<nettime> defining net.art

[melinda rackham <melinda@subtle.net>]

>simon wrote:

"links" a lot of what is called Net Art is not actually the Net but the
computer. This is true of much work produced for viewing in a browser, or
on CD-ROM, or even a lot of installation based work. Often the only
differences between these works are the means of distribution...and whilst
distribution is an important contextual component of any medium or work at
>the same time it might be hard to use it to define a medium per se.  >

this is like saying ..err i made this installation and you can view it on
video, or in a photograph, or ill do a painting of it, but its all the
same thing really. 

if work is intended for flexible delivery over a global network with its
unique download rthythm its net.art, anything intended for distribution on
cdrom has a completely different intent, architecture and mode of
production.  the definition is in the intention and the expereince.  a few
years ago i remember asking Tiia Johansen from Estonia about why she was
putting up huge single images as web works, when all i was interrested in
was making tiny files for fast delivery, and her reply (made even more
dramatic by her fabulous accent) was " i like to make them wait." 

For me it is that wait... the delivery space, - the gap - , the
possibilities contained within the gap, and the expereience of that gap
which are the defining characteristics of net.art. 

  the "originality" of a work is also totally bizzare and irrelavent
definition as probably the version of a popular website that one is
viewing on one's home computer is a cached version in the isp's server
anyway, not the "original" coming direct to you from its unique url, and
for that matter urls are as easy to change as mobile phone numbers - they
are only pointers to particular cordinates. 

pity all this makes it so difficult to get paid for making net.art. 

melinda


melinda rackham
	   -[ carrier ]-
	  now swarming
       http://www.subtle.net/carrier

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