On the subject of net art - I think one of the issues that net art has to deal with when transposed to the gallery is that "the white cube" imposes systems of evaluation that we use for more traditional mediums, and I'm not convinced that those results are always that useful. A good example of this was illustrated very literally in the 2004 Whitney Biennial, where the wall text written about the work of Cory Arcangel, described his piece as being something spun from the history of painting. I don't see modernist painting having much to do with his work, and I think the work suffers when it is supposed to be evaluated in the same ways you look at a painting. Net art doesn't function this way, and like it or not the onus is on net artists to explain why it doesn't, so that it doesn't continue to be interpreted in ways that don't make any sense.
I suspect most net artists would prefer that their work stand on its own in a gallery setting without having to write a manifesto (or as Tom suggests publishing a podcast) explaining how and why it functions, but I don't think we're at that stage yet. Minimalists had to do the same thing - and it caught on.....eventually. I don't feel it's particularly useful to say that net art doesn't function well in gallery, site a show you've never seen and leave it at that. I believe there is some obligation on the part of those offering criticism to propose a more creative solution than "it will never work."
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I suspect most net artists would prefer that their work stand on its own in a gallery setting without having to write a manifesto (or as Tom suggests publishing a podcast) explaining how and why it functions, but I don't think we're at that stage yet. Minimalists had to do the same thing - and it caught on.....eventually. I don't feel it's particularly useful to say that net art doesn't function well in gallery, site a show you've never seen and leave it at that. I believe there is some obligation on the part of those offering criticism to propose a more creative solution than "it will never work."
- Paddy Johnson 6-13-2006 6:31 am