Karla Schuch Brunet
living in Brazil and Spain
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Internet: 10 questions
Question 1.
Since a reasonable time, digital media entered the field of art and extended the traditional definition of art through some new , but very essential components.
Do you think it is like that and if yes, tell me more about these components and how they changed the perception of art?
Karla: Since most of my work involves collaboration, for me the most important feature of digital media is the easy and fast way to connect with other people everywhere.
Question 2.
A relevant section of digital art represents Internet based art. The Internet was hardly existing, but artists conquered already this new field for their artistic activities.
Can the work of these early artists be compared with those who work with advanced technologies nowadays? What changed until these days? What might be the perspectives for future developments?
Karla: I believe it is similar; the work of these artists is to experiment with technology, before, now and in the future.
Question 3.
The education in the field of New Media art, including Internet based art, started late compared with the general speed of technological development and acceptance. So, generations of artists who used the Internet as their artistic working field were not educated in this new discipline(s) and technologies, but had rather an interdisciplinary approach.
What Do you think, would be the best way to teach young people how to deal with the Internet as an environment of art?
Karla: I believe that even though in a specific major, it is very important to have an interdisciplinary background, art usually gets its inspirations and insights from other fields. And specially with “new media artâ€, it is impossible to be centered in one thing, one must know from performance and music to engineering and programming.
Question 4.
What kind of meaning have the new technologies and the Internet to you in concern of art, are they just tools for expressing artistic intentions, or have they rather an ideological character, as it can be found with many “netartists”, or what else do they mean to you? Many “Internet based artists†work on “engaged†themes and subjects, for instance, in social, political, cultural etc concern.Which contents are you particularly interested in, personally and from an artcritical point of view.
Karla: Any artwork has a ideological character, and even more the media art. In using the media we are coping in a way with the ideology behind that media. Maybe that is why many artists do some sort of explicit political or social work in order to identify what kind of ideology they are for, and not to be misunderstood.
Question 5.
The term “netart” is widely used for anything posted on the net, there are dozens of definitions which mostly are even contradictory. How do you define “netart” or if you like the description “Internet based art” better? Do you think “netart” is art, at all, if yes, what are the criteria? Are there any aesthetic criteria for an Internet based artwork?
Karla: I think the terminology “netart†was good for a period (during the 90s) but nowadays it does not work anymore. Maybe it was a reference for a movement created for the pioneers working with art and the Net. Today I prefer the description “Internet based art” or only electronic art.
Art or not? Yes, it is. Criteria can be the same used for works from fluxus, mail art, performance, conceptual art, land art, moreover, all contemporary art. They are not the contained aesthetic format, they spread around, it is about emotion, sensation and questioning.
Question 6.“Art on the net†has the advantage and the disadvantage to be located on the virtual space in Internet which defines also its right to exist.
Do you think, that “art based on the Internet”, can be called still like that, even if it is just used offline?
Karla: Hard to say because most of these type of work would not work offline. And if so, they might change their purpose.
Question 7.
Dealing with this new, and interactive type of art demands an active viewer or user, and needs the audience much more and in different ways than any other art discipline before. How do you think would be good ways to stimulate the user to dive into this new world of art?
What do you think represents an appropriate environment to present net based art to an audience, is it the context of the lonesome user sitting in front of his personal computer, is it any public context, or is it rather the context of art in general or media art in particular, or anything else.?
If you would be in the position to create an environment for presenting this type of art in physical space, how would you do it?
Karla: for sure it would be public space, the urban space where user could have a different interface, not the common and boring “desktop, chair, computerâ€.
Question 8.
As Internet based art, as well as other art forms using new technologies are (globally seen) still not widely accepted, yet, as serious art forms, what do you think could be an appropriate solution to change this situation?
Karla: In history we can see that many other types of art form were not considered serious or accepted before. Solution would be time.
Question 9.
The Internet is sometimes called a kind of “democratic” environment,
The conventional art practice is anything else than that, but selective by using filters of different kind.
The audience is mostly only able to make up its mind on second hand. Art on the net might potentially be different. Do you think the current practice of dealing with Internet based art is such different or rather the described conventional way through (also curatorial) filtering?
Do you think, that speaking in the terms of Joseph Beuys, anybody who publishes anything on the net would be also an artist?
Karla: I really like the idea of anyone to be considered a potential artist. And if someone wants to create something on the net and say it is his/her artwork, who am I to say it is not art?
I could consider that only if I was committed to select some pieces for a exhibition or a festival, so I would choose the “more artistic†ones.
Question 10.
Do you think, the curators dealing with net based art should have any technological knowledge in order to understand such an art work from its roots? And what about the users of Internet based art?
Karla: Yes, it is important that they have some technological knowledge, but more as a user/viewes/participant than as a developer.