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Art perception in a networked environment
cyberspace as artistic space/medium/protocol
Hiro is approaching the Street. It is the Broadway, the Champs
Élysées of the Metaverse. It is the brilliantly
lit boulevard that can be seen, miniaturized and backward, reflected
in the lenses of his goggles. It does not really exist. But
right now, millions of people are walking up and down it. The
dimensions of the Street are fixed by a protocol, hammered out
by the computer-graphics ninja overlords of the Association
for Computing Machinerys Global Multimedia Protocol Group.
Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (1992),
chapter 23.
In their earliest descriptions of the Internet, cyberpunk authors
such as Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling and William Gibson (who coined
the term cyberspace)(1)
depict a parallel, realistic and spatial environment where sensory
experiences mimic those from the real world. In their
imagined, three-dimensional networked spaces a user can wander, interact
with others and the environment, experience inside and outside, be
unexpectedly confronted with new settings or new information
much like what would happen when one moves within a real landscape,
city, building or environment.
In a way, it is logical that such early descriptions of the Internet
still a set of text-based utilities in the beginning of the
1990s, with only a small number of specialized users should
mirror our existing spatial experience in such a significant way;
these descriptions were highly imaginative, but also in a way safe
and familiar, and somewhat naive. The choice of such direct metaphors
is logical though, since it would have been very difficult to predict,
for example, the precise evolution of technologies that have made
the Internet very popular since that day and that shape our everyday
experience of it. Among other things, these standards and protocols
have evolved into the World Wide Web, the killer application
that has boosted Internet use since the mid-nineties(2).
E-mail, another killer app., has just turned 30(3),
the World Wide Web is less than ten years old.
These widely used and well-known applications, and the protocols
that underlie them, are subject to change and evolution. It
is interesting to observe that e-mail has basically remained
unchanged since its invention its a practical and
useful everyday application that doesnt need many more
whistles and bells. The protocols that underlie the World Wide
Web, though, become more complex with fast pace, and its possible
applications increase every day. In its early beginning, the
Web was still a largely text-based medium, used as an extensive
hypertextual bulletin board where individuals and organizations
were able to publicize and cross-link the type of information
they wanted to disclose mostly text with a few small
images at first, because the low bandwidth of that period didnt
allow heavier content. Nowadays, the possibilities
have multiplied moving images, sound, video, interactive
applications even the construction of the three-dimensional,
spatial environments envisioned by cyberpunk literature will
be theoretically feasible, if broad bandwidth becomes more widely
available.
Compared to the possibilities of these high-tech applications,
how is the Internet used at this time, and what does the general
perception of the network look like? For most people, everyday
use of the Internet doesnt involve complex multimedia
content or the exploration of simulated environments. The main
attraction of the Net, and its most widespread use, still consists
of a combination of information retrieval, leisure activities
and social interaction. The Net has made very diverse content
accessible to many people in an unprecedented way; nowadays
an Internet user can consult specialized information from her
personal computer, while about ten years ago she would have
been forced to extreme, if not impossible efforts to find and
retrieve that information. Music lovers get access to specific
online radio stations that broadcast their favourite but exotic
musical genre; very specific content is accessible on web pages
physically located on a machine on another continent. Presenting
challenging, useful and unique information is primordial to
the development of a successful website.
As mentioned above, e-mail is still one of the killer applications
of the Net; for many people, social online interaction is of high
importance. Communication happens on a one-to-one, one-to-many or
many-to-many basis; virtual communities are, unlike real-life
communities, strongly based on shared and mutual interests, less on
geographical and spatial factors(4).
As a general observation, it is important to note that Internet use
very often occurs from within an intimate, personal setting (the private
home, sometimes the office or another more public space) and that
personal orientations and interests will define what a user will view
and perceive and what not. It is also very significant to see that
immediate, visual perception plays a much less significant role online
than in the real world; online behaviour is dominated by textual exchange,
which favours linguistic and intellectual activities over sensory
perception. Using the Internet could be considered a rather abstract
and conceptual activity of non-spatial nature; few users are interested
in online content that uses strong metaphors of real-life space. The
aforementioned cyberpunk-literature predictions of a parallel cyberspace
or metaverse are perhaps unlikely to become widespread,
because entirely different behaviour and applications have developed
on the Net.
So, one could say that cyberspace as we know it, possesses no spatial
nature at all; the Net is a medium, similar to (for example) the written
press or radio. This statement is confirmed by standard practice in
cyberspace legislation, where the Internet is not considered a separate
place, but is regarded rather as an activity which is firmly rooted
in everyday life, connected with the people that use it and the machines
that technically support it. The perception, experience and use of
any medium are strongly influenced by the protocols that define its
infrastructure. Radio, for example, would be experienced in a totally
different way if it would allow two-way interaction, which is not
the case now due to sociological, but mostly political factors and
decisions. Similarly, our experience of the Internet is strongly defined
by largely political decisions about its protocols. Lawrence Lessig,
Professor of Law at the Stanford Law School, correctly points out
that the code of cyberspace (the technology that underlies it, the
protocols and software) defines peoples behaviour as much as,
or even more than, legislation would do (5).
In real space, the social implications of politically influenced infrastructure
are also present (the lay-out of roads conflicting with, or reinforcing,
traffic rules, for example), but in a much less prominent and relevant
way. In cyberspace, infrastructure inescapably defines the users
behaviour.
The Internet as spatial infrastructure
The fact that the Internet is a medium and not a space, does not imply
that spatial representation or metaphors of cyberspace would be undesirable.
In order to understand and study the Net, scholars and artists alike
are trying to create visual diagrams and outlines that represent aspects
of online activities. These representations build upon existing metaphors
that are sometimes obvious (the Internet as a web, grid or network,
for example even the term World Wide Web might
be considered a metaphor), sometimes surprising, such as social activity
and interaction in an online forum, represented by a series of flowers
with colourful petals(6).
Evidently, the Internet as a medium does rely upon a physical, and
thus spatial, structure the meshwork of cables and machines
and the people who operate this infrastructure; every activity in
this world-wide network can be geographically traced. A request for
a web page located on a server in Manhattan, issued by a user in Belgium,
for example, might physically pass through several routers in the
Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. So, mapping
of physical Internet traffic can be very similar to the mapping of
geographical information. But as soon as other aspects of Internet
use are studied, different and more metaphorical methods will be used.
In fact, every different question and assumption will call for another
type of representation, hence the diversity of approaches in the new
scientific field of cybergeography(7).
These metaphors can sometimes be very simple, linguistic rather than
visual in nature; the term Information Superhighway or,
in German, Infobahn, is a good example of this. This term
was coined by US vice-president Al Gore in the mid-90s, illustrating
his utopian views and commercial perspectives for the Internet at
that time proving that not any chosen metaphor is ideologically
neutral.
Cyberspace and artistic space
Where and how does art find its place on the Internet? The above
description of the non-spatial, sociological and infrastructural
aspects of cyberspace is vital to understanding how art on the
Internet manifests itself, how it positions itself in the broader
context of the network and how it will be observed, perceived
and assimilated by its audience, or rather its users.
Does the Internet know a concept that is equivalent to the notion
of white cube in real space? As demonstrated
above, cyberspace is a medium, not an actual space, and it is
difficult, if not impossible, to trace down a digital equivalent
of the sanctified, enclosed environment that the exhibition
project Who Says Seeing Only Happens With The Eyes?
reflects upon. But separate (not clearly definable) domains
exist where online art is created, discussed, criticized and
even canonized. In a similar way to offline sociological processes
within art criticism, the intellectual economy of online art
deals with objects with a clear artistic identity. The online
equivalent of the white cube is not a space, but
a conglomerate of diverse, active communities of artists, critics,
practitioners and mere spectators or lurkers, sometimes
small and very specialist, sometimes highly acclaimed and connecting
literally thousands of Internet users. Each of these hard-to-define
and overlapping communities strives for an agreement on their
definition of what is art and what is not. In terms of infrastructure
and applications, such communities can gather around mailing
lists, online galleries or individual artistic projects.
It is a bit ironical, by the way, to notice that a lot of Internet
art projects, especially those from the early days of the World
Wide Web, were created as a reaction against standard contemporary
art practice and the white cube economy. Very much
like examples of anti-art in the offline art world, such projects
become canonized anyway; they also, eventually, become sacralized
within the discourse they often tried to avoid. Internet art
projects with a clear anti-art attitude try to bridge
the perceived gap between art and life, for example by trying
to reach a different and unsuspecting audience. Especially in
cyberspace this is not an easy mission, because Internet users
approach the medium from the perspective of their own interests;
those who are not interested in art, are very unlikely to encounter
it by accident. It is important to note that this only applies
to art projects that purely exist in digital form; for artistic
projects with an offline component the situation is different,
because such projects can find a possible audience via other
channels.
The question of the audience leads us to the issue of perception
of online art by the user or visitor. Internet use, as stated
above, is mostly textual in nature; within everyday use, visual
information and other multimedia play a subordinate and supporting
role, contrary to popular belief about the hypermedia characteristics
of cyberspace. Due to the long history of the supremacy of visual
representation within the arts, many online art projects actually
do make extensive use of these hypermedia. Generally, though,
the most compelling artistic projects online are largely text-based,
with emphasis on the interface rather than traditional visual
representations or evocations. Such projects strongly rely upon
the inner mental landscape, the representational memory of their
users, much like representation within literature can depend
on mental images created by the reader, or the way in which
one can associate a face with an unfamiliar voice on the telephone.
Here, online art again responds to the intimate setting and
the personal experience and interests of the Internet user.
An artwork, thus, occupies a mental space as large as the sum
of the frames of reference of all separate users.
This mostly applies to those online art projects that, in one way
or another, refer to a reality outside cyberspace, probably in real
space. Some very interesting Internet projects, though, are much more
conceptual in nature and reflect on their own environment the
network and its protocols much like offline art sometimes reflects
upon the white cube itself. For Internet art, reflection
upon the medium is one of the main and returning themes. Many projects
deal with the reprogramming and even subversion of the protocols and
standards that underlie the Internet as we know it. Different types
of visual representation of the network environment (see above) exist
within the artistic online discourse; such projects demonstrate how
online art should not always be restricted by its infrastructure,
but that the infrastructure itself can be reversed so that the medium
can be represented in an entirely different way.
Internet artworks
Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash (1992)
http://textz.com/index.php3?text=stephenson+snow
A cyberpunk novel with a very detailed description of the metaverse,
a three-dimensional virtual spatial prediction of how the Internet
would evolve.
Heath Bunting: Visitors Guide to London
(1995)
www.irational.org/heath/london/
An early, hypertextual Internet artwork which offers a psychogeographical
tour through London.
Benjamin Weil (curator): Ädaweb
(1996-1998)
adaweb.walkerart.org/
A renowned, early example of an online art gallery, collecting
Internet art by artists such as Jenny Holzer and Lawrence Weiner.
JODI Map (1996-2001)
map.jodi.org/
An archetypical Internet map, representing the subjective mental
image of the Internet from the artists duo JODI.
Philip Pocock, Florian Wenz, Udo Noll, Felix
Huber: A Description of the Equator and some Øtherlands
(1997)
aporee.org/equator/
An associative, hypertextual, multi-user environment; a symbolic
exchange between authors and users over the network and in physical
space (Entebbe in East Africa and other geographic destinations).
Hervé Graumann: l.o.s.t (1997)
www.ave.ch/echo/lost.html
An intuitive evocation of a dark, online space.
IOD: The Web Stalker (1997)
www.backspace.org/iod/
An early example of artistic software, The Web Stalker is a
radical, so-called tactical browser that turns the
spatial experience of surfing inside out. Instead of viewing
single pages, the user gets an overview of the whole environment
she is browsing.
Knowbotic Research: IO_dencies questioning
urbanity (1997-1999)
io.khm.de/krcfhome/1IOdencies.htm
Complex, multi-user online cartographies (mental maps) of large
cities, representing diverse and multidisciplinary viewpoints
from users.
DeskSwap (2001)
www.deskswap.com/
A screensaver art project that allows Internet users to swap
images of their desktops, either expectedly or unexpectedly.
now youre in my computer
(2001)
www.0100101110101101.org/
An anonymous Italian artists duo is publicizing its entire
hard disk for the online public.
Martin Wattenberg: Idea Line (2001)
www.whitney.org/artport/idealine/
A timeline and thematic outline of various Internet art projects
of the past years. This project is just one of the many works
where the artist tries to visualize her personal perception
of the field (the equivalent of the white cube?)
of Internet art.
Martin Dodge Cybergeography (2001)
www.cybergeography.org/
An atlas of visual representations of cyberspace.
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