Question regarding an interview with Vuk Cosic:
What do you feel are the effects on net.art when it transposes itself from the internet into the gallery space?
Personally, I think that net.art, whatever that may be exactly, belongs on the internet, not in the gallery. To me, this is very similiar to what happends to street art, which is supposed to destroy all precovieved notions of what and where art is meant to be shown. So basically, it becomes increasingly gentrified, especially after art-dealers realize they can make money off of it, to the point that it looses sight of its original intentions and ideals.
Im sure some net.artists are making work with gallery space in mind, but it seems to me that if net.art is about the technology and globalization the internet inevitably references, then it might be out of place in a gallery.
Review Time!!!!!
http://jimpalt.org/dream/#
Can art influence dreams? I think this is almost obviously true. However, the notion of creating a website that influences your dreams, so that the work of art isnt just the music on the webpage, but instead is the dream thats influenced by the webpage is a really cool idea.
First of all, this net.art isnt nearly as banal as most of the net.art that I managed to find. While there is no overt discourse, it does ask questions about dreams, and influences, and it questions the very ideals of what art can be. Because this piece uses something as empheral as a dream for its delivery, I feel that it makes it stand out among a lot of the socially minded, technology orineted, and process driven net.art. Basically, i like it because it doesnt stick to the obvious tropes that I am starting to notice in the online art world.
Ask me a question (or two):
Question 1. Since digital media entered the field of art has the perception of art changed?
Yes and no. I think it has changed undeniabley for those "in the know" about contemporary art. However, to the average person on the street, I dont think that multimedia work has really gotten much attention. I think this is because it obscurificates essentially bad, banal art behind a screen of artistic dialouge, and technological blabbering. The one area that has been profoundly changed by multimedia, are probably motion pictures, which is probably the only real artistic experience that average people get on a regular basis.
Question 2. A relevant section of digital art represents Internet based art. The Internet hardly existed, but artists conquered already this new field for their artistic activities. Can the work of these early artists be compared with those who work with advanced technologies nowadays? What changed until these days? What might be the perspectives for future developments?
Anything can be compared to anything I think, we compare proto-renisance and renisance works side by side in art history, so proto-multimedia work should be able to stand next to its contemporary work, if its good. Technology is allowing us to do more, but i think the most interesting possibilities involve using the web to create artwork that is a vehivle for humanistic experiences.
Question 3. The term "netart" is widely used for anything posted on the net; there are dozens of definitions that mostly are even contradictory. How do you define "netart" or if you like the description "Internet based art" better? Do you think "netart" is art, at all, if yes, what are the criteria? Are there any aesthetic criteria for an Internet based artwork?
net.art is art-like. I think a lot of it tries to deal philosophy from a visual perspective, but it seems to be comming up short. I get the feeling that a lot of net.art is produced by kids who just read Sartre's Being and Nothingness and got an idea from it. I think that there is also a sort of watered down replication of mass media that perpetrates itself in net.art. Sadly, aesthetics seems to have just become means to an end in our contemporary art landscpae. I think that it would be more artlike is people stopped trying to be robotartists like andy warhol and thought about the experience of the computer and how people acutally interact with things. I think for net.art to be considered valid, it needs to have useability on the same level as google or ebay. People do want to deal with obscurification any more, especially not on the internet.......hell, that could be a project.
Question 4. Dealing with this new, and interactive type of art demands an active viewer or user, and needs the audience much more and in different ways than any other art discipline before. How do you think would be good ways to stimulate the user to dive into this new world of art? What do you think represents an appropriate environment to present net based art to an audience, is it the context of the lonesome user sitting in front of his personal computer, is it any public context, or is it rather the context of art in general or media art in particular, or anything else.? If you would be in the position to create an environment for presenting this type of art in physical space, how would you do it?
Well, first one has to identify the purpose of their art. Then they need to figure out the best delivery method for it. To get someone interested in art, we need to get their attention first and expose them to the art second. I would advocate an advertising influenced approach. Maybe we need to focus on the spectale of internet. If bmw can have a webite of their cars getting smashed, and people dancing on treadmills on YouTube can get 30million hits, then making valid, relavent, and engagning net.art must be possible too.
Question 5.
As Internet based art, as well as other art forms using new technologies are (globally seen) still not widely accepted, yet, as serious art forms, what do you think could be an appropriate solution to change this situation?
I think a lot of net.art just rehashes old ideas left from painting. I think it needs to find its own discoure, and poetics need to be stressed to make meaningful, engaging content that people actually want to see. Or i could just pull a Jeff-Koons and start calling youtube videos my art.....
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