/ From URL to IRL: Curating Immateriality in the Physical Space
This subchapter examines the exhibition of net art’s immateriality within the physical gallery through a close analysis of two major surveys: Electronic Superhighway (2016 -1966) at the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2016) and Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2018). The methodology is adapted from Cook and Graham’s Rethinking Curating, which identifies new curatorial paradigms before applying them to case studies (Cook & Graham, 2010). 6 This analysis employs a similar framework but is structured by three key factors that have defined developments over the subsequent decade: the technological (addressing spatial constraints and access), the cultural (encompassing social and conceptual framing), and the transformative (tracking the evolution of the internet itself). The main distinction between the two exhibitions is their fundamental organisational logic. Electronic Superhighway employed a reverse-chronological narrative, presenting over one hundred works from 2016 back to 1966, while Art in the Age of the Internet adopted a thematic structure, dividing sixty works into five independent sections: ‘Networks and Circulation’, ‘Hybrid Bodies’, ‘Virtual Worlds’, ‘State of Surveillance’, and ‘Performing the Self’.
Despite the relatively short span of time separating these two exhibitions, which both showcased an extensive array of digital artworks encompassing installations, interactive and immersive pieces, web-based works, net art, and physical objects, a noticeable shift is evident in the manner net art is presented, both in conceptual and physical terms. Starting from the technological factor, the Electronic Superhighway collected and exhibited one hundred artworks in the space of Whitechapel Gallery, starting from 2016 and sequentially moving towards the endpoint of the exhibition in 1996, finishing with the collection of documents and ephemera from the archive of Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.). On the other hand, Art in the Age of the Internet from 1989 to Today presented 60 works, making the exhibition easier to digest. The overwhelming number of works that were presented in the Electronic Superhighway was criticised by Matthew Fuller, writer and professor at Goldsmiths, University of London. In his article Eleven Pro-Tips For Art Plus Internet (2016), which was a critical review of the exhibition he stated, “Try to maintain the complexity-feeling though. One way to do this is by chucking loads of art in one room to give back that junk-shop vibe to the East End community – who knows what you’re looking at when the works are all on top of each other?” ( Fuller, 2016). 1
One way to overcome the effect of art ‘clutter’ besides minimising the amount of work presented to the viewer, is to play with the “white cube” and construct the fitting setting around the artwork, or to abandon the gallery space completely by reconstructing additional rooms, corridors or panoramic settings to support the artwork. In her interview with Mousse Magazine, regarding the exhibition Art in the Age of the Internet, Eva Respini, the leading curator, stated, “The galleries of the ICA are architecturally in the tradition of the white cube, but this exhibition also spills out into other, interstitial spaces of the museum” (Mousse Magazine, 2018). 1 The highly technological art piece View of The Harbour (2018) by Joy Rafman that deals with Virtual Reality (VR), was set on the panoramic platform of the Boston Museum overlooking the harbour. The chosen location for this specific art installation significantly augmented the viewing experience. The virtual reality (VR) journey begins with an image mirroring the actual view of the harbour, where a colossal tsunami wave begins to form on the horizon, ominously advancing towards the viewer. This immersive setup induces an almost tangible sensation of a post-apocalyptic scenario. As the art piece progresses, the viewer finds themselves submerged underwater, surrounded by three-dimensional human figures floating in this newly transformed aquatic environment. As the piece View of The Harbour was created specifically for the Art in the Age of the Internet exhibition through the use of the location and representational capacity of the VR technology, the art piece was able to achieve an emotional response from the audience, giving the VR technology the ability to be presented as an artistic experience rather than simply gaming technology. Electronic Superhighway used a similar approach where the gallery space was used to create a setting for one of the first ever major interactive art installations, Lorna (1979-1982) by Lynn Hershman Leeson, where a fictional female character is positioned into the curated room and communicates with the viewer via an anticipated virtual avatar. The dim light of the rooms and the house attributes such as chair, small coffee table, dark greed wall paper and the coat hanger with the leopard print coat create an experience of the private domestic setting, blending the line between the gallery space and the comfort of one's home.
The final factor that can be examined for the technological side of the internet art exhibition practice is the online access to particular artworks. As Eva Rapsini stated in her interview, “...there’s an online component that we developed with some special art projects” ( Mousse Magazine, 2018). 2 This approach can be noticed in the artwork My Boyfriend Came Back From the War (MBCBFW) (1996) by Olia Lialina, which was exhibited on the computer with the specific server which presented the work in its original state and online access, allowing the audience to engage with the artwork as it was intended by the artist. Electronic Superhighway displayed several artworks that were specifically designed for the net, among those already mentioned MBCBFW, as Fuller rightfully mentioned in his review, most artworks that were web-based were exhibited as a video recording of the screen, which in turn diminishes the designed effect of the work.
For the cultural factor, the first aspect that can be compared is the way in which exhibitions are presented to the viewer. Electronic Superhighway using the chronological approach exhibition works from present (2016) till 1966, starting with the first room that has the largest number of art projects that are put under the Post-Internet term. This gradation allows the viewer to easily navigate through the exhibition and gradually trace the development of the internet technology backwards. The use of terminology introduces the audience to new concepts and ideas that surround net art, though Post-Internet terminology is unstable and has a habit of changing based on when and where it is used. For example, Maria Olson that was mentioned before used it to explain the use of the internet as an additional source of information or tool for her art projects, where Artie Vierkant refers to Post-Internet as a new phase for artists where net art can include physical objects to achieve a more hybrid state that helps to spread the artwork to a wider range of platforms and locations. For that reason, some of the artists that were presented under the term Post-Internet art in Electronic Superhighway were not Post-Internet artists or did not fit the category. Fuller sarcastically writes in his review, “....assimilating a whole consignment of different artists under one key term, and appeasing those that feel left out if they aren’t given the same name as everyone else by slapping it all over them too” (Fuller, 2016). 2
Art in the Age of the Internet, on the other hand, divided its exhibition into five independent themes that were interconnected by the use of internet technology, which allowed the audience to engage with the exhibition conceptually rather than simply following the linear narrative. The Post-Internet terminology was introduced in the exhibition book/catalogue rather than in the exhibition space, as Eva Rapsini explains: “I don’t use the term Post-Internet in the exhibition context because I think it’s problematic and confusing” (Mousse Magazine, 2018). 3 Both of the exhibitions presented the same artwork, Internet Dream by Nam June Paik (1994), though the approach towards presenting this artwork differed. The Electronic Superhighway, which took its name from the term coined by Nam June Paik in 1974 and referring to the potential of global connections through technology, exhibited the work (Figure 55) as a standalone piece displayed on the wall as one of the kew works of the exhibition. Art in the Age of the Internet on the other hand, presented the art piece opposite the artwork The Wayblack Machine (2014) by HowDoYouSayYamInAfrican? creating the conversation between the two (Figure 56). The piece Internet Dream is formed around the concept of globalisation through the technology where every human being with be connected with each other through television and radio, in many ways predicting the internet, leading to a free, democratic space for conversation and exchange of ideas.
The more recent work, The Wayblack Machine, is an algorithmical piece that identifies, captures and presents various hashtags circulating online responding to the ideas of the reality of how images, news and texts circulate today on the internet. The utopic idea of free internet is abandoned, where the highly monetised search engines promote the websites with the best response rate instead of concentrating on the quality of information and the control of the algorithms that gather personal data to create an ‘individualised’ internet experience from the information bubble which the user willingly enters. The twenty-year difference between these two works shows the huge change in both the ideological belief in the technology and the tremendous development starting with the television and radio communication and finishing with the internet technology of today. Positioning these two works opposite each other creates a strong ideological concept between the belief in ‘free internet’ and the present reality where everything is controlled by the carefully constructed algorithms. This approach allows to build a strong statement for the audience and lets them participate in the presented argument verbally or within themselves.
The final transformative factor can be seen as a summary that chronologically traces the change in the internet art exhibition and curatorial practice over the years and identifies the main tendencies that led to the hybridisation of internet art. Thought there is just two years between the exhibitions the difference in presenting internet artworks is noticeable starting from the technological factor where the access to the internet and the use of the location to support the VR project and finishing with the cultural factor where the thematic approach towards exhibiting internet art allowed Art In the Age of the Internet to establish a more engaging communication with the audience. The analyses that are presented on two exhibitions give an outline of the different approaches towards exhibiting internet art in the physical space, both of which have their unique curatorial decision and the use of space and have instances of even using the same artworks.
This demonstrates that successful physical presentation of net art is not a simple act of translation, but of contextual reinvention. Both exhibitions prove that the gallery, through immersive environments, strategic site-specificity, and discursive juxtaposition, can become a crucial site for focusing and intensifying the cultural critiques inherent to digital works. However, these are resource-intensive institutional models, relying on custom architecture, large teams, and dedicated technical support. This delineates the critical space for my own research on independent practice. The Curatorial Interface project and the Alternative Realities Illustrated exhibition investigate how the principles evidenced here, thematic over historical framing, the creation of resonant spatial contexts, and the prioritisation of live interaction, can be enacted through the constrained, agile tools of the independent curator. Therefore, these institutional case studies provide not a blueprint to follow, but a set of conceptual benchmarks. They affirm the necessity of hybrid, context-aware curation while simultaneously highlighting that its future may lie as much in the distributed, low-resource models explored in this thesis as in the monumental museum survey.