HTML: Is it Art?

joeljones writes "The New York Times (registration, yeah, yeah, yeah) has an interesting story about two artists who use HTML, Javascript, and other web technologies as their medium. Could be an interesting set of test cases for anyone writing a browser." While we're on the subject of artsy sites, I submit Zombo.com for your perusal. I believe it to be the only web site that claims the infinite is possible.

Comments

Re:computer code as art..

[tankdilla]

Here's some creative computer code art.

Re:computer code as art.. (links)

[Draigon]

(sorry for double post, should have previewed first, here they are linked)

http://www.once-upon-a-forest.com/
http://www.snarg.net/
http://www.entropy8zuper.org/
http://www.redsmoke.com/
http://www.absurd.org/
http://www.fakeshop.com/
http://snudd.sil.at/
http://www.jodi.org/
http://www.superbad.com/
http://www.d2b.org/
http://www.silverserver.co.at/lia/

Re: Christian Lemmerz

[Carthag]

I am from Denmark as well.

Christian Lemmerz is the guy who did the dead pigs. I forgot what the other guy was called.

Anyway, calling somebody a moron simply because you do not believe something to be art is a pretty cheap ad hominem. It's art because some people think it is. And he's not the only one to think of it as art, I reckon it's art as well.

The piece in question (with the dead pigs), called 'Scene', was about decay and the temporarity of life. Sure, the pigs are not art, but neither is a canvas and a bucket of paint. I personally find pieces like these very interesting. I really liked his Todesfigur and Gebeine.

But I digress, my point is, you can always find someone who don't think that a particular piece is art, so you can't write something off as not-art just because you think it's disgusting/irrelevant/stupid/insert term here.

Check out Dadaism, found art, and other kinds of offstream ways of expression.

The Best Designs

[archetypeone]

Checkout www.thebestdesigns.com for some of the latest web art - ok so a lot of it is Flash based but there's some cool html/js stuff there too.

Ah, this old chesnut

[coldcity]

Well, the problem with "art" is that it's notoriously difficult to define.

Let's try something else - can we prove that code can be poetry?

Poetry also tends to avoid definition; however, I think the best definition I've heard is that poetry is succinct use of language.

Since, say, C++ affords an enormous economy of expression, and a vast number of ways to accomplish a given task, then performing a given task in an elegant, succint way is surely perfectly valid poetry.

You can also argue the case with dictionary.com's definition of poetry: "a quality that suggests poetry, as in grace, beauty, or harmony: the poetry of the dancer's movements."

Re:Define "art"

[Malic]

I think Scott McCloud of Zot fame (http://www.scottmccloud.com) had probably the broadest definition of all - anything that doesn't involve survival or reproduction can potentially be defined as "art".

The whole point being that you can't just eat and/or have sex all day - you have to find other things to do to fill the time. Thus "art".

Let the arguements begin...

Net.Art

[vitaflo]

I work at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in the New Media dept, the largest of any museum in the country. We're responsible for all the digital artwork here, including "net.art".

This is certainly not "news" since net.art has been around for well over 8 years now. jodi.org and 01.org (meantioned in the article) could probably be considered the "grandfathers" of net.art, though I suppose there could be some debate on that, depending on whom you talk to.

And while it's been around for a while it's only been in the last few years that more museums have been taking it seriously. The Walker, the Whitney and the SF MOMA are the big three that come to mind when thinking about museums with a large new media collections. More and more museums are understanding the significance of it as well.

And just with any digital medium there are some ethical questions when it comes to the artwork, such as copyright, and if it's ok to make digital copies of artwork, or does that dilute it? How many is too many? Some artwork is based off of other artwork, so it is ok to "steal" (copy) someone else's work (art or not) to make into my own art? There are parallels here with traditional artwork (like found object art), but also issues that are specific to this medium as well.

Then there's the issue of archiving. If a project runs off a DB and is only usable in Netscape 4, how do we archive it so that in 50 years we can view it? Do we archive just the software? What if future hardware can't run it? Do we archive the hardware as well? What if it relies on some form of online connection, but that online setup changes in the future (think security, etc) so that it cannot be reproduced 100 years from now? Have we then lost this piece forever? Obvioulsy there are a lot of questions that need to be answered in this area.

I think the real question though isn't "is it art", the question is how much impact will it have in the future. When Picaso made his paintings some people said he was crazy, or didn't think it was art, but in hindsight we know the outcome. The same is true for art in new media. Only time will really tell how much lasting impact it has on the way we think and approach art.