Reflection: Art and the Internet

“Art and the Internet” starts off with two essays: Internet Art Versus the Institutions of Art by Nicholas Lambert and Connected by Camera by Joanne McNeil. I understand Internet art or Net Art is different from otherwise conventional art as it finds itself to degrade and possess a sense of ephemerality. As the internet is constantly developing and updating, it is difficult to maintain some net art as their very medium is updating without them. I think that this brings about some novelty to net art, where one can only truly experience the work when it is still in existence. Most of the works and corresponding links in the book are no longer working and only exist in an archive. However, when a link worked and the net art was still ongoing, I felt a great pleasure in being able to experience the internationalism of net art. Russian net artist Alexei Stulgin explained that the “disregard for geographical distance and national boundaries, apparently made it possible for anyone, anywhere to become a (net) artist with a potentially massive audience with no need of institutional endorsement.” Below are some of my favourite discoveries from this book.

WeiWeiCam (2012), Ai Wei Wei