Hi List, Pall, and Bruce,
Here in Seoul at the Graduate School of Communication and Arts,
Yonsei University,
we just put on a hypothetical Net.Art exhibition featuring works we
found on the internet
The question was: How Art is Net Art? And the litmus test was
whether we could implement/display the works in the gallery. Each
student chose a work they liked and then thought about what would be
the ideal way to display the work in our little white cube gallery.
http://gallery.yonsei.ac.kr
Of course, the students ideas were much to expensive for us to
realised them physically, that's why the exhibition remains
hypothetical.
I think, under the terms in this thread, all of the works selected
would be qualified as 2.0 Net Art. For us, in our class discussions,
we also noticed a distinction between contemporary net.art, much more
about database and interface) and that of the first generation (much
more about the communication, protocols, and identity). these
definitions are all inadequate, and our exhibition is very much
experimental, but I hope some of you will visit and take the time to
send us some responses.
More directly regarding some of the issues being discussed in this
thread, I would like to contribute a few thoughts.
Netart 2.0 cannot function without an active network connection
It may function without the internet connection, but, in that case,
it is hard to call it net- anything anymore. It would be ex-net-
art. I think the same distinction occurs between Radio Art and Audio
Art. Generally we refer to Radio Art which has to be broadcast in
order to be in its fully realized form, otherwise it is Audio Art.
Netart 2.0 may or may not be interactive
Indeed, some of the best work is not interactive.
http://www.yhchang.com/SAMSUNG_MEANS_TO_COME.html
Art does not generally like democracy. (I know I will get in some
trouble here, but...) a lot of what we (at least classically) expect
from art needs a strong structure and form, dramatic curve/suspense
or other purposefulness, all of which is mitigated by interactivity.
Netart 2.0 is not science
In fact, it takes science and technology for granted. I think that
is the big shift in Web 2.0 in general. We no longer worry so much
about the privacy of our data we just jump in to social networking
and trust for the best. Multiple online identities are like duh! and
Net.art is increasingly Art+D for the big corporates' identity
departments. i.e
http://www.absolutemachines.com
which, personally, I think is really well done, despite them having
outright stolen Young Hae Chang's entire oeuvre aesthetic for their
intro. I am going to write them and tell them right away.
The old 1.0 way of exposing the raw inner workings of the
internet...that's scientific..., but, then again...
http://www.khm.de/~tre/void.htm
Please visit our hypothetical net.art exhibition
http://gallery.yonsei.ac.kr
best
Baruch
Baruch Gottlieb
assistant professor
Yonsei University Graduate School of Communication and Arts
Seoul Korea
http://communication.yonsei.ac.kr
On Apr 2, 2008, at 8:55 PM, Pall Thayer wrote:
Hi Z,
Thanks for the interesting comments. I'd like to point out again
that a manifesto is not by any means a formal, logical philosphical
argument. It is a personal declaration of opinions and/or
intentions. By saying this I'm not trying to stave off any
discourse but merely pointing out that this is not intended to
describe or define a collective body of work other than my own.
However I do welcome any and all comments and am truly interested
in hearing how these ideas fit into (or don't fit into) other
artists' practice.
Netart 2.0 is not net.art
Do you mean net art? web art? internet art? When I read the
following text, I get the feeling you understand the creative net
started with the web. There have been works done before (e.g. using
news groups and FirstClass communities), and these well before 1991
and I feel the distinction is necessary for the coherence of a
manifesto that would speak to novice but also old-timers. The web's
just the tip of the history of online art and I am not sure I
understand well what you are focusing on. When you speak about
casual internet users, I believe you mean web, and mass-media-like
consumers. But then again you state in a further point that:
'Netart 2.0 is not dependent upon The World Wide Web'. I'm a bit
stuck there in the comprehension of your text.
Here I am referring to net.art (net-dot-art) as the work of a very
specific group of artists in the early to mid 90's that coined the
term as their own. I don't recall who they all were but the ones I
remember were Vuc Cosic, Lev Manovich (I think), Olia Lialina and
Alexei Shulgin. It's not a negative comment on their work but
merely a reminder that Internet based art hasn't stayed grounded
within the early work of these individuals. It has progressed to a
degree that warrants re-consideration on its own merits. I'm not by
any means denying the significance of this earlier work, just
pointing out that Internet-based art has evolved.
Netart 2.0 is dynamic
By that I understand you mean the content is dynamically generated
acording to both the human and the machine context, giving life to
a creative avatar. Again, it seems essential to me that if you're
speaking of the web, since the early years net art was dynamic. In
fact it was already before the web, thought there weren't as many
viewers-consumers to check it out and the communities where more
focused and less generalist. It is true the trend is towards more
than an simple html web page collection including hyperlinks, but
this doesn't seem enough to define a second generation of net art,
or at least not like that.
I'm not limiting my statements to the Web. The Internet is much
more than the web. Try this for instance; If you're using Mac OS X,
open the terminal application, type: telnet anmo.iu.liss.org 4000
then hit return. After a short while the window will begin
displaying a bunch of nonsense. What you're seeing is live seismic
data (in binary form) being transmitted over the Internet. This
transmission has nothing to do with the web. Here's another thing
to try that will make a bit more sense. In a terminal window type:
telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl and hit return. Again, this has
nothing to do with the Web but is being streamed over the Internet.
Regarding the "dynamic". Not too many years ago, work that was
built around the artist creating a number of static HTML pages and
linking them together internally, was considered Netart. That can
be said to be dynamic in a sense as it is action-based but
eventually you will find yourself in an unchanging loop. Today,
with the general public constantly pouring new content into the
Internet and the linking of measuring and recording equipment to
the Internet (as in the seismic data sample above) the work can be
much more dynamic with the action being mixed with live, real-time
data in a way that the work constantly evolves into something else,
never repeating itself.
Netart 2.0 cannot function without an active network connection
I don't understand how you can talk about net art without the net.
You may have a representation of net art that is disconnected but
it will just be that, a passive representation of net art and not
net art. I believe you might misunderstand net art 1.0 as software
art or multimedia.
A lot of work has been produced that gives the appearance of being
dynamically linked to the Internet but isn't really. I'm referring
for instance to Flash movies and websites that could essentially be
downloaded in their entirety and run locally with no Internet
connection at all. I gave a talk once at the art academy here in
Iceland where I explained this by giving a few examples. For
instance, I located a Flash movie in Rhizome.org's artbase that was
labeled as Netart, ran it once while connected to the Internet,
then downloaded it to my computer, unplugged the ethernet cord and
ran the Flash movie again. It ran just as well as when I was
connected. There is a lot of other work that will stop functioning
as soon as you disconnect from the Internet. I'm saying that that
is Netart 2.0, the other work essentially just uses the Internet
for distribution.
Netart 2.0 may or may not be interactive
In my understanding net art requires a network to be, therefore an
interaction between at least two entities (human or machine). I
believe the term 'viewer' needs a better definition for your
manifesto. Also,on the internet there is required interaction as it
is a fundamental of even the earliest web pages (hypertext).
Interactivity is what generated net art.
OK, let's refer then to the "viewer" as "the person experiencing
the work." That person does not need to interact with the work. The
work can be interacting internally with data accessible over the
network. And again, you refer here to "web pages" whereas the
Internet is far more extensive than that. Yes, the work is
interactive in the sense that it is interacting with network but
more often than naught, when people use the term "interactive" they
are referring to the ability of those experiencing the work to
influence it through interactivity. It's part of the experience as
well as the production. I'm essentially saying that it can be part
of the production without being part of the experience.
Netart 2.0 may or may not be accessible on-line
Do you mean there can be an offline network for net art to exist?
And does the real-world correspond to this new environment for net
art 2.0? (I have a small definition of web 3.0 as 'the biological,
digital analog web where information is made of a plethora of
digital values coalesced for sense and linked to the real-world by
analog interfaces' on http://www.zzz.ch/bootymachine/web3.0/ ,
maybe it can relate to this, I'd be happy to get your feedback).
What I mean here is that the result of the work, what the public
experiences, doesn't have to be experienced over the Internet, i.e.
on a webpage. It can be a gallery installation consisting of a
computer or computers connected to the Internet, extracting data to
produce the work. There is a common assumption that all Netart can
be experienced from the solitude and comfort of one's home. This is
not always the case. A lot of the work of Jonah Brucker-Cohen is a
good example of this.
In a way, you could say that this touches on your discussion about
the evolution of the web. I think you're right in that we will be
experiencing more of the Internet in our "biological" surroundings
especially with the growing ubiquity of wireless connections and
small, simple devices that are capable of using them. I heard about
a group recently that built a wifi-enabled webserver that they
called "The Fly" because it wasn't much larger than a fly.
Netart 2.0 is not science
Here, I don't understand why and how you can exclude the science in
net art (or online art). Basically working with media protocols to
put the work online already induces a bias in the work that just
doesn't make it artist-only-created. All who creates using these
tools know what the limitations inherent to protocols can do to the
creative process, and to me it is part science not to be random
noise (even if it is beautiful noise). My personal view is that you
can simply not say that of any net art, as there is automatically
some part of science in the use of language.
Based on what you say here then painting is science as well, as is
pottery and a variety of other forms of artistic creation. The way
I see it, the ultimate goal of science is to provide answers that
are as infallible as possible. Art does just the opposite. If it
attempts to answer anything at all, it usually does so in a much
more suggestive manner. More often though, it suggests questions. I
think that artists tend to work in a much more chaotic and fluid
manner than scientists. Scientists are methodical, cataloging
everything that happens along the way. Perhaps some artists do this
as well but for me, science has no more to do with the way I create
my art than what it has to do with i.e. painting. The sciences
provide the materials but that's where the relationship ends. One
of the reasons I pointed out the seismic data above is that I'm
currently creating a piece that uses live, real-time seismic data
obtained over the Internet. It really doesn't matter to me what the
numbers I receive mean. My handling of them within the framework is
entirely qualitative. What matters to me is how they affect the
resulting visuals. Yes, an actual earthquake will produce the most
dramatic results in the work but what that means as far as the
tectonic plates go, doesn't matter to me at all. So I'm using
scientific readings in a very non-scientific way and I can do that
because my artwork is not science.
Finally, I just want to say I really don't see much in your
manifesto that defines 'newness' from what net art is (I mean
v1.0). Most of what you state was already there since a long time,
but it is true most casual-viewers' online experience dates only
from a few years at max. Maybe there should first be a manifesto to
better define net art 1.0 ?
You are correct. These points I mention have been around for a long
time now. But until now I don't know of anyone who has specifically
discussed these points in this manner in an attempt to define their
work and that's why I wrote it.
best r.
Pall
Thanks again for your thoughts, the discussion is indeed very
interesting!
:)
Z
Bootymachine www.bootymachine.net
experimental groove experiment
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Le 1 avr. 08 à 13:00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit :
Netart 2.0: A Manifesto of Variable Manifestation
Initial draft October 18, 2006
Netart 2.0 is not net.art
++The internet has changed a lot in recent years. Casual Internet
users have become content producers as well as content consumers.
These shifts in the way the public uses the internet is reflected in
more recent netart.
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Pall Thayer
artist
http://www.this.is/pallit
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