Shu Lea Cheang, “Brandon”, 1998–99. Collection of the Guggenheim Museum, and the museum’s first acquisition of Internet-based art.
Late-night Googling takes you places. Who knows what I was searching for originally, but I ended up finding it with Jon Ippolito’s “10 Myths of Internet Art”. I probably read that list in school once, and blessed be, it’s online. In 2002, Ippolito wrote “10 Myths of Internet Art”, a heroic apology for Internet-based art. At the time, he served as Assistant Curator of Media Art at the Guggenheim Museum.
More than ten years later, some of the myths Ippolito brings up—it’s difficult to sell a website as art, internet art must be online, and net art tends to be about splashy tech—are still in place. Some, perhaps, to a lesser degree than they were a decade ago, but none of the myths have quite gone away, making it a list worth revisiting.
To give a sense of where we are, and where we remain, we’ve reprinted Ippolito’s 10 myths below.
Myth Number 1: The Internet is a medium for delivering miniature forms of other art mediums.
Myth Number 2: Internet art is appreciated only by an arcane subculture.
Myth Number 3: To make Internet art requires expensive equipment and special training.
Myth Number 4: Internet art contributes to the “digital divide.”
Myth Number 5: Internet art = Web art.
Myth Number 6: Internet art is a form of Web design.
Myth Number 7: Internet art is a form of technological innovation.
Myth Number 8: Internet art is impossible to collect.
Myth Number 9: Internet art will never be important because you can’t sell a Web site.
Myth Number 10: Looking at Internet art is a solitary experience.
Via : ArtFCity.com Full text here.
