Some Final Thoughts.

Some Final Thoughts

In the past nine weeks, I have tried to explore different contemporary manifestations of the original Net Art movement. At times, it was surprisingly difficult to find specific examples of artistic creations that matched my definition of Net Art: “instances of artistic expression that rely on the Internet for existence”. Often times, I would find something interesting, but it would not match my definition. I believe that this difficulty was due in part to the fact that, as I said in my second post, “net art…is still in its fledgling stages”. Indeed, in my time spent researching for this blog, I never once came across the phrase “net art” or even a vague reference to the original movement.

In light of this lack of popularity, it may be tempting to label the short-lived Net Art movement as unimportant or irrelevant. However, I would disagree wholeheartedly. The movement took a very cutting-edge artistic approach to creating art with the Internet that is still relevant to today. The ideas that these early pioneers explored are being re-discovered by contemporary Net-Artists. For example, in my last blog post, I wrote about an interactive music video called “The Wilderness Downtown”. This application uses Google-maps information to construct a personalized viewing experience for every user. This idea of interactive narratives was present very early on in Net Art’s history. In a net art piece from 1996 by Olia Lialina called “My Boyfriend Came Back From the War”, viewers explore a sort of virtual pop-up book by clicking links and images in their browser. Each click reveals a little fragment about the artist’s relationship with her recently returned veteran boyfriend. To be honest, it is a very cryptic narrative that doesn’t compare to the raw graphical complexity of “The Wilderness Downtown”. Still, however, with such limited tools, this artist was able to create a very distinct atmosphere within the piece. The fractured dialogue and stark visual landscape conveys the apparent sense of emotional disconnect between the artist and her veteran boyfriend. Likewise, “The Wilderness Downtown” uses Google maps and animation to communicate the themes of nostalgia and perdition in the Arcade Fire song “We Used to Wait”. Despite being created at very different times during the Internet’s evolution, both pieces utilize the Internet’s ability to involve the viewer in the artwork. At heart, they are both interactive narratives. They only differ in the technological capacity for visual and sensory impact.

In short, Net Art is still alive and relevant. But, what impact will it have on the world?

I believe Net Art’s greatest potential contribution to the world is to demystify part of the creative process. The average person tends to view individual artworks in isolation. In this paradigm, artworks are seen as representations of ideas that were created in a vacuum or some esoteric, unapproachable place. Essentially, they lack context. For example, many people view Picasso as a totally unique artistic phenomenon. Although he was definitely a masterful artist, his ideas and even his artistic style did not just magically come into existence. His artwork was heavily influenced by the work of African mask makers and contemporaries, like Braque and Cezanne.

 

For example, which of these pieces is by Braque and which is by Picasso?

Nothing, even the most spectacular, is created from nothing. Yet, for the average person looking at a single Picasso painting in a gallery filled with hundreds if not thousands of other artistic works, it can be very difficult to see these connections; to see history of creative thoughts that finally were synthesized and displayed on a single linen canvas. The evolution of ideas is not immediately evident, nor is it readily available to viewers standing in front of the canvas. To learn more, one has to have suitable motivation to take the time to search through different sources: books on art history or various websites.

I feel that Net Art has the ability to present this evolution of ideas in the same space as the actual artwork. Chromeexperiments.com is a prime example of this. Viewers can explore individual creative projects that present innovative uses of WebGL, CSS3 and HTML5 and sometimes examine the actual code. However, these individual artworks are presented along side a whole collection of other works that use the same tools and riff off each other’s ideas. Or, to go a step further, Net Art can actually make the process a tangible part of the artwork. This type of thinking is perfectly encapsulated by the Koblin piece “The Exquisite Forest”. The whole point of this work is to examine the way people creatively expand on each other’s ideas. Similarly, his other works “The Johnny Cash Project” and “The Sheep Market” allow viewers to look at the creation of individual components of the overall piece. In both these examples, the creative process – the evolution of ideas – makes up a large portion of the actual artwork.

All of this contributes to the idea that the Internet is the manifestation of human kind’s collective mind. The conscious results of unconscious creative processes can now all be found in one place – the Internet. The context and consequences of a single idea are now easily accessible and contained within a single system. Instead of seeing a painting in one place and learning about its history in another, all of this will be done through a single system or medium - the Web.

As all the people and computers on our planet get more and more closely connected, it's becoming increasingly useful to think of all the people and computers on the planet as a kind of global brain.

               -    THOMAS W. MALONE, Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence.

The Wonderful WebArt of Aaron Koblin

The Wonderful WebArt of Aaron Koblin

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In my time working on this blog, it has been somewhat challenging to find a contemporary, individual artist whose whole body of work is dependent on the Internet. I have found many different artists who dabble in using the Internet or computers creatively but none thus far who matched the criteria that I outlined in my post NetArt? What Art? Thankfully, however, I was fortunate to stumble across the amazing artworks of Aaron Koblin.   

Aaron Koblin is an artist who specializes in using “real-world and community generated data…to reflect on cultural trends and the changing relationship between humans and the systems they create”. While all his entire body of work is based off this idea, his individual works seem to fall into three loose categories:

           1. Data Narratives

           2. Collaborative Works

3. Interactive Narratives

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Data Narratives: Data as Storytelling

As of late, “data” has been getting some bad press. Many view the collection and aggregation of information through the Internet as a threat to personal freedom and privacy. Also, it can be argued that the sheer extent of data collection is having a reductive impact on the phenomena it describes. Do all the GPS coordinates stashed on one’s iPhone really tell us anything about the owner’s experience of visiting those places? How can humans conceptually understand all this information? As a result, it can be tempting to view ‘data’ as scary or reductive. However, Aaron Koblin’s artworks turn this sentiment on its head.

In his 2011 TED Talk, the artist opened his talk by saying that, “Data can make us more human”. His artwork “Flight Patterns” is a prime example of this sentiment. This piece creates visually appealing representations of flight traffic data gathered through the Internet, and in the process, it humanizes the data by artistically connecting it with the actual phenomena.

A still frame from "Flight Patterns"

It is one thing to hear statistics of flight patterns in North America, or even to see the actual data files, but it is another thing to see Koblin’s visualization of this data. In only a couple minutes, viewers are able to conceptually understand the trends of human activity contained with these huge data sets of flight traffic information. Additionally, Kobl
in’s work is predictive of what may become a large part of Net Art in the future. As the Internet is mined more and more for data of all types, making conceptual sense of this data will become a fascinating challenge for future NetArtists and Computer Scientists.

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Collaborative Works: Crowdsourcing Art

Crowdsourcing has demonstrated its efficacy as a solution to a lot of problems, such as fundraising and content creation (Kickstarter, iStockphoto). In the realm of art, crowdsourcing has been applied with varying levels of success. For example, Swarmsketch, a collaborative drawing project, asks users to collaborate on a single drawing based on a specific theme.  The program allows users to draw a line and then vote on the lines that others have drawn. The lines with the most votes create the picture. As a thought experiment, Swarmsketch excels at creating a democratic, collaborative artistic process. However, in reality, the drawings often lack a visual cohesion. (Truthfully, these drawings can still be visually interesting and a small minority of these drawings are actually well rendered. see: 28 Gauge Shotgun)

A selection of typical Swarmsketch drawings.

Instead, Koblin has managed to manipulate crowdsourced efforts to create structured works of art. Instead of allowing users to influence the decisions of other contributors, Koblin has designed projects that allow users a high degree of autonomy over their own little aspect of the greater project. This allows users to be creative and deviate from the instructions creatively, but it allows Koblin to maintain the overall structure of the piece.

For example, in “The Johnny Cash Project”, one of his most visually stunning pieces, Koblin created a website that allowed Johnny Cash fans across the world to illustrate a single of frame of an animated musicvideo for Cash’s song “Ain’t No Grave”. While certain frames may deviate from a realistic portrayal of the scene, these scenes end up contributing to the video’s artistic spontaneity.

An individual frame from "The Johnny Cash Project"  

Another individual frame 

A section of "Ten Thousand Cents"

In his line of collaborative works, Koblin has also managed to innovatively make use of Amazon’s MechanicalTurk, an online labor-sourcing tool. Essentially, MechanicalTurk is a platform that allows an individual to pay Internet users or ‘turks’ small sums of money to do small tasks over the web. In “The Sheep Market”, Koblin paid over 10,000 turks $0.02 to draw a “sheep facing to the left”. Similarly, in “Ten Thousand Cents”, Koblin paid 10,000 turks $0.01 to illustrate a very small segment of an image of a hundred dollar bill. While the way these artworks use Mechanical Turk is innovative in of itself, these artworks present an interesting commentary on the evolution of digital labor markets. By using them to do something artistic, Koblin has subverted the stereotypical portrayal of crowdsourcing as these faceless, almost mechanical entities.

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Personalized Net Art Experiences: Interactive Narratives

A concept still from "3 Dreams of Black"

Finally, Koblin’s artwork demonstrates the ability of the Internet to create unique, interactive artistic narratives. For example, “3Dreams of Black” (a music video for the Danger Mouse’s “Black”) and the “The Wilderness Downtown” (a music video for Arcade Fire’s “We Used To Wait”) are two artworks that allow users to create a “personalized” viewing experience. In “3 Dreams of Black”, viewers use the mouse to influence the WebGL environment that the artists created. In “The Wilderness Downtown”, a personalized music video is created based on the information about one’s home via Google Maps.

A still from "The Wilderness Downtown"

Although the ability to “personalize” these experiences is somewhat limited, these artworks explore artistic Internet-dependent tools, like WebGL and the Chrome browser. They could be considered artistic studies for future projects that would implement these features of “personalization” more comprehensively.

An example of "Exquisite Corpse"

“The Exquisite Forest” is another project of Koblin’s that explores interactive narratives. Unlike “3 Dreams of Black” and “The Wilderness Downtown”, the interactive experience is not limited to a single user. A homage to the Surrealist game “Exquisite Corpse”, “The Exquisite Forest” is an online collaborative project that “lets users create short animations which build off one another as they explore a specific theme”. However, what’s interesting is that these animations do not follow a linear path. Unlike “Exquisite Corpse” where players are unaware what has come before their contribution, participants in "The Exquisite Forest" can choose to take any prior animation and extend it in any number of ways. So, one idea – one branch – can branch of to any number of other branches in an almost recursive manner. The ‘forest’ motif comes from the idea that many of these separate thematic trees will one day be displayed on the website.

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Koblin’s artworks are a testament to the Internet’s value as a tool to create original artworks. They exemplify the multi-faceted possibilities of Net Art and their respective media. His work is also a unique look at the recursive qualities of collaborative, web-based artistic projects. From my personal perspective, it is satisfying to actually find an artist whose body of work is actually definable as Net Art.

Hating Instagram Is So 2010

@JohnRowa via Mashable, Instagram

Hating Instagram Is So 2010  

In the past two years, the advent of Instagram has made photography undergo some radical changes. In only two years, Instagram has made photography go mobile and online. These sudden changes have left many wondering about Instagram’s impacts on photography. Some feel that it has debased photography as an art form, while others believe Instagram is helping photography adapt to the Internet age. Personally, my opinions on Instagram are conflicted, but I hope to reconcile some of my opposing beliefs through this essay.

To start, Instagram is a photo-sharing platform that allows users to edit their photos with an array of vintage-styled filters that play with saturation, contrast and exposure and then upload these photos to the web. These photos form the basis of an online social network where users can choose to like, comment on or follow other users’ photo streams. What makes Instagram unique is that unlike other photo-sharing platforms, Instagram has harnessed the networking power of the Internet. In the words of Instagrams founders Systrom and Krieger, “We made it super-simple to share photos, not only with your followers in the Instagram community, but with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr, all with a tap of the switch." They made sure "uploading, sharing and viewing experiences" would be "as smooth and speedy as possible”. As a result, since its inception in 2010, Instagram has seen unparalleled growth. Facebook recently acquired it for roughly a billion dollars and Instagram’suser base has just crossed the 100 million-user mark.

 Furthermore, Instagram’s success starkly contrasts the current state of alternative platforms such as Flickr which are struggling to keep up.

However, while Instagram seems harmless photo-sharing device, many people, especially those involved in the photography world, feel that Instagram is hurting photography. They claim:

1)   Instagram cheapens photography as an art form. 

2)   Instagram’s filter set breeds sameness.

3)   Dirty hipsters only use Instagram.

@mcvilches via Mashable, Instagram

To be honest, when I first found out about Instagram I had many of the same thoughts. My first serious experience with photography was the summer after I had turned fourteen. A Pentax K1000 with shutter-slap like a gunshot and a darkroom with a chronically asthmatic ventilation system served as the gatekeepers to my infatuation photography. All summer, I shot film, printed countless contact sheets, adjusted finicky enlargers, blindly fumbled with film spools in the dark and practically dyed my fingers a permanent shade of yellow after spilling fixer all over my hands. It was an excessive and obsessive labor of love, but it made me learn to appreciate the subtleties of photography as an art form.

These experiences biased my initial thoughts about Instagram. It seemed strange to me that anyone could upload photos and almost instantly rise to a type of online fame. Also, it bothered me that so many people paid more attention to over-saturated pictures of cheeseburgers than famous photographers who’ve spent years perfecting their craft.

Ed Kashi, VII, Instagram

Looking back now, I realize that I was approaching the situation like many other art-snobs. Of course, everyone should be able to post photos and network with other people! I realized that it was ridiculous to think that experience with analog photography was the only way to “certify” someone as a photography lover. Yet, some of the criticisms mentioned above still had some merit. So, I decided to do some research into each claim’s validity.

1) Instagram cheapens photography as an art form.

Instagram’s relationship with Internet technology has not fundamentally changed the purpose of photography: storytelling. Raw photographic quality aside, people have basically uploaded their lives on to these profiles and then been compelled to interact with other users and learn about their life stories. In this way, Instagram has been much more successful at keeping photography and photojournalism alive in the public sphere than many traditional photography agencies.

Additionally, this argument is often conflated with the current economic viability of being a professional photographer. Photojournalist and Instagram user, Teru Kuwayama sums this point up nicely,

“Obviously, it sucks to be a professional photographer, and it's personally inconvenient to lose your pedestal and your livelihood to a $2 app, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing for photography.”

Teru Kuwayama

2) Instagram’s filter set breeds sameness.

This argument is inherently logically flawed. There have always been bland photos, and there always will be bland photos. Furthermore, this argument implies that a photograph’s originality can be judged by its basic visual aesthetics. This would suggest that all of black and white photography is a bunch of unoriginal garbage - a conclusion that is absolutely untrue.

3) Instagram is only used by dirty hipsters.

Matt Eich via BJP, Instagram

Matt Eich via BJP, Instagram

This too is plainly false. Many independent professional photographers and members of prestigious photo, news and humanitarian organizations like VII, The New Yorker, Doctors Without Borders and NationalGeographic have joined the ranks of Instagram. In an article by the British Journal of Photography, the author recounted, “Speaking with these photographers [who have joined Instagram], it quickly becomes apparent that Instagram, more than any other social network in past years, has allowed them to form a deeper connection with the general public.”

In the end, it is clear that Instagram is not the definitive death knoll for photography. Instead, there is significant evidence to support the idea that Instagram has facilitated aspects of photography’s continued existence in the online, public sphere. It has done for photography what automatic film cameras and digital cameras have done in the past: make photography more accessible as a form of story telling and communication. 

Yet, there is an interesting counter argument that deserves mentioning. Nathan Jurgenson, a writer on the website The Society Pages, makes the assertion that the rise of faux-vintage photography is linked to a desire for authenticity. In an age where the pace of life is so fast, faux-vintage photos “highlight the larger trend of our viewing the present as increasingly a potentially documented past”. He asserts that Instagram’s faux-vintage filters are used to create photographs with a sort of synthetic artistic and emotional appeal – a ”nostalgia for the present”. As a result, it could be argued that this simulated significance is indicative of Instagram’s reductive impact on photography. Instead of sharing because we like to, we share compulsively because we are addicted to filling a void of authenticity.

John Vink via BJP, Instagram

Although the sensationalism present on Instagram’s networks may appear to threaten the core substance of photography, we must remember that we are living on a tech-bubble. We exist in an environment where every technological change is labeled as a “revolution”. In the case of Instagram, that label is certainly debatable, but its success no doubt signals photography’s continued evolution. With that in mind, this photography lover has made peace with his inner art-snob and Instagram.

  

Poetry on a PS3: Papo & Yo

Poetry on a PS3: Papo & Yo

“…my message is that’s its impossible to pass on experience to others or to learn from others. We must live our own experience, we cannot inherit it.”

–Andrei Tarkovsky (1983)

It is no secret that humans love to tell stories. That is how we have connected with each other for centuries. Poetry, art, cinema, theatre, song – these art forms are all evidence of the innate human desire to share personal experiences. Although some assert that we can never fully “inherit” someone’s experience, artists, like Tarkovsky, still strive to use art as a way to approach this transcendental transfusion of emotion, experience and context. These sentiments are what motivated Vander Caballero and his team at Minority studios to explore the experience of parental abuse and alcoholism through their 2012 videogame, Papo & Yo. Although not without its faults, many have lauded this game as a unique use of the videogame medium to fuse art and storytelling.

Papo & Yo is a videogame centered on the trials and tribulations of a boy named Quico and his robot friend, Lula. Taking place in a surrealist South American favela that magically changes shape, the conflict these two characters face revolves around another “friend” – Monster. At first, Monster appears as a helpful, friendly presence with a dietary preference for toads. However, this ‘preference’ quickly becomes clear as an addiction, and when Monster ingests a toad, it drops the friendly façade and becomes a true monster, threatening the safety of its friends Quico and Lula. In playing the game, the user assumes the role of Quico who, with the help of Lula, is determined to find a cure for Monster’s addiction.

What makes this game special is that it is based on Vander Caballero’s (the creator) personal experience with an abusive alcoholic father. Although the game is not explicitly a biography, the story line and overarching message of the piece is focused on communicating the emotional experiences of a child struggling with an abusive parent. Unlike most videogames, Papo & Yo places story telling at the top of its priority list. Furthermore, the story is real. Although many games rely on an engaging story line, pretty much none of these are based off common, real-world scenarios. In an interview with Jian Ghomeshi of CBC, Caballero explained why he chose to base the videogame off his experiences.

I wanted to create a game that when people finish the game they find some meaning to it. They find some closure. I found that when I started doing Papo & Yo, I put my childhood there, and what I wanted to do is to help people that lived similar stories like [mine]. When you write a book or make a movie about something that is meaningful to you, you are trying to pass a moral- some kind of [message] about how your survived that experience in the hope of making a better life for someone else.

It is easy to say that Papo & Yo is quite a departure from the purpose of most videogames: entertainment for entertainment’s sake. Caballero believes that for too long videogames have been ignored as a powerful medium for storytelling and artistic expression because of their technical limitations. But now that game-design technology has made leaps and bounds, the technology is no longer an issue. What matters now is intention. He believes that technology has allowed videogames to transcend the abilities that its name suggests. Instead of scenes played out on a monitor, video games are rapidly approaching a form of “simulation”. As a result, videogames like Papo & Yo now have the potential to communicate complex emotional concepts.

Already, Papo & Yo has pulled on some heartstrings in the public.  Caballero recounts how he received a letter from a father who admitted that he yelled at his son. However, after encountering this game, the father admitted that he realized the negative emotional impact he was making on his son. Collette Bennett, a writer with joystiq.com, wrote a review of the game where she examined the allegorical links between her experience as the daughter of an alcoholic mother and the ultimate lesson of acceptance that she learned as an adult. Additionally, in reading through some of the comments on websites on the Amazon.com page for Papo & Yo and gaming blogs, it is clear that some users have found it to be quite a powerful experience. And while most reviewers have expressed critical opinions of the game’s mechanics and game play, the vast majority of reviewers declare that it is an innovative use of the medium with the potential for serious emotional impact.

Ultimately, Papo & Yo’s success is not guaranteed by any means. But like everything else in the world, evolution happens in small steps. The fact that a videogame that tackles topics like abuse and addiction has been released on a prominent console system demonstrates the potential for change. In fact, Caballero notes that the large game producers that he had worked for previously unequivocally avoided including these subjects in their games. Also, the press coverage and reactions that this game has garnered within the gaming community demonstrates that people are interested in what effects this medium can have on players’ emotions. Although, this game hasn’t yet tapped into the wealth of human experience that exists on the Internet, the game has “connected” people. As a work of art, Papo & Yo has made people think, feel and empathize. It’s poetry on a PS3.

In the future, it will be interesting to see other games that tackle these emotionally charged topics and if they can be linked to the internet. Already, a game called Journey has taken an unconventional approach to blending online multiplayer interactions with an open-world gaming model. Although, Papo & Yo is not necessarily "net art", it signifies the next potential incarnation of videogames that blur the line between entertainment, storytelling and art.

Art in Code

Art in Code

With my first computer science midterm drawing uncomfortably close, I can’t help but reflect on my brief forays into the world of Java and nested for-loops. Before Stanford, I never had any interest in computer science. The windowless basement in which computer science classes were taught at my high school served as the best metaphor for the way the concept of coding was presented – bland, uncreative and somewhat irrelevant. Consequently, instead of spending time getting intimately familiar with VisualBasic, I donned some tastefully ripped skinny jeans and opted to take visual art courses. However, now that I am at Stanford, CS106A has become my favorite class. How did this happen? How did I transition so willingly from acrylic to acm.graphics.*;? While a large amount of credit is due to the fact that CS106A is a wonderfully designed and entertaining class, I believe that computer science’s inherent creative similarities to art is more responsible for holding my interest amidst the perils of Karel and late nights spent debugging. 

Through art classes, I learned to plan out a creative vision through a sketchbook, to spend hours pursuing that vision in the studio and to appreciate the skill and vision of others who have gone through a similar creative process. In CS106A, I am re-learning these same concepts but in a different medium.

My experience with computer science thus far has demonstrated to me that creative problem solving is at the core of what it means to be a computer scientist. To write successful code, it seems to me that one must balance vision with intuition and practical elegance with technical complexity. Similarly, in the realm of visual art, one is constantly moving between the dynamic boundaries that separate one’s preconceived vision of the final piece, artistic impulses and technical ability to manipulate the medium. If these balances are maintained, some amazing things can come about.

Although it is a point that has almost fallen into the realm of cliché, Steve Jobs truly understood these similarities. In fact, his accomplishments demonstrate the interconnectedness of creative artistic thinking and computer science. He is quoted as saying that,

"I think our major contribution [to computing] was in bringing a liberal arts point of view to the use of computers. If you really look at the ease of use of the Macintosh, the driving motivation behind that was to bring not only ease of use to people — so that many, many more people could use computers for nontraditional things at that time — but it was to bring beautiful fonts and typography to people, it was to bring graphics to people ... so that they could see beautiful photographs, or pictures, or artwork, et cetera ... to help them communicate. ... Our goal was to bring a liberal arts perspective and a liberal arts audience to what had traditionally been a very geeky technology and a very geeky audience." (NPR)

Like Jobs suggests, computers and computer science should be universal. In an effort to accomplish this goal, he found a creative solution involving the actual fusion of art and code that in turn made computers more accessible and more useful to the average person. However, he did not just use technology to create art. In fact, he did the opposite. He used art to create useable technology.

It is accurate to say that art class made me love art; but more importantly, it made me value creativity. Thus far, my experience with computer science is reinforcing the value of the same concepts: planning, vision, creativity and perseverance. Oh, and time. Don’t let me forget that.

By no stretch of any possible definition, am I a computer science prodigy. I do not have aspirations of writing the next five editions of The Art and Science of Java nor do I consider myself competent enough to even phone Palantir’s office to ask for a brochure. And, you know what? I’m okay with that, for the moment at least. I think it’s amazing that I have the time now in my life to start learning something completely new, to start fresh and to make mistakes. But now I digress into that touchy-feely-ness that only seems to single me out as the artsy-fartsy kid. Thankfully, that doesn’t seem to exclude me from exploring the world of computer science. 

For Further Reference:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bjork-biophilia/id434122935?mt=8

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/49718309?byline=0&amp;portrait=0&amp;color=ffffff" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>

http://formandcode.com/

The Analytics of Art: Some observations on Art.sy

The Analytics of Art: Some observations on Art.sy

The Internet has great taste. 

iTunes seems to know all about my passion for blues music. Amazon keeps suggesting books that would help me brush up on my neuroscience. And, Epicurious even picked up on my preference for spaghetti alla carbonara.

For the past decade or so, the Internet has been making great recommendations to its consumers. Now with the creation of Art.sy, the self-proclaimed online, artistic “genome”, the Internet now seems equipped to help Internet trolls and normal people alike hone their taste in fine art.

Carter Cleveland, Founder, Art.sy

Art.sy is the newest way to experience art online. However, it’s not just a virtual gallery. Instead, it is a platform to “help you discover the art you’ll love”.  Like iTunes, Amazon and Epicurious, Art.sy uses analytics to help expose users to new content, in this case artwork. Although it may seem simple, Art.sy’s intention to create a recommendation and networking platform based off user’s artistic preferences is a technically lofty goal.

While “analytics” may be a buzzword these days, the method Art.sy uses is nothing special or cutting-edge. Currently, Art.sy employs a dozen art history majors to organize artworks by particular “genes”. These genes are categories or labels that denote different kinds of information. Some genes describe an artwork’s historical context or geographical origin. Others attempt the feat that countless pretentious artist statements have failed to do; to distill the greater meaning of a work into a handful of characters, like “Identity Politics” or “Documentation of Social Life”. Additionally, each descriptor’s relevancy to a particular artwork is scored on a scale between 1 and 100. Once enough artwork has gone through the initial labeling process, this information is combined with user-generated preferences. In turn, this data is used to power algorithms that helps suggest new artworks to Art.sy users.

An overview of Art.sy's "gene" organization

Art.sy qualifies as an element of Net Art because it relies on the Internet to help art lovers make connections with new types of art. The initiative’s innovation lies in the fact that it is the first platform to extend this idea of organization and recommendation of fine art – a class of artistic media that has practically no intrinsic ties to the Internet or digital technology. In turn, however, this goal has a series of inherent challenges, the solutions to which will have a large impact on the way art is understood by Art.sy’s viewers.

First, there is no obvious way to analyze the huge breadth of art’s visual qualities in the same way algorithms can compare music’s aural qualities. Unlike translating sound waves into bytes, fine art does not posses many qualities that are easily translated into digital data. For example, how does one quantitatively differentiate cubism from impressionism? Or, tell the difference between oil paints and acrylic paints? Furthermore, the challenge of analyzing an artwork’s visual qualities is compounded by the fact that Art.sy uses a two-dimensional image to represent a three-dimensional art work. This begs the question, how could a computer program quickly distinguish a three-dimensional ceramic work from a photographic work, if both are represented in the same two-dimensional digital format?

Second, fine art’s significance relies to a large degree on its context and meaning. Based my own experience, Art.sy’s current system is quite consistent in its ability to suggest art works that share thematic similarities; however, how will this system fare when Art.sy has increased its database from 2,700 artists to a number around 5,000 – the current scale of the Google Art Project? Will the paradox of choice ultimately drown any system of organization?

Finally, can Art.sy really afford to cater to “everyone”? Many people in the tech world hold the opinion that social media platforms have an inherently flawed business model. To some, Art.sy seems to be heading down the same, flawed path. Currently, its business platform is based off taking a commission for online art sales that are negotiated through its website. Although more and more art is being bought and sold online, will this e-commerce traffic be sufficient for Art.sy’s continued growth? If not, Art.sy may have to revert to its original business model: catering to a private group of wealthy individuals. Indeed, Art.sy only recently opened up its membership to the public; previously it was an “invite-only” club.      

All of these challenges have an impact on the way users “discover” new art works through Art.sy. In providing a means to navigate such a wealth of artistic information, Art.sy has adopted a “browser” oriented interface. The ease of use and accessibility of recommendations in this browser encourages “artistic speed dating”, where users briefly flirt with one artwork before moving on to the next recommendation. Consequently, Art.sy could potentially create a very reductive art-viewing experience in which users feel compelled to cursorily scan over a huge breadth of art instead of delving more deeply into a handful of selected art works. Also, Art.sy’s business model could have an effect on the actual recommendations it makes to users. For example, since, Art.sy’s main method of monetization is based of sales commissions, it has an incentive to direct users to pieces of artwork that are currently “for sale”. If this were to happen, Art.sy’s recommendations would likely be skewed towards contemporary artworks. This situation might come about because contemporary artists will be drawn to use Art.sy as an online marketplace more so than owners of older, more famous artworks who have pre-established art trading connections.

Overall, Art.sy is an interesting concept that is worth watching. At the moment, however, it is still much too early to view it as a major force of change in the world of art. The real impact of Art.sy hinges on whether it can break in to popular culture and then dramatically increase its user base. Alternatively, if Art.sy stays within the niche of the art world elite, its greater influence will be reduced to an over-glorified mail-order catalog.

Additional Reading:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/09/arts/design/artsy-is-mapping-the-world-of-art-on-the-web.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/arts/design/google-art-projects-expanded-offerings.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.quora.com/Art-sy

Net Art? What Art?

Net Art? What Art?

During the infant stages of HTML and graphical web browsers, there was an artistic movement that few know about or remember.

It was called net art.

Started in the 1990’s by a handful of artists who borrowed from avant-garde paradigms like Dadaism, Fluxus and Situationalism, the net art movement sought to utilize the Internet as an artistic medium.

At the time, the thought of using the Internet to create art was revolutionary. Until that point, the Internet had been largely regarded as a means to share academic data and communicate remotely  – a system of information transit largely devoid of emotion and passion. However, with the advent graphical web browsers like Mosaic, artists suddenly saw the Internet’s potential as a means for artistic expression.

Today, art has spread to all corners of the Internet. Every day, thousands of artists across the world upload their work to websites, blogs and forums. As a result, many artists are able to debut their work to a much greater audience than a traditional gallery display might allow. At first glance, one would think that this signifies net art’s climax; it’s successful integration into popular Internet culture and triumph as an artistic movement.

In fact, the opposite is true. Net art has neither succeeded nor peaked. It is still in its fledgling stages.

Sure, paintings have been scanned and photos have been digitized, but much of the art that is displayed on the Internet is not net art. While it may be viewable on through a computer screen, the vast majority of art found on the Internet is not fundamentally different than the art found in physical galleries or in generations past. That said, there is still hope for net art.

Since the 1990’s, the Internet has evolved considerably. Web 2.0 is sleek and sexy and practical. Furthermore, computers more powerful than those that helped launch the first space shuttles now fit into the palm of our hand, and by the virtue of wireless technology, these devices have tethered our lives to the Internet.

Now that the Internet has become a way of life, the Internet can start to become a way of art.