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PLATFORMS
What if the platform is the art itself?
An intrinsic characteristic of net.art is that its location on the web and its positionality are integral to the artwork itself. As Internet art resides exclusively online, where it is situated and what that implies, has a lot to say about the work.
Therefore, if a piece of net.art you want to curate, already resides within a platform? How do you manage that? How do you further curate it online. Maybe it is in fact realizing the significance of the platform which hosts the art, which makes it possible to curate it.
But what does this mean? How do you curate that afterward?
Here are some examples of net art, where the use of the platform is fundamental to the logic of the work ︎︎︎
In our interview with Beryl Graham, they mentioned Marialaura Ghidini’s work entitled the extrange project. Marialaura Ghidini + Rebekah Modrak | #exstrange︎︎︎
She was using the existing platform, the eBay platform, and I just thought it was a really smart way of using it because eBay is about selling things. So hence it was like a selling commercial selling gallery, but with various twists and turns. The buyers on eBay can ask questions of the sellers, in this case, the artists themselves so you get the usual kind of commercial questions or more details about their work. The artists had to then get used to answering those questions as if they were the actual seller of the work. And I was really impressed just by the kind of a range of different things, they use most of the kind of globalized nature of it. So that's because eBay has different national iterations because the selling laws are different in each country. So then you get this kind of globalized network, where the context is slightly different for each of the legal contexts of the different countries.
“She was using the existing platform, the eBay︎︎︎platform, and I just thought it was a really smart way of using it because eBay is about selling things. So hence it was like a selling commercial selling gallery, but with various twists and turns. The buyers on eBay can ask questions of the sellers, in this case, the artists themselves so you get the usual kind of commercial questions or more details about their work. The artists had to then get used to answering those questions as if they were the actual seller of the work. And I was really impressed just by kind of a range of different things, they use most of the kind of globalized nature of it. So that's because eBay has different national iterations because the selling laws are different in each country. So then you get this kind of globalized network, where the context is slightly different for each of the legal contexts of the different countries.”
Extrange project ︎︎︎eBay is about selling things. So hence it was like a selling commercial selling gallery.
Twists and turns ︎︎︎
- Think of ways in which you are bending or challenging the ways in which the platform functions, and what are the implications of that.
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First you must identify how the platform works, to then see how you can play around with it.
Globalised ︎︎︎
Think of the accessibility of the platform you are using on a global scale. Is it accessible? Does it change from region to region? What does that variation mean?
“I guess, a work of net art, which I just made my first kind of purely online work this year. And was interesting, because my work was on a standalone website. So I guess that's a little different, because the website just kind of exists, and it doesn't need to be housed anywhere.” Zach Blas︎︎︎
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What platforms are welcoming net artists?
“I think it depends on the practice, because that project by American Artist, only made sense on Facebook, because it's an intervention into the platform. So if you took that work and put it on any other kind of contemporary art platform, I don't know if it would make any sense.
If you create a platform, how can it accommodate that kind of interventionist work?” Zach Blas︎︎︎
If you create a platform, how can it accommodate that kind of interventionist work?” Zach Blas︎︎︎
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How can it accommodate that kind of interventionist work?
How does the platform you use, take care ︎︎ (lol) of the artwork which you are curating. How are they interacting?
American Artist A REFUSAL — American Artist︎︎︎
“I think because American artist’s work is about critiques of power, they're interested in doing these digital things. Which are actually kind of infrastructurally embedded within the systems of power or the direct institutions of power that they want. It is somehow connected to the broader history institutional critique within 20th-century art.” Zach Blas︎︎︎
Platforms
TO USE
New Art City︎︎︎
New Art City is a virtual exhibition toolkit for new media art with a focus on copresence and experiencing digital art together. Shows are real-time multiplayer and accessed using a web browser on computer or mobile device, with no need to register, install extra software or enter any personal information. Using built-in tools to manage artworks and space layouts, curators and organizers can create a show and hold a virtual exhibition online. Participants can attend virtual openings together, chat and see each other moving around the space while experiencing digital art in its original format. (text from their website).
Common.Garden︎︎︎
Common garden is an online platform provided by distant.gallery︎︎︎. Here you are able to create your own ‘garden’,add text, images ecc. The space then facilitates an online meeting, where multiple people can access the garden and interact with each other.
Decentraland︎︎︎
Decentraland is a software running on Ethereum︎︎︎ that seeks to incentivize a global network of users to operate a shared virtual world.
Anonymous Gallery︎︎︎
Social media
To see how we’ve engaged with social media, click here︎︎︎ to see the documentation of our attempts to curate on social media platforms.
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