A crucial detail to continue to remind oneself is that we are discussing (reading/writing at least) about art on the internet. There is no model that can describe the rate at which cultural production (its requisite forms, styles, delivery methods, ideologies, etc) changes in the face of this technology. Cinema, television, literature, etcetera are versions of technology that mass express the ideas of a few, to the many, whereas the internet makes possible a feedback loop between consumer/producer that is unprecendented.
Concepts of "things" like software, data, memory, and bandwidth (not to mention cell phone minutes) would be completely foreign to Warhol much less Duchamp. Given these "things" it is hard to place a firm sense of what is substantially present anymore. Ideas ARE things. Conceptual art, which is to say, art done in a post-medium environment is going to reflect this very well. Perhaps with the advent of bio-mechanical advances it may one day be possible to frame emotions as things, who knows. I think the real concern for artists is to try to find a reason to create despite it all. That does not change. But how art is viewed, that it IS viewed, and whether it is the artist's responsibilty to acknowledge this are key.
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