The article basically focuses on the history of net art and even after reading, it has triggered me to think about the concept. Before, I was not aware of the genre ‘net art’. This does not mean that I did not have any idea of it, but I think I just did not have much sense for it as one genre or a category of art. However, ever since I have encountered net art in class, it totally blew up my mind. I definitely was awed by the creativity. The artworks were not only delivering complex thought but also some of them were really based on the simple idea that I would have never thought about as my inspiration. Furthermore, as I have been learning to code throughout the semester, I could sympathize with the difficulty and all the time that the artists would invest. We should never underrate net art and even take advantage of the insights and opportunities that the net art provides to us.
Week 11: Response to “Web Work: A History of Net Art” (Moon) – Susie
In this article, the author Greene introduces the history of net art with the related picture, which is clear and detailed for us to understand the development of net art. With the art generally appeared and showed on the internet, it was also a big challenge on the basic rules and coding for the internet. Greene discusses the process of the combination of the art and internet in detail and provides a lot of interesting case studies. There are many platforms provided to a large number of artists who want to explore in this area. And also the platform had a series of rules to run the communities to avoid the conflicts.
What interests me is the period of 1997. At that time, many platforms sprang up like mushrooms for different artists to publish their work. According to the author, the female net. artists won a fairer place on the development of net art through the rules of the platforms. They could deliver their personal ideas and write for themselves–“we are the modern cunt/ positive anti reason/…/ we see art with our cunt we make art with our cunt/…” (4). In addition, the filmmaker Cheang also made artwork for gender equality. We can learn how fairness and openness were developed on the internet step by step.
Besides, the article makes me think about the relationship between art and the internet. In my opinion, they contribute to each other. The art makes the internet more diverse, and the internet conveys art to a broader area. If there is no internet, I think it was hard for female artists to get their rights and publish their artwork in 1997. Therefore, I am looking forward to the future of art and the internet.
Week 11: “Web Work – A History of Net Art” Blogpost – Ying
After reading the “Web Work” by Rachel Greene, it helped clarify what net art really is. Before that, I don’t really know what it was and I was fascinated by the fact that it was created by accident during the development of computer technology. People never thought of using the internet as a material to create artwork that contains so many meanings and ideas. It is distinctive too, in its style and the way it is created. These artwork are powerful, being transmitted all around the internet. They spread like “virus” which I can make a reference to modern era memes. Prior to all of that, people only use the internet to create a personal web page that contains only information.
Today, net art has developed at an unprecedented level. Besides from the old way of creating net art with code, many artists are dependent on technology such as Sketch and Apple Pen to create artwork. Not only it creates a different style of art, but it helped human to express their ideas easily.
Net Art is visible everywhere in our lives from app interface to the funny memes on your social media. I believed it will the old traditional way of hand drawing with physical materials.
Week 11 – Response to Web Work: A History of Net Art – Milly Cai
In this article, Greene introduces the history of internet art to us. By listing many organizations and individual artists, he tries to form up a basic picture of how the art integrated into the medium of internet and the procedure that the expressions of art concept changed since the very beginning of the internet art.
One interesting perspective about internet art is that this new medium of art creates a stronger connection between art and social and political tensions. For example, the cyberfeminism, which does remind me that the net artwork does provide a chance to a new way of artistic experiment with “internet tools and space” (166). Besides, I’m also curious about how it has happened on the website: if this art is produced partly because of the special medium internet. In addition, like the filmmaker Cheang’s projects on the topics of technology and access in Asia and a website on the life of Brandon for the Guggenheim, which apparently shows that internet art is powerful to create a dialogue around prevalent social, cultural, and even political issues. Though traditional art could also approach this goal, however, none of them could be as interactive and persuasive as this one.
But, internet art does not always mean good. Just like Greene said, “the internet began to take off when the exhausted, commercially exploited art culture had soared in the 80s” (163). There is a concern that the internet would soon be someday be “colonized by mainstream media and the corporate juggernaut” (165). Internet art might end up with the unavoidable fate of commercialization. Besides, from my previous reading related to digital design, people are also questioning the relationship between art and computer. How much does the computer take part in the art creating process? Is that still art or just some generated data from the machine. I think this is still a question we need to think about. Where the balance point between technology and art is, for many of the net art examples do seem to be far different from the art we would feel and understand.
Week 11: Response to A History of Internet Art – Laura Huang
The article mainly discussed the invention of the net and the art generated from it. As the art merges into the form of internet, it is more related to our daily lives that combine texts, images and becomes a new method of communication. However, the establishment of internet art requires certain rules and principles. Originally, the internet should provide an equitable community for all kinds of art and artists. The open platform should be independent of any bureaucracy or discriminations and should create a civil society that involves media openness and pluralistic politics.
As more people, organizations even authorities participate in this process of production and distribution. The delivering channel is attached with some outside meanings and objectives from political or economic aspects. In this case, with more social forces influencing the internet and net art, they are likely to be colonized by mainstream media and corporate magnate.
In my opinion, it is very interesting to see how mainstream opinions and art forms change along with the development of the internet. For example, the cyberfeminism and the artworks that come together with this idea. The subdivisions in the net community allow more creative ideas and concentrated inspirations among people. And in fact, the net art is so closely merged with our lives that we may don’t even notice them. They also have so many forms but the premises to promote net art is the freedom on the internet. The net community should be the pioneer in developing and disseminating new ideas rather than a tool to control the ideology and abuse of power. Being totally anonymous on the internet should also be cautious as this feature may cause irrational and vicious in the conversation of net art and break some fundamental rules. Overall, the Internet is still on the track of fast development and it needs new strategies to lead the way.