The label »Web Art« was coined at the beginning of the nineties as the Internet was gaining in popularity. In 1997 Documenta X presented Web projects under this heading. But the exhibition turned out to be a flop: for the viewers, because the screen presentations were unable to satisfy their exaggerated hopes of what to expect from the avant-garde of Web society; and for the artists themselves, who complained about low fees and offline presentations. In the background there were rumblings about how the rebellious art of the Internet's nascent years was being presented in such a fragmented fashion and in such a conventional exhibition space. Short of an actual hostile confrontation with the established art system, it was part of the program of this generation of artists not to allow themselves to be integrated into the system, and to pursue their own self-defined goals instead. The »net_condition« exhibition of 2000, which took place in both Graz and Karlsruhe, was the first to turn away from a traditional, object-oriented concept of art, and focus instead on an action-oriented approach with an emphasis on media theory and social policy perspectives.

[b]Post-modern art and artistic Web projects[/b]

At this year's Documenta11, Web art is simply no longer an issue. But, although this absence of Web art has begun to become conspicuous throughout the art scene, a strong contradiction was posed by the small Turin biennial BIG¹, which took place for the second time this spring: the Biennale Internationale Arte Giovane chose the Web as its host country. A curatorial power play designed to stubbornly defy the slumping reputation of the Internet over the past two years? Not at all: artistic director Michelangelo Pistoletto's selection of the Internet forms part of the overall concept of the show, which can be succinctly described as »BIG Social Game.« The focus was on the dialogue between art and society, and the Biennale was to be open to art forms that take place outside of the classic modern art venues, notably the typical white cubes. The artists did not bring any artworks with them to the show, but instead developed them in the course of their encounter with the city of Turin. In the context of this kind of process-oriented concept, Web projects no longer seem like a foreign body.

The fact that art is departing from the white cube is already a firmly established reaction to the frequently hermetic art of the modern movement. No one knows this better than Michelangelo Pistoletto, one of the protagonists of Arte Povera in the sixties. This updated take on a position already familiar in the art system by means of displaying current Web projects was at the core of the extraordinary integrative work accomplished by the Turin Biennale: like few exhibitions before it in the ten-year history of the Internet as mass medium, an established art event succeeded in placing Web projects in tension-free proximity to central concerns of contemporary art.

This association was also free of tension in the sense that BIG made no attempt to annex these new artistic approaches, but rather sought to enter into a dialog with them. BIG was not the product of a forced quick bleaching process with regards to new media, but rather the product of a cooperation between Pistoletto's established position and that of the artists' group calc (casqueiro atlantico laboratorio cultural), which works with new media.² Pistoletto invited calc to participate as part of the curatorial team, and gave members Teresa Alonso Novo, Lukas Brunner and Tomi Scheiderbauer free reign in their choice of the »BIG guests«, the artists from the »host country« of the Internet.

[b]»Host Country Internet« formula instead of »Web Art« label[/b]

Contributing to this lack of tension was likewise the show's formula »Host Country Internet«. This formula enabled BIG's curators and artists to avoid the label of »Web Art«: The frequently invoked »failure« of Web Art at the end of the nineties can be attributed in part to the fact that the media conglomerate that is the Internet does not exactly make a fitting vehicle for an independent artistic genre. Instead, it should be seen as an element that can play a greater or lesser role in artistic works, depending on the specific way in which it is used. In the project it developed for BIG, the artists' group etoy, one of the most well-known representatives of the so-called Web Art of the nineties, documented the fact that the Web is still fundamental to their art, but not their sole theme, and certainly by no means the only medium for their art. During the Biennale, etoy herded around 30 school classes through a crash course in video production, and used their Web address http://www.etoy.com inscribed on two orange containers they had set up in the center of Turin to effectively call attention to their digital form of existence. At the same time, »etoy.daycare«³ concerns itself with the non-Internet-specific medium of video, and using the computer as a digital video-production laboratory; not to mention the fact that, during the show, etoy faced up to the anything-but-virtual hordes of Turin children.

Equally resistant to pigeonholing as »Web Art« is the »Etni-Città«⁴ project by Samantha Longoni and Martin Roth. In the context of the Swiss Expo project »Cyberhelvetia,«⁵ Roth developed so-called »photobots«: screens equipped with digital cameras that are installed behind shop windows and with which passersby can create photos of themselves. From their locations on the street, the images are fed directly to a server and can be called up via the Internet. The dialog with the people of Turin consisted in the fact that Etni-Città (located, like etoy, right in the middle of Turin next to the Municipal Building) asked the passersby to vote on political and media-related issues: in the middle one sees the question, with a »no« photobot to the right, and a »si« photobot to the left. The Web is an essential component of the installation, but at the same time the public space also plays a crucial role. With regard to the label »Web Art,« the question also arises as to what extent Etni-Città's creators are interested in the artistic aspect. The project's aesthetic, largely in the style of RAI-Uno, is obviously designed to achieve the highest degree of audience appeal, rather than expressing the search for an independent aesthetic.

Another story altogether is the project »./logicaland,«⁶ which operates with its own austere graphic aesthetic and, as a purely virtual project, seems to fit best into a more rigid definition of the genre »Web Art.« But in this case any interaction with the Turin locale is missing.

[b]Web activism and art system[/b]

The political interaction became a little too direct for Pistoletto and his team, however, when members of the Web project »Everybody is an expert« started to distribute flyers on the street featuring the slogan »Basta con Berlusconi.« After negotiations failed, the artists were asked to leave. If this agitation had been limited to the Web, Pistoletto stated in an interview during the Biennale, he would have been able to accept it as part of the artwork. However, in the real public realm of Turin, it became a directly political action that no longer fitted the artistic framework of the festival. Web activism and art system came into conflict here, a confrontation that further stimulated discourse on the relationship between art, Web activism and politics.⁷

All in all, the label »Web art« still remains problematic - an art genre to which artists don't really feel like they belong. It already gave grounds for doubt when, in the nineties, »celebrities« such as Heath Bunting, Vuk Cosic or Olia Lialina made use of the label ironically rather than with any evident enthusiasm.⁸ Events such as the Turin Biennale, in which Web-based art projects can be contemplated without attaching this label, represent a happy exception to the rule. Since »Web Art« is still a catchy and seemingly promising term, strategic considerations alone dictate that it will not be discarded easily. Even though Heath Bunting has never allowed himself to be labeled as a Web artist, at least not in the last few years, his newest art project was in fact sponsored by the Tate Gallery as a »Web.art project.«

 

Translated by Jennifer Taylor-Gaida

 

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