Medium specificity  

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classificatory disputes about art, The medium is the message

Medium specificity is a principle in aesthetics and art criticism that developed during the period in art history called Modernism. According to Clement Greenberg, who helped popularize the term, medium specificity holds that "the unique and proper area of competence" for a form of art corresponds with the ability of an artist to manipulate those features that are "unique to the nature" of a particular medium. This translates into the utilization of techniques to manipulate materials to produce objects that the media in question particularly lends itself to. This utilization may coincide with the reason those materials and techniques originally came into use, or may involve some innovation.

Today, the term is used both to describe artistic practices and as a way to analyze artwork. Critic N. Katherine Hayles, for example, speaks of "media specific analysis." . Medium specificity suggests that a work of art can be said to be successful if it fulfills the promise contained in the medium used to bring the artwork into existence. Much debate can remain as to what a given medium best lends itself to.

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Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Medium specificity" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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