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.Over the last few decades, a number of ideas have been proposed from the domains of computerscience, notably artificial intelligence, towards solutions of these problems.In our view, thesesuggestions have oversimplified the problem and thus have, on the whole, failed.The heart of the matteris language the medium in which information is often bound up and its ambiguity and flexibility.Information in forms of audio, image, or moving image may present even greater challenges, as we seekto develop vocabularies and structures to represent them.This is an old story.As new technologies have been developed that affect our ways of storinginformation (writing, printing, scholarly journals, magnetic storage, and so on), new methods have had tobe devised to find it again.Writing led to titles; mass printing led to book catalogs; journals led toindexes; magnetic storage led to data structures.Now we have globally distributed high-speed networks,and a new response is required.The ultimate form (or forms) of that response are at present unclear butfor the moment, a few basics from the library world may suffice.http://docs.rinet.ru/ITricks/tig21.htm (12 of 12) [4/18/1999 12:45:40 AM] Tricks of the Internet Gurus tig22.htm22Art on the Internet--by Kenneth GreenbergA Thumbnail Sketch of Artists in CyberspaceThe Community of ArtistsThe Business of ArtResearch and the ArtsThe Art of PublicityInterlinking LinksLetting Others KnowFollowing UpInternet-Based ArtArt Forms Native to the InternetImage Files: ASCII, GIF, JPEG, and MoreSound and Media FilesInteractivity: OTIS, Muds, MOOs, and MoreCreative WritingThe Internet as an Art MediumInternetic InstallationsThere's No Place Like Home PageElectronic Cafes and Cyber-CultureCurating and Criticism on the InternetUnderstanding What You SeeMedia and Cultural CritiqueThe Politics of CritiqueThe Audience ParticipantWhat Artists Contribute to Understanding of the NetVisualizing Cyberspace"Hello World!": Self-Image Onlineme.com: Getting Your Work Out ThereA look Toward the Techno FuturePointers to Art Resources on the InternetGeneral Art Resources on GopherGeneral Art Resources on World Wide Webhttp://docs.rinet.ru/ITricks/tig22.htm (1 of 22) [4/18/1999 12:46:02 AM] Tricks of the Internet Gurus tig22.htmImages, Sound, Software, Databases, and FAQsSelected Arts Usenet GroupsE-Zines, Databases, and FAQsArt Education and Other Art Related InformationCybercultural Links22Art on the Internet--by Kenneth GreenbergMy involvement in interactive computer technology and art goes back to the early 1970s, in an experience thatgives true meaning to the term "spaghetti code." Three weeks before Charlotte Moorman's Avant Garde ArtFestival of 1972, sound artist Liz Phillips asked if I'd be willing to cook up 500 pounds of six-foot strands ofspaghetti as part of her upcoming interactive/performance work on the Alexander Hamilton Ferry."ElectricSpaghetti" used capacitive fields to sense the audience's grabbing and handling of hundreds of six-foot-longstrands of pasta pulled from a massive heap.Information from the sensing devices was translated intoelectronically generated sound.We did not know the word Internet.The word computer conjured up toting hugestacks of hole punched cards.For me, the allure of interactive electronic art has never disappeared.Historically, art and invention tend to go hand-in-hand.Pythagoras derived his famous theorem while exploringthe nature of music.The Greek architects made exquisite use of geometry.At the dawn of the twentieth century,as physicists explored the concept of relativity, artists underwent an abstract revolution.The underlying issues ofart and science are more closely aligned than it might appear at first glance.Science seeks to observe nature andphenomena empirically, and then to propose a theory which explains the observation and reliably predicts futureobservations.An artist also observes nature.The artist seeks to create a structure or style that will convey themeaning of his or her observations.The work an artist produces must ring true for others if it is to survive.As theaudience views a work of art, whether in one moment of immediate time or over centuries of cultural critique,people experience the artist's hypothesis.Each of us becomes the judge of the work's ultimate validity.There maybe an idea presented as simple as "behold the beauty of the world around us" or ideas that are quite complex suchas the movements within Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring."Creativity has always existed in all of the realms of computer technology.Start delving under the hood of almostany well written code and you will find humor and personality albeit often strange and esoteric.Program namessuch as BIFF, the mail-notification utility named for the dog who barked when the mail arrived; subroutine labelssuch as "should-patch-later"; or the Internet tools named "Archie," "Veronica," and "Jughead"; or theever-present RTFM (Read "this fine" manual) are the markings left by the people behind the programs.These arethe same markings of the soldiers who scrawled "Kilroy was here" or cave painters leaving vivid visualdescriptions of their daily lives.These are the traces of that part of the human spirit that must express and create.In the late 1970s, it wouldn't have been easy to predict the massive computer markets we see today.We are nowpoised on the moment of critical mass of the computer communications era.Internet, Multimedia, VirtualReality, and Interactive TV are among the ideas being discussed on a daily basis across all disciplines.While artin its purest sense might have been confined to a few small special-interest groups on CompuServe or Delphi ahttp://docs.rinet.ru/ITricks/tig22.htm (2 of 22) [4/18/1999 12:46:02 AM] Tricks of the Internet Gurus tig22.htmfew years back, the presence of people online today whose lives are intimately connected to the arts is impossibleto measure.As the issues of presenting oneself or one's business to the world at large begin to emerge, we see theimpact of artistic judgment and quality take on even greater significance.My discussion of art will have a definite bias toward visual and technology-based art as these are my primarydomains.However, most of the information here can be equally applied toward any number of areas in the arts.There may not yet be as many archives devoted to dance at the moment as there are to visual display, but thereare, nonetheless, dancers not only interacting through words on the Net, but dancers whose performances are onthe Net.Many of the issues, such as presenting and promoting ones work, are the same.Finally, the nature of thecreative process cuts across all boundaries and is, in fact, not exclusive to the arts.The thought processes thatcreated the Internet go beyond rote and routine.A Thumbnail Sketch of Artists in CyberspaceArtists wear many hats in our society, and it's no surprise that their varied roles turn up in many differentlocations and applications on the Internet.Whether we examine the active online communities created by artistsfor their own purposes or explore the importance of art for business and the world at large, art has been asignificant force behind the development of the network and within its daily functioning.The first section of thischapter looks at the activities and sites where artists are working and communicating on a daily basis [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]