8/28

A.
Vuk Cosic Interview

Net.art in relationship to hackers interests me. I have never thought about that fact that a hacker — rather he/she be stealing information, planting information, or formatting information — is creating some form of "art" by their task at hand. Across the board hackers are seen as a menace in the internet world (among viruses and the dreaded spyware — though forever linked to Windows users, thus pushing them further in the past while Mac users flourish forward with the ever so popular OSX) although whenever hackers have been portrayed in film/video (the world's most popular source of information attainment), they are shown as extremely smart and borderline genius, almost to the point of envy. So, within that paradox of good vs. evil, could a mass investigation in the "art" of hacking introduce a new form on net.art? Art that is accessible to all users but not through want or necessity, but through an unwanted and undetermined circumstance, such as a virus or spyware. Would you be disappointed to come home one day to an artistic and creative infestation of net.art on your computer producing ASCII-video-portal desktops/screensavers that never end and clever unexpected pop-ups with distinguishable net.art features?

B.
The Dumpster - Golan Levin with Kamal Nigam and Jonathan Feinberg

This specific piece of net.art I find to be absolute hilarious. It takes one of the most disgusting and deterring aspects of the internet — the endless combustion of simply unimportant personal information from countless bloggers, myspacers, facebookers, livejournalers, etc — and turns it into an interactive display. I find the composition, colors, feel, and flow of the piece to be very uneasy and difficult to navigate, which accurately corresponds with feelings I feel when stumbling upon a friend's idiotic post about how someone makes them mad or, in reference to Levin's piece directly, how they broke off or are having problems with their relationship. I find it be very sad on that person's behalf and sincerely inappropriate.

C.
1. The perception of art has definitely changed since the entrance of digital media. Not only in the aspect of importance due to everyone and their mom considering themselves an artist due to being at finger's reach, but in the aspect of instant availability. The act of viewing art in a gallery and the anticipation of an artist's release of a piece without a doubt makes the art more important. In contrast, digital art shows itself as available as a booger in your nose, thus reducing, in my opinion, one of the most important parts of an artist's work.

2. I think early digital art before the advancements of the internet can be compared to that of new-age net.art by means of quality and meaning. The criteria in which the art is created might have changed, even become easier to use, but the initial output is still the same – a pixel based system. How an artist manipulates the medium will always change as history progress as we all strive for something new and the individuality of one another.

3. I actually have never heard of the term "net.art" until this course, so my interpretation of what I think of it is highly weighted on the interpretation of new knowledge in retrospect to current times in it's place in history. I do believe that it is a definite form of artistic display, especially in it's early forms. It is an exploration of artistic qualities within a new medium. In comparison to today's world of "net.art", if you can even call it that, I feel less strongly about it. It seems like everything is Photoshoped and manipulated post output. Everyday there's an introduction of something new that removes the analog and manual aspects of art and information in general into a digitized and automatic process and output.

4. In order to stimulate the viewers perception of internet-based art, one would first have to investigate every hidden and unexplored corner of net.art and how the viewer not only interacts with it, but perceives it within a one-on-one view from person to PC. This gives the user time and space to enter your art and spend time with it, though the attention span of users greatly decreases yearly. But once you believe you have explored every aspect personally, you could expand into different territories — such as the gallery and public places.

5. An appropriate solution to getting net.art recognized as a world-wide art form would be to create a beginning boundary and preliminary conceptual standpoint of net.art. Establishing it's priorities and points of interest in execution and final product will inform the viewers of it's intention.