/ User/Curator/Artist
In this subchapter, I am interested in understanding the terminology surrounding the artist, the curator, and the user. The primary reason for retaining the term ‘user’ is that, rather than focusing exclusively on the distinction and collaborative dynamics between curator and artist in digital curation, technological knowledge is unavoidable when curating net art. As most net art is created on and for the network, it requires specific software and hardware to function, which in turn demands a degree of technical understanding. For the independent curator, this knowledge is essential to establish workable parameters and to comprehend the possibilities and limitations of this new aesthetic, which intrinsically involves technology and art.
Such a system does not produce a continuous time and space, but rather self-replicating temporal and spatial conditions in which each work and each interaction always exists in relation to something else. As a result, the curatorial role becomes distributed among and reliant upon all the users of a given platform. This approach critiques the hegemony of both software and institutional authority by actively engaging with the systems themselves. In these contexts, digital curating is enmeshed within a complex network of human and non-human actors, including technical elements and digital objects, thereby challenging the conventional role of the individual curator as well as the notion of ‘art-as-object’.
Olga Goriunova describes this development as a tension between ‘light’ and ‘heavy’ curating: the ease of pre-fabricated applications, interfaces, and templates versus the considered, human attention required to navigate the implications of cooperation with technical systems. As she states, “curators are compelled to attend to the production and extension of aesthetic forms, values and procedures by understanding, building and making use of human-technical devices or computational procedures, in which they (should) find themselves if not in direct competition then still in ontological conflict or differentiation with other forces, among those that are capitalist, deterministic and entropic, in order to carry out their work” (Goriunova in Dekker, 2013, p. 29). 17 Viewing this as a productive tension offers a tactical means to rethink power dynamics, authority, and cultural gatekeeping inherent in curatorial practice. In this constellation, the role of the online curator involves forging new relationships between aesthetics, technics, politics, economics, curators, artists, and audiences.
This dynamic leads to an important observation: in digital curation, the boundaries between roles blur, positioning the practitioner as a hybrid agent. As explored in Annet Dekker’s Curating Digital Art (2021), interviews with practitioners frequently highlight the merging of artistic, curatorial, and technical responsibilities in network-based projects. In my own practice with the Curatorial Interface website, I occupy the positions of the artist, the curator, and the platform’s primary user—an independent curator operating outside large institutional structures. Every aspect, from functionality to UI design, is my responsibility, synthesising these roles. From this perspective, the curator becomes the artist and the programmer. The term ‘user’ is especially fitting here, as it technically encompasses the knowledge, network engagement, and participatory agency under a single concept. This was the term’s original promise before the commercialisation of the web entrenched divides between users, programmers, and engineers.
In her article Invisible and Very Busy (2012), Olia Lialina observes that “with the disappearance of the computer, something else is silently becoming invisible as well—the User” (Lialina, 2012). 2 By the ‘invisibility of the computer’, Lialina refers to technology becoming increasingly seamless and intuitive, prioritising simplicity to the point where the user interacts without considering the underlying design or mechanisms. However, this raises another problem: the growing divide between programmers and everyday users. Abolishing the word ‘user’ and replacing it with ‘people’ risks “hiding the existence of two classes of people—developers and users” (Lialina, 2012), 3 thereby obscuring power relations and the very presence of the computer. The danger of this invisibility is that unexamined technology leads to automation, standardisation, and the loss of creativity and inclusivity in favour of practicality and capitalist efficiency. In the long term, this results in a tunnel-vision way of thinking, effectively turning us into machines rather than enabling us to create machines that serve creative and critical ends. Moreover, it raises the question of who makes these design decisions and for what purpose.
Lialina proposes the concept of the ‘General Purpose User’ as an alternative: a user “who has the ability to achieve their goals regardless of the primary purpose of the application or device” (Lialina, 2012). 4 In other words, this user is creative, technologically literate, and capable of subverting standardised protocols. For me, the ‘General Purpose User’ is synonymous with the digital curator—someone who possesses technological knowledge and applies it creatively rather than following prescriptive curatorial models. For example, in my own practice, I used YouTube not as a social media platform but as an archive for videos, repurposing technology in innovative ways that are fun and resist normalisation. These tendencies are reflected in broader interface development, where transparency, user-friendly simplicity, and the divide between user and programmer detach individuals from the technology they use daily, creating a ‘black box’ effect. In such systems, only repeatable, rigid formats such as standard social media templates are permitted, prioritising the uploading of images over playful or critical engagement with technology and digital space itself.
In my view, the role of the curator is not only to display art but also to challenge closed interfaces, open them up for creative use, and reinvigorate the term ‘user’ in its original sense. Art has always been at the forefront of critiquing social norms and imagining new possibilities within closed systems. Therefore, it is important to retain the concept of the ‘user’ in discussions of the artist-curator tandem, as it acknowledges the technical dimensions essential to net art exhibition practice. The creation of my website, Curatorial Interface, stems from this very idea. It is impossible to thoroughly summarise or theorise digital curation without experiencing digital space from the perspective of a user—a position that reveals nuanced limitations and opportunities alike. By building the website, I allowed myself to experiment spatially in ways that would not be possible through critical analysis alone, stretching the understanding that curatorial expertise must include at least partial fluency in the technical side of digital curation. For instance, as mentioned in the practice subchapter, certain platforms are not easy to use for interface building without coding knowledge. Finding solutions to circumvent these limitations enabled me, as curator, to realise my ideas in digital form while critically observing the constraints imposed by so-called ‘user-friendly’ formats. If these problems remain unanalysed or unacknowledged, we risk moving toward what Olia Lialina fears most: a standardised, monotonous network of similar pages with severely limited user agency.
By implementing the term ‘user’ to signify a critical knowledge of technology from the curatorial perspective, rather than a passive engagement with standardised digital platforms, I evoke Paul O’Neill’s text, The Curatorial Turn: From Practice to Discourse (2007). O’Neill traces the shift from the curator as a librarian-like figure, who preserves and exhibits artworks, to the curator as a producer of critical discourse—a role that, in certain contexts, approximates the function of art itself. During the 1960s, he argues, critical attention began to turn away from the autonomous art object and towards the exhibition as a meaningful structure in its own right. This gave rise to a “curatorial criticism” that positioned the exhibition space as its primary subject, effectively usurping the declining authority of the traditional art critic. The ascendancy of this curatorial gesture in the 1990s established the exhibition as a nexus for discursive, conversational, and geopolitical debate. Accompanying this shift was the emergence of curatorial anthologies, which emphasised first-person narratives and curator self-positioning, mapping a previously undefined field. However, O’Neill notes a problematic tendency within this discourse: the insistence on separating the curatorial from the artistic gesture, a division that overlooks the profound interdependence of both practices within contemporary cultural production. As O’Neill asserts, “Exhibitions (in whatever form they take) are always ideological; as hierarchical structures they produce particular and general forms of communication” (2007, p. 14). 2 This is particularly evident in the thematic group exhibition, which became the dominant format precisely because it enabled the curator to act as an author, constructing a narrative through the careful selection and arrangement of works.
This model is highly relevant to net art, where large-scale exhibitions like Electronic Superhighway (2016–1966) (2016) and Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today (2018) are almost invariably group shows. Yet net art also complicates O’Neill’s framework. While technology facilitates the global aggregation of artists under a single curatorial theme, it also enables more distributed and collaborative models. The Wrong Biennale, for example, operates as a collection of curatorial projects and artist-led pavilions rather than a unified authorial statement. This decentralised approach can mitigate a key criticism of the group show: the subordination of individual artworks to an overarching curatorial thesis. As O’Neill acknowledges, “It has been argued that such projects prevent artists from realising their ‘true potential’” (2007, p. 24). 3 In my own practice, while organising the Alternative Realities Illustrated exhibition, I sought to navigate this tension. Artists were given freedom to design their own digital spaces, echoing The Wrong’s model, while I provided an overarching thematic and structural framework through the design of a central foyer. This aimed to balance curatorial authorship with artistic agency, using technology critically rather than reproducing the ideological constraints of the white cube.
This negotiation takes on further urgency in light of Simon Sheikh’s extension of O’Neill’s argument in From Para to Post: The Rise and Fall of Curatorial Reason (2017). Sheikh describes how the “para-curatorial” which is a critical practice operating at the margins of institutions was eventually co-opted and neutralised, leading to a “post-critical” condition where the curator functions as a cultural manager rather than a critical author. This analysis resonates powerfully with recent developments in digital curation. As the Off-Site Project collective notes in Volume: Social Media Metrics in Digital Curation (2021), curatorial decisions are increasingly influenced by the metrics and aesthetics of social media platforms, creating a feedback loop where “Instagrammability” shapes artistic selection and display. The article concludes with the statement “we have become attuned to the reception of our social media actions, internalising an awareness of why singular Posts succeed over others, be it a visual quality, a time period, multiple images or the inclusion of video. In turn, we have implemented those unconscious learnings into our design vocabulary and, in all likelihood, have allowed the Instagramablity of particular styles to influence which artists we approach ” (Off-Site Project, 2021). Ultimately, the pervasive influence of social media complicates the foundational acts of curating. While digital platforms undoubtedly enable unprecedented reach—connecting projects to global artistic communities and audiences far beyond physical limitations—this connectivity comes at a cost. The contemporary curator finds themselves balanced on the sharp edge of a paradox: reliant on systems that quantify cultural value through metrics and algorithms. This dependency fosters a reflexive relationship with visibility, where the measure of engagement often eclipses its meaning. Navigating this landscape demands critical vigilance—a continuous, conscious effort to resist allowing the logic of the platform to dictate the terms of curatorial thought.This represents a hyper-capitalist form of Sheikh’s “post-curatorial,” in which discourse is diluted into branding and engagement analytics.
This subchapter has aimed to position myself within this field, independent curatorial net art practice, and argue for the need to reclaim criticality. I strive to return to the “para-curatorial” mode—a critical, independent practice that uses digital space to challenge the standardised, monopolised networks of the contemporary web. In this model, the curator for me is what Olia Lialina terms a “general purpose user”: one who possesses the technological literacy to use platforms inventively and subversively. Thus, my proposed terminology—curator/artist/user—describes a fluid, hybrid role essential for digital curation. The curator brings critical and academic rigour; the artist contributes creative experimentation, collaboration and resistance to conventional display formats; and the user embodies the technical knowledge necessary to navigate and reshape digital environments. Together, these roles form a collaborative, critical practice capable of responding to the ideological and technological challenges of exhibiting art today.