************ Sebastian Lütgert ************ - --- "Clubcard" project dealt with other topics too, because it was also "hype" or "boom", is absolutely untrue. On the contrary: as a regular "I am currently interested in the clash and dialogue between the "Maybe it is the right of every young artist to draw on well-known, "new media". Some of the objections, which then are used against net art, "subversion, fake, surveillance, transgression, service, corporate "Texte zur Kunst" can be considered as an offical organ of "Texte zur Kunst". This lack of research then also leads to the fact # is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # more info: majordomo@desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@desk.nl (re)placed artists of the "classic" conceptual school in an art (secret) interest. Because as Lovink says, there are "dozens of 1. Working with new media turns the artists more or less automatically 2. Just because artists work with new technologies, this does not mean 3. The assertion that media art or net art (key word: hypertext) is 4. And on top of this, these people presume they are part of some 80's to be precise. In fact a lot of contemporary net art works are a a form of interaction or that this form of art makes the audience a new generation of artists is already inventing new artistic concepts a participant/co-creator of the work is a myth. Indeed with an actions. JB). against the law and has given all participants a lot of pleasure. Also the claim that net art without question adopts conditions, and developments into account." and methods. (That this never-ending cycle of complete innovation in art and more artists start to work with computers - despite repeated and than bash it as a very doubious enterprise - yet also an announcements of a "new art" on the net). any art practice, that at some point tried to leave the white cube of anyway. Apart form the fact that Rachel Baker should get a kick out of the fact are well-known. They are always warmed up when artists dare - against argumentation ("nothing new, all seen before"), Graw criticizes some arsenal of art history, where they are well stored, and where, in a art", there is something Graw in her simplistic criticism fails to see. artistic alter ego Trina Mould (Rachel Baker works mostly under her artistic ideas on a new technical platform. Take, for instance the As Video- and Computer Art are by now to be perceived as historical asked for. But, well... so-rry! avantgarde, while the idea of an avantgarde is historically not avoided the art world, as the net art section of the last Documenta backroom of the ZTK editorial offices, they are - with the correct both artistic signification and social set up... (With net art one But a lot of what is now criticized in TZK are just that: But apart form that, it is not true that net art has systematically by now out-dated models, without having to take relevant discussions can't be art at all, because it doesn't happen in an art context, but Cistercienser monks. By this time out there in the galleries and museums clear about it: gangwar! The empire strikes back! compares them - before concluding both wiseacreously and venomously: concepts of subversion and fake functions slightly different on the conceptual art and media art was not an issue yet with Dada or the conceptual art mafia and the media art mafia", says media theorician concerned with the manipulation of search engines.) connections" between the two schools: while the devision between contemporary art.) context is avoided and secondly the difference between artwork and context is liquidated." continues to function, is obvious after a visit to any group show of Contrary to this, for the generation of artists that operates on the correct. These technical paradigms are on the contrary constantly criticism of this quite simple assumption. Many net artists have deals) with a phenomenon, wherein first of all the traditional art designed by artists or Paul Garrins "name.space" project show. But does. It doesn't exactly starts the dialogue that Lovink early, formative years of the internet as a massmedium artists have easily named with period titles, the world completely anew. After these exiting at all? What interests me as netuser and -journalist about experiments. The high art view of net art which is formulated Geert Lovink in an interview which appeared in the latest issue of genres, the magazine TZK decides to come down hard upon the relatively global - persuasiveness that by far exceeds the crediblity of art group has worked distinctively along the path of technology, and out Happenings, Performance and actions in the public space, artists' hardly possible to be more concise about the conflict - and the have a computer, a modem and internet access, that is. To reduce the he or she did not understand, and even with more vigor because of it. here, ignores one of its genuine qualities: namely the historical context. however isolates them from a large, constantly growing part of a http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/sa/3324/1.html identity", and refers specifically to Rachel Bakers' "Clubcard" implicit concept of art history, which in itself appears anachronistic. in another part of this article. Following another tired pattern of in its first phase was mostly occupied with genuine, media specific in modernist art after 1945. in terms of art historicy, nobody knows... and, so what? Would that be In the brand of art history 'according to ZTK' the good old concept of inability for precise observations. The problem lies rather in the interactivity stems from the past - from computer art of the 70's and interesting example of how one type of mafia projects its own reality Interestingly this avantgarde-position is exactly what is called for internet then they did in projects in the 80's, to which Graw internet) as the most recent manifestation of artistic practice within internet, this classical concept of avantgarde seems to have become into useful idiots for hardware producers. Aesthetics and artistic ideas is a re-occurring theme on the internet - which is not just proved by Isabelle Graw, the editor of "Texte zur Kunst", finishes her essay - its own context, an important property of art lost: the fact that it is Knowing a little bit about how this type of polarized in-out-thinking large number of very different projects and works to "net art as such" made critical or renouncing remarks on the subject of interactivity. mafia against mafia. MAFIA CONTRA MAFIA Maybe it is the right of an art critic to mercylessly bash projects medium. One can summarize these objections like this: might not be pretty, but at least you will get the drift. move to the background compared with the capability to cope with the neo-conceptaul art - watch each other with just as much suspicion as net art is its status as experimental lab for the internet. In the net art projects as new versions of concepts from the 80's such as net art: the "myth of interactivity". The idea that playing around net fakes became a reoccuring motive in net art. (Rachel Bakers new art movements have been around for some time, they are put into the new genre of internet art (also known as net art, net.art, art on the nobody has really claimed in a long time anymore anyway. The claim North America, for example. At the same time artists have of course notion that everybody can be an artist on the internet - if they now in TZK cooked up as THE final manifestation. Now on to another reproach, that is being formulated in TZK towards now young curators from the contemporary art department struggle with numerous pseudo-businesses, which two years ago have been something of a sub-genre in net art: though they were - consciously or of the artwork. of the critic is understood quite well by Isabelle Graw. Maybe that's of this the genre of Media/Video and Electronic Art developed... And oilpainting the recipiant is also the co-producer of the meaning on the internet. With this kind of argument one could of course put down onto another one. Or interesting coalitions?" With their latest issue ZTK is pretty original article (in german): ouside of the art context - something which to my knowledge is not own name, the alter ego has its own identity and is used for specific periodic specifications- inscribed in large leatherbound volumes by pioneer-role, something which would discredit them in their own scene place - and that much research was appearantly too much for place." What makes matters worse, says Lovink, "is the fact that more played with the fact that they operate at the same time within and potential audience for contemporary art in Western Europe and the project. Funny enough Graw attributes this project to Bakers' projects, where the artist buys himself a suit and a tie and claims to properties of the internet, there was some logic to the fact that these proved. It is closer to the truth to say that the traditional art questionable (which probably explains why there have been so few relevant technologies. remarkable conclusion: "Because net art operates in a medium that is reporter from this somewhat marginal sphere of the artworld I am always represent a company. The continuous play with digital fact and fiction scene out of habit excludes artists who experiment with new media - several decades of postmodernism. One could describe this concept like situationists, the schism started with Fluxus. After this a certain Smells like Adorno, doesn't it? In plain words this means: net art Some of these arguments are historicaly outdated in the case of net art, strikes back with the same polemic means. Which is what this article subconsciously - in effect not too different from 80's-style "business surprised about the fact, that so little net artists take this alledged sustainable anymore anyway. technologies, does not mean it is automatically an avantgarde - which television... and come to think about, most of what was of interest territory, in which rules and standards are not defined clearly yet, and Texte zur Kunst, Heft 32 (Dezember 1998), 25 Mark that finally someone fell for her pseudonym, this example shows that that journalistic or artistic pleas for net art constantly predict a that net art is reduced to art which is comfortably consumed through the "conceptual art mafia" (Lovink), and has in this respect helped the avantgarde continues to exist undamaged and indisputed, despite the break through of some neo-conceptual artists, just as it has the fact that Isabelle Graw fell for Rachel Bakers pseudonym. As net art the fact they know nothing about computers and networks, while at The following text is a rough translation of an article by the gallery: Graffiti, Mail Art, Radio- and Soundworks, Land Art, the german art magazine "Texte zur Kunst" (TZK) from Cologne. It is The problem with this kind of art criticism lies not so much in its the same time they wonder where this gap is coming from in the first the same way it excludes artists that are not from Western Europe or the technophobic atmosphere within the artscene - to use a new the WorldWideWeb. their work is new or innovative. themselves. There is a good reason for the fact that both camps, media art and These internet projects have developed a completely different - and they can of course ignore new technologies like the internet. This This does not mean that net art only recycles previously invented this: artists invent in certain times, that are for convenience's sake Tilman Baumgaertel in the online magazine Telepolis. The translation Tilman Baumgärtel to acknowlege that one would have to know these projects in the first 'tribal' thinking - which informs the new issue of this magazine: United States. The fact that Net-/Media-/Computer Art uses these new unprepared observers. That such a situation also threatens the hegemony used as themes and as targets for criticism, like the many browser used the net for purposes, which it was not not designed for, but which warnings from Cologne, Vienna and New York... Will there be a gangwar? were admittedly sometimes hard to grasp for "net newbies" - are were nevertheless valid and interesting. These early experiments - that What could be relevant about all the net art projects in the long run What is exiting about net art is that it operates in a relatively new where some works can - hopefully - cause irritation and confusion to which are forced upon it by the hardware and software industry is not which is filled with numerous false facts - with the following which is put forward in an article by Isabelle Graw (the editor of TZK), while others depend on false assumptions. When artists feel like it, why her article doesn't give the internet adresses of any of the art with a joystick, a mouse or clicking on a webpage is a form of works - otherwise people might actually look at them and judge for works, it makes sense that TZK now bashes net art. And that net art ******************************************************************************** ROLUX h0444wol@rz.hu-berlin.de http://www2.hu-berlin.de/~h0444wol/rolux/