Re: <nettime> Re: olia lialina: Re:art.hacktivism

[robert adrian <rax@thing.at>]

The problem is that a few years ago someone (can't remember
who) coined the catchy name net.art - it was the little dot that
did it and the name has been with us ever since. But what was
really meant was web art - or "web.art" if you like - which Florian
would prefer to rename as "browser art" (no dot). Web Art is stuff
that relies on the WWW for distribution and has existed only since
the introduction of the first reliable graphic-capable browsers.
Net Art is a bit broader and existed in one form or other long
before the WWW ... and while the internet was still little more
than a gleam in the eye of a few U.S. academics.

Net Art, Network Art, Telecommunications Art, Telematic Art - or
whatever - is about artists working within the electronic space of
communication networks. Prior to the (more or less) universal
availability of the internet this usually meant the telephone network.
Communication itself was the main content of most of this work -
a visible product (art-commodity) was never a serious consideration.

So its not really a matter of "viewing" a net.work, its a matter of
experiencing it in the context of the network ... in the knowledge
that you are experiencing a version - dependant on your browser,
bandwidth, CPU, monitor resolution etc. - of a work for the internet.
The artist can't control any of these factors so that every viewing
is a new experience - unless you materialise the work as a recording
captured on your hard drive or CD burner - and even then its just
YOUR version.

The exciting - and frustrating - thing about working or viewing on
the web is that you can't control the final appearance of the work.
(In fact there is NO final version of the work.) Thats been a part of
net.working since the beginning - and its the revolutionary aspect.

Lots of artists and all museums don't like the loss of control ... so
there's still painting!



The problems being encountered by collectors and museums - and
artists who wish to profit from the traditional marketing strategies
of the past - is that network art is transient and freely accessible
to all. What is missing is tha aura of the original

>In other words, it doesn't matter whether one views it over the Internet
>or from a CD-ROM, except that - as olia pointed out - the Internet gives
>the creators more flexibility to update their work. Yet many and
>particularly the 'classic' pieces of Net Art (a) are not conceived as
>works to be experienced in continuous change, if they are still changing
>at all, and (b)  do as technical systems not rely on the net, i.e. they do
>not alter any of their components or parameters according to information
>which they _have to_ receive over the net.
>
>So shouldn't the term "net art" be used more cautiously and not be mixed
>up with "browser-based media art"? Isn't mixing up the net and the browser
>display the most basic mistake to be made in any net (art) criticism?[1]
>If one would instead argue that "Net Art" qualifies for its name not on
>technical grounds, but because it's being created for and out of networked
>contexts, then "Net Art" wouldn't signify anything, because all art is and
>has always been created out of networked contexts.
>
>In my view, an example of a "Net Art" intertwined in its very structure -
>technically and conceptually - with the Internet is Mongrel's manipulated
>search engine <www.mongrel.org.uk>. I personally would like to see more
>Net Art investigating (and subverting) what's underneath the browser.[2]
>
>Florian
>
>
>[1] Certainly, the technical distinction between "net art" and
>"browser-based media art" has its own potential quirks and traps.
>www.jodi.org, for example, might be read as a fun and sophisticated
>simulation of how the Internet is experienced through contemporary browser
>and user interface paradigms; and the fact that its interfacing with the
>Internet is mocked-up by local, static files - i.e. is networking
>simulated with browser tricks - adds just another ironic twist to its
>play. With this irony however, www.jodi.org seems to me the only Net Art
>project which can convincingly declare its technically network-independent
>art as "Net Art".
>
>[2] This critique also affects most of my own works on the World Wide Web,
>although they are not Net Art.
>
>--
>Florian Cramer, PGP public key ID 6440BA05
>Permutations/Permutationen - poetry automata from 330 A.D. to
>present: <http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/index.cgi>
>
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___________________
robert adrian
wiedner hauptstrasse 37/69
a-1040 vienna austria
tel: +43 1 504 3110
fax: +43 1 504 4849

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