[artinfo] Review of Josephine Bosma's Nettitudes: Let's Talk Net Art (2011)
Eric Kluitenberg
epk at xs4all.nl
Sun Jan 29 18:53:11 CET 2012
Review of Josephine Bosma's, Nettitudes: Let's Talk Net Art (2011)
by Eric Kluitenberg
Nettitudes, the new book by Josephine Bosma, is
an important contribution to the often confusing
and unbalanced discussion about the Internet and
contemporary art. This contribution becomes
especially clear from what the book does not do.
First of all, Bosma does not try to offer a
historical overview of the phenomenon that she
calls 'net art'. She also indicates clearly why
it is difficult to mark out this area
unequivocally, for there are widely differing
views as to how the interaction between the
Internet and contemporary art should be
interpreted. Indeed, net art must in the first
place be seen in a broader context than that of
contemporary art, because the development of this
'genre' cannot be seen separately from the
various forms of network culture with which it
sometimes partly converges or by which it is
influenced.
Moreover, Bosma does not wish to call net art a
discipline or movement, as the entire terrain is
too diverse and heterogeneous for that, and also
has too much of a cross-disciplinary character.
Nor is it a good idea to have net art purely
coincide with the medium of the Internet, which
itself can hardly be described. When the same
problem is approached from an art theoretical
point of view, limiting net art to a particular
medium is also absolutely absurd. Bosma herself
refers to Rosalind Krauss, the American art
theorist, who in her famous essay 'Sculpture in
the Expanded Field' argued that contemporary art
has wrested itself from the yoke of the medium -
it has entered an 'expanded field' in which every
material or medium can be appropriated, but to
which the 'work' can never be reduced.
That does not mean that the medium as a category
can simply be shoved aside. This would lead to a
simplistic dichotomy between conceptualism versus
materialism - a false contradiction, according to
Bosma, which would only work counter-productively
in trying to better understand the phenomenon she
investigates. What is of primary importance for
most of the works that fall under the term 'net
art' is a good understanding of the network
culture from which they spring: the interactions
that artists have online with one another and
with the public. Bosma furthermore points out
that net art does not only refer to art that
takes place in one way or another on the Internet
and on the screen. It can also concern work that
is directly inspired by the new realities that
the Internet and online cultures create, but
whose manifestation takes place entirely
off-line, separately from the Internet.
Therefore, the definition she uses to describe
net art reads in its shortest form as: art that
is rooted in or based on Internet cultures. This
way, she prevents an arbitrary broadening of the
concept, for only works which cannot be seen
separately from the cultures that have developed
around the Internet can legitimately be
considered net art. With this definition, it is
clear that the phenomenology, logic and structure
of the Internet cannot be bypassed when coming up
with an adequate description of net art. No more
than can net art be reduced to a technological
genre.
According to Bosma, it is hard to give a good
description of this heterogeneous and
cross-disciplinary field and introduce some
structure into the discussion, but not
impossible. In order to get a grasp of the
material, she introduces five key concepts by
which the vast majority of the works that she
calls net art can be understood: Code / Flow /
Screen / Matter / Context.
She uses 'Code' to look at work that primarily is
aimed at the technical infrastructure and
software that form the underpinnings of the
Internet. This is the most abstract category,
accounting for the fact that the Internet in fact
rests upon a series of agreements set down in
technical protocols. The fact that interesting
artistic experiments are being carried out in
precisely this inaccessible area indicates the
depth of the artistic research behind those
experiments. Bosma unlocks this hermetic area
with a clear description of the classical project
'Web Stalker' by the British artist collective
I/O/D.
'Flow' refers to the remote connections that are
made through the Internet, with the emphasis on
live performance and network installation art.
While distance and spatial relations do not
vanish in the digital network, the spatial logic
and the forms of exchange (image, sound,
information) that can take place in the new
spatial configurations do change radically. These
processes are manifested by the performative
aspect, particularly live performance.
'Screen' refers to the complex (technological)
processes behind the fragile visual form of net
art works. In these works, the semblance of a
stable image is often undermined by the
underlying process. Interaction with this type of
work makes the viewer aware of the capacity of
endless transformation that characterizes the
digital image.
'Matter' investigates the role that the hardware,
the physical machinery behind the 'immaterial'
network, plays in net art - sometimes by
literally putting these machines on stage,
sometimes also by presenting absurd or faulty
machinery.
Finally, 'Context' is about the social and
political context in which a certain category of
net art works chooses an articulated position.
Particularly this category of works been given a
lot of attention by critics over the course of
the years, but according to Bosma it is by no
means representative of the entire field of net
art.
Nettitudes is divided into two sections. The
first section frameworks the discussion on net
art, gives definitions and discusses the
positions of other theorists and art critics,
such as Tilman Baumgärtel, Julian Stallabras and
Rachel Green. Here, Bosma also introduces the
concepts mentioned above in order to provide some
structure and orientation for the discussion on
net art. In the second section, she examines the
various positions taken by artists and movements
in network culture over the years. Then she goes
into the thorny debate on the conservation of net
art works. The book closes with a chapter on
Internet-related sound art, a form that adds an
'intimate' dimension of its own to net art.
Nettitudes is a breath of fresh air. An important
and underexposed artistic genre is finally
getting the serious attention it deserves.
Nettitudes also offers a useful analysis for the
further development of a critical and sound
substantive 'discourse' on the exchange between
the Internet and the production and reception of
contemporary art.
--------------
Originally written for: Open #22 - "Transparency.
Publicity and Secrecy in the Age of WikiLeaks",
Journal for Art and the Public Domain, Amsterdam,
2011.
www.skor.nl/eng/publications/item/open-22-transparency-publicity-and-secrecy-in-the-age-of-wikileaks
Josephine Bosma, Nettitudes: Let's Talk Net Art,
Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, ISBN
978-90-5662-800-0, 272 p., ¤ 23.50
http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publications/studies-in-network-cultures/nettitudes-lets-talk-net-art/
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