Jim Punk is not an artist; he is art. Jim Punk is not a person; he is a persona. You will never see Jim Punk out getting coffee, not because “he” doesn’t like it, but because Jim Punk does not exist in the physical world. For the sake of clarity, we will refer to Jim Punk’s creator as “Future Artist X” (Schleiner, 2003). “This artist keeps his/her identity guarded from the public, concealing gender markers, age and physical location. He/she/it spends 99.9% of its every waking hour sitting in front of a high-grade lap top…”
Unlike many net artists, there are no interviews, biographical information, or physical spaces exhibiting the work of this Future Artist X. The majority of information can be found by interacting with work on a variety of homepages: jimpunk.com, jimpunk.net, jimpunk.com/.net, jimpunk.org, jimpunk.blogspot.com, twitter.com/jimpunk. He/she is also associated with sites such as triptych.tv and screenfull.net, examples of two collaborative projects with other net artists.
As collaborative net art does not require face to face interaction, or even exchange of personal information, Future Artist X has been able to remain an enigma. While he/she may sign these works as Jim Punk, it is only one of many methods used to build the character. Additionally, Future Artist X is known to tweet, respond to email, and blogs in his/her own variation of the English language. \ | / h:(h 1oo|<5> 1:<
He/she works with a variety of net art based mediums including video, sound, text, hypertext, animated gifs, and browser manipulation. Their subject matter often challenges the norms of communication and visuality, critiques political agendas, and sometimes serves solely to disorient the viewer. Recurring themes include: 9/11 (Remember), George Bush, Saddam Hussein, Anti-War, Anime, Pikachu, Japanese written characters, Richard Widmark, Tom Selleck in Magnum, P.I. (or I.P. according to Punk), French, Movies, the 1920s?, Picasso, Duchamp, Joseph Beuys, Lots of artists, The word fuck, Xtranormal.com, Poetry, and Binary code.
His/her specific work, “Slam Poetry Pictures,” manipulates browser windows to echo the presentation style of a slam poet. He/she accomplishes this by rhythmically transforming windows in size, location, and color. Since there is no explicitly voiced content, the emotions of the viewer are projected onto the Jim Punk template. This effect is achieved by programming each window to stay open for a prescribed amount of time; then, when the time is up, the next window is prompted to open. The process continues in this manner until Future Artist X decides to end the piece. While “Slam Poetry Pictures” has a definite end point, many of his/her pieces do not, either looping themselves, or following a never-ending list of automatically enabled links.
On turbulence.org, one can find “DISCO-NNECT” by Abe Linkoln, with guest remixers Jim Punk and Subculture. “DISCO-NNECT RIP” by Subculture and “Y T B” and “Unicorn” by Jim Punk, as well as several other works, are posted under the header of the page. “Y T B,” a video-remix piece, is comprised of two imbedded YouTube screens side-by-side. Each screen has the same videos to choose from in the horizontal preview bar, but they are in different orders. One can choose the video they wish to play, and because of their positioning and text that reads, “click & mix here,” the viewer is prompted to play two videos at once. At the end of each video, another begins automatically, playing the series on a continuous loop. The viewer can stop any video at any time, or pick a different video to play instead of the next one in the sequence. The videos in the sequence are videos Future Artist X has manipulated, edited, and remixed; then, because of the dual screens and varying orders, the videos are further remixed. Both the visuals and sound elements are intriguing while watching one video; yet, they work most successfully, transforming into something completely new, when played in conjunction with a video on the adjacent screen.
While these two pieces are primarily based in aesthetics, Future Artist X uses other works to express his dissatisfaction with political agendas regarding the Middle East. He is especially concerned with the causes and effects surrounding the September 11 attacks and the war in Iraq. The three pieces from his homepage that most overtly deal with this content are “Noise,” “9/11,” and “LemonSqueezer.” Utilizing browser manipulation and embedded video, Future Artist X develops Jim Punk’s identity by association with anti-war activism.
Since Jim Punk has such a large body of work, it can be assumed that one may never see all of it. These selected works can only acquaint users with Jim Punk, and by no means address all of his intricacies. Even contained on his homepage, many pieces prompt different experiences, giving viewers varied experiences based on the ways they navigate through a piece. Moving away from this site, one begins to understand the prominence of Jim Punk’s persona throughout the world of net art. He/she adds to his/her allure and mythology because of the impossibility of locating all of his/her works. Despite attempts at familiarizing oneself with Jim Punk, there will always be another piece, on another site, on another planet.
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