Research Project B: Mark Nappier’s net.flag

Mark Nappier’s net.flag

• Net Art: 

Forms of Art that can be presented on the Internet, especially those can be interacted online or make use of other nature of internet.

• Introduction: 

This project was created in 2002 in Java, and modified in JavaScript in 2019. It was created by Mark Napier, and supported by the Guggenheim. The website includes thousands of flags created by visitors to the website, based on the existent national flags. The website aims to manifest the different ideologies and concepts of people from different geographical areas. It is public, inclusive, and interactive. In 2002, when the internet began to popularize globally, this website was a public archive for people to share their thoughts through pictures.

• Discussion:

According to the reading, the nature of Net Art is process-based, interactive, and mostly ephemeral. This project fits the definition of Net Art in the reading, but though the heading flag will be replaced by any new flag made by a new visitor, the flags are well archived, so it is not so “ephemeral”. It is written in JavaScript, which is the same coding language used in CCLab. It draws our attention to the art of reassembly and collage, which can be done in JavaScript.

The most significant features of the internet for our research subject are its interactivity and publicity. This website can not be web art if there are no visitors who would visit and edit the flags. This project is purely made of code, which encourages us to express our opinions and concepts by coding.

• Individual Conclusion:
• Rebecca’s conclusion: This project shows an insight on how audience can become a part of artwork. Though it is not exclusive to web art, through web’s unique speciality of interactivity and publicity, it can be done exceptionally well. It inspires me to create some content that can be further edited by the audience for project B.