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In 1984, nearly a decade before Tim Berners-Lee introduced the World Wide Web, astronomer Carl Sagan stated, "One of the compensations for living in an epoch as unstable as ours is the pleasure of witnessing the birth of inventions, trends and ideas which, if we are not so foolish as to destroy ourselves, will be essential integuments of human cultures to come. Computer art is such a development." Within this age of technological revolution, however, Internet art has not made near the impact one might expect.
Presently, there are just a few artists specifically concerned with the Internet as a creative medium. These artists are investigating new ways in which the Internet can be used.
Web art needs no walls on which to hang. It requires no gallery, no fancy clothes, no entrance fee, and perhaps most importantly, no curator.
"Net art is a form that subverts the whole gallery system because it exists anywhere and everywhere at the same time," said Jay Jordan, curatorial director at the New Center for Contemporary Art in downtown Louisville. Massively accessible and ultimately intangible, Internet art seeks to threaten the framework of High Art.
Professor Ying Kit Chan teaches Web design courses at the University of Louisville. "On the Web we all share," he said. "Open source and copyleft [the opposite of copyright] threaten the private property system that is the very basis of capitalism." Among Internet developers, ownership is a very unpopular term.
According to Asiaweek.com, 80 percent of the world's Web sites are in English. Although the Internet enables the rapid exchange of information between people of distant technological nations, it can further isolate the people of more agrarian societies from the "global conversation." Likewise, the ability to navigate and publish on the Net is determined by whether or not one can afford the necessary technology. Internet artists commonly address these issues. Matthew Zook's piece "Domain Names Worldwide," for instance, illustrates how the majority of the Web is American-owned and -operated.
Internet artists believe that their work is more internationally accessible, affordably producible, infinitely reproducible and quickly perishable than any art form that has gone before.
"By placing Web art within the walls of art institutions we are cracking the door of the art world to make the art object a more community-oriented, worldly experience," said Aron Conaway, a Web artist and Curatorial Studies graduate student at the University of Louisville. "By celebrating this free, non-material medium, we are challenging the perception that art is solely a material object."
Putting a price tag on this sort of art may seem ridiculous, but it does happen. The Douglas Davis piece entitled "The World's First Collaborative Sentence" is an interactive text composed by site visitors who add their own voice to the endless flow of words. The piece was bought by Eugene Schwartz, who donated it to the Whitney Museum of Art before his death in 1995.
Although many Internet artists accept commissions for work, "Collaborative Sentence" was the first site to be purchased by a collector.
Among the artists investigating the principals and possibilities of Web art are Minerva Cuevas, Andrej Tisma, Vuk Cosic, Olia Lialina, Douglass Davis, Young Hae-Chang and David Marsalone. As these names reveal, Internet artists are international. These artists are usually unseen, often anonymous and regularly take on subversive slants in their work.
Web artists are in constant competition with flashy advertising, alluring pornography and the commonly short attention spans of the Internet audience's mind. Unlike art in a gallery, art on the Internet must fight to get viewers' attention and then struggle to keep it. Web artists face the unique challenge of convincing the user to stay connected.
Although much Internet art reflects the chaotic and loud identity of the Net, Domiziana Giodano and Reiner Strasser's piece entitled "The doorman" reflects a recent trend among artists to offer a slower, more tranquil approach to Web activity.
Many online artist organizations attempt to stimulate people into real action. From its base in Mexico City, the Mejor Vida Corp provides site visitors with fake student ID cards, subway tickets and grocery store barcodes which they can use for discounts all over the world.
In California, the artist collective Obey, Inc., employs the Web to freely distribute stickers of Andre the Giant. Pushing the principal of interactivity from cyber-space into "real space" can also be seen in the work of India's Prema Murthy and Germany's Valie Export, who both combine cyber-activity with performance art.
Net artists can also be playful. Motomichi, Ben Firth and Ckoe are but a few artists pushing animation to new extremes. To the opposite extreme, some cyber-artists take a radically serious approach to their work. Sites such as GoogleWillEatItself.org directly target commercial enterprises seeking to profit from the Internet.
More subversive art sites play tricks on the user. Developed by programmers Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans, http://www.jodi.org delivers hoax downloads to the user's computer that roll, distort or otherwise disrupt the desktop.
Capitalizing on the ever-present fear of downloading viruses while surfing the Web, this site is sure to panic even the most protected browser.
Even if cyberspace is an abstract realm, several art sites have shown it can have very real effects on the financial world. The online store http://www.etoys.com for instance was literally shut down because of "shocking" images accidentally discovered on the pre-existing artist Web site http://www.etoy.com.
So far the design side of Internet development far exceeds its artistic exploration.
While bands, businesses and corporations spend millions creating the most cutting-edge promotional sites, only a few are addressing the basic elements of Web aesthetics.
Check out these Web sites for a primer on Net art. Flash animation and other styles of art on the Web are pushing the boundaries of artistic endeavors.
- Domain Names Worldwide
- the doorman
- Mejor Vida Corp - grocery store bar codes & student ID cards
- Mouchette
- The World's Longes Collaborative Sentence - the first cyber.art piece acquired by a collector
- Whitney Museum of American Art - ARTPORT: Online Portal to Net Art
Artist Sites
- Bansky
- Ying Kit Chan
- Aron Conaway
- etoy. Corporation
- Motomichi, El Mero Mero
- Obey, Inc.
- Prema Murthy
- Valie Export
Haker Art
Flash Animation
- Ck.i.P::::::Ckoe..
- Salad Fingers
- Schizoidbrain - great Flash intro
- Compilation of Internet art websites
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