/ Temporality of the Net: From Digital Biennales to Time-specific Events
In his book Time and the Digital: Connecting Technology, Aesthetics, and a Process Philosophy of Time (2012), Timothy Scott Barker explores the intricate relationship between temporal dynamics and digital technologies. The book looks into the multifaceted ways in which digital systems both shape and are shaped by the concept of time, encompassing topics such as temporal representation, synchronisation, and the impact of digitisation on the experience of time. His concept of multi-temporality “when applied to digital, refers to the multiple layers of temporality that may be produced when we interact with digital systems” ( Barker, 2012, p. 14). 1 By using Whitehead concept of time Baker gradually applies them to digital system through the artistic examples. He states “we can use multi-temporal music to begin thinking about database and digital interactivity: when we interact with digital technology, we interact across multiple temporal rhythms. The time of the user mashes which the time of the machine, including the asynchronous time of the network and time of the other users, In general, the multi-temporality of the digital presents an alteration to the way we experience the occasions and events of the everyday lives, beyond a chronological sequence of events” ( Barker, 2012, p. 14). 2 To understand deeper multi-temporality presented here by Timothy Barker I want to refer to the location based game Can You See See Now? By Blast Theory that was developed in 2011.
The concept of the game is straightforward yet innovative: on one side, there are online players navigating a 3D map of the city, while on the other, Blast runners physically traverse the city streets. The objective for the Blast runners is to locate the online players, using mobile devices linked to the 3D map, which is updated via satellite, showing the runners' locations to the online players. This setup inherently creates two distinct experiences: the physical exploration of the city by the runners and the virtual navigation of its 3D representation by the online players. As noted by Blast Theory in 2013, “at times the two cities seem identical; the virtual pavement and the real pavement match exactly and behave in the same way” (Blast Theory, 2013), 1 suggesting a blending of virtual and physical temporalities into a single timeline.
Upon closer examination, five separate timelines emerge within this project. The first two, as mentioned, are the physical runner and the virtual online player. The third timeline encompasses the dialogue between runners communicated over a walkie-talkie, which is streamed online for players to hear. The fourth timeline is transient, consisting of images uploaded to the internet by runners, depicting the locations where online players were 'caught' in the physical world. The fifth and final timeline involves a personal recollection from the past invoked in the online player. Upon registration, players are prompted to answer: “Is there someone you haven’t seen for a long time that you still think of?” (Blast Theory, 2013). 2 By naming a person, they metaphorically bring someone from their past into the game’s present, culminating in the moment the runner 'catches' them, addressing them by the name of the long-absent individual. This multidimensional temporal framework adds depth and complexity to the players' experience, interweaving physical and digital realities with personal memories and real-time interactions.
The temporality of net art exhibition practice gives rise to several issues that warrant careful consideration within academic discourse. These issues primarily stem from the transient and time-sensitive nature of internet art, as well as its dependence on evolving digital technologies. Firstly, net art often encompasses ephemeral and time-based elements, such as real-time data, interactive experiences, or dynamic visuals. While these temporal aspects contribute to the artwork's uniqueness and vitality, traditional exhibition formats may struggle to capture and convey the transient nature of net art, as they are predominantly designed for static or fixed artworks. Secondly, net art heavily relies on online platforms, websites, or networked environments for its display and dissemination. However, these platforms are subject to continual updates, redesigns, or potential discontinuation, thereby impacting the original presentation and functionality of the artwork. Consequently, preserving the temporal aspects of net art within exhibition settings becomes challenging, as the initial exhibition context and experience may be lost or altered over time. Additionally, net art frequently invites audience engagement and participation, blurring the boundaries between the artist, the artwork, and the viewer. Traditional exhibition spaces often prioritise passive observation, making it difficult to replicate the interactive and participatory aspects of net art. Consequently, adapting exhibition settings to accommodate the active involvement of viewers becomes imperative.
The project Minus Network (2021) by Ben Grosser, which was presented at the Arebyte exhibition Software for Less (2021), is dedicated towards the use of a social network where the user is allowed to post only one hundred posts per their lifetime. The Minus Network looks and works similarly to any social media, where you have posts, comments, likes and the real-time updating feed. This facet of the project is fundamentally reliant on social interaction and temporality, enabling users to share their posts in real-time. The project was showcased in a distinct, private browsing-like environment, where two screens were set up to display Minus Network. One screen provided live updates, while the other was designated for user registration. Within this setup, two distinct temporal dimensions coexist: the first is the timeline of the social network, which operates independently of real-world time constraints, as individuals can post concurrently from diverse locations; the second is the real-time experience of engaging with the network within the gallery space. This juxtaposition underscores the unique temporal dynamics at play, intertwining the asynchronous nature of digital social interactions with the immediate, physical experience of gallery participation.
The next two examples, that are The Wrong Biennale and Sunrise/Sunset, are challenging the notion of temporality specifically in digital space, yet they are timed traditionally, in other words, their approach to timeline is based on a set period of time, which is mostly seen in temporary physical exhibitions. Previous examples presented here were approaching time through the prism of net art and its infrastructure, such as virtuality, specifications, and usage of network platforms, whereas Sunrise/Sunset and the Wrong’s approach is more linear and straightforward. The project Sunrise/Sunset is organised by Christiane Paul, Adjunct Curator of Digital Art at the Whitney Museum and commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art specifically for whitney.org. The art project consists of a series of net art projects that can be seen on the website only during sunrise or sunset and run over the timeframe of ten to thirty seconds. Within this specified timeframe, visitors to the Whitney Museum's website encounter a notification alerting them about the ongoing artworks. Simultaneously, Whitney archives past projects on Artport, a dedicated website for internet art projects.
This treatment of time engenders a feeling of immediacy and event-specific actuality, highlighting the transitory nature of the experience that is accessible only during a particular timeframe. This characteristic imparts a sense of uniqueness, diverging from the typical perception of internet activities as timeless. Ordinarily, webpages and online content are seen as persistently accessible, available for revisitation at the user’s convenience. In contrast, Whitney's approach underscores the ephemeral aspect of these art experiences, situating them firmly in the present moment and lending them a distinctive temporal quality. According to Barker, “ the event [...] can be understood as a collection of processes, some of which are generated by the 'user' and some generated by a technological system” ( Barker, 2012, p. 7), 3 leading to the Whiteheads’s thought that process produces time ( Barker, 2012, p. 5). 4 The Sunrise/Sunset plays on the idea of urgency, as well as by gathering viewers at the specific time on their platform, producing a new timeline of the event.
The Wrong Biennale generates a sense of imperativeness and occasion by restricting the duration in which its website hosts a collection of hyperlinks. These links direct users to specially curated webpages of artists, each uniquely crafted for The Wrong Biennale. This time-limited approach cultivates an atmosphere of a special event, encouraging users to engage with the content within a specific timeframe, thereby adding a sense of exclusivity and transience to the digital art experience. The Wrong is discentarlised collaborative platform that provides an online space for digital art during the three-month period every year starting in November. During this period, their website, which is normally a simple page with the implemented The Wrong TV feature that randomly shows previous projects and a few lines of text regarding the wrong initiative, becomes a list of links that connect the users to the online pavilions(websites where artists create or host their artworks). For these three month The Wrong becomes more than just the “browsing catalogue with the new interface” (Dekker, 2021, p. 19) 15 that Anna Dekker used to refer to the terms “open museum” and “museum without walls” that experimented with creating links between any kind of data, which is the temporality of the exhibition. The Wrong is not the only platform that is experimenting with the concept of urgency and time-based activity on the net. The notion of temporality has been evident since the advent of Web 2.0, also known as the social internet.
Ben Grosser, an internet artist and software developer, critically examines the impact of timestamp metrics prevalent across social media platforms. He asserts that timestamps, “relentlessly reminding us of the age of a post relative to the present, create a false sense of urgency” (Grosser, 2014, p. 16). 1 This dynamic fosters a compulsion to regularly check social media profiles to respond within a brief window of time.
Focusing on Facebook (now known as Meta) as a primary example, Grosser discusses how Meta designs specific time-related cues. These cues emphasise seconds and minutes during the initial hour after a post is made, transitioning to more general markers like hours or "some time ago" as the post becomes less relevant according to the platform's algorithms. This approach to timestamp metrics cultivates an environment where continuous interaction is not only encouraged but becomes almost necessary, ultimately benefiting Meta by driving engagement and, consequently, potential profit.
However, what type of temporality is referred to when talking about the art platforms, and what are the reasons behind the time-based exhibitions? The Wrong Biennale concept is to create an event that will collect various artists together to showcase their recent works. After the three months of the event, the links are taken down, and the previous shows are not stored on the website. The only access users have to the previous biennales is presented in a long list of names that are not even hyperlinked or on Wrong TV. This in itself brings The Wrong closer to the traditional exhibition practice, where the time limitation of the temporary exhibition creates the urgency to visit it within the specific timeframe; the only option that is left is the exhibition catalogue. This is where the concept of the physical comes into play. When the Wrong Biennale is finished, some of the online pavilions are still accessible depending on the choice of the artists or curator to keep the website active (Figure 40), where the purchase of the catalogue of the physical gallery would arguably not be the same experience. By bringing in the temporality, the Wrong is creating the sense of an event or online gathering, and some of the online pavilions present their work with the communication feature, meaning that the viewer is able to use audio or video features to communicate with others in that pavilion. After the event is finished, though the websites are active, they become dead, meaning that the communication factor is gone. By implementing the temporality feature, The Wrong does not necessarily follow the traditional ideas of temporary exhibitions as they are still accessible after, but creates a sense of community within those online pavilions.
The other part of this temporality that hints towards the physicality of the technology, and aligns quite well with the notion of technology as a changing, non-static entity, is the idea of "link rot." This concept looks at websites as living organisms that age, decay, and eventually break as technologies evolve, browsers stop supporting certain features, and digital materials succumb to entropy. For example, Mark Beasley, the lead developer of Rhizome, dedicates a section of his personal website to this very idea. His "Inspirations" page opens with the proposition that websites will inevitably rot. When discussing this during an interview, Beasley explained his perspective on personal web projects: “Wanting to represent the history and transformation. Websites are living things; we want to keep that history alive” (Beasley, 2024, personal communication). 2 When asked why he chose to include visibly rotting links rather than archiving them through tools like Conifer, he stated: “Yeah, I think it's a nice way to frame the stakes of web preservation—embracing the rot. Linking to specific assets from friends' sites, they break frequently. It makes manifest the situation of the web: it feels always online and expansive, but it's very fragile, fragmented, and always going down. It's a gesture towards the poetics of link rot” (Beasley, 2024, personal communication). 3
This poetic and material fragility is especially evident in projects like Guido Segni’s Today’s Top 25 Expiring Internet. Segni, an artist with a background in hacktivism, net art, and video art, focuses on the daily (ab)use of the internet, often making minimal gestures that render technology odd, useless, or dysfunctional (Segni, n.d.). 1 The project itself is a daily updated chart listing influential internet artists based on the expiration date of their websites, serving as a representation of the hyper-competition and anxiety within digital art practice. What is particularly interesting is that each artist’s name is accompanied by an expiration date. Visiting the website over several years, one witnesses names disappearing from the list, inflicting a palpable sense of losing an important part of cultural history, a feeling that directly underscores the urgency of digital preservation.
Overall, the idea of temporality is fundamentally relevant to the Curatorial Interface project. Beginning with Timothy Barker and his theory of multi-temporality, which posits that digital systems produce multiple, overlapping layers of time, I find a direct connection to the core argument that a website exists across several different temporalities. This framework is essential for understanding and curating digital art. For example, in the context of a hybrid exhibition, Alternative Realities Illustrated, the act of exhibiting is itself a multi-temporal operation. The physical installation exists in a shared, "real-time" duration through the AR technology, while the accompanying online component operates on a separate, potentially asynchronous timeline. This mirrors the temporal structure analysed in the Can You See Me Now? project, where the physical runners and online players inhabited distinct yet interconnected timelines. A curator must navigate these parallel durations, ensuring the artistic concept translates coherently across both spheres.
Another critical set of temporalities emerges in the archival practices of my project, The Wrong Archives. Their interface features a curated list of past projects, explicitly marking links as "alive" or "dead." This creates a visible timeline of digital decay, a live metadata of sustainability. Similarly, Mark Beasley’s personal website, which intentionally displays "rotting" links, serves as a poetic interface that makes the passage of time and the fragility of the web materially apparent. In both cases, the interface itself becomes a temporal map, documenting the lifespan of net art and forcing a confrontation with the inevitability of link rot and digital obsolescence.