Net Art's Broadening Niche

Afterimage, May, 2001 by Berin Golonu

010101: Art in Technological Times

San Francisco Museum of Modem Art

San Francisco, California

March 3-July 8, 2001

Telematic Connections: The Virtual Embrace

Art Center College of Design

Pasadena, California

May 5-June 30, 2001

Austin Museum of Art

Austin, Texas

July 20-September 18, 2001

Atlanta College of Art

Atlanta, Georgia

October 11-November 25, 2001

Data Dynamics

Whitney Museum of American Art

New York, New York

March 22-June 10, 2001

Six or seven years ago, Net art emerged as the latest embodiment, or more accurately, the disembodiment, of a conceptual art practice that successfully circumvented the art market by eliminating the physicality of an art object. It was believed that Net-based projects living on the Web could not be valued, displayed or sold by the creators or disseminators of "good taste" (gallerists and curators) as they saw fit. Net artists often engaged in activist antics and hacker schemes by connecting directly with their audiences, effectively sidestepping the need to display and exhibit their work in an institutional setting. Web surfers disseminated and popularized the existence of these projects in a word of mouth fashion, a highly effective method of distribution now termed "pull technology" by on-line marketers.

Net art has become appropriated into the institutional setting much more quickly than its pioneering practitioners could ever have imagined. The confluence of recent high-profile museum shows featuring Net-based art such as San Francisco Museum of Modem Art's (SFMOMA) "010101: Art in Technological Times," the Whitney Museum of American Art's "Data Dynamics" and "Telematic Connections: The Virtual Embrace," curated by the Walker Art Center's Steve Dietz, are giving everyone involved a reason to stop and take measure of this medium's transformation. One might question whether Net artists who had initially operated outside of the institutional realm are now willing to have their work situated within the museum context. Does context ultimately impact the work's content and the artists' motivations for creating the work? Has the institutionalization of this novel medium forsaken its alternative stance? Has Net art finally been subjugated to the same market forces that it once rebelled against?

Several Net artists and Net professionals working in the digital realm offered their opinions regarding such questions at the recent "Digital Independence 2001" conference held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in January. Artists such as Natalie Jeremienko and Ben Benjamin and communications technologies specialists such as Andrew Blau, founder of the non-profit Flanerie Works, spoke about qualities unique to digital, Net-based media, suggesting that its relationship to its audience is different, that it is global, and that artists receive immediate feedback from their viewers. They discussed ad hoc distribution models and how a social network of interpretation could add meaning to the content of a work. Blau shared findings of trends that emerged from social research on the Internet, showing how communities or networks such as Napster enable the free sharing of sites and resources, successfully disseminating tastes and trends on-line. "The question artists should be asking themselves," said Blau, "is how to situate themselves and their work effectively within these communities on-line."

In regard to methods of display, the overarching consensus was that museums and galleries still have not found a way to properly host Net-based work. Well-versed in the experience, both Benjamin and Jeremienko have had their work included in high-profile museum surveys. Benjamin's interlinked collection of HTML graphics titled Superbad was included in the Whitney Biennial last year and Jeremienko's Net-based BangBang Network is featured in "Telematic Connections: The Virtual Embrace," a touring exhibition inaugurated at the San Francisco Art Institute last February. [1] BangBang consists of a surveillance network showing live footage from video cameras placed in areas of political conflict around the world (East Timor, Los Angeles, Kosovo, South Africa). The footage is displayed on a Web site accessible through a computer station within the gallery as well as on small video monitors surrounding it.

Having attended both exhibitions, I am in agreement with the artists-the gallery displays of both networked projects were admittedly disappointing. The Biennial's on-line projects were displayed on a single computer terminal in a darkened gallery, with a video projection enlarging the monitor display on a gallery wall for the benefit of a larger audience. If they wanted to interact with the online projects however, visitors had to wait their turn for the computer while others waiting in line looked on impatiently. The experience was far inferior to the process of accessing the projects in a more private manner, such as through one's own computer at home. During both of my visits to the "Telematic Connections" exhibition, Jeremienko's BangBang Network was down. In addition, I did not have much luck when I tried to access both projects from their independent domains on-line either, hitting multiple error messages along the way.