Applied Basic Research: »netzpioniere.at»

Project Directors: Gunther Reisinger, Dieter Daniels
Project Team: Mario Röhrle, Nina Fuchs, Robert Sakrowski, Julia Lehner
Project Period: 01/2007 – 12/2009
Project Objective: Publication/ online resources edition on net-based art
Cooperation: Digitalization Center of the University Library KFU Graz | Center for Information Modelling at the KFU Graz

Project Description

In the early 1990s when the Internet had yet to impinge on the public consciousness to any great extent, there was not only “net.art” in the narrower sense, but also net projects developed through collaborations between artists and programmers, which could today be called “communities”. Beyond their significance for art, the importance of these communities for media history can be found in the way they contributed to the social implementation of online media and at the same time anticipated their political dimension. Technical feasibility, artistic concepts and social and communicative innovation were closely tied together here, the foremost rule being autonomy from any commercial or state control. The historical importance of these net pioneers has become even more apparent in view of the state of things today (i.e. Web 2.0). And yet no type of institution feels responsible for the maintenance and archiving of their artworks, which fall between the cracks of the traditional cultural genres and are thus available neither in libraries nor media archives.

With this issue of our “digital cultural heritage” in mind, the project sets out to incorporate this body of work into critical art scholarship while determining the appropriate software technology for this task. In addition, it aims to place the early net.art projects in their contemporary media and art context. The focus is not only on the individual net.art works, but also on early community building. The bundling of such pioneer projects in Austria suggests an initial stage of examination at the national level.

Based on the exemplary re-publication and art historical documentation of the net-based artists’ cooperatives “THE THING Vienna” (1993–2004) and “THE THING New York” (1993–2002) as well as a reappraisal of the early phase of “public netbase” (1994–2006) and selected works by the artist group “etoy” (1994–the present), source-critical considerations of digital net.art will be put into practice (cf. Applied Basic Research). By involving the artists and organizers in the content of the project, issues of work-appropriate documentation, representation and museum incorporation of genuinely digital artworks in digital media will be discussed and practical solutions developed for these ends.