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Contents

/ Introduction In Other Words ...? Discourses with Poetic Function Matters of Content, Form Kunstpavillon der Tiroler Künstlerschaft, and Im-material Innsbruck/Austria Sabine Hochrieser, Michael Kargl, Birgit Rinagl p. 98 and Franz Thalmair p. 4 You Own Me Now Until You Forget About Me. Net-Work::Curatorial Practice Mala galerija—Moderna galerija, Ljubljana/Slovenia Steve Dietz p. 118 p. 18 / Conversations / Exhibitions Art, New Media and the Curatorial White, Yellow, Blue, and Black, Sarah Cook one Coincidence, and one Object. p. 136 Galerija Galženica, Velika Gorica/Croatia p. 28 Ever-Changing Chains of Work Constant Dullaart Untitled (The Author Entitles Texts p. 146 by Experimenting with Art.) Kunstverein Medienturm, Graz/Austria Stories Without Boundaries But Full of Lies p. 48 Les Liens Invisibles p. 154 Translation is a Mode. | Übersetzung ist eine Form. The ‘One Idea, One Result’ Method Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, Vienna/Austria Jan Robert Leegte p. 68 p. 160 Monochromacity as a Reflection of Indecisive Contexts Computing Processes in Mark E. Grimm Internet-based Art p. 214 Thomas Dreher p. 166 versatile m[c]o[mmunication]dality Mary-Anne Breeze—aka netwurker From Where and To Whom is a Text p. 224 Speaking? Stefan Nowotny Live Cinema—Language and Elements p. 176 Mia Makela p. 234 There’s More Than One Way to Do Microcodes Possibilities in Locative Media Pall Thayer Jeremy Hight p. 184 p. 240

Writing About Zeros and Ones / Biographies Josephine Bosma p. 190 Artists, Authors, Editors p. 250 A Practice Without Discipline Peter Mörtenböck and Imprint Helge Mooshammer p. 260 p. 196

Technological Mimesis Marius Watz p. 208 4 – – 5

Matters of Content, Form and Im-material

- Sabine Hochrieser Michael Kargl Birgit Rinagl Franz Thalmair -

Why is it still easier to get an entire an expanded field of contemporary art museum collection on the Internet than to and cultural practice and its well-defined get a single work of Internet-based Art precursors in the 20th century history of in a museum space? As with the nature artistic expression—many reasons why of this question, both aspects have to be Internet-based Art is often stuck in a taken into account: the field of Internet- ghetto between the different contexts it based Art with its characteristics and emerges from. proponents, as well as the mechanisms that allow institutions to filter what In this regard, this book analyses how the public at large understands to be artistic creation on—and based upon— art. Within this balancing act between the Internet and the processes of its independent (sometimes anti-institutional) re-formulation in the real space can be work on the one hand and institutional developed in order to find appropriate (sometimes commercial) work on the presentational modes, suitable for both other, the transference of artworks sides—the Internet and the art world— created on, for or with only a slight in favour of interdisciplinary discourse. glance at the Internet into a setting that It also represents a synopsis of the is normally dedicated to the presentation activities of the art collective CONT3XT. of highly accepted and valued forms NET over the past five years, since it was of art can only be developed case by founded in Vienna in early 2006 by Sabine case, according to what the typology of Hochrieser, Michael Kargl, Birgit Rinagl the actual artwork requires. Internet- and Franz Thalmair. Programmatically, this based Art is constantly shifting between group of artists, curators and authors— the daily news, commercial and social- their different roles and functions political interests and the reactions to it, sometimes regarded strictly, sometimes between technological innovation and the as a fluid continuum—work at the basis cultural context in which technology is of contemporary visual, textual and always embedded. It oscillates between networked practices. Always starting from the idea of the context as the most access, Internet-based Art can be viewed indecisive and variable but relevant at any time and any location and can constraint of any situation, the collective therefore be left in its own medium of analyses the spatial, temporal, discursive production—or, to put it bluntly and to as well as the institutional framework that talk in terms of exhibitions, the medium conceptual artistic practices are rooted equals the showroom. Over more than in today. Here the main point of interest 15 years, the curation of Internet-based is the exploration of creative territories Art in a medium of its own has developed shifting between the ‘virtual’ and the into a multifaceted communication ‘real’ as well as between the dimensions process on content among users from all of the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’ of the backgrounds and provenances. Artists, field of art. This book can be read as a activists, programmers, scholars from loose documentation of projects as well different disciplines and all kinds of users as a screenshot of tendencies that have and spectators can be involved in the emerged and disappeared within the process of curating Internet-based Art. past few years. It is not intended to be Curators dealing with the Internet as scientific or strictly theoretical, nor is it an artistic space are deemed “cultural a product of artistic expression or pure context providers”,¹ “meta artists”,² curatorial practice. But in any case it must “power users”,³ “filter feeders”⁴ or simply be understood as a protocol of workflows “proactive consumers”.⁵ “Curating (on) concerned with matters of content, form the Web”,⁶ as it was already termed and im-material. in 1998, not only creates a public space for the protagonists of Internet- Internet Work based Art, but also enables them to participate in creating their own public Starting with a fact that has been clarified space, which often takes on the form of extensively and by many authors: provided discursive contextualisation strategies and that there is a computer with Internet presentational models. Even more than the

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installation of an exhibition in a—virtual— sometimes been described as rhizomatic. exhibition room, by providing texts, images In addition, the somewhat communicative and links to the ‘original’ artworks, the mechanisms this art is based on are handling of technological developments simultaneously its subject, thus allowing it and the knowledge about existing to function as a reciprocal feedback loop channels of communication are integral between the author and the spectator or, parts of an Internet-based process of in other words more suited to the context curating, as are providing resources, Internet-based Art, between a group initiating collaborations and remaining in of networked collaborators. In the 20th contact with international networks. century, the numerous postulations on authorship and on the concept of work Expanding the curators’ field of action as a definable entity with a definable set is closely linked to the characteristics of of limits gave way to a discourse that art produced on and for the Internet. It is constitutive for the expanded artistic allows them to incorporate more than working methods and processes in the the supervision, contextualisation and digital realm. In this vein, curators on the exhibition of artworks in museums, Internet can be understood as those “who galleries or alternative spaces. Internet- set up contexts for artists who provide based Art does not necessarily have to contexts”⁷ and even further as those be presented in a customary exhibition who develop discourse about artists who space, because, as already mentioned, create discourse. as it can be viewed, used and interacted with anywhere at any time. In many cases, Apart from the still-existing need to define Internet-based Art emerges only through the variable characteristics of Internet- the participation of an audience with based Art and the many forms in which diverse approaches to the Internet, who it is realised, the question that should be comment on, transform and disseminate the focus of the curators’ interest with artworks in multifaceted ways, which have regard to traditional institutional work is not primarily what Internet-based Art is space that is open to interferences”⁸ as but the mediation of the fact that it is art. well as with the combination of Internet- Additionally, and in parallel to the way based Art with traditional forms of art, the curators present and disseminate art on chance to be shown in museum contexts the Internet, the curatorial process of thus equally raises the importance of a transferring it into real space raises the whole art genre and a whole generation of question of how it can be integrated into artists constantly acting and reacting to the discourses of the system of art as it new—sometimes obvious, sometimes less exists nowadays, by entering into action visible—everyday commercial and political with public and private collections, the developments. art market and also with independent projects, yet based on a traditional In return, talking in terms of the mutual understanding of art. impact of systems on each other, and coming back to the initial question of Institutional Work why it is easier to get an entire museum collection on the Internet than to get a Even if Internet-based Art does not need work of Internet-based Art into a museum to be exhibited in the traditional context of space, it has to be mentioned that the museums, galleries or alternative spaces, exhibition of traditional art collections for cultural discourse and the analysis of nowadays “is not only accommodated the mechanisms of contemporary society by the spatial realisation of architectural it is more than urgent to find appropriate spaces any longer. Increasingly influential ways of presenting the tactics artists use is the way that the design of an extended to deal with a medium that is omnipresent typology of spaces, including the Internet, and affects our daily lives impetuously structures creative practices”⁹ and raises and more than any other medium. With the chance of reaching a broader audience the development of exhibition strategies and achieving a more effective discourse, that take the form of a “living information abstaining from conventional forms of

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display that the museum audience is used and sculpture, or younger categories to. In other words, “like the best exhibition such as installations, performances and publications, extending an exhibition online video, then enjoy the further attendance means more than simply re-presenting the institutions offer: exhibition, it but also reformatting it for the best documentation, study, preservation, possible experience in the medium—in archiving etc. In this way the art canon, front of a computer screen, transmitted art history, and last but not least—to talk via the Internet”¹⁰. Accordingly, the other in economic terms—the material value of way around, extending an online exhibition art on the art market, are created. From or showing an Internet-based artwork in the viewpoint of reclaiming cultural value, the real space means more than simply re- museums should take into account the presenting it but also reformatting it for question of how a traditional institution— the best possible experience—in a physical more or less characterised by rigid exhibition space with all the features hierarchies and centuries-old customs and traits it can be specified with. One and habits—can come to terms with the possible way of stressing this two-way artworks the 21st century ‘networked exchange between the virtual and the society’ has developed over more than physical space might be a shift—on both fifteen years and is still developing. sides—from a paradigmatic, technology- driven and hermetically closed curating The concept of what is traditionally to a syntagmatic, context-oriented and understood as curating is still bound transparent working process that abstains to the institution of the museum and from the notion of exclusivity. other equivalent exhibition spaces— and the same applies not only to the Traditional art institutions today image of curating but also to its mode: continue to filter what the general public “In its evolution since the 17th century, understands to be art. The selected and [curating] centers itself around the thus privileged art genres of painting ‘expert’ opinion of the curator as educated connoisseur and archivist of various be associated with dialectical aesthetics, works. Thus, the curator determines the is characterised by the ways in which works’ cultural value, as well as, in the montage-like spatial juxtaposition— present day, their mass entertainment achieved through hyperlink structures and value, which is equally important in the searchability—is drawn upon for narrative era of ubiquitous free market democracy effect. The functionality of links and (at least in most of the Western world)”.¹¹ databases extends upon already existing Contrary to the work of a curator on the tabular, classificatory forms, such as the Internet, art institutions frequently ignore collection archive, catalogue, and methods the fact that “the global network itself of spatial arrangement in galleries—all became the educational environment technologies intimately associated with for those without direct access to the historical evolution of the museum. institutions.”¹² Even if the early promise of Adopting a museological aesthetics that the utopia of a critically engaged media- understands, and is more effectively consumer/producer on the Internet has calibrated to digital communication only been fulfilled on a very limited level, technologies will see the museum the integration of alternative modes of emphasised as a machine for creating re-presentation and the acceleration of juxtaposition, a generator of conditions for discourse as forced by some specialists dialogical encounters with the unforeseen might be taken into account for the re- (enabling, even privileging, the experience presentation of Internet-based Art in the of surprise, the unexpected and perhaps physical environment of an institution. the random)”.¹³ The ongoing neglect of these similarities leads to the fact that In the context of Internet-based Art, “a broader art audience may still place the metaphor of an archive can be more trust in the selection, and therefore applied to the tasks of museums and validation, undertaken by a prestigious to other traditional art collections: “The museum, while in the online environment, discursivity of multimedia, and how it can the only signifier of validation may be the

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brand recognition carried by the museum’s than in a traditional sense, is involved in name”¹⁴ and the art market. the process of transforming his artworks into—sometimes temporary, sometimes Contextual Work fixed—commodities that are suited to presentation in real settings without In parallel to the emergence of new losing their ephemeral, immaterial, challenges for museums and art variable, networked and finally Internet- institutions, the border between the work based characteristics. One possible way of an Internet-based artist and the work of escaping this dilemma might be to done by a curator who wants to show the consider the contextual and the discursive work in a physical exhibition is shifting. environment that art on the Internet Internet-based works can only be re- is created in. Talking in terms of the formatted to be shown in an exhibition mutual relations of curatorial and artistic space, since the original context of those practices and relying on “the collaborative artworks—the private surroundings of model [which] is also crucial to the artistic people consuming Internet-based Art on process itself”,¹⁵ this context can only be their computers at home—is lost. The clarified by increasingly becoming one and installation of computers in an exhibition dissolving the strict distinctions between room, as was done in the early stages of the two working processes, which are still exhibiting Internet-based Art to simulate considered to be different. this context, as well as the curatorial decision to leave it open to the visitors Cultural production and meta-discursive to browse the artworks or not, is not activities on the Internet have been suitable anymore (and in fact it never expanded to use the online medium as an was). On the one hand it is the task of exhibition space, a distribution platform the curator to develop new models of and a social aggregator. Accordingly, its material display, on the other it is the practitioners and performers have been task of the artist too, who, much more characterised by many different terms to describe these various tasks of an online creators of Web 2.0 nowadays want curator. Since the first generation of their technologies to be seen as pushing “net.art”¹⁶ in the early 1990s, the “creativity, information sharing, and, most Internet, its use as a medium of mass- notably, collaboration among users.”¹⁸ communication and finally the various Theoretically, this means a shift from a forms of art engaged with it have come a more traditional, consumption-oriented long way, as have the curatorial activities content to a rather autonomous and concerned with it. Many of the early socially driven system of production, even enthusiastic ideas, developed to draw though, in practice, “according to 2007 multifaceted images of possible digital statistics, only between 0.5 – 1.5 percent worlds, are still utopian, many of them of the users of the most popular social are outdated, but some of them have media sites […] contributed their own successfully flourished and, finally, one content.”¹⁹ Furthermore, these platforms of the driving forces of the present Web labelled 2.0 are “not just products but also culture seems to be the idea of social services, watched and updated according networking. The social component has to the constant dictates of their makers been central to the debate around cultural and those who can pressure them.”²⁰ activities in general and has reinforced the Despite the criticism of the ongoing idea of curating on the Internet within the commercialisation of these technological context of “a community-based narrative systems and bearing in mind that their of everyday life”¹⁷ and in a much broader users are frequently reduced to the role of sense as the filtering of information of any consumers constrained by pre-designed kind. templates, this form of broader social practice has made it possible for “acts, Described by a perpetually utopian ideas and products [to be] authorised terminology already used at the early and made credible through processes of beginnings of artistic experimentation mediation and communicative exchange”.²¹ with the online medium, the commercial As a consequence, within this system of

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legitimisation the person of the curator of temporary discursive and/or dialogic dealing with the dissemination of Internet- situations are only some aspects of the based Art on the various platforms is work of a curator, as are the visualisation more than an expert on display, modelling of processes and workflows by means of the reception and interpretation of art; the online publishing systems, the collecting tasks of a curator may thus be understood of contextual information about artworks, as those of a “global collaborator in the invention or re-use of taxonomies art’s social relations”²² who is not or even—on a more basic level—the only responsible for the linkage of the writing of code for the display and visual protagonists of the art field but also for representation of an online exhibition. the conjunction of different cultural and artistic disciplines in favour of the many Unlike the working conditions of a forms an interdisciplinary and networked traditional curator, the curator of Internet- environment can assume. based Art works in and within the same