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Already interactive art galleries and exhibitions are proliferous on-line. Inspiration is certainly more convenient this way. All you need is a computer with the right equipment and you have the ability experience and manipulate this different breed of art. Since the address of the work is shared by more than one source, and the sources of that address are increasing drastically, information will become more hybridized, more new, fresh and different information can be offered for even more limitless information. This resulting dismemberment of the artist and their creation implies a whole new value system, one based on information that can be scientifically measured by what date it was manipulated; it seems rather linear and limiting. Finally what of the audience/ co-creators that have displaced the artist. How do they fit into the ever-unfinished net.art? Art is the child of the times and the mother of our emotions according to Kandinsky, and the concept of the unfinished is in theory impossible to defeat; we would have truth spanning through space and time, but in a very pragmatic way.
The author makes the assumption that all of ethereal culture has access to the InterNet via computer plus all the right equipment to experience the art to its fullest potential. That means a state-of-the-art computer system that cannot always be found on college campuses, where the future in art is growing up. It is doubtful that culture will ever fully separate itself from the tangible world, unlike its Internet art. People need physical contact too much for Tom Sherman to ignore this part of the culture in the ever-widening gap between dead and unfinished (perpetually living) art. His ethereal culture in net.art is not very inclusive. The diversity and real amount of sources for concrete input to a site are on the rise, in comparison with the population of the planet, it will be impossible to represent society universally. One person's insight perhaps can capture a universal truth. And in theory if one persons genius can do it, then so can two working collaboratively. This happens traditionally on an intellectual and intuitive level, and even on a concrete level in real gallery spaces where the artist's intent is to simply to acquire concrete input from observers as possible. How different is this from a virtual collaborative work where the observer participates in a concrete manner? Actually this is most likely where intuitive and physical worlds can once again collide in the culmination of a site, but then it would be finished, so we must not be after any universal, which is why a constant input from current society is paramount. If everybody is a potential site visitor, no matter their vocation, are they also not collaborating artists? Then is not the term artist no longer needed, if everyone applies and there is no way to market this term? The art historian, curator, critic and everyone else become "participants." It is the inherent nature of the medium. It is not much different from any other kind of art where the observer makes the art. The beauty of art is not that there is information encoded within it, inspiration and beauty is not up to the artist to provide. The trouble with keeping all net.art "alive" and current is that point when it ceases to be creativity because it is too much work to maintain. Out of every artist following their own tracks, how many of these will ascribe to "unfinished art?" How can an artist in any medium, Internet included, live an inspired life and live the conventions? The ever-alive, ever current reflections of the times on-line art will follow no doubt the traditional artists profile, to a certain degree. The overseer of the interactive site, as we will call this special type of artist will naturally have their own style that pervades their body of "sites." Some call this redundancy, while others call it imagination, to work many different concepts with the same motif or obsession. The unfinished art is new and quite exciting but it will not displace the finished art, nor is it so very different. |