Net Art: RIOT
“Hacking public domains, social software, playing with the tenses of being over time, thoughtography, science-art-technology, cultural meme” – these are the words and phrases of Mark Amerika that engaged and inspired me to think creatively on our first day of “Graduate Photography NOT”
With these muses in mind, I can see then in action in the net art work RIOT. It is “pla(y)giarism” where Napier and the web site visitors who contribute and participate “play” by taking other websites and using it in a different context in a different way. These websites can be seen as public domains that are being hacked and reappropriated in another context.
“Riot disrupts the accepted rules of property and exposes the fragility of territorial boundaries…Riot dissolves traditional notions of territory, ownership, and authority by collapsing territorial conventions like domains, sites and pages” (About RIOT).
Replica of the mind…
RIOT is a metaphorical reflection of our reality: random, in flux, fluid, information overload, multimedia, changing, disorderly, chaotic, systematic, interconnected, a network, a labyrinth…
As I continually reload and refresh RIOT, I visually see the flux in this interactive website. I am reminded of the multiple perspectives even in one viewing of an artifact. The creation, evolution, and progression of RIOT loading is beautiful, or at least aesthetically more pleasing then watching average websites loading.
Experimentaling…I typed in my website and played around with the art and poetry I had, then overlapped it with other bookmarks I had (like my Scottish professor’s website with pictures and text of his long hair that he shaved off and hung on his wall).
Result...laughter, funny integrations, randomly comical pieces of art created and recreated with my participation and contribution at a specific spatial and temporal moment in the virtual world.
Who’s the artist?...Napier or RIOT is the lead artist. He has greater control and predictability of what is generated in this net art work, that is why the website he bookmarked as his/Napier and the other net art websites seem more interactive and engaging in RIOT with more movement and aestheticness to its presentation. This combination of net art sites (or even other visually interactive websites) decreases the need for the user to keep changing the URL, since it is constantly in motion. The patterns and shapes of movement are almost mesmerizing. The present movement I am currently seeing is similar to the oldskool Space Invaders style, as it jerks from left to right in an 80’s robotic manner. BUT everyone participating in RIOT is the artist as well. I side with the notion that everyone is an artist if they contributed in some way to the presentation and interpretation of the art piece. The level of artistry does become neglected but a more open and communal interaction can be created that welcomes all (or at least attempts to).
I became curious what these other net art websites that were bookmarked looked like, so I went to Napier Net Art and revealed some of the tricks behind Napier. First I noticed its constant movement and motion in color, shape, and perspective. Then I thought I would compare if the refreshes were the same…they were not. And then I noticed the multiple (10 to be exact) scroll bars that appeared on the right side of the window. What muses me here is the electronically spontaneous “up and down” scroll movement at various settings and the horizontal slices of 10 different windows. The movement in this net art engages the audience/artist/everyone and becomes the captivating feature of this work of art. This makes me wonder what the net art would look like if it loaded websites that had live videos playing without the user needing to manually control them. But the more input of movement the noisier it may be. Does it lose its aesthetickness, its artistickness?
What’s the work of art?...The work of art is everyone and everything that played a part in its continual creation. It is art that welcomes all that it can feed in. The artists, the creators, the viewers, the audience, the artifacts, the everything that it embodies and manifests is the artist and the work of art…synergy forms…symbiosis occurs. The mission is interactivity. This question begs for this net art to be viewed holistically…to include all the players…everybody and everything. We are the creators of our reality through the construction and destruction of our artifacts.
On a side note, after trying RIOT a few times with my Mac PowerBook, it no longer was in flux. I then noticed the Microsoft symbol on the upper right side of the window. Sadly but fortunately I used my old Compaq laptop to try RIOT again. Success!
With these muses in mind, I can see then in action in the net art work RIOT. It is “pla(y)giarism” where Napier and the web site visitors who contribute and participate “play” by taking other websites and using it in a different context in a different way. These websites can be seen as public domains that are being hacked and reappropriated in another context.
“Riot disrupts the accepted rules of property and exposes the fragility of territorial boundaries…Riot dissolves traditional notions of territory, ownership, and authority by collapsing territorial conventions like domains, sites and pages” (About RIOT).
Replica of the mind…
RIOT is a metaphorical reflection of our reality: random, in flux, fluid, information overload, multimedia, changing, disorderly, chaotic, systematic, interconnected, a network, a labyrinth…
As I continually reload and refresh RIOT, I visually see the flux in this interactive website. I am reminded of the multiple perspectives even in one viewing of an artifact. The creation, evolution, and progression of RIOT loading is beautiful, or at least aesthetically more pleasing then watching average websites loading.
Experimentaling…I typed in my website and played around with the art and poetry I had, then overlapped it with other bookmarks I had (like my Scottish professor’s website with pictures and text of his long hair that he shaved off and hung on his wall).
Result...laughter, funny integrations, randomly comical pieces of art created and recreated with my participation and contribution at a specific spatial and temporal moment in the virtual world.
Who’s the artist?...Napier or RIOT is the lead artist. He has greater control and predictability of what is generated in this net art work, that is why the website he bookmarked as his/Napier and the other net art websites seem more interactive and engaging in RIOT with more movement and aestheticness to its presentation. This combination of net art sites (or even other visually interactive websites) decreases the need for the user to keep changing the URL, since it is constantly in motion. The patterns and shapes of movement are almost mesmerizing. The present movement I am currently seeing is similar to the oldskool Space Invaders style, as it jerks from left to right in an 80’s robotic manner. BUT everyone participating in RIOT is the artist as well. I side with the notion that everyone is an artist if they contributed in some way to the presentation and interpretation of the art piece. The level of artistry does become neglected but a more open and communal interaction can be created that welcomes all (or at least attempts to).
I became curious what these other net art websites that were bookmarked looked like, so I went to Napier Net Art and revealed some of the tricks behind Napier. First I noticed its constant movement and motion in color, shape, and perspective. Then I thought I would compare if the refreshes were the same…they were not. And then I noticed the multiple (10 to be exact) scroll bars that appeared on the right side of the window. What muses me here is the electronically spontaneous “up and down” scroll movement at various settings and the horizontal slices of 10 different windows. The movement in this net art engages the audience/artist/everyone and becomes the captivating feature of this work of art. This makes me wonder what the net art would look like if it loaded websites that had live videos playing without the user needing to manually control them. But the more input of movement the noisier it may be. Does it lose its aesthetickness, its artistickness?
What’s the work of art?...The work of art is everyone and everything that played a part in its continual creation. It is art that welcomes all that it can feed in. The artists, the creators, the viewers, the audience, the artifacts, the everything that it embodies and manifests is the artist and the work of art…synergy forms…symbiosis occurs. The mission is interactivity. This question begs for this net art to be viewed holistically…to include all the players…everybody and everything. We are the creators of our reality through the construction and destruction of our artifacts.
On a side note, after trying RIOT a few times with my Mac PowerBook, it no longer was in flux. I then noticed the Microsoft symbol on the upper right side of the window. Sadly but fortunately I used my old Compaq laptop to try RIOT again. Success!
posted by Sophia B Liu at 3:21 AM
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