Will Gompertz Needs to Get Online!

I’ve just read this comment by Will Gompertz on his BBC blog:

“I wonder what Dadaists would have made of the internet. It’s interesting that, as far as I am aware, no contemporary artist has yet harnessed this extraordinary technology to make a significant artwork. Of course, maybe I’m wrong and am missing something great – do you know of any net-based art works that are worth a look?”

Let’s Nochlinise this, if you want some masterpieces of online art I can give you a list as long as your arm, but that rather defeats the point. The point with Digital/New Media/Net art is that (like Dada, for example) it challenges the very criteria by which art might be judged great or a masterpiece. What writers such as myself (and indeed many others including of course artists, curators, techies etc etc.) are doing is trying to show the extremely exciting potential of what this might mean for culture more widely. That is, if we are faced with, for example interactive – or as Brian Eno puts it – ‘unfinished’ artworks, where do galleries and art history fit in relation to this. The answer might be nowhere, the truth is that there is still so much thinking to do on this matter. And that’s why, this week for example, there are two conferences in London on the matter, Kinetica open’s its door for its annual fair and Berlin is host to Transmediale.

In answer to Will’s call for information (although BBC Bunny, Kate Southworth and Helen Varley Jamieson have given him a lot to think about) I might first refer him to the new book by Beryl Graham and Sarah Cook (published my MIT), to begin to orient himself with the territory of Digital art practice and presentation. You can’t judge these things by old standards, so its important to understand what the new standards are and then look for good stuff…but seriously Will, I’d be more than happy to discuss this any time!