Internet arts history
Internet art (often referred to as net art) is a form of digital artwork distributed via the Internet. This form of art has circumvented the traditional dominance of the gallery and museum system, delivering aesthetic experiences via the Internet. In many cases, the viewer is drawn into some kind of interaction with the work of art. Artists working in this manner are sometimes referred to as net artists.
Internet art can happen outside the technical structure of the Internet, such as when artists use specific social or cultural Internet traditions in a project outside of it. Internet art is often—but not always—interactive, participatory, and multimedia-based. Internet art can be used to spread a message, either political or social, using human interactions.
The term Internet art typically does not refer to art that has been simply digitized and uploaded to be viewable over the Internet. This can be done through a web browser, such as images of paintings uploaded for viewing in an online gallery.Rather, this genre relies intrinsically on the Internet to exist, taking advantage of such aspects as an interactive interface and connectivity to multiple social and economic cultures and micro-cultures. It refers to the Internet as a whole, not only to web-based works.
Theoriest and curator Jon Ippolito defined "Ten Myths" about Internet art in 2002.He cites the above stipulations, as well as defining it as distinct from commercial web design, and touching on issues of permanence, archivability, and collecting in a fluid medium.
History
Internet art is rooted in disparate artistic traditions and movements, ranging from Dada to Situationism, conceptual art, Fluxus, video art, kinetic art performance art, telematic art and happenings.
As the art form develops, its historical context is continually re-evaluated. Amsterdam-based critic Josephine Bosma defines Internet art as having "five generations", where the first generation of artists did not work with the Internet proper, but with electronic interconnectivity—precursors to the Internet, such as fax, slow scan television and videotex. These earlier forms are often defined more broadly as Networked art.
An early telematic artwork was Roy Ascott's work, La Plissure du Texte, performed in collaboration created for an exhibition at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1983, using a closed-network of invited artists on the ARTEX network. Media art institutions such as Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, or the Paris-based IRCAM (a research center for electronic music), would also support or present early Networked art. In 1974, Canadian artist Vera Frenkel worked with the Bell Canada Teleconferencing Studios to produce the work String Games, the first artwork from Canada to use telecommunications technologies.
However, as Greene and others note, with spread of the desktop computer in the 1980s and the advent of the Web in the 1990s, a much broader spectrum of artists entered the field, often completely independent from art institutions—and often purposely at odds with institutional culture.
Between 1994 to 2000, several public venues formed to archive, disseminate and promote Internet art. Key organizations included SITO; The Thing; Adaweb, directed by Benjamin Weil; Alt-X, founded by artist Mark Amerika; Rhizome, initiated by artist and curator Mark Tribe; and FILE Electronic Language International Festival, founded by artists Ricardo Barreto and Paula Perissinotto.
With the rise of search engines as a gateway to accessing the web in the late 1990s, many net artists turned their attention to related themes. The 2001 'Data Dynamics' exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art featured 'Netomat' (Maciej Wisniewski) and 'Apartment' (Marek Walczak and Martin Wattenberg, which used search queries as raw material. Mary Flanagan's 'The Perpetual Bed' received attention for its novel use of 3D nonlinear narrative space, or what she called "navigable narratives." Her 2001 work in the Whitney Biennial, 'collection' collected items from hard drives around the world and displayed them in a 'computational collective unconscious.' Golan Levin's 'The Secret Lives of Numbers' (2000) visualized the "popularity" of the numbers 1 to 1,000,000 as measured by Alta Vista search results. Such works pointed to alternative interfaces and questioned the dominant role of search engines in controlling access to the net.
Nevertheless, the Internet is not reducible to the web, nor to search engines. Besides these unicast (point to point) applications, suggesting that there is some reference points, there is also a multicast (multipoint and acentered) internet that has been explored by very few artistic experiences, such as the Poietic Generator.
The emergence of social networking platforms, understood to be “web-based services that allow individuals to… construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system… articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and… view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system,” facilitated a transformative shift in the distribution of internet art. Early online communities were organized around specific “topical hierarchies,” whereas social networking platforms consist of egocentric networks, with the “individual at the center of their own community.” Artistic communities on the Internet underwent a similar transition in the mid-2000s, shifting from Surf Clubs, “15 to 30 person groups whose members contributed to an ongoing visual-conceptual conversation through the use of digital media” and whose membership was restricted to a select group of individuals, to image-based social networking platforms, like Flickr, which permit access to any individual with an e-mail address. Internet artists make extensive use of the networked capabilities of social networking platforms, and are rhizomatic in their organization, in that “production of meaning is externally contingent on a network of other artists’ content.
Internet art can happen outside the technical structure of the Internet, such as when artists use specific social or cultural Internet traditions in a project outside of it. Internet art is often—but not always—interactive, participatory, and multimedia-based. Internet art can be used to spread a message, either political or social, using human interactions.
The term Internet art typically does not refer to art that has been simply digitized and uploaded to be viewable over the Internet. This can be done through a web browser, such as images of paintings uploaded for viewing in an online gallery.Rather, this genre relies intrinsically on the Internet to exist, taking advantage of such aspects as an interactive interface and connectivity to multiple social and economic cultures and micro-cultures. It refers to the Internet as a whole, not only to web-based works.
Theoriest and curator Jon Ippolito defined "Ten Myths" about Internet art in 2002.He cites the above stipulations, as well as defining it as distinct from commercial web design, and touching on issues of permanence, archivability, and collecting in a fluid medium.
History
Internet art is rooted in disparate artistic traditions and movements, ranging from Dada to Situationism, conceptual art, Fluxus, video art, kinetic art performance art, telematic art and happenings.
As the art form develops, its historical context is continually re-evaluated. Amsterdam-based critic Josephine Bosma defines Internet art as having "five generations", where the first generation of artists did not work with the Internet proper, but with electronic interconnectivity—precursors to the Internet, such as fax, slow scan television and videotex. These earlier forms are often defined more broadly as Networked art.
An early telematic artwork was Roy Ascott's work, La Plissure du Texte, performed in collaboration created for an exhibition at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1983, using a closed-network of invited artists on the ARTEX network. Media art institutions such as Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, or the Paris-based IRCAM (a research center for electronic music), would also support or present early Networked art. In 1974, Canadian artist Vera Frenkel worked with the Bell Canada Teleconferencing Studios to produce the work String Games, the first artwork from Canada to use telecommunications technologies.
However, as Greene and others note, with spread of the desktop computer in the 1980s and the advent of the Web in the 1990s, a much broader spectrum of artists entered the field, often completely independent from art institutions—and often purposely at odds with institutional culture.
Between 1994 to 2000, several public venues formed to archive, disseminate and promote Internet art. Key organizations included SITO; The Thing; Adaweb, directed by Benjamin Weil; Alt-X, founded by artist Mark Amerika; Rhizome, initiated by artist and curator Mark Tribe; and FILE Electronic Language International Festival, founded by artists Ricardo Barreto and Paula Perissinotto.
With the rise of search engines as a gateway to accessing the web in the late 1990s, many net artists turned their attention to related themes. The 2001 'Data Dynamics' exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art featured 'Netomat' (Maciej Wisniewski) and 'Apartment' (Marek Walczak and Martin Wattenberg, which used search queries as raw material. Mary Flanagan's 'The Perpetual Bed' received attention for its novel use of 3D nonlinear narrative space, or what she called "navigable narratives." Her 2001 work in the Whitney Biennial, 'collection' collected items from hard drives around the world and displayed them in a 'computational collective unconscious.' Golan Levin's 'The Secret Lives of Numbers' (2000) visualized the "popularity" of the numbers 1 to 1,000,000 as measured by Alta Vista search results. Such works pointed to alternative interfaces and questioned the dominant role of search engines in controlling access to the net.
Nevertheless, the Internet is not reducible to the web, nor to search engines. Besides these unicast (point to point) applications, suggesting that there is some reference points, there is also a multicast (multipoint and acentered) internet that has been explored by very few artistic experiences, such as the Poietic Generator.
The emergence of social networking platforms, understood to be “web-based services that allow individuals to… construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system… articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and… view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system,” facilitated a transformative shift in the distribution of internet art. Early online communities were organized around specific “topical hierarchies,” whereas social networking platforms consist of egocentric networks, with the “individual at the center of their own community.” Artistic communities on the Internet underwent a similar transition in the mid-2000s, shifting from Surf Clubs, “15 to 30 person groups whose members contributed to an ongoing visual-conceptual conversation through the use of digital media” and whose membership was restricted to a select group of individuals, to image-based social networking platforms, like Flickr, which permit access to any individual with an e-mail address. Internet artists make extensive use of the networked capabilities of social networking platforms, and are rhizomatic in their organization, in that “production of meaning is externally contingent on a network of other artists’ content.
Apprentice
Born in Japan
Lives and works in New York City
Selected Solo Shows
2008 Kent Gallery, New York, USA
2005 Sunny Days and Starry Nights, Esplanade, Singapore
2002 Kathleen E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota, USA
Glass Gallery, University of Texas at El Paso, Texas, USA
Hillside Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Kent Gallery, New York, USA
Roswell Museum and Art Center, New Mexico, USA
1999 Yerba Buena Center, California, USA
1998 Salt Lake Art Center, Utah, USA
Boise Art Museum, Idaho, USA
1997 Seattle Art Museum, Washington, USA
Selected Group Shows / Special Projects
2013 Eros, 23rd Edition Miniartextil, Villa Olmo, Como, Italy
String Theory, Scott White Contemporary Art, California, USA
Outwin Boochever Exhibition, National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC, USA
Encore, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan, USA
2012 Math Alive!, International Gallery at the Smithsonian, Washington DC, USA
Transformation, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan, USA
2010 Kaohsiung Design Festival, Taiwan
Look Again, Southern Center for Contemporary Art, North Carolina, USA
Smoke + Mirrors / Shadows + Fog, Hunter College / Times Square Gallery, New York, USA
2009 Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Niigata, Japan
Woman Forward, Williamsburg Art & Historical Center, New York, USA
2007 Roswell Artist in Residence Program 40th Anniversary, Roswell Museum and Art Center, New Mexico, USA
Sculpture Alumni Invitational, Cornish College of the Arts, Washington, USA
Reversible, Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh, UK
2006 Urban Cosmology, Kent Gallery, New York, USA
2005 Wake of Light, Sendai Mediateque, Miyagi, Japan
Iimawashi, Merz Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
Nazo Nazo, Hamada Children’s Museum of Art, Shimane, Japan
Only Make-Believe: Ways of Playing, Compton Verney, Warwickshire, UK
Yet Another Reality, Contemporary Art Gallery, University of Connecticut, USA
2004 Dis-tance, Aomori International Art Center, Aomori, Japan
Sfenks Seni Yiyip Yutacak, Karşı Sanat Çalışmaları, Istanbul, Turkey
2003 Global Priority, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA
2002 Super Figurative Approximations, Behnke Gallery, Cornish College of the Arts, Washington – Atrium Gallery, Old Dominion University, Virginia, USA
Containment, Llanternam Grange Art Centre, Wales, UK
Shadow Play, Roger Smith Gallery, New York, USA
2001 Sculpture: Figure in Motion, Kent Gallery, New York, USA
Obsession, University Art Gallery, University of California, San Diego, USA
2000 Kirin Art Award Exhibition, Tokyo – Osaka, Japan
1999 Trace, Liverpool Biennale, Liverpool, UK
Collections / Commissions
Akiru Municipal Medical Center, Tokyo, Japan
American Express, New York City, USA
Boise Art Museum, Idaho, USA
Cryptic Theatre and Productions, Glasgow, UK
Hamada Children’s Museum of Art, Shimane, Japan
Kunming University of Science and Technology, Yunnan, China
Microsoft Art Collections, Washington, USA
Namba Parks Tower, Osaka, Japan
New Mexico History Museum, New Mexico, USA
Perfe Takiyama Maternity Clinic, Tokyo, Japan
Sapporo JR Tower Stellar Place, Hokkaido, Japan
Seattle City Light, Washington, USA
Takikawa Hall, Hokkaido, Japan
Artist in Residence Programs
2011 Denmark Arts Center, Maine, USA
2004 Aomori International Art Center, Aomori, Japan
2002 Border Art Residency, New Mexico, USA
2001 Roswell Artist in Residence Program, New Mexico, USA
2000 Millay Colony, New York, USA
1999 Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Nebraska, USA
Lectures / Visiting Artist
2003 Artist talk at Mimar Sinan Universitasi, Istanbul, Turkey
2003 Artist talk at Institut architectura, Juarez, Mexico
2002 Visiting artist at University of Minnesota, Minnesota, USA
2002 Lecturer at University of Texas at El Paso, Texas, USA
2001 Volunteer art instructor at Chaves County Juvenile Detention Center, New Mexico, USA
Awards / Grants
2009 Year in Review 2009, Public Art Network (PAN), Americans for the Arts, USA
2003 The Pollock and Krasner Foundation, New York, USA
2000 Kirin Art Award Special Recognition Second Prize, Japan
1997 King County Art Commission Special Project Grant, Washington, USA
Artist Trust GAP Award, Washington, USA
1995 Betty Bowen Art Award Special Recognition, Washington, USA
1993 Merit Scholarship, Cornish College of the Arts, Washington, USA
Education
1999 MFA Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, UK
1994 BFA Cornish College of the Arts, Washington, USA
Lives and works in New York City
Selected Solo Shows
2008 Kent Gallery, New York, USA
2005 Sunny Days and Starry Nights, Esplanade, Singapore
2002 Kathleen E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota, USA
Glass Gallery, University of Texas at El Paso, Texas, USA
Hillside Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Kent Gallery, New York, USA
Roswell Museum and Art Center, New Mexico, USA
1999 Yerba Buena Center, California, USA
1998 Salt Lake Art Center, Utah, USA
Boise Art Museum, Idaho, USA
1997 Seattle Art Museum, Washington, USA
Selected Group Shows / Special Projects
2013 Eros, 23rd Edition Miniartextil, Villa Olmo, Como, Italy
String Theory, Scott White Contemporary Art, California, USA
Outwin Boochever Exhibition, National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC, USA
Encore, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan, USA
2012 Math Alive!, International Gallery at the Smithsonian, Washington DC, USA
Transformation, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan, USA
2010 Kaohsiung Design Festival, Taiwan
Look Again, Southern Center for Contemporary Art, North Carolina, USA
Smoke + Mirrors / Shadows + Fog, Hunter College / Times Square Gallery, New York, USA
2009 Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Niigata, Japan
Woman Forward, Williamsburg Art & Historical Center, New York, USA
2007 Roswell Artist in Residence Program 40th Anniversary, Roswell Museum and Art Center, New Mexico, USA
Sculpture Alumni Invitational, Cornish College of the Arts, Washington, USA
Reversible, Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh, UK
2006 Urban Cosmology, Kent Gallery, New York, USA
2005 Wake of Light, Sendai Mediateque, Miyagi, Japan
Iimawashi, Merz Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
Nazo Nazo, Hamada Children’s Museum of Art, Shimane, Japan
Only Make-Believe: Ways of Playing, Compton Verney, Warwickshire, UK
Yet Another Reality, Contemporary Art Gallery, University of Connecticut, USA
2004 Dis-tance, Aomori International Art Center, Aomori, Japan
Sfenks Seni Yiyip Yutacak, Karşı Sanat Çalışmaları, Istanbul, Turkey
2003 Global Priority, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA
2002 Super Figurative Approximations, Behnke Gallery, Cornish College of the Arts, Washington – Atrium Gallery, Old Dominion University, Virginia, USA
Containment, Llanternam Grange Art Centre, Wales, UK
Shadow Play, Roger Smith Gallery, New York, USA
2001 Sculpture: Figure in Motion, Kent Gallery, New York, USA
Obsession, University Art Gallery, University of California, San Diego, USA
2000 Kirin Art Award Exhibition, Tokyo – Osaka, Japan
1999 Trace, Liverpool Biennale, Liverpool, UK
Collections / Commissions
Akiru Municipal Medical Center, Tokyo, Japan
American Express, New York City, USA
Boise Art Museum, Idaho, USA
Cryptic Theatre and Productions, Glasgow, UK
Hamada Children’s Museum of Art, Shimane, Japan
Kunming University of Science and Technology, Yunnan, China
Microsoft Art Collections, Washington, USA
Namba Parks Tower, Osaka, Japan
New Mexico History Museum, New Mexico, USA
Perfe Takiyama Maternity Clinic, Tokyo, Japan
Sapporo JR Tower Stellar Place, Hokkaido, Japan
Seattle City Light, Washington, USA
Takikawa Hall, Hokkaido, Japan
Artist in Residence Programs
2011 Denmark Arts Center, Maine, USA
2004 Aomori International Art Center, Aomori, Japan
2002 Border Art Residency, New Mexico, USA
2001 Roswell Artist in Residence Program, New Mexico, USA
2000 Millay Colony, New York, USA
1999 Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Nebraska, USA
Lectures / Visiting Artist
2003 Artist talk at Mimar Sinan Universitasi, Istanbul, Turkey
2003 Artist talk at Institut architectura, Juarez, Mexico
2002 Visiting artist at University of Minnesota, Minnesota, USA
2002 Lecturer at University of Texas at El Paso, Texas, USA
2001 Volunteer art instructor at Chaves County Juvenile Detention Center, New Mexico, USA
Awards / Grants
2009 Year in Review 2009, Public Art Network (PAN), Americans for the Arts, USA
2003 The Pollock and Krasner Foundation, New York, USA
2000 Kirin Art Award Special Recognition Second Prize, Japan
1997 King County Art Commission Special Project Grant, Washington, USA
Artist Trust GAP Award, Washington, USA
1995 Betty Bowen Art Award Special Recognition, Washington, USA
1993 Merit Scholarship, Cornish College of the Arts, Washington, USA
Education
1999 MFA Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, UK
1994 BFA Cornish College of the Arts, Washington, USA