Andre Sier
netartist from Portugal
Interview: 10 questions
1.
Question
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?
Answer
yes, it extended, has been extending for some time now. the extension crosses technical, conceptual and more domains of art, bringing a whole new playground for artists and audience, new materials to make art objects and experiences. in my view, these changes make interesting components stand out. the highlight on the process; the discovery and use of more complex processes as art tools (chaotic, fractal, recursive maths, biological processes, broader data sampling and usage, disciplines crossing over, etc); and languages to produce flux fixation, in many media, through code, algorithms. these components intermingle, and sometimes becomes diffuse to distinguish among them.
there’s an amalgam of new techniques, new materials, the application of weird advanced maths and new kinds of data available to produce or manipulate quasi-nature-magnitude complex behaviors/shapes, or grasp unforeseen amounts of data, and mold them to aggregates or flows, building patterns and rhythms of how these elements organize. the ability to mold any kind of flux, grasping any media, the ability to make the flux fixed in an algorithm, fluxes become objects themselves that respond, grow, interact with the users, or procedures that self-expand, exploring infinite random conditions.
2.
Question
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?
Answer
it can be compared, like you can compare any set of artists from same or different periods, taking into account the differences of the times and of artists themselves. technology is maturing, specializing, and experimenting with its audience. the future holds cross pollination, new virtualization devices and new kinds of media,
3.
Question
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?
Answer
linking them up with interesting programs, coding environments, different areas of art making, traveling wide on the nets. or be guided by interesting people, always keeping in mind your own goals, what draws you into it.
4.
Question
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.
Answer
the first meaning is one of liberation, of finding the dreamed tools and knowledge to shape things to come with. also frustration, in embedding a new language and trying to make your own out of it. with these tools i have made open devices that execute continually, programs that generate procedures playing with time and space in virtual abstract 3d sort of ways. simulations, entangled state machines, wireless interactions…
5.
Question
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?
Answer
imho, netart is a field of art which makes aesthetic objects using or related to the network that interconnects us all in a new strata of communication, whether they use it as data, or metaphorically paint it, or its implications, or limitations. the main point is the ethereal use, existing in the gaps of the nodes, de-centralized, the pulsing of the bodyless, flux.
6.
Question
“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?
Answer
it depends, its main place can be online while being presented offline in better conditions, reaching other audiences, running in different places. some pieces can be presented in multiple ways, others only make sense in a specific networked context. others still may have main purpose in specific offline presentation conditions while also being online. when viewed, all online/offline contexts get run somewhere.
7.
Question
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?
Answer
it mainly depends on the pieces, and the good ones develop links with its users. i like people using pieces, installations, on the net, skipping the instructions manual, or the curators text. they bring a more immediate feeling of the piece usage than any written set of instructions or help file might tag along.
as for the pieces environment, institutions should liquify, should become permeable, generate osmotic relations with the arts community, like a presentation space, should be malleable and bendable, rigid and static, a neutral background, open for networking.
8.
Question
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?
Answer
no idea, but ifwhen new media turns mainstream, you already have social networks that generate the art mainstream everywhere, across all genres, that’ll just multiply..
9.
Question
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?
Answer
potentially it can be a different situation, but it’s already filtered, quite similar to conventional art practice. and no, not everyone makes art, not every artist. everyone has same conditions to experience and be touched by art, rare are objects that make this happen on all.
10.
Question
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?
Answer
yes. no (a no that induces a yes)