Net.Art - A Brief Introduction :)

Net.Art Quick Facts

- A group of artists who have worked on Internet Art from early 1990s to early 2000s
- “Makes the page itself an art”
- “Internet Art” – Art created on the internet
- Started in 1994
- Broke down traditional physical gallery walls and more based on interaction with the user
- The internet is not unicast (one sender and user), it is multicast (multiple senders and users simultaneously)
- Creation of the Poietic Generator (Self-sustaining, piece of art – small blocks of color filled to create mosaics)
- Three criteria for net.art:
o Interactive
o Participatory
o Digital
- Not the same as uploading traditional art to the internet
- Inspired by Dada, conceptual art, Fluxus, kinetic/video/performance art
- 6 forms of internet art from 1993-96 (email, audio, video, graphics, animation and websites) - Some Net Artists:
o Roy Ascott (Pioneer)
o JODI (Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans)
o Mark Amerika
o Ken Goldberg
o Etoy
o Jim Punk
o Mary Flanagan
o Golan Levin
o Mark Napier
o Marisa Olson
o Artie Vierkant
o Jon Rafman

ASCII Quick Facts

- Branch of Internet Art
- Graphic design technique using 95 printable characters (128 total) from ASCII standard form 1963
- “American Standard Code for Information Exchange” – A character-encoding standard for internet communication
- Developed from telegraph code
- Successor of “Typewriter Art” placed in newspapers
- ASCII Artists:
o Kenneth Knowlton (Pioneer)
- ASCII Styles:
o Typewriter style
o Line art
o Solid art
o Shading
o Combinations from above

Final Thoughts?

0verall, I think Net.Art has allowed artists to be more experimental than using traditional mediums, and seems more liberating with the choice of being able to bring your thoughts to life. This form of art as opened up my perspective on the endless possibilities that the Internet can bring, and not to limit myself with my art.

Sources