Artists Networks

Since the internet public, artists have been involved in the conception, visualisation and realisation of the internet. The artist uses not only the internet as a mediaspace, but as a networktool for creating data that can be rendered on monitor screens and other output devices into new works of art. However, internet in itself is not an artform, like painting or sculpture. It is a global information and communication technology experiment (ictX), where in its early days very few artists have found their way into this virtual space.

Speaking about internet, meant here is not only the web, but the spatial overview of websites gives the impression that most artists are merely participating in the web. They create pages with embedded multimedia and connect to this global datanetwork to inform or publish. Since its technology is changing rapidly, the internet is in very rare occasions real artistic matter, that is used by the artist, converting it into images, texts and other media-carriers about the internet itself.

Art is presented here a form of observation; a science is another form of observation. Offcourse one can draw links between these two realms, their common interest here is technology. The work here is not about (re)presentation of objectives, but about the artist's observation of this network and the creation of objects that mediate the artist's observation. It is also about visual language, the extension of networks and its features, by adding new ideas, code and applications to information and communication technology.

The interface design is the artists approach to this technology. The cultural impact of the implementation of technology in society is described or visualised in their works.

Walter van der Cruijsen - 01/04/1999

1. art sites

web stalker I/O/D - by matthew fuller a.o. - http://www.backspace.org/iod/

ascii history of moving images - by vuk cosic - http://www.vuk.org/ascii/film/

digital landfill - by mark napier - http://www.potatoland.org/landfill/

øtherlands - by philip pocock a.o. - http://king.dom.de/equator/

1. conferences:

arte en ligne - conference; march 6, mariemont (belgium) - http://simsim.rug.ac.be/mariemont/

next five minutes 3 (N5M3) - conference on tactical media; march 12 - 14, 1999, amsterdam (netherlands) - http://www.n5m.org

6. doors of perception - conference on interface design, fall 1999, amsterdam - http://www.dop.nl

1. archives:

nettime zkp - reader to the mailing-list, first publication in 1996 - http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/

net.art per se - to the conference, may 1996, trieste (italia) - http://www.ljudmila.org/

1. references:

redundant technologiy initiative - http://www.lowtech.org

nettime-list - mailing list on netcriticism - http://www.nettime.org

7-11 - mailing list on net.art - http://www.7-11.org

the thing network - running from new york - http://bbs.thing.net