Monday, December 8, 2014

Post-Internet art

In a post-Internet age, the Internet is no longer novel. Specifically, post-Internet art doesn’t need to exist online, which was the case with Net art, a term that was coined when the internet was new and could be used as a defining characteristic of artwork that engaged this new technology. In the past, New Media was defined by specific technology. Post-Internet art differs in that we are all transformed by the Internet. It is not separate and relegated to a certain technology, like Net art was.

Now that the Internet has pervaded our lives to the point of saturation, most artists are operating in a post-Internet context, where the use of the Internet for art research, production, and distribution is taken for granted. Post-Internet art is produced with an awareness of the social and information networks in which it is created and viewed. Some of the issues that have arisen as a result of our post-Internet culture include issues of originality, appropriation, and attention as currency (just getting views online has value because people take time to watch videos or look at it and it becomes part of the larger culture and has value based on popularity).

In my own work, the Internet serves as an archive of material to be researched, discovered, and repurposed in order to create new narratives. This is the post-Internet descendant of Duchamp’s readymade: a vast network of information that can be carefully mined and edited to create new juxtapositions and meanings.


“Beginnings + Ends,” Frieze issue 159 (Nov/Dec 2013)
Artists, writers, and curators discuss post-Internet art:


Article from the NY Times about post-Internet art’s relationship to the art market:

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