The Art Crowd

If art is made to be shared, then the Internet is its natural partner in crime. These five artists use the web as both inspiration and a means to get their work out there.

23-year-old Ryder Ripps's super-visually-stimulating site dump.fm, launching this month, allows users to post images in real time. It's like an old-school chat room, only prettier. "There are a lot of really talented people who, for no money and stuff, are making really creative, awesome, contextual art," he says.

In 2009, David Horvitz instructed people via email to photograph themselves with their head in a freezer and post the pictures to Flickr with the tag "241543903." 126 people have, and now he has a book deal and is participating in the Tate Modern's "No Soul for Sale" festival this month. Horvitz has gone on to initiate other slightly subversive online projects. "What I like about the Internet is things just go out there and spread, like the heads in the freezers, and people may not know where they started."

Instead of a hot date, Sophie Blackall found inspiration in the Missed Connections section of Craigslist. She illustrates other people's posts and then uploads them onto her blog, mostly as motivation to keep drawing. "If I have someone, even kind of an imaginary person breathing down my neck, a virtual person, I'll do it," she says. But many real people take a look, and next year Workman will release her Maira Kalman-like drawings as a book called You Probably Won't Read This: A Year of Missed Connections.

Artists and designers Louise Ma and Rich Watts ,with their partners Jen Abrams, Carl Tashian and Caroline Woolard have combined today's technology with yesterday's commerce on their bartering site Ourgoods.org. Watts recently traded workspace in his studio for a custom-made tool belt, and Ma gave sewing lessons for some home-cured bacon. "It's people exchanging their skills and sharing their experiences," says Ma. The site, geared mostly towards artists, is still in its alpha stage now. But come September, let the bartering begin.