Internet art

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Internet art (often called net art) is art which uses the Internet as its primary medium or platform. The Internet and its connections to the world are the basis of the work. Artists working this way are sometimes referred to as net artists.

The term Internet art is often used incorrectly. It does not, for example, necessarily entail a work that can be viewed over the internet through a browser. Nor is a work 'internet art' simply because it is viewable online (such as work uploaded for viewing in an online gallery, portfolio, or archive). Rather, the artwork must be created specifically from the phenomenon of the Internet (elements such as its abundance of technological, social, and economic cultures and micro-cultures) to qualify as Internet art rather than as online documentation.

Internet art projects are art projects for which the Net is both a sufficient and necessary condition of viewing/expressing/participating. Internet art can also happen outside the purely technical structure of the internet, when artists use specific social or cultural traditions from the internet in a project outside of it. Internet art is often, but not always, interactive, participatory and based on multimedia in the broadest sense.

– definition by Steve Dietz, former curator in new media at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis

Contents

[edit] Forms and presentation

Internet art can be actualized in a variety of ways: for example, through websites; e-mail projects; Internet-based original software projects (especially games); Internet-linked networked installations; interactive and/or streaming video, audio, or radio works; and networked performances (using multi-user domains, virtual worlds, chatrooms, and other networked environments). It can also include completely offline events, like the performance by Alexei Shulgin 'Real Cyberknowledge for Real People' in Vienna in 1997, in which he handed out printed matter from the mailing list nettime to Viennese shoppers. Some would argue that online environments such as Second Life are themselves a form of Internet art, as is a proportion of what happens in or through those environments. Net-poetry, networked narrative, and cyberformance are well-developed areas of Internet art. Internet art overlaps with other computer-mediated genres such new media art, electronic art, software art, and generative art.

In literature, the terms Internet art, net-based art, net art, net.art, Web art, and even networked art are all used somewhat interchangeably for this type of work. However, networked art also has a history of usage for artworks that were connected through local networks rather than through the Internet (especially before the advent of the Web). Net.art (with a period) is also problematic: some culture producers treat the term as a pun, a tongue-in-cheek recapitulation of the consumerist ideals of Pop Art. Others, however, use net.art in a narrow sense, applicable only to a specific group of artists working in the medium in the period 1994-1999; these are usually referenced as Vuk Ćosić, Jodi, Alexei Shulgin and Olia Lialina.[citation needed].

Other net artists working in the 1990s include: Amy Alexander, Mark Amerika, Margaret Crane & John Winet, Jaromil, Superbad (Ben Benjamin), Ursula Endlicher, etoy, mez, G. H. Hovagimyan, Agricola de Cologne, Valéry Grancher, Sergio Maltagliati, Fred Forest, Bob Holmes, MTAA, Cary Peppermint, Plaintext Players, Antiorp, Vivian Selbo, and Thomson & Craighead

Earlier works of net art were created by artist and theorist Roy Ascott.

[edit] History and context

Internet art is rooted in often quite disparate artistic traditions and movements, ranging from Dada to conceptual art, Fluxus, pop art, kinetic art, performance art and art sociologique . The earliest Internet art was created in an institutional context, partly in the traditional art world and partly in the media art world. Early projects were performed in collaboration with museums and other art institutions, such as Roy Ascott's work La Plissure du Texte which was created for an exhibition at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1983. Media art institutions such as Ars Electronica Festival in Linz or the Paris-based IRCAM, a research center for electronic music would also support or present early net art. However, with the advent of the Web and the spread of the desktop computer, a much broader spectrum of artists entered the field, often completely independent from art institutions.[original research?]

Between 1995 to 1998, when the Internet became popular with general audiences, several public venues kept Internet art on the map. Key organizations included Adaweb, directed by Benjamin Weil; Alt-X, founded by artist Mark Amerika; Rhizome, initiated by artist and curator Mark Tribe; and the Dx web site documentaX curated by Simon Lamuniere.[citation needed] The dot-com mania at the time created a double edged sword: it created a lot of attention for this type of art, but at the same time connected it to the soap bubble of online commerce in the mind's eye of part of the audience.[original research?] Currently, there is a strong tendency to look at Internet-related artworks in a wider context of contemporary arts and technology; likewise, artists working with networks usually prefer to be contextualized within a general contemporary art discourse.[original research?]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Forest Fred 1998,¨Pour un art actuel, l'art à l'heure d'Internet" l'Harmattan, Paris
  • Baumgärtel, Tilman (2001). net.art 2.0 – Neue Materialien zur Netzkunst / New Materials towards Net art. Nürnberg: Verlag für moderne Kunst. ISBN 3-933096-66-9.
  • Wilson, Stephen (2001). Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science and Technology. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-23209-X.
  • Amerika, Mark (2001). How To Be An Internet Artist. [1]
  • Net Art Review a daily updated site that tries to keep pace with what is happening in the world of netart: netartreview
  • Christine Buci-Glucksmann, "L’art à l’époque virtuel", in Frontières esthétiques de l’art, Arts 8, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004
  • Greene, Rachel (2004). "Internet Art". Thames and Hudson. ISBN-10: 0500203768, ISBN-13: 978-0500203767.
  • Stallabras, Julian (2003). "Internet Art: the online clash of culture and commerce". Tate Publishing. ISBN-10: 1854373455, ISBN-13: 978-1854373458.
  • The syndicate network for media culture and media art : http://anart.no/~syndicate
  • JIP - JavaMuseum Interview Project: [2]
  • WB05 e-symposium published as ISEA Newsletter #102 - ISSN 1488-3635 #102 [3]
  • Ascott, R.2003. Telematic Embrace: visionary theories of art, technology and consciousness. (Edward A. Shanken, ed.) Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Roy Ascott 2002. Technoetic Arts (Editor and Korean translation: YI, Won-Kon), (Media & Art Series no. 6, Institute of Media Art, Yonsei University). Yonsei: Yonsei University Press
  • Ascott, R. 1998. Art & Telematics: toward the Construction of New Aesthetics. (Japanese trans. E. Fujihara). A. Takada & Y. Yamashita eds. Tokyo: NTT Publishing Co.,Ltd.
  • Fred Forest 2008. Art et Internet, Paris Editions Cercle D'Art / Imaginaire Mode d'Emploi

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_art"
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