Art on demand makes emperors of us all Faced with this profusion, what can one do except give fervent thanks for the wonders of information technology? The arts at one time were restricted to the privileged few who lived near a theatre or concert hall, and could afford the tickets. Now anyone with access to a computer and the internet can access music, theatre and art of the highest quality, intelligently packaged and stylishly presented, much of it for free. All the barriers to an encounter with the life of the mind - social, economic, geographical - are falling away. It is the greatest advance in the democratisation of culture the world has ever seen, eclipsing in a few years all the patient efforts of arts and education ministries and Arts Councils. However, there could be a downside. These new cultural channels are so seductive it's easy to regard them as purely good, like a gift from the gods. That would be a mistake. These new media aren't like the pipes that deliver water into our homes. Water in the reservoir and water from our taps is pretty much the same; whereas a live event is profoundly altered the minute it's "piped" into our home and on to a screen. It has to be subtly changed to fit the new medium. Mistakes and imperfections have to be edited out. We need to remember Marshall McLuhan's phrase that "the medium is the message." What we may find is that the tail starts to wag the dog. Over time the live event might start to appear less exciting, compared to the pumped-up online version. One can see signs of that in the online film trailer to the British Museum's exhibition Life in Pompeii and Herculaneum. The massively emotive background music makes us think we're in a cinema. Without that surging sound track, the experience of seeing the objects themselves, sitting mutely under their glass cases, could seem disappointing. Which leads me to the second point, a difficult one to make without sounding like a prig. The great virtue of the live event is that it requires commitment. One has to book a ticket, make the journey, sometimes when one's tired and would rather go home. With the internet, no commitment is needed. One can put things on hold, or just abandon them, without a second thought. We are all increasingly in the position of the bored child under the Christmas tree (or the bored emperor, come to that), surrounded by all these amazing toys and unable to summon any enthusiasm for any of them. But as every teacher knows, boredom is the royal road to learning. It teaches us that the world isn't tailored to our needs. We have to sit up and pay close attention. However, that takes sustained effort, a quality slyly undermined by the shiny novelties of the online world. We must hope that in the rush to democratise the arts, we don't discourage the precious human qualities that created those arts in the first place. The Globe Theatre's online productions can be accessed at globeplayer.tv