(invitation card - front and back)
(curatorial statement)
The expression net art surges in the middle of the decade of the nineties, having immediately spread to various online communities and being used to describe a varied collection of practices, constituting, in its essence, an exchange of ideas, resorting to a constant dialogue between artists, enthusiasts and critics of the techno culture. It is, consequently, in its origin, defined more as a communicative practice and criticism, of a global nature, than as any type of visual esthetic. In this manner, and since the beginning, the artists who found themselves exploring the possibilities of the Internet as a means of expression, possessed a grand ambition, showing objectives and collective ideas through publications of innumerous manifestos, where they proposed to explore the specific characteristics of the Internet, such as for example the immediacy and the immateriality. The e-mail , a form of privileged communication, allowed for an egalitarian communication, at any one moment and independently of geographical frontiers, which revealed as crucial for the development of communities that were related to the then recent phenomenon of net art. It became thus a common aim for the development of the communities of which art was found in the present daily activities.
It entails a recent artistic practice, with origin in the exponential development of the Internet and the consciousness of its possibilities both communicative and expressive. But also in a contesting, subversive context that is characteristic of the generation that surged in the artistic panorama of the decade of the nineties. These practices, independently of the specificity of the method to which they resort to, and their consequent marginality, are characterized by an extremely generalized reactivity and virulence. Activism, subversion and cultural terrorism are the words in order of who reacts to a commercialized and media run civilization with its logics of domination and destitution.
Artworks that distort the basic functions of navigation on the Internet, through the manipulation of interfaces considered reliable by the users, aim at shaking our confidence in the friendly nature of the online world. Artworks that put in question the notion of interactivity subordinating the autonomy of the user to the device. Artworks that resort to the possibilities created by the Internet for establishing a generalized communication, easily accessible and cost effective, allowing the artists the development of highly politicized practices, challenging a capitalist and globalized system. Artworks that seek to establish new communities without referring to the local order. But these are also artworks that are extremely poetic, or of the merely ludic nature. Net art constitutes itself this way as a field of experimentation and expression that is extremely polysemous, heterogeneous in its discourse and in the forms it adopts, summarizing in itself a grouping of formulations that are characteristic of the contemporary.
The Portuguese case
If, internationally, these types of practices appear simultaneously with the development of e-commerce, in Portugal , the first experiences appear only a few years after. The oldest artwork found, and introduced in the present project, dated from 1997. Talking about a Portuguese net art implies, in this way, demonstrating some specificities. Not so much in what respects its forms and contents, but rather in how it relates with the form of organization of the intervenients, artists and institutions of this practice. If, internationally, the aspect of counter culture assumes a key role in the development of the practice, in Portugal, there being still subversive pieces or extremely critical ones, we cannot talk about organized groups or minimally structured, whose objective has consisted or consists in undermining, discrediting, or placing the system at flaw. In 1997 the Virose platform surged, directed by Miguel Leal and Francisco José Pereira, but dedicated mostly to the transmission and the theoretical debate about the possible relationships between art and technology in a contemporary artistic context.
Therefore one cannot speak of a subversive logic, organized and equivalent to its international congener. But one cannot speak either of the surfacing of communities, new diasporas even, whose centre of activity would be the debate and the artistic experimentation of this type of support. The peripheral nature, on the one hand, and the need for technological capital on the other seem to have placed the Portuguese artists at the margin of an artistic discourse centered on the creative possibilities of the Internet. Missing the oriented communities for the discussion and criticism of net art, missing the subversive side of those communities, the flourishing of a Portuguese net art was difficult, very limited, even if the approached themes and the way of doing it was, in its essence, similar to what was being explored internationally.
In 2001, Interact appeared, a digital publication edited by the Centre of Communication and Language Studies of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa , with the objective of leading into a “reflection and discussion involving the important themes of contemporary thought, the critical assistance of events, cultural and artistic practices and the incentive to working in experimentation with digital technologies and the networks of information. Diminishing the gap still existent between culture and cyberculture is still one of its main motivations, searching for that reason the encounter (and the confrontation) between more traditional practices in the field of culture (such as the essay, the criticism and critical appreciations of literary works), practices of expression, reflection and creativity which are specific to digital culture, such as the hypertextuality and hypermedia, interactivity and connectivity”. It contains a section, Laboratório , where some artistic projects that were specifically developed for the Internet are presented, allowing for a bigger visibility, as well as an increased debate about theory revolved around not only net art, but also the digital as a means of expression.
The Atmosferas project, in 2003, came to change the status quo of net art in Portugal . Assuming itself as a platform for support and distribution of digital creation, has produced, among other activities, innumerous net art projects and created in 2004 the Atmosferas Prize in Digital Creation, a key instrument in the visibility, acknowledgement and legitimization of these types of practices and which counts with in 2005 its second edition.
Another specificity is related to the legitimization of net art with the grandest insistence of legitimization, the museum. If, internationally, net art has been the target of a gradual process of integration in that which can be considered a multifaceted discourse of contemporary art, with big international institutions ordaining it an increasing distinction and visibility, in Portugal, and perhaps as a consequence of its tardy emergence, that acknowledgement as a legitimate artistic practice is still practically inexistent. Let's highlight, however, the exception of the Museu do Chiado ( Chiado Museum ) – National Museum of Contemporary Art which in 2000, at its new site, created a specific area for online projects which it called “site-specific”.
The project
The project of an online exposition of Portuguese net art emerges in the following of an investigative study and is the final result of the mapping and analysis of a triangle constituted by artists, artworks and institutions and respectively their authorial conceptions, codes, discourses and trajectories of legitimization.
The selection of pieces presented here is essentially subjective. It was constituted with a gaze, and not the only one, over the artistic practice of recent development, dependent upon a technological support to which it refers to, the Internet. Five groups were created, five unities of sense, which attempt to delimitate specific themes of artistic experimentation in this area. They are not tight zones, mutually exclusive, being more about areas, at times overlapping, that solicit each other mutually. Pieces included in one category could be connected to another or others. However, each piece was merely inserted into one of these areas of sense, having as reference, what was considered the characteristic or central theme that it approaches. The selected artworks are, in this manner, associated to the themes of (h)activism, interactivity, narrative, World Wide Web and geography.
The result aspires to recognize the diversity of forms and discourses in an artistic practice that is of a rather recent development, which occupies, in the discourse of the visual arts, a residual place without which it would be less important, rather the contrary, closing in itself a collection of formulations and experimentations significantly characteristic of the contemporary.
(curatorial statement)
The expression net art surges in the middle of the decade of the nineties, having immediately spread to various online communities and being used to describe a varied collection of practices, constituting, in its essence, an exchange of ideas, resorting to a constant dialogue between artists, enthusiasts and critics of the techno culture. It is, consequently, in its origin, defined more as a communicative practice and criticism, of a global nature, than as any type of visual esthetic. In this manner, and since the beginning, the artists who found themselves exploring the possibilities of the Internet as a means of expression, possessed a grand ambition, showing objectives and collective ideas through publications of innumerous manifestos, where they proposed to explore the specific characteristics of the Internet, such as for example the immediacy and the immateriality. The e-mail , a form of privileged communication, allowed for an egalitarian communication, at any one moment and independently of geographical frontiers, which revealed as crucial for the development of communities that were related to the then recent phenomenon of net art. It became thus a common aim for the development of the communities of which art was found in the present daily activities.
It entails a recent artistic practice, with origin in the exponential development of the Internet and the consciousness of its possibilities both communicative and expressive. But also in a contesting, subversive context that is characteristic of the generation that surged in the artistic panorama of the decade of the nineties. These practices, independently of the specificity of the method to which they resort to, and their consequent marginality, are characterized by an extremely generalized reactivity and virulence. Activism, subversion and cultural terrorism are the words in order of who reacts to a commercialized and media run civilization with its logics of domination and destitution.
Artworks that distort the basic functions of navigation on the Internet, through the manipulation of interfaces considered reliable by the users, aim at shaking our confidence in the friendly nature of the online world. Artworks that put in question the notion of interactivity subordinating the autonomy of the user to the device. Artworks that resort to the possibilities created by the Internet for establishing a generalized communication, easily accessible and cost effective, allowing the artists the development of highly politicized practices, challenging a capitalist and globalized system. Artworks that seek to establish new communities without referring to the local order. But these are also artworks that are extremely poetic, or of the merely ludic nature. Net art constitutes itself this way as a field of experimentation and expression that is extremely polysemous, heterogeneous in its discourse and in the forms it adopts, summarizing in itself a grouping of formulations that are characteristic of the contemporary.
The Portuguese case
If, internationally, these types of practices appear simultaneously with the development of e-commerce, in Portugal , the first experiences appear only a few years after. The oldest artwork found, and introduced in the present project, dated from 1997. Talking about a Portuguese net art implies, in this way, demonstrating some specificities. Not so much in what respects its forms and contents, but rather in how it relates with the form of organization of the intervenients, artists and institutions of this practice. If, internationally, the aspect of counter culture assumes a key role in the development of the practice, in Portugal, there being still subversive pieces or extremely critical ones, we cannot talk about organized groups or minimally structured, whose objective has consisted or consists in undermining, discrediting, or placing the system at flaw. In 1997 the Virose platform surged, directed by Miguel Leal and Francisco José Pereira, but dedicated mostly to the transmission and the theoretical debate about the possible relationships between art and technology in a contemporary artistic context.
Therefore one cannot speak of a subversive logic, organized and equivalent to its international congener. But one cannot speak either of the surfacing of communities, new diasporas even, whose centre of activity would be the debate and the artistic experimentation of this type of support. The peripheral nature, on the one hand, and the need for technological capital on the other seem to have placed the Portuguese artists at the margin of an artistic discourse centered on the creative possibilities of the Internet. Missing the oriented communities for the discussion and criticism of net art, missing the subversive side of those communities, the flourishing of a Portuguese net art was difficult, very limited, even if the approached themes and the way of doing it was, in its essence, similar to what was being explored internationally.
In 2001, Interact appeared, a digital publication edited by the Centre of Communication and Language Studies of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa , with the objective of leading into a “reflection and discussion involving the important themes of contemporary thought, the critical assistance of events, cultural and artistic practices and the incentive to working in experimentation with digital technologies and the networks of information. Diminishing the gap still existent between culture and cyberculture is still one of its main motivations, searching for that reason the encounter (and the confrontation) between more traditional practices in the field of culture (such as the essay, the criticism and critical appreciations of literary works), practices of expression, reflection and creativity which are specific to digital culture, such as the hypertextuality and hypermedia, interactivity and connectivity”. It contains a section, Laboratório , where some artistic projects that were specifically developed for the Internet are presented, allowing for a bigger visibility, as well as an increased debate about theory revolved around not only net art, but also the digital as a means of expression.
The Atmosferas project, in 2003, came to change the status quo of net art in Portugal . Assuming itself as a platform for support and distribution of digital creation, has produced, among other activities, innumerous net art projects and created in 2004 the Atmosferas Prize in Digital Creation, a key instrument in the visibility, acknowledgement and legitimization of these types of practices and which counts with in 2005 its second edition.
Another specificity is related to the legitimization of net art with the grandest insistence of legitimization, the museum. If, internationally, net art has been the target of a gradual process of integration in that which can be considered a multifaceted discourse of contemporary art, with big international institutions ordaining it an increasing distinction and visibility, in Portugal, and perhaps as a consequence of its tardy emergence, that acknowledgement as a legitimate artistic practice is still practically inexistent. Let's highlight, however, the exception of the Museu do Chiado ( Chiado Museum ) – National Museum of Contemporary Art which in 2000, at its new site, created a specific area for online projects which it called “site-specific”.
The project
The project of an online exposition of Portuguese net art emerges in the following of an investigative study and is the final result of the mapping and analysis of a triangle constituted by artists, artworks and institutions and respectively their authorial conceptions, codes, discourses and trajectories of legitimization.
The selection of pieces presented here is essentially subjective. It was constituted with a gaze, and not the only one, over the artistic practice of recent development, dependent upon a technological support to which it refers to, the Internet. Five groups were created, five unities of sense, which attempt to delimitate specific themes of artistic experimentation in this area. They are not tight zones, mutually exclusive, being more about areas, at times overlapping, that solicit each other mutually. Pieces included in one category could be connected to another or others. However, each piece was merely inserted into one of these areas of sense, having as reference, what was considered the characteristic or central theme that it approaches. The selected artworks are, in this manner, associated to the themes of (h)activism, interactivity, narrative, World Wide Web and geography.
The result aspires to recognize the diversity of forms and discourses in an artistic practice that is of a rather recent development, which occupies, in the discourse of the visual arts, a residual place without which it would be less important, rather the contrary, closing in itself a collection of formulations and experimentations significantly characteristic of the contemporary.
Posts
