Net Art's Broadening Niche

Afterimage, May, 2001 by Berin Golonu

The main question that net artists must grapple with in light of the art world's embrace of this new media is whether it can still lay claim to the ideologies that it originally fostered: that it was activist, incendiary and uncommodifiable by nature? "I think a lot of artists who work on-line today have very different motivations for creating this work," states Well. Dietz concurs, "We are at a place when we can leave it up to the artist to decide where they want their work situated. I believe in a multiplicity of places to display net-based work. Different contexts can add different meanings." In other words, activists and hackers are still free to spoof and deconstruct their favorite corporate identities and Web sites and to distribute their projects to Web surfers all over the world in guerilla fashion as they wish. For those who are looking to quit their day jobs and start making a living off of being a Net artist, the audience is receptive, the commissions are bountiful and the art market may well be primed. There is something to be said for effectively promoting one's career on-line.

BERIN GOLONU is Editor in Chief of Artweek, a print publication based in San Jose, as well as the content editor of www.sfstation.com.

NOTES

(1.) See www.superbad.com.

(2.) See www.zkm.de/net..conditions.> (3.) See www.sfmoma.org/010101.> (4.) See www.artmuseum.net.

(5.) See http://telematic.walkerartorg/.> (6.) See www.turbulence.org/Works/apartment.> (7.) See www.redsmoke.com.