CRI听力:Dot art ideas create new opportunities for Chinese artists

Kurt Pritz is a member of the Strategic Planning Board of UK Creative Ideas, the organization in charge of the top-level "dot art" domain.

"We found the use of our domain names (dot Art); already sixty percent of the people who registered them have some websites in place. So, dot Art is a much better place in the Internet for people that actually buy the domain name to use the domain name as compared to other source of these top-level domains."

Kurt Pritz says that "UK Creative Ideas" plans to create an authoritative and innovative space for members of the public to access art-related services, information, and products through the dot Art domain.

Around forty percent of dot Art sales have been to buyers in Europe, which is taking the lead in the dot Art target market.

They plan for around 10 percent of dot Art sales to be in the Asia and Pacific market.

Kurt said his team is quite excited to get help from Chinese architect and artist Cheng Dapeng (程大鹏), who plans to launch a website using dot Art for his new design project inside Beijing Zoo.

"So he actually suggested us that he had this project that is going to open in a couple of months in the Beijing zoo. That's a lion and tiger exhibit, where he's designing an art museum inside the lion and tiger enclosure. So it's quite exciting. And he saw the possibilities of using dot art domain names as an advertisement for that."

Kurt and his team have an ambition to promote the use of dot Art among Chinese artists and in doing so create an online community.

The company says they have introduced a number of interesting and innovative dot art domains to the artistic community in China. Examples include shufa.art, which means calligraphy; zuiquan.art, which is focused on the so-called "drunken fist", a Kung Fu style found mostly in China, and chuanju.art, which refers to a type of opera found in Sichuan Province.

Simon Cousins is the CEO of Allegravita LLC. The company is working in partnership with UK Creative Ideas to help facilitate their China tour.

"We highly value China's ancient cultural heritage. In China, art is part of daily life of ordinary people. Perhaps in some other countries in the West, we are too busy. We spend a little bit too much time thinking about business and we've forgot some cultural heritages. So it's natural for us to try to explore China's ancient cultural heritage and create opportunities for experts and masters in the cultural arts of China's history to also participate in this wonderful new revolution of bringing arts organizations and art creators online."

The rapid growth in the number of smartphone and tablet users has helped boost mobile internet use in China.

According to business intelligence portal "statista.com", in 2017 around half of China's population accessed the internet from a mobile device. This figure is expected to grow to just under 60 percent by 2021.

Helena Real is the head of Registrar Partnerships with UK Creative Ideas. She says that mobile content is important, especially when it comes to artists creating their own websites instead of relying on a few social media platforms.

"We agree, because mobile phone is next step. But for us, dot Art is a place to put your art and it's a branding and marketing opportunity for artists as well. And also because you own the content, and I think for artists, especially, that's very relevant. So when you create a website and you upload the images; that's yours. Nobody is allowed to use them; there's no third-party right. With Instagram or Facebook, they have third-party rights, they just take your images and use them to promote their own products."

Ekaterina Kozlova, Executive Director with the company's business in Russia agreed that using a dot Art domain has advantages compared to relying on social media platforms.

"They actually came to assert it's much easier to buy domain name and use it as a business card which is online and accessible globally. Usually, people in Wechat, instagram and Facebook (have) very long and difficult-to-remember names. Here you have one domain name; you saw your information and you can get access to everywhere and to find what you are looking for."

"Dot Art" was launched in 2015 by Ulvi Kasimov, one of Russia's most prolific venture capitalists and a passionate art collector.

He called dot Art "the digital dress code for the art world", and hoped that it can give both institutions and individuals an opportunity to stand out in the art world.

Since its launch, over 11,000 names have been registered on dot Art, ranging from street artist Banksy, singer Beyoncé, and institutions such as the Centre Pompidou and the Guggenheim Museum.

The administrators of dot Art say that they hope to have an opportunity to return to China to seek more opportunities to work with Chinese artists and the country's art institutions.