Hello if you are reading this document, you may have said something like “What is a Net Art?”, “I don’t know much about this…” or “I remember making websites in the 90s haha”.
Good news! you already know Net Art! You encounter it every day, and if you’ve ever created anything on a computer you have already taken the first steps to becoming a Net Artist! (horror)
“The [] Net Art movement of the 1990s [] used the Internet as an artistic medium. New Net Art on the other hand dismisses the concept of mediums entirely, everything is a medium in New Net Art as long as it can capture the emotion and experience of life in the digital age of the early 21st century.
[] New Net Art does not depend on the internet as a medium. It explores the idea that digital life is so pervasive that anything made today can be related to the experience of digital life. New Net Art is not focused on visual styles, or aesthetics; it's based on the experience and emotion of digital existence.” -loren/ribrose on the MelonLand Wiki
New Net Art is art that is both of, about and inside, The Internet. It is art that intentionally explores, deconstructs and reimagines our interactions with computers and the World Wide Web.
New Net Art includes but is not limited to:
- Art websites - Websites that are themselves artworks - inseparable from their content
- 3D worlds and Video Games - Interactive digital spaces and other worlds
- Web reference art - This is physical art that is born out of web culture i.e. Zines
- Digital Folk music - Music created for the web and embodying its culture and faults
- Network counter-culture - Online communities, Modding, Piracy, and Twitch streaming
- Digital Objects - Smart fridges, self-hosted servers and haunting loss of payphones
New Net Art is non-corporate (because machines that create cannot see themselves), non-profit (because art must look beyond material), broken, lovely, immortal and ephemeral!
How to I become a New Net Artist ??
According to ChatGPT the best way to become a New Net Artist is to “Rent a lotf”, “Get a weird old laptop” and “crash weird experimental shows in old brutalist buildings”. (The word “weird” appeared around 18 times and should ideally apply to everything you do!)
My Tips to be a New Net Artist:
- Obliterate genres, mediums and trends - those are dead rules.
- The web is everywhere and everything touches the web, it can all be be net art.
- Dismantle your ideas about technology and rebuild them into a lollypop stick monster!
- Get a weird old laptop and rent a loft??
In truth you are a net artist when you start to observe technology and when you start to act upon those observations in creative ways - Net Art is about guiding technology, not being guided by it.
Good luck! and may New Net Art find you when you least expect it and when you need it most :^]
