INTERNET ART
A.k.a. Web Art, Interactive Art.
"An aesthetic of poaching, tricking, reading, speaking, strolling, shopping,
desiring" (Garcia & Lovink, qtd. in Dempsey 286).
Dempsey asks if Internet Art puts an end to styles in art, or the end of "-isms" (286)? There can be perhaps no more evolutionary sequence of avant-garde movements because of the freedom allowed artists and viewers with this form.
Soon after the spread of the WWW -- from 1989 when British scientist Timothy Berners-Lee (1955- ), to aid physicists at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, launched it -- the Web became a forum for art. Post-Communist East Europeans were "among the earliest participants" (Dempsey 286).
Internet Art seems to be a very democratic art form, and can be interactive. Viewers can create their own multimedia montages with "ultimate 'authorship' open to question" (Dempsey 286).
Olia Lialina (1971- ) -- Russian -- www.teleportica.org/war
My Boyfriend Came Back From the War (1996)
Personal and political history is at the forefront, as the viewer creates the sequence
for different versions of a doomed love affair.
Heath Bunting -- British systems analyst.
Irational.org (1994- )
King's-Cross Phone-In
Supplying phone numbers of 36 phone booths around a railway station in London,
Bunting invited viewers to call and chat to commuters; it was a matter of sociability and
anarchy injected into the business routine (Dempsey 286).
Here are links to a few Internet Art sites (as of Spring 2006):
http://www.jodi.org
Artists at this site tend to make the html visible or find other ways to show the
chaos of technology.
http://www.photomontage.com
#6, #7, and #26 are recommended.
http://www.whitney.org/exhibition/2kb/internet.html
This is an internet art gallery listing multiple art exhibits including a site
by Darcey Steinke who wrote Suicide Blonde.
Additionally, some older sites:
Peter Stanick (1953- ) -- www.stanick.com -- Pop Art.
Jake Tilson (1958- )
The Cooker (1994- ) -- www.thecooker.com
An eclectic assortment of found objects, photos, background noise from restaurants,
and statistics for the viewer to play with, all on the theme of food.
Jenny Holzer Please Change Beliefs -- invites viewers to improve truisms. ("Expiring for love is beautiful but stupid.") Interactive.
"As the internet is integrated with television, and viewed on a larger screen in a more comfortable atmosphere, one challenge for Internet Art will be its new relationship and association with television, video and entertainment" (Dempsey 288).
Works Consulted
Dempsey, Amy. Art in the Modern Era: A Guide to Styles, Schools & Movements. NY: Harry N. Abrams Inc., Pub., 2002. 286-288.