Week 11: Rachel Greene Response (Matthew Fertig)

Reading Rachel Greene’s piece on the history of net art made me realize certain things about net art that I may not have otherwise thought of. Firstly, by nature of the art existing on the web, and not in a specific location, anyone can contribute, making the art form all-inclusive. Especially in regards to collaborative internet art projects, the ability to get users from an array of different places makes the end result that much more interesting. Secondly, the art form heavily embraced feminism of the 90s, allowing artists like Olia Lialina an outlet to share stories on a larger scale. When browsing the internet for net art projects to write a blog post about, I came across several of Lialina’s works, including her “My Boyfriend Came Back From the War.” While simplistic, her use of dialogue and images develop the tone of her work rather effectively. Her piece definitely is slightly overwhelming, with the creation of new boxes almost every time a line of dialogue or image is clicked. My assumption is that that is her intention, though I cannot definitively say exactly how that serves her greater purpose. Nevertheless, I believe ‘true’ art should raise debates about ‘true’ meaning, and I think her work (as well as many of the other net art examples I came across) does just that.

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