a virus, how does "art" function like an antibody? Does this mean that art is opposed to technology? Is the immune system opposed to all foreign bodies (consider mitochondria in every one of our cells, or intestinal friendly flora). What then, is the relation between art and technology as portrayed in The Edge of Art?

Technology is a virus because it has a will of its own.  Technology does not engage in culture, instead it can be hostile, like the arrowhead and vaccines.  Technology mutates, and we can’t see the consequences.  

Art functions as an antibody because it acts like the virus (technology).  In order for art to act like the technology, it has to keep up, and that means adapting.  Antibodies (art) originate in the body, while viruses (technology) originate outside.  

Art is not opposed to technology.  Art seeks to allow us to be exposed to technology.  Good art allows us to see what is dangerous, but to remember our culture and encounters. Art should support cultural risk taking, and that risk is technology.