Bennett Williamson of the Double Happiness surf blog wrote the following to me last night an email exchange about April 18th’s summation of the Futures of the Internet panel.
I am interested in the question of the internet leveling things vs. the internet having hierarchy, but less politically and more (in a slightly Convergence Culture way) technically. Less interested in the search engines organizing what is supposed to be an “open playing field” and more interested in how our actions/expectations change as ease of information and exposure to a variety of mediums all gets presented through the same browser screen.
Cultural convergences as I understand it typically discusses the intersection between the commercial and amateurism, a popular point of interest for many surf bloggers. I pull it from the quote above if for no other reason than it’s useful to name. Of course, for me, what an artist does with that material in the process of finding it or after seems to be the point at which art happens, an aspect I think many people find confusing simply because there isn’t enough history and discussion about the practice for many viewers to feel comfortable labeling what works for them and what doesn’t.
Adding to Williamson’s comments about the browser, I’d like to begin by noting that medium specificity has always created unique viewer relationships. People experience sculpture differently than painting for example, because there is a different physical and spatial relationship to the object. In many ways these concepts remain the same when viewing art on a computer even if the variables change. So for example, unlike a photograph or a sculpture, a net artist has less control over a viewers interaction with its framing mechanisms. The size of screen or the color of the browser a user choses to view their work in, vary from household to household, and there’s very little an artist can do to customize that experience. Other aspects remain constant — viewers will experience work on a flat screen, images will be always seen at 72 dpi, they will always be framed by a browser, in all likelihood the smallest screen size will be 800 pixels which informs how an artist works.
All of this of course is old hat to designers and net artists, who have been working with this set of problems for a while. However, for those who don’t think about these concerns all that often, it’s worth remarking that a large part of an artist’s web practice — whether they think too much about it or not — is implicitly concerned with image file management and display. In other words, decisions about the size and placement of a jpg or video file are always being made. In this way, I see a lot of aesthetic similarities between net art to collage and photography, because frame, composition, and layering, are always a concern. This of course, doesn’t speak to the element of interactivity or the conceptual concerns of the artist, but since we’re just talking aesthetics here, those topics are beyond the scope of this post.
{ 12 comments }
good post.
I agree that a large part of an artist’s web practice is image file management and display. one reason i enjoy double happiness is because i usually check it from my 12″ laptop and the authors tend to rarely resize the content to fit the blog’s frame. some may find it annoying, but i kinda like the way default sizes can create such new dialog among images. (i’ve always thought of dubhap’s image posts as collages)
one thing i’ll add is the idea of the portable browser and the way location can play its roll in browser aesthetics. as we know, people dont just view art online from the privacy of their home. viewing online work in public starts to make me think of live performance or something. with added elements that can complement the work, or severely detract from it.
good post.
I agree that a large part of an artist’s web practice is image file management and display. one reason i enjoy double happiness is because i usually check it from my 12″ laptop and the authors tend to rarely resize the content to fit the blog’s frame. some may find it annoying, but i kinda like the way default sizes can create such new dialog among images. (i’ve always thought of dubhap’s image posts as collages)
one thing i’ll add is the idea of the portable browser and the way location can play its roll in browser aesthetics. as we know, people dont just view art online from the privacy of their home. viewing online work in public starts to make me think of live performance or something. with added elements that can complement the work, or severely detract from it.
Browser Aesthetics. So well put, since I’d been banging my sorry head against a wall lately, just trying to find a way to articulate that very thing to people who aren’t exposed to much net art.
Browser Aesthetics. So well put, since I’d been banging my sorry head against a wall lately, just trying to find a way to articulate that very thing to people who aren’t exposed to much net art.
Justin: I agree, location does play a roll in browser aesthetics particularly in an institutional setting.
L.M. It’s funny – I almost didn’t publish this because the ideas seem so obvious, but then I figured there’s probably a lot of people who don’t ever think about this stuff because there’s no reason to, so it might be useful in helping people get a little closer to understanding some of the formal problem solving skills required of the net artist.
Justin: I agree, location does play a roll in browser aesthetics particularly in an institutional setting.
L.M. It’s funny – I almost didn’t publish this because the ideas seem so obvious, but then I figured there’s probably a lot of people who don’t ever think about this stuff because there’s no reason to, so it might be useful in helping people get a little closer to understanding some of the formal problem solving skills required of the net artist.
We had quite a few conversations about this on my DMTree blog. There was a series of posts responding to MTAA’s simple net art diagram where I was arguing that the art happened in originating artist’s browser (and the recipient’s) rather than with unpacking protocols out on the open net in the Net Art 1.0 manner. At least the art I was most interested in. (I think that was before L.M.’s time at the Tree.) In the previous thread I brought up “leveling” on the Net as a dpi/browser issue rather than a social hierarchy issue–that was an extension of those earlier conversations. I’m happy Paddy, Bennett, and others are articulating such concepts in this thread. Not claiming authorship, just a strong bias towards the idea.
We had quite a few conversations about this on my DMTree blog. There was a series of posts responding to MTAA’s simple net art diagram where I was arguing that the art happened in originating artist’s browser (and the recipient’s) rather than with unpacking protocols out on the open net in the Net Art 1.0 manner. At least the art I was most interested in. (I think that was before L.M.’s time at the Tree.) In the previous thread I brought up “leveling” on the Net as a dpi/browser issue rather than a social hierarchy issue–that was an extension of those earlier conversations. I’m happy Paddy, Bennett, and others are articulating such concepts in this thread. Not claiming authorship, just a strong bias towards the idea.
True, it was through Tom’s blg posts that I first found critical discussion on work specifically for browsers. (admittedly at a time when these were not issues for me)
True, it was through Tom’s blg posts that I first found critical discussion on work specifically for browsers. (admittedly at a time when these were not issues for me)
One thing that I like in particular about web 2.0 site structures is the standardizing of art viewing via lists, pages, nodes, etc. Which can obviously be likened to gallery walls, rooms, frames, pedestals etc. Also 2.0 download speeds, render speeds, plugin/object types have standards to be followed or broken. Seems obvious I suppose, but maybe not to everyone as was mentioned – it wasn’t that obvious to me at first but I dum. One could ask if then web 3.0 and beyond will change these standards or “neutralities” yet again, and will they keep changing every few years? Most brick & mortar gallery consumers probably enjoy that similar neutralities don’t change that often there.
And it isn’t just IMAGE management, what about text/css/html/code/script art? I do alot of this type of art and have to still deal with sizes, database loading and rendering speeds (for instance thousands of span objects take a beautiful amount of left->right->top->bottom browser processing time where table cells do not) and such.
I for one am a standards freak… I love working with limitations, for instance will play chess only with Staunton pieces. And there is the anecdote of how the width of 2 roman horse asses became a standard leading eventually to space-shuttle sizing. Or more relevantly with web animation I think its cool that (via Tom?) more artists are working within the limits of gif format and avoiding the flash/shock/qt route. But for better/worse I wouldn’t expect these browser neutralities to be frozen for very long.
One thing that I like in particular about web 2.0 site structures is the standardizing of art viewing via lists, pages, nodes, etc. Which can obviously be likened to gallery walls, rooms, frames, pedestals etc. Also 2.0 download speeds, render speeds, plugin/object types have standards to be followed or broken. Seems obvious I suppose, but maybe not to everyone as was mentioned – it wasn’t that obvious to me at first but I dum. One could ask if then web 3.0 and beyond will change these standards or “neutralities” yet again, and will they keep changing every few years? Most brick & mortar gallery consumers probably enjoy that similar neutralities don’t change that often there.
And it isn’t just IMAGE management, what about text/css/html/code/script art? I do alot of this type of art and have to still deal with sizes, database loading and rendering speeds (for instance thousands of span objects take a beautiful amount of left->right->top->bottom browser processing time where table cells do not) and such.
I for one am a standards freak… I love working with limitations, for instance will play chess only with Staunton pieces. And there is the anecdote of how the width of 2 roman horse asses became a standard leading eventually to space-shuttle sizing. Or more relevantly with web animation I think its cool that (via Tom?) more artists are working within the limits of gif format and avoiding the flash/shock/qt route. But for better/worse I wouldn’t expect these browser neutralities to be frozen for very long.
Comments on this entry are closed.
{ 1 trackback }