<nettime> re: Robert Adrians net.art thread analyses

[Josephine Bosma <jesis@xs4all.nl>]

A bit late maybe, I would like to react to Robert Adrians
summary of net.art writings here on nettime. Life goes on
after zkp, right? In this piece he writes that I compared
net.art to radio. Never did I compare net.art to radio,
I see no reason at all to do so.
I compared a certain type of net.art, practiced by mostly
artists from the notorious 'net.art-group', to performance
art and mail art, and I did this only and with care to satisfy
a need that seemed to exist to find some kind of handhold while
trying to discuss this art.

I compared the fragile but tactically interesting state of
the internet to the early days of radio. The comparison
between video art and net.art had been made a few times too many
for my taste, so when David Garcia wrote his sympathetic attempt
to save net.artists from the hassle of having to be the next
group of artists to deal with some of the struggles the video
artists had a hard time with, I neglected his attempt to help
and only tried to refute the growing idea video art and net.art
are strongly related. I think it speaks for itself that
I respect video art and also the words of warning from David.

About video art and net.art: the impact and therefore the whole
concept of working with or developing in either of these two
art forms is not easily comparible because a video art piece
that is performed or played seldom has national or international
reach. It is closed circuit art. It has had little access to massmedia.
Net.art not only has global reach, it also is accessable any time of
the day, with the exeption of realtime performances of course. These
however mostly leave traces on the net/web.
This is my main reason for feeling uncomfortable when a comparison
seems too easily made. There are other differences and there are also
things both artforms share, like its intangibility and therefore it
being a difficult product to sell, which it shares with some other
art forms as well.
I however just want to clear up some indistictions now, and leave the
rest of our exploration/discussion for later.






*


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