This article on the history of net art was a very interesting read, especially as some who grew up as the internet was developing and expanding so rapidly. The article talked about how the internet was somewhat of a great equalizer, especially in the art world; it was essentially a public forum where anyone could have their voice seen/heard. 1994 and 1995 was when groups of tech people, artists, and other “alternatives” began building communities online, and artists from all around the world were influential “ especially Eastern Europe—and Russia were crucial to its early years as an artistic medium”.
Right after this, in 1996, is when people started to realize that the internet was not only a “significant cultural … phenomena”, but that there was huge economic and financial potential online, and there was fear that “the Internet would soon be colonized by mainstream media and the corporate juggernaut”. Still, the net.art movement continued to explode, associated with a variety of social movements and causes. I like the idea for one of the online art shows mentioned - a desktop art show that compared desktops as a way to look into the user's psyche. Around this time is when the idea of “‘software as culture’” was born as well.
My overall takeaway from this article is that the internet is a unique platform for art, specifically because it encourages user interaction. Artists Garcia and Lovink describe the internet as:
“An existential aesthetic. An aesthetic of poaching, tricking, reading, speaking, strolling, shopping, desiring. Clever tricks, the hunter’s cunning, maneuvers, polymorphic situations, joyful discoveries, poetic as well as warlike.”
I feel like internet art is so special because it is the closest we can get to a level playing field in terms of accessibility. It is because of this fact that makes interaction such an essential part of an online piece of art. The response to the art is half of the art itself, the response is what makes the art sometimes. I think a good example of this is the platform youtube. Although it is maybe not as popular as it once was, youtube is a place where people share videos and music. Other people then take these videos or music or whatever other stuff is online, and respond to it and remix it in a way that makes it new content.
The first channel I thought of responding to this article was the channel “Internet comment etiquette”. The creator, Erik, makes satirized artistic responses to various social/political/etc controversies and discourses on the internet. He encapsulates this idea of the internet as an artistic sandbox - taking videos, comments, profiles, articles and more from websites all over the internet, and responding to them in different characters, personas, and accounts. In just this one video on the phenomena of “soyboys”, he visits 25+ platforms, video games, forums, and websites (including pornhub), and uses hundreds of clips to form his own artistic response.
Something else I thought of while reading the article is the issue of net neutrality - the “principle that an internet service provider (ISP) has to provide access to all sites, content and applications at the same speed, under the same conditions without blocking or giving preference to any content”(Wikipedia). While net neutrality was rolled back years ago, and the web is by no means equal (ever notice how the top page of results on google always comes from the same 20 websites?)I still believe it is the platform with the most equity globally. I mean, it runs on user interaction.
I think the situation that unfolded after the fcc net neutrality drama in 2017 encapsulates this perfectly. This is Ajit Pai:
Ajit Pai was the chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) at the time, and he was a proponent of repealing net neutrality in the United States. In December of 2017, he “voted with the majority of the FCC to reverse the decision to regulate the internet under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934”, despite the protest of various groups and internet coalitions (Wikipedia). The internet was not happy with this decision, or Ajit Pie, and obviously had something to say about it. See :
At least Mr. Pie had somewhat of a sense of humor (although others labeled it insensitivity) with his response:
