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CAITLIN JONES

MY WORLD IS BIGGER THAN YOUR ART WORLD

THE DOMINANCE OF THE — NOT TO MENTION THE ART OBJECT—IS BEING CHALLENGED BY HACKERS, CODE WARRIORS, AND ARTISTICALLY MOTIVATED NERDS WHO PREFER NETWORKS, WEBSITES, AND $19.95 POSTER SALES TO GLITZY SHOWS AND ART-STAR FAME

DISCUSSED: Explosive HTML, documenta X,Viewing the Source, Walker Evans, Fountain,Aura, PBS, Radical Software, Cory Arcangel, Super Mario Clouds

CAITLIN JONES: Your work exists in going to know what the project is—and multiple formats: as an object and as they’ve actually been able to see it [not just installation, but also as pure code a photo of it]. Which, for me, was the that you freely distribute over the whole point in the first place. internet. Now that you’re starting to sell work in the art market, what —From an unpublished interview between the does this multiplicity mean to a col- author and subject, July 6, 2005, Electronic lector or an institution that buys it? Intermix, New York, N.Y. Is it something that you think about? Do you really care? n 1997, eighty years after Marcel Duchamp de- CORY ARCANGEL: Not really. [Laughs] It just means it’s posited a signed urinal at the New York Society better, right? That the work will exist in all these differ- of Independent and called it art, a num- ent worlds, that it is circulating in all these other forms— ber of artists who used the internet as their pre- and, especially valuable, it will be circulating on the ferred medium were invited to participate in internet. So you know eight trillion more people are Idocumenta, a major held every five years in

3 Cory Arcangel and , Super Mario Movie, 2005. Courtesy of the artists and Team Gallery. blvr30.1.qxd 12/12/05 1:58 PM Page 4

Kassel, Germany. Renowned for its which are strictly technical, not war/war.html) is considered a controversial subject matter and its social or political.”2 Likewise, there major work from what she sardon- willingness to embrace new art was no “Art World Inc.,”no galleries ically describes as the “heroic” forms, documenta seemed an ideal or museums or collectors; no pre- period of internet art. Making use venue for what was then called conceived notions about what con- of the limits of early web browser net.art.These net.artists—an interna- stituted art and no entrenched sys- technology and HTML, Lialina tional, ad hoc collective of web art tems of validation. Like Duchamp’s constructed a haunting work about practitioners including Heath Bun- urinal, what would soon become war and love that is both personal ting (UK), Vuk Cosic (Slovenia), known as “web art”or “internet art” and political. Starting with the line jodi.org (Netherlands), Olia Lialina and the broader moniker, “new “My boyfriend came back from the (Russia) and Alexei Shulgin (Rus- media art,” posed a challenge not war. After dinner they left us sia)—were a community connected only to the arbitrary line between alone,” viewers can click on the only through online networks and art and nonart, but it also ques- black-and-white images and text, brief meetings at festivals.1 tioned the necessity of the institu- navigating their own way through Politically and geographically tions established to contain and the narrative via a system of multi- isolated from the mainstream con- present art—namely, museums and plying frames. temporary art market, these artists, galleries—as well as the primacy of Numerous loosely affiliated or- particularly those from Eastern the in the creative process. ganizations began exploring the ar- Europe and Russia, also saw the in- One of the earliest examples of tistic and creative potential of the ternet as a practical way to expose web art was uploaded to the inter- web as early as 1991. Among them their work to a broad audience. In net in 1994, when Heath Bunting was The THING, a bulletin board his 1993 essay elucidating the posted the number of every tele- service (BBS) or discussion list “utopian,”“revolutionary,”“equaliz- phone booth in ’s Kings focused on and ing,” “democratic” fervor inspired Cross Station on his website (now cultural theory.3 Reveling in the by the emergence of the internet, accessible at http://www.irational. outsider status of internet art, science fiction writer and internet- org/cybercafe/xrel.html). Bunting Wolfgang Staehle, an artist and era sage Bruce Sterling observed, asked visitors to his site to call the founder of The THING, stated in “Why do people want to be ‘on the numbers at random and engage an online interview with internet Internet?’ One of the main reasons anyone who answered in conversa- and theorist Tilman is simple freedom.The Internet is a tion. Bunting’s “happening”— Baumgaertel, “I thought it was rare example of a true, modern, which randomly connected hun- absurd to criticize the art distribu- functional anarchy. There is no dreds of internet users to hundreds tion institutions within those same ‘Internet Inc.’ There are no official of London commuters—was one institutions. That’s like simply rear- censors, no bosses, no board of of the first creative demonstrations ranging the furniture… I think one directors, no stockholders. In princi- of the number of people who of the reasons The THING worked ple, any node can speak as a peer to could be reached through the was that the traditional art distribu- any other node, as long as it obeys internet, and the sort of grassroots tion network truly didn’t notice it the rules of the TCP/IP protocols, participation the internet might at all. There was also the thrill of engender. Olia Lialina’s 1996 work being able to feel like a small con- 1 The term net.art was first used by Vuk Cosic, My Boyfriend Came Back from the who had organized an actual physical meeting of these artists, who predominantly communi- War (http://www.teleportacia.org/ 3 Other virtual and social platforms, such as the cated via email, at a conference titled Net.art per nettime mailing list and Rhizome.org, support- se. The name that came to identify the group 2 Sterling, Bruce.“A Short History of the Inter- ed a growing community of artists, posting was apparently the result of a random comput- net,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, emails and distributing digital artworks, enabling er glitch. Feb. 1993. an inspired output of thought and activity.

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spiratorial band.” leech fanciers and bridge players artists working in , sculp- Which is not to say that these whiling away the idle hours, CIA ture, and video), as well as a space artists subscribed to the utopian PsyOps teams taking part in the for the artists to create art spe- visions cited by Sterling, whose virtual community by sending cifically for the web. The own writings express ambivalence ominous email messages to some made the works accessible online toward this prophecy. Even while members of Haiti’s oligarchy through the documenta website, but they recognized the freedoms of who had personal computers. the works were also physically working online, these artists, many installed in what were referred to as of whom came of age during the Early works often reflected this “office spaces” (as if the cubicle Balkan crisis and the fall of Com- combination of fascination and dis- context were the only one in which munism, still saw the web as a trust. In 1995, jodi.org (Joan people could relate to a computer), potentially insidious forum (it was, Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmas) cre- in contrast to the neutral white- after all the brainchild of the ated a work that purposely exposed cube gallery spaces other artists in RAND Corporation and the Pen- the underlying structure of the web the exhibition were offered. tagon). Artist and writer Matthew and the language (HTML) com- And soon the collaboration be- Fuller wrote to the “nettime” mail- monly used to code it. To further tween the art world and this con- ing list an indictment of the naïve explain: the menu bar of any web spiratorial band began, perhaps pre- embrace of the internet as a revo- browser offers a “View Source” dictably, to sour. The curators lutionary medium: function, which enables the much planned to remove the work from debated culture of openness that the internet at the close of docu- To: [email protected] allowed people to learn, share, or menta X and download it to a pur- Subject: SPEW steal (depending on whom you talk chasable CD-ROM—thus doom- From: Matthew Fuller to) any webpage and its content. ing projects predicated on theories Date:Wed, 8 Nov 1995 23:00:39 The artists’ “wwwwwwwww.jodi. of total accessibility to a narrowly org” page appears as a black back- accessible fate. In protest to what A second in the life of the inter- ground studded with green, and was perceived as the curators’ net. Thousands of people across seemingly random, alphanumeric inability to comprehend the essen- the globe are indulging in furi- code. Activate the “View Source” tial nature of web art, Vuk Cosic, ous bouts of lobotomized libidi- function, however, and see that the exploiting the web’s potential for nal typing. Islamic astrologers, of- lines of code constitute an image— “illegal copying,” cloned the entire fice bombers and terrorist a detailed diagram of a bomb. documenta X website and uploaded wannabes announce their glori- it to a different server. Cosic’s site, ous intentions to the world; espite their healthy suspi- Documenta Done (1997), is still fuckers of vacuum cleaners are cion of the internet (their available on a Slovenian art lab’s exchanging tips on new models; D chosen display medium) website (http://www.ljudmila.org/ the private security firm Group and their near-derision of galleries ~vuk/dx), ensuring these works Four are checking up on U.K. and museum systems, some continue to be accessible, free of environmental activists via their net.artists and other non-net.art- charge and without any institu- very own GreenNet account; sta- affiliated artists working on the web tional backing, eight years after the tistics flagellants are giving it agreed to participate in the 1997 close of documenta X. some; and say this was a few documenta (known as documenta X ). When compared to the work weeks before U.S. intervention in The show promised to embrace the of these artists, Duchamp’s “revolu- Haiti according to Time maga- web as both a didactic space (pro- tionary” gesture of plunking a uri- zine, we could see amongst the viding supporting material for the nal in a gallery might appear, espe-

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Webpage and source code of wwwwwwwww.jodi.org.

cially at a century’s remove, like so million in 1999.4 If we follow the easily co-opted and repossessed by much pointless furniture rearrang- logic of artists like Staehle, Du- a world that values not only the ing. Once a blasphemous statement champ’s critique of the system hap- ratification and making of high against taste within the high church pened within the system—a urinal culture, but also the making of of Art, Fountain has now assumed a is an object. It can be touched; it money. Web artists who privilege place in the art world as prestigious can be signed; it can be purchased; open-source systems have provided as any painting by Picasso or it can be owned. As a result, perhaps the greatest historical chal- Matisse. A 1964 replica of Fountain Duchamp’s radical message was lenge to the art world’s voracious now sits on a pedestal at the Muse- cultural and commercial impuls- um of Modern Art, and another 4 Both of these Fountains were part of an edi- es—in part because many web tion of eight, cast according to the artist’s 1964 sold at auction for more than $1.7 specifications. artists straddle these systems (one

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closed, based on ownership, tem in which his art has no eco- —“The Work of Art in authorship, and monetary value; nomic value? How does a system the Age of Mechanical Reproduc- the other open, based on open outside the system become viable if tion” by the German philosopher source systems, community, and, if the main means of cultural and Walter Benjamin.In this essay,Ben- you will, “cultural value”), and are financial viability (ownership) is jamin uses the medium of photog- deviously conversant in the lan- intentionally thwarted? Will the raphy to float his historic definition guages of both—so much so that revolutionary impulse seem wa- of the essential nature of art—its they have managed to foil even the tered-down if internet artists start “aura.” 6 This aura, described as the attempted foilers, adding level of to work inside both the closed and intangible quality that imbues the ironic commentary to level of the open systems simultaneously? object with its unique and original ironic commentary and playfully And is it inevitable that one day character, becomes weakened by a mocking any closed-system at- internet art will appear, to future photograph’s capacity to be readily tempts at conferring value. generations, like a lot of pointless and identically reproduced. For example, in 1979, Sherrie rearranging of furniture? Despite its auralessness, pho- Levine rephotographed Walker tography has managed to achieve Evans’s iconic images from an ex- OUTER SPACE: great status in the art world, its aura hibition catalogue and titled her se- A THUMBNAIL returning with the market designa- ries After Walker Evans. At the time HISTORY ON tion of “vintage” prints, limited a powerful comment on notions of THE EMERGING FORCE editions, and inventive mounting authorship and originality, Levine’s OF AURALESS ART techniques—all attempts to render copyrighted photographs became the reproducible unreproducible. hot commodities in the market umerous projects and Alfred Stieglitz, photographer and while the original Evans photos artists through the years founder of the famed photography remained public domain and were N have sought to shake up journal Camera Notes, opened available to anyone who wants to the insularity and pomp of 291 (originally called The order them from the Library of world conventions—with varying Little Galleries of the Photo-Seces- Congress. In 2001 the internet degrees of effectiveness. Even more sion) on 5th Ave. in New York in artist Michael Mandiberg created than Duchamp’s Fountain, the in- 1905, one of the first art galleries in the website www.aftersherrie vention of photography leveled a North America to exhibit photog- levine.com (he also has www.after profound and radical challenge to raphy. Stieglitz played a central role walkerevans.com) in which he has the market systems of the art world. in raising the profile of photogra- scanned the same images from the “Earlier much futile thought had phy in high-art circles while Evans exhibition catalog and made been devoted to the question of remaining devoted to the qualities them freely available to download whether photography was art. The of the medium that liberated it and print. Each print comes with primary question—whether the from preciousness. He clearly stated its own certificate of authenticity very invention of photography had his feelings in a catalogue preface that the “owner” can print out and transformed the entire nature of to a later exhibition of his own sign. To quote Mandiberg himself, art—was not raised.”5 This quote work: “My ideal is to achieve the “This is an explicit strategy to cre- comes from what is among the ability to produce numberless ate a physical object with cultural most often cited writings in media value but with little or no eco- 6 His dialogue isolates what he refers to as the nomic value.” All of which raises 5 Benjamin,Walter.“The Work of Art in the Age aura of art as “the essence of all that is transmis- of Mechanical Reproduction.” Illuminations. sible from its beginning, ranging from its sub- the following questions: why English translation 1969, Harcourt Brace stantive duration to its testimony to the history would an artist want to create a sys- Jovanovich Inc. Schocken Books: New York,NY. which it has experienced.”

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prints from each negative, prints all into a microphone wired to the capable of producing programs significantly alive, yet indistinguish- picture tube. Ira Schneider and that may be broadcast, but actual- ably alike, and to be able to circu- Frank Gillette’s Wipe Cycle (1969) ly the system remains closed to late them at a price no higher than synthesized similar sculptural and him. New developments particu- that of a popular magazine or even interactive elements. Nine televi- larly pertinent to cable TV por- a daily paper.”7 sions and a closed-circuit camera tend a plethora of new channels A similar spirit of inclusion displayed a revolving cycle of live and means of dissemination that sparked the advent of video art, images (from the camera) and will offer new opportunities for sixty years after Stieglitz first broadcast television, making the innovative programming, thus opened the doors to Gallery 291. viewers (filmed as they emerged enhancing the chances of the In the mid-1960s, Sony debuted a from the elevator into the gallery) artist to participate in the system. portable video camera, the Porta as much a part of the video land- Pak, enabling the cheap, simple, and scape as the images on their televi- Fueled by this same fervor, the easy production of moving images. sion sets. Despite the significant im- North American broadcast land- Artists such as , pact of his show,Wise felt limited by scape (changed by the introduction Steina and Woody Vasulka, and Bill the structures of the gallery system; of cable TV, and the steady expan- Viola quickly gravitated toward he closed his gallery in 1970 and in sion of public access television and this newly accessible medium. In an open letter to the art world the Public Broadcasting System addition to a technology, however, explained his reasons: “[Artists] are throughout the 1950s and ’60s) these artists were also adopting an focusing their energies on works of devoted a significant amount of ideology—they envisioned artist’s such scope that these can only be resources to artists’ projects and television stations and independent hinted at here in the Gallery, and community-based programming. In distribution networks, free from cannot be shown or realized here. 1969 WGBH in Boston commis- the constraints of traditional broad- These artists are going out of the sioned a number of artists, includ- casting and art gallery systems. As Gallery into the environment, the ing Paik, to create works for broad- Bill Viola stated in a recent New sky, the ocean, even outer space.” cast. The resulting program, The York Times article about the collec- In 1971,Wise established an or- Medium Is the Medium, is the earliest tion of video art, “The dream we ganization that would come to ep- example of the collaboration had was art that couldn’t be sold, itomize this early era of video art between public television and the but broadcast on television.” production—Electronic Arts Inter- emerging medium of video art. TV as a Creative Medium, a se- mix. Wise articulated his vision for From 1973 to 1984, WNET in minal 1969 exhibition of video art EAI and the social and artistic New York ran The TV Lab, which held at the Howard Wise Gallery, function of video, enthusiastically provided the same access and sup- exposed the New York art world to predicting the transformation of port for the works of Viola, Gary an approach that combined kinetic mainstream television: Hill, and Mary Lucier. In 1973, , user interaction, and mo- with the help of both WGBH and ving images. Nam June Paik’s 1963 The dinosaur may yet succumb WNET, Paik created one of the piece Participation TV (previously to the mouse. Many new devel- most famous video works of the shown in Germany) featured a tele- opments augur well for the inde- 1970s, Global Groove, a montage of vision monitor whose image view- pendent video-artist producer. commercial images, Korean folk ers could modulate by speaking The new, light-weight, low-cost dancers, and footage of Allen Gins- portable can produce programs berg playing the tamblas—prefaced 7 Phillips, Christopher. “The Judgment Seat of of broadcast quality.Theoretically by a voice-over that forecasts:“This Photography.” October 22 (Fall 1982). at least, the producer is now is a glimpse of a video landscape of

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tomorrow,when you will be able to much savored and romanticized like , John Bal- switch to any TV station on the notion of artistic genius. New dessari, and Richard Serra, who earth, and TV Guide will be as fat as media made a potential artist of were otherwise making more “seri- the Manhattan telephone book.”8 any person wielding a video ca- ous” Conceptual work). Soon the Numerous artist and social col- mera. So if the aura of the art limited editions and certificates lectives used video to promote so- object was challenged by these created to facilitate the commodifi- cial awareness and activism. Video technical innovations, so too was cation of photography and Con- collectives and distribution centers the cultural aura of the artist, a ceptual art were also employed for sprung up across North America: threat that created another stum- video. Other attempts to recoup Video Data Bank in , V- bling block to the acceptance of object value loss included artists Tape in Toronto, and Ant Farm in these media by critics and hallowed signing VHS tapes and DVDs, a San Francisco are only a few exam- institutions.11 practice almost quaint in its dogged ples of successful collective struc- But the ever practical art world application of art world conven- tures. (Europe had a similar move- gallery system fought to negotiate tions to new media practices. ment.) Artists from two of these its own relationship with the Eventually—in response to the active video collectives—the New emerging medium. In 1972–73 pressures of the galleries, the pres- York–based Raindance Collective Leo Castelli and Sonnabend (two sures of the marketplace, the and Videofreex—published the of New York’s most successful pressures of the entrenched sense journal Radical Software from 1970 commercial galleries) joined forces of validation offered by museums to 1974 that supported a lively crit- to distribute video art (at this point and collectors, or merely the natu- ical discourse about video’s poten- referred to as “artist videotapes,”an ral evolution of a grassroots move- tial as a social and artistic tool. implicit categorization indicating ment into the mainstream—Video Speaking to a new generation of art they were the dalliances of artists Art begat Video Installation. In- makers,Radical Software, which pub- evitably with this begetting (an lished authors such as Gene Young- 10 A technical aside: a work of video art is sim- embrace of the very strictures Wise ply a video signal on a tape. Early analog video blood and Buckminster Fuller, cov- technology is termed lossy—meaning that with rejected in 1970 after curating TV ered a range of topics including art every successive copy there is a noticeable as Creative Medium), some of the theory, equipment reviews, political degradation in quality.Analog technologies still exuberance of video’s open access had some claim to the construction of an origi- and social commentary, and user- nal—the photograph has the negative, from became overshadowed; given an friendly tips on how to install a which successive prints are made, and video has installation’s multiple projections a master copy, from which further copies are video production studio in the back struck. The negative and the master thus have and complicated sculptural ele- of your Volkswagen bus.9 more value than their offspring. Digital video ments, video needed a gallery or Not only did the medium of formats released by Sony in the 1990s changed museum context in order to be this condition completely, as they allowed for video pose a philosophical provo- perfect reproduction. Video is now simply a viewed. Subsequently, video artists cation to the structures that con- piece of code—a string of ones and zeros that, working today aren’t using video unlike its analog parent, is wholly duplicable. tained art; like photography,it chal- Enabling the production of infinite clones with as their medium because they want lenged the supremacy of these no discernible value hierarchy thus renders orig- to be free from the constraints of inal a meaningless term. institutions built on ideas of what 11 As though to intensify this anxiety, every the market system; they use video 10 was original and unique. Also Apple computer now arrives in its box with because it’s a prevalent tool as threatened by irrelevance was the editing software already installed, inviting users viable as any other art commodity. to create and share their own work. In a move to either reestablish the myth of the heroic artist or Despite its initially confounding 8 Global Groove and many of the works from this forever grind it into the democratizing muck of presence, contemporary video art period are available at Electronic Arts Intermix. the equal opportunity media age, esteemed New 9 The entire run of Radical Software is available York gallery owner Jeffery Deitch is currently at is currently enjoying massive suc- online at www.radicalsoftware.org. work on a reality TV show called Art Star. cess, though not in the ways envi-

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sioned by Wise and his contempo- from college really because my Arcangel, a self-described nerd in raries. As David Ross, longtime parents sold their house in Buffa- both body and spirit, wears a of video art and onetime lo. I didn’t really come to New “Codewarrior” T-shirt and a blaz- director of both the Whitney and York to be an artist; it was more er with a Netscape logo embroi- the SFMOMA, said, “As Allen like I got here and then I found dered on the lapel. Super Mario Kaprow has termed it, artists were out what a gallery really was, and Clouds (2002), his hack of the producing old wine in new bot- so then I thought, “Well, I make iconic game Super Mario tles.” Ross also points out a slight- videos; I should contact some of Bros., has garnered him a great deal ly more defeatist reason for why these gallery people.” And that’s of attention from art collectors, the broad vision of video art was what I did, and so the whole websurfers, and gaming enthusiasts never realized: “Let’s not forget thing was more of an accident. alike. By removing the computer that most video art was incredibly CJ: How did you make contacts? chip from the game cartridge, boring, dreadfully underproduced, Arcangel is able to reprogram the CA: Right when I got here if intentionally or not, as if in a way original Mario code and then rein- I went to a and to reframe Andy Warhol’s Empire music night that was at a tiny lit- sert it into the original cartridge. as an action drama, which in a tle gallery in Chinatown. And The result of this intervention is a 12 way it was.” I just went there and said “I do minimalist game environment— Electronic Arts Intermix, ini- this—I would like to have a no iconic Mario figure in red cov- tially founded as an antidote to the show.” And the curator said, eralls, no coin-generating brick gallery system, today enjoys a fruit- “Bring by your portfolio,” and blocks, and no poisonous mush- ful relationship with these institu- I did, and she gave me a show. rooms—all that remains are the tions while still providing afford- And then I slowly learned puffy white clouds gently drifting able access and support to a broader about other places and other gal- across a clear blue sky. community of artists and collec- leries. But I honestly didn’t know Super Mario Clouds can be seen tors.And although the dinosaur did what a New York gallery was in a number of environments. In not necessarily succumb to the until I came here. the gallery, it exists as an installa- mouse in the ways envisioned by CJ: But you guys [Cory and his tion—the Nintendo computer, the Wise and his contemporaries, thir- collaborators BEIGE—Paul B. actual hacked game cartridge that ty years later the internet has occu- Davis, Joseph Beuckman, and supports the code, and multiple pied the void left by the promise of Joseph Bonn] were making art in projectors that beam the moving television. college, right? image onto the surrounding walls. What makes Super Mario Clouds CA: Yeah, but not with any real THE BIRTH OF THE NET different from your average artistic intent—we were just ARTIST: NET ART Whitney Biennial video installa- screwing off and then putting FOR SALE tion, however, is that fact that it also things on the internet. The con- thrives in an online “home brew” temporary art world was no part CAITLIN JONES: Did you ever computer culture—composed of of the dialogue. We had a record think, “I’m going to move to label that we created through the an assortment of gamers and hack- New York and be an artist?” internet, and so everything else ers devoted to the open-source CORY ARCANGEL: Well, I moved went up there, too. The “art” just methods of software development to New York after graduating came when I moved to New York. and creativity.These people—Arc- angel is one of them—are happy to

12 From a lecture by David Ross at San Jose On the day of our interview, discuss and share, among other State University, 1999. the twenty-seven-year-old Cory things, software modifications, the

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latest video game emulators, and antitraditionalist bent wanted to anyone with a computer and an in- ways to hack into the Domino’s “make things people could hang ternet connection. In an interview Pizza delivery system. While you on their wall,” printed a large edi- with Baumgaertel, Lialina denied can buy Super Mario Clouds13 from tion of Clouds posters that he sold internet art isn’t a commodity: the Team gallery in Chelsea for through his website for $19.95. “I personally have never said in any thousands of dollars, you can also While many artists made art on interview or presentation that the go to Arcangel’s website (http:// the web as a deliberate stand ag- internet is my long-awaited free- www.beigerecords.com/cory/21c/ ainst art commodification, others, dom from the art institutions.”14 Her 21c.html) and download a copy to like Arcangel, have embraced the assumption was that the market- run on your own computer. Better commercial opportunities offered place would provide her with at yet, you can study the step-by-step by the web. In the ten years since least one person for whom the idea instructions to learn how to make its creation, net.art member Liali- of owning something would out- your own version: na’s My Boyfriend Came Back from weigh the fact that he didn’t need to the War has grown into a much own it to see it, and that his posses- lda #DELAYSCROLL larger entity, which she now calls sion would continue to be public sta $21 The Last Real Net even after the private sale.Although (http://myboyfriendcameback arguably tongue-in-cheek, Lialina’s lda #NTShow fromth.ewar.ru). Like the multiple web gallery questioned the possibil- sta $22 variations based on Arcangel’s Super ity of distribution and reception of Mario Clouds, The Last Real Net Art works lacking physical attributes, lda #SCROLL Museum is a collection of works by and gauged the reaction of a net sta $24 other artists based on Lialina’s orig- culture that directly opposed the art inal—a series of , a T-shirt, market.The lack of reaction, on the I only modify the program chip, a video game, a PowerPoint pres- part of the net.art scene as well as and I leave the graphic chip from entation, a blog, and numerous that of the market, answers those the original game intact.Therefore other iterations are now linked to questions. Although a few articles since I do not touch the graphics My Boyfriend. Lialina et al’s Last were written about this disinterest from the original cartridge, the Real Net Art Museum, like Arcan- (one in the NewYork Times and a few clouds you see are the actual fac- gel’s, straddles the line between in media art magazines and online tory soldered clouds that come on ephemeral and object, between journals), its discussion raised about the Mario cartridge. There is no open and closed systems. as few hackles as it sold artworks.15 generation loss, and no “copying” In fact, when Lialina launched While the late 1990s and early because I did not even have to Art Teleportacia (http://art.tele ’00s found museums around the make a copy. Wasss up. portacia.org) in 1998—what she world rushing to acquire internet called The First Real Net Art art for their collections (including Enabled by Arcangel’s “help Gallery—her goal was to sell net art. the Guggenheim, the Tate, the files,” other artists have remade Su- The first exhibition, Miniatures of the Walker, and the Whitney), the per Mario Clouds into, among other Heroic Period, consisted of a single things, a Game Boy version, a page: self-consciously artspeaky 14 Tilman Baumgaertel’s site, http://www.thing. screen saver, and a DVD. Arcangel descriptions of the works, and price de/tilman/tilman.htm, links to these interviews and many other of his projects and writings. himself, who despite his seemingly tags ranging from $1,000 to $2,000 15 Actually Lialina sold her own work If You were affixed to objects consisting Want to Clean Your Screen (1998) to the web design and art collective Entropy8Zuper! 13 Super Mario Clouds was an edition of five, and solely of code and a domain name, (images of the transaction can be seen at every piece has been sold. and could be viewed for no cost by http://art.teleportacia.org/office/clients).

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enthusiasm proved short-lived.The Postmasters Gallery—persist in try- the changed climate for web art.“It dot-com bust, combined with ing to sell network-based art to the was different when work used to market indifference, resulted in a consumer market.18 Tom Vander- appear as attachments to Heath or dramatic cooling-off, with a num- bilt’s article “The King of Digital as links for jodi or as follow-ups to ber of the new media curators and Art,” a profile about bitforms mail with Alexei. It was about col- programs actually dropped from owner Steven Sacks, which ap- lective discovery and glorious, near- major institutions altogether.16 This peared in September’s Wired maga- ly amorous, rivalry. This time I felt reversal could have indicated a zine, celebrates Sacks’s ambition to like some career artist running larger dismissal on the part of the “turn high-tech into a hot com- blindly hoping that the noise is the closed art world, in which art on modity,” while asking “whether fast lane and not the whistles of the the internet is still regarded as Americans are ready to hang crowd…. Something like that hype, derivative, and part of a screens on their wall that don’t get (sorry for going poetic).” boom. Writer Isabelle Graw lev- HBO.” Regardless, just as with the Cosic, who has participated in eled similar charges in her attack development of the more object- such elite art world standbys as the on web art, published in the high- oriented “video installation,”so too Venice and the Vienna ly respected maga- with the installation Kunsthalle, also issues this mea zine Texte zur Kunst in 1998. as artists figure out how to engage culpa: “I am not only attacking Baumgaertel responded to Graw these two conflicting streams of some abstract artworld setup I was with the article “Mafia Versus production. While some might see born into but also spelling out the Mafia: About Tribal Wars Between this gentrification as yet another mistake I have very much helped Conceptual Art and Net Art,” in watering-down of a revolutionary propagate with my own actions.To which he stated, “The high-art impulse, the work of artists like me, it is not enough to notice this view of net art which is formulat- Arcangel and Lialina point to shift from community to audience, ed here ignores one of its genuine another possibility: that the best but I also need to share the guilt. qualities: namely the notion that position by which to critique the This is one important dimension; everybody can be an artist on the closed system is by incorporating it maybe it’s some ancient Euro-jew- internet—if they have a computer, into a more open practice. ish thing…” a modem, and internet access, that The promise of commercial and Of course, it’s not just the mar- is. To reduce the large number of institutional success, however, is bit- ket that instigates this commodifi- very different projects and works tersweet to some. In a recent email cation; new media artists want to to “net art as such,” and then trash to curator Sarah Cook, Cosic wrote earn a living, and many, like video it, is a very dubious enterprise.”17 about the launch of his new art installation artists before them, are But “net art per se” suffered a project, File Extinguisher (file- moving toward the two- or three- number of major blows from the extinguisher.com), at London’s In- (or six-) pronged approach to art institutionalized art world. stitute of Contemporary Art, and making—the website for free, and Even so, a number of New York the installation or objects for sale. galleries—including bitforms and 18 Which raises the question: who are these col- While closed systems offer obvious lectors? Some of them are the same ones who had the foresight to buy the work of Cindy benefits, open systems offer the 16 The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minn., Sherman when the rest of the art world thought arguable benefit of exposing more boasted a world-renowned and vanguard new there would be no market for contemporary people to more product. Couldn’t media art department under the curatorial direc- photography; others are involved in the tech- tion of Steve Dietz. In 2003, the Walker dropped nology industry and are comfortable with the goal be, as Arcangel suggests at the department, the renowned curator, and his staff immateriality and ephemerality of digital tech- the top of this essay,to create some- from their program, citing budgetary constraints. nology in general, and the notion of hanging a 17 Telepolis, 14.04.1999 http://www.heise.de/ screen on a wall to display software art does not thing whose online accessibility tp/r4/artikel/3/3362/1.html seem at all incongruous to them. lends it an intangible value? New

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media art’s growing to have a 19.95$ poster on pains resemble those of their wall. i guess i’m in photography, video, and the third category. Duchamp’s urinal, and rudytardy (4:59:19 PM): expose the ambivalent yeah, i had a kid order the underbelly of all revo- poster using his dad’s cred- lutionary art move- it card. that’s awesome! ments: the shameful rudytardy (4:59:32 PM): compulsion to be ac- he was 14 or something cepted into the com- mercial market to prove Arcangel’s decidedly an artist’s success. casual approach to art making is enhanced by n mid-September, a long history of intense Cory Arcangel negotiations between I uploaded to his the object, the market, website the file for and the creative impulse another one of his Nin- in general. With tech- tendo-based works, Ja- nology often serving as panese Driving Game the catalyst for expan- (2005), a racing-game Cory Arcangel/BEIGE, Super Mario Clouds, 2002. Courtesy of the artist and Team Gallery. sion, our conceptions of environment with all art will continue to be cars and obstacles removed and just making limited edition silk- challenged.As in the past, thanks to the road in front of you—the ulti- screens… they would end up un- urinals, photographs, and videos, so mate road-trip movie. As he did sold under my bed too will the internet create more with Clouds, Arcangel’s offering rudytardy (4:55:02 PM): so i space within and without the art “for a limited time only” a run of figured, well, as long as i am world for work to be produced and Japanese Driving Game posters for gonna make then, i should make received. Still, what might be the $19.95 apiece. them so people can have them… most radical subversion of the dom- rudytardy (4:55:17 PM): 19.95$ inant art-world economy yet is this CtlnJns (4:51:03 PM): so, i seems like a good way to go… emergence of a multiplicity of economies, with art for free, for notice you have posters for sale rudytardy (4:55:30 PM): plus, again. my internet audience is totally barter, or for sale—as long as your rudytardy (4:51:47 PM): i made different from my art audience dad will let you charge $19.95 to 500! his credit card. ✯ CtlnJns (4:57:59 PM): so then, CtlnJns (4:52:23 PM): what was there’s the market that will pay the reason you started making thousands of dollars for some- In recognition of the collaborative process those again? is it it because you thing. then there’s this other of my writing, the thoughts and ideas want your friends to be able to audience that wants to screw articulated are the result of conversations “own” an original cory arcangel? around and make it themselves, and lectures of friends and colleagues including but not limited to: Kris Cohen, rudytardy (4:54:29 PM): yeah, and maybe there’s a third audi- Sarah Cook, Alison Craighead, Steve well at the time i wanted to try ence, that doesn’t really want to Dietz, John G. Hanhardt, Jon Ippolito, to make something for people's make their own mario clouds or Heidi Julavits, Christiane Paul, Keith walls, and i had had terrible luck japanese drving game, but wants Romer, and Maria-Christina Villasenor.

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