Andrej Tisma: Web.Art's Nature

[anna balint]

[Andrej Tisma asked me to post his article form 1998 as a reply to my draft about artists databases 
and their origin in correspondence art scene. Andrej Tisma presented this paper  at NETFORUM 98 symposium (May 
27-29) in Sava Center, Belgrade.  greetings, anna balint]

http://members.tripod.com/~aaart/webartsn.htm

Andrej Tisma
WEB.ART'S NATURE
 

     Web.art (the Internet
art) has undergone great expansion in the recent years, both as a form
of artistic expression and in terms of its technical potential and number
of innovations. Almost every day, there are some novelties in the way these
works are made; technical improvements and new program languages are introduced,
new software is used. This progress is accompanied by the emergence of
numerous new sites, web magazines, galleries, discussion panels, festivals,
competitions, etc. All this makes web.art extremely varied and dynamic
and therefore difficult to define. However, there are parameters common
to all forms of this art, common denominators by way of which we can still
determine the nature of web.art, particularly in relation to the so far
existing forms of artistic expression.
     It should be said at
the outset that web.art does not denote the very widely spread passive
presentations of artists and their work on the Internet. They represent
a reproductive approach to the Internet. In these presentations, paintings,
sounds or moving pictures of works created in other media are reproduced
on the Internet, that is transformed into a medium different from the original.
     Web.art works are created
exclusively for the Internet, for its language and technical capacities,
and they address solely the users of this world wide computer network.
Therefore, not only are they created in the language of the network, but
are the most comprehensible and  most effective in that environment and
communicable by network distribution and presentation, i.e. through computer
monitors and speakers. It is the configuration in which those works are
at their most natural and in which they facilitate an active attitude of the viewers during reception.
     In fact, one of the
common characteristics of web.art works is its interactive nature, which
means that the viewer becomes an 'accessory' to their creation. He chooses
the paths and links he will take to move through the work, he is often
in a position to build into the work his own text or visual or other contents,
as a kind of commentary or an essential element of work, or to activate
numerous elements of the work: picture, sound, animated and video fragments,
thereby developing his appreciation of the work through an active experience.
The web.art works, as we said, most frequently take their final form thanks
to the viewer's activity, and since they are open in character, they continuously
acquire new forms. As opposed to the up-to-now dominant art forms, in which
the artist presents to the viewer a ready-made work, of certain form and
dimension, a web.art work may further develop in an unpredictable direction,
being totally unlimited in time and space.
     This brings us to a
second essential characteristic of web.art - its hyperdimensionality. Namely,
a work that is unlimited in time and space, just because of its openness
and interactive participation of its user in its shaping, cannot be framed
by dimensions. Works develop in many directions, thanks to numerous web
page connecting links and numerous information such as images, texts, sounds
and animations which induce the user to move through the works and to complete
them. Often the user, usually a computer fan and web-artist himself, devises
entirely unexpected paths and solutions, thus building his own creativity
into the 'given' framework, surprising the original creator of the web-work
himself. In this way, we perceive the web.art as a constant exchange going
on among creative people round the world, their cooperation and mutually
complementary work aimed at the creation of an art network, ultimately
leading to a global spiritualization of mankind. Because, computer art and 
communication, due to its evasive electronic nature and immateriality
of the media, is the closest to the spiritual categories of mankind.
     We have thus come to the third common characteristic of web.art 
- immateriality. As a matterof fact, a web.work does not exist in real space 
and material form, but only as a digital code on a computer disc. It can be 
perceived only on a monitor, in the form of thousands of glimmering pixels 
and sounds. A web.work is thus an evanescent visualization of the creators 
and user's ideas, a reflection of their minds’ impulses and a reaction to 
sensual irritations, always remaining immaterial, intangible and predominantly
mental.
     In a way, digital art
is a realization of the strivings in the 1960’s modern art movement, coinciding
with the appearance of ideas concerning dematerialization of  art object
and transition of creative art work into the mental sphere, which was best
reflected in the appearance of conceptual art. This art movement also coincided
with artists’ efforts to create a multiplied, modular, democratic, non-commercial
and planetary art, the characteristics of which are multimediality, process,
interaction and telecommunicability - precisely what the Internet has made
possible.
     In this connection,
there is an apparent similarity between the Internet and web.art concept
and principle and some earlier forms of  communicative art such as mail-art
in the early 60’s and network art in the 80’s. Having sprung from Fluxus
and conceptual art, mail art was based on international communication among
artists, who exchanged ideas, art works and cooperation projects. The appearance
of this art movement is associated with the American pop artist Ray Johnson,
founder of the New York Correspondence School of Art in 1962, which, at
the beginning, involved the exchange of art works by mail among about a
hundred artists from New York, later to become more international in character.
In Europe, this kind of exchange art is associated with the work of artists
gathered around the French movement New Realism, also in the early 60’s,
two members of which, Ives Klein and Ben Vautier, were known for their activities 
supporting the exchange of art works by mail. Not only did authors distribute their 
works throughout the world, finding new poetics in the
process - which very much looks like the essence of present-day Internet
- rather,  works of art were being created in an interaction of artists,
by adding their own individual subject-matter to a certain matrix; in this
way, numerous international art projects, exhibitions and publications
were realized.
     Indeed, it was typical
of mail-art, and later of the network movement, that the majority of works
were created as a reaction to received works, or artists launched projects
with a defined subject to which hundreds of others addressed their contributions,
from their own viewpoints, and applying techniques they were accustomed
to. Ever since the early 60’s there were projects where intervention was
requested on an original that was sent - either by each artist on his own
copy, or by more artists on one and the same original which was circulated
through the network. Clearly, these are the characteristics of interactive
art, such as the present-day web.art.
     Multiplication of matrixes
and originals, on which interventions by the participants were called for,
leads us to a conclusion that mail art and network communication were characterized
by hyperdimensionality as well, where collective work was created on a
global scale, without spatial and time limitations, in an open process,
with entirely unpredictable results. Also, the international communication
among artists, based on the exchange of ideas, gave the mail-art and network
a predominantly mental character.
     Within the mail-art
exchange, there was a worldwide circulation of texts, images, collages,
audio and video tapes whereby a desire for a multimedial character of art
was achieved. Soon, phone-art and fax-art came into being as part of the
mail-art, and it brings us quite close to the Internet as a field of international
creation and communication.
     The concept of network,
the artist's becoming part of the network, typical of the early 80’s all
over the world, as a logical continuation of mail-art, was aimed at gathering
a large number of artists around joint international projects, initiating
discussions about the essence of this movement, cooperation on live actions
and performances, and publication of joint books, fanzines and anthologies.
Such were, for instance, the Decentralized Networker Congresses in 1986
and 1992, which took place, as the name says, at the same time at many
different places all over the world, with several hundred participants,
who sent their ideas and conclusions to one center, to be published and
further distributed. All this irresistibly reminds one of the present-day
mailing lists and discussion groups on the Internet.
     Some of the most important
and most active mail artists and networkers indeed provided a bridge to
the Internet, having started their activities in this medium as early as
mid 80’s, which was obviously just a continuation of their previous way
of communication. So, for example, Ruud Janssen (the Netherlands) launched
a bulletin called 'TAM' which could be read through modem as early as 1986.
In the same year, Charles Francois (Belgium) foresees in his computer communication
an 'electronic tourism' in the future, and an American, Chuck Welch has
been active on the Internet since 1991 with his fellow-countrymen Honoria
and Mark Bloch, particularly in 1992, during the Decentralized Networker
Congress.
     In January 1994, Welch
issued the first electronic mail-art fanzine 'Netshaker On-line', and in
1995 launched an Internet campaign called 'Telenetlink', in which he invited
the former mail artists and networkers to join the Internet. Today, all
of them and hundreds of other networkers have their web-sites, Janssen
is in charge of a sizable cyber-magazine and Welch of the Electronic Mail-Art
Museum. Similar museums on the Internet already exist in Hungary (Gyorgy
Galantai's "Artpool" ), in Italy ("Mail-Art Gallery and Museum") and in Japan ("Sora"). 
In this way, mail-art and network movement have naturally flowed into the Internet, 
rightfully taking the credit as being the predecessors of this global phenomenon of 
human civilization.
     The present Internet
is a dream of the world-without-boundaries come true, where there are no
geographic or time distances. Just like once for mail-artists and networkers,
there are no racial, national or ideological barriers for today's web-artists.
A dream of the global work of art, simultaneously and permanently available
to the entire population of the planet is coming true. This form of art has managed, 
thanks to an increasing number of the Internet users, to become a part of everyday life, 
thus in the best way carrying out a mission of changing the awareness of mankind - 
something the artists working in traditional media could only dream of.
Translated by:
Gordana Perc

-- ANDREJ TISMA is Novi Sad (Yugoslavia)  based artist, art critic and curator. Since the
early '70s mail-artist and networker. Founder of The Institute for the  Spreading of Love (1991) and Embargo Art
campaign (1992). HOMEPAGE: http://members.tripod.com/~aaart/index.html --  ANDREJ TISMA is Novi Sad
(Yugoslavia) based artist, art critic and curator. Since the early '70s  mail-artist and networker. Founder of The Institute
for the Spreading of Love (1991) and Embargo Art campaign (1992).