2 – – 3 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 / introduction 6 – – 7 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.