Lascaux

Introduction to Net.Art by Natalie Bookchin & Alexei Shulgin (1994-1999) is deceptive in its simplicity. Readers can interact with the information while not losing themselves in oceans of illuminated text. The content serves as a guide for Internet artists in the then modern era, but formatting is the best tool used to engage viewers (I will return to this later). Bookchin and Shulgin’s ideals for the development of Internet art are parallel to common themes of that five year period. Opportunity extended by a DIY interface allows the designer to choose from five basic modes: “1. Content based
2. Formal
3. Ironic
4. Poetic
5. Activist.” Once a purpose is set into motion, the designer can gauge success by one of the ten basic indicators: “1. Bandwidth 
2. Girl or boy friends 
3. Hits on search engines
4. Hits on your sites 
5. Links to your site 
6. Invitations 
7. E-mail 
8. Airplane tickets 
9. Money.” While this text seems to be completely simplified, some of the concepts are extremely complex and deserve more description than are allotted in the piece. Had I been a digital artist at the time, I would find this somewhat trivializing of my work. At the same time, I would be unable to deny the merit of the majority of what they’re saying.

Cyber*babes by Lisa Hutton explains the laws of Internet censorship while teetering along the boundaries of what she can and cannot do. Her piece includes pictures of men and women cut together and exposed momentarily. After a second, the exposed areas are covered with the standard “black bar.” The prompts taking the reader from page to page are constantly asking to verify the users age, and to me seems like a statement that anyone can click “I am 18.” She continues to display the actual statues regarding the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and plays with what she can and cannot show to the viewer. If the viewer clicks that they are not 18, it will take them to a page concerned with toys, cyber nannies, bedtimes, etc. People will use the internet to see what they want to see, and with the ease of “age-verification” it is almost impossible for censors to protect children and freedom of speech at the same time.

The Visual Thesaurus by Plumb Design is a Net Art piece that has remained relevant since its creation and is still used by many people today. This is extremely interesting because most Net art becomes obsolete within a few years of its creation, and many of them don’t even maintain links, allowing them to rot and become inaccessible. Visual Thesaurus takes the regular thesaurus and displays it as a never-ending word web. In doing so, it allows the viewer to see relationships between words and follow a trail, mine went from “Stein” to “drop a line” before my free trial ran out.

Fluidities and Oppositions among Curators, Filter Feeders, and Future Artist by Anne-Marie Schleiner speaks to the new circumstances that artists may be working under in the 21st century. Her artists X, Y, Z scenarios discuss possible variations between these future artists. Schleiner also compares the oppositions between past artists and future artist through a T chart, highlighting their workspaces, habits, egos, and mannerisms. She then does a very similar statement for future curators, alluding to possible backgrounds, attire, and ties to institutions.