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The Aesthetic Of Failure: Net ArtGone WrongMichele WhitePublished online: 09 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Michele White (2002) The Aesthetic Of Failure: Net Art Gone Wrong,Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 7:1, 173-194

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introduction

This article considers Ònet artÓ and arguesthat there is a developing aesthetic of failure

in many online works. In general terms, thisaesthetic of failure can be defined as the waysthat net artists reflexively quote and misuse theprogrammed aspects of the computer. JodiÕs%20Wrong, Peter LuiningÕs D-TOY 2.502.338,and Micha‘l SamynÕs The Fire from the Searepresent distinct aspects of this aesthetic. Theseworks have been described as formalist.However, they offer a stance that goes beyondformalist considerations of the medium becausetheir employment of misquotation, misdirection,and interface breakdown can offer a distancefrom the InternetÕs effects and a critical commen-tary on its vernacular.

Similar visuals are not a necessary part of thisaesthetic. It is conveyed by the ways that net artperforms and malfunctions. This aesthetic isproduced by particular kinds of spectatorshipand of course the corollary to this is that culturaltastes and values inform viewer reactions to thiswork. Aesthetics is related to the spectatorialpositions that are scripted by individual worksbut this does not necessarily provide the specta-tor with the ideal or cohesive view. In manycases, the net art spectatorÕs empowered positionand ability to gaze upon the whole work aredisturbed by the ways that net art cannot beinteracted with or controlled. The use of the termÒspectatorÓ is intended to suggest the history ofart and media spectatorship, the ways that peoplehave been structured to look, and the particularrelationship between computer viewer and inter-face. This term is also meant to indicate thatnet art highlights and enacts viewing limits.The disruption of spectatorial mastery, which

produces a distinctly different user from the onepromised by computer Òinteractivity,Ó canencourage computer spectators to read Internettechnologies differently.

The net art aesthetic also calls into questionthe possibility of maintaining unique ÒobjectsÓand authorship online. Museums and otherwebsites, which seek to maintain the aura ofobjects, struggle with the copied and quotedaspects of net art and the issues introduced inWalter BenjaminÕs ÒThe Work of Art in the Ageof Mechanical Reproduction.Ó1 Benjamin, whosework has influenced a group of contemporarytheorists and many net artists, argued that thevalue of art objects dissipates with mechanicalreproduction. Varied aspects of the computersetting contribute to this destabilization of singu-

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michele white

THE AESTHETIC OFFAILUREnet art gone wrong

ISSN 0969-725X print/ISSN 1469-2899 online/02/010173-21 © 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd and the Editors of AngelakiDOI: 10.1080/0969725022014211 9

AN GEL AK Ijournal of the theoretical humanitiesvolume 7 number 1 april 2002

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lar and specific works. Different computers,monitors, browsers and connection speedsproduce contrary views. Such problems encour-age an interrogation of traditional reading andviewing positions. They also suggest thatcomputer-facilitated material is producedthrough a variety of technologies as much as anindividual author generates it. However, there isthe possibility that net art authorship will remainelevated and intact because of the significantways in which spectators are scripted to fail.

All of this suggests that computer facilitationand specific net art works require a rethinking ofart aesthetics and the production of setting-specific theories of spectatorship. A detailedstudy is necessary in order to describe the waysthat spectators look as well as how artists can stillbe seen through such failures as misdirection,misquotation, and crashes. This can be elabo-rated upon by considering the relationshipbetween aesthetics and net art, the different defi-nitions of the term Ònet artÓ and its Òhistory,Óthe critical and popular uses of the conception offailure, and the ways that failure is employed inspecific net art works. An aesthetic of failure canencourage a critical look at technology or becomeno more than a style. This article addresses ongo-ing theoretical and political ÒproblemsÓ with theposition of the spectator and artist and offers atheory of net aesthetics.

aesthetics and net art

A better understanding of net art aesthetics canbe reached by considering some of the criticaland political questions about the cultural role ofaesthetics. The Oxford English Dictionarydefines aesthetics as Òthe philosophy or theory oftaste, or of the perception of the beautiful innature and art.Ó2 Aesthetics has been understoodas a Òcoherent system of criteria, which can bepurely visual, moral or social, or any combinationof these, used for evaluating works of art.Ó3

However, some more recent arguments insist thatthe Òsocial,Ó in the form of cultural values andbeliefs, always informs aesthetics.

Feminist aesthetics has encouraged spectatorsto acknowledge the cultural aspects of aesthetics.This political project has clearly influenced some

contemporary art practices, including net art.ÒThe emergence of feminist aesthetics in the1980sÓ has Òresulted in a broader and deeperunderstanding of the many social and culturalvariables that contribute to prevailing notions oftaste, aesthetic value and artistic genius.Ó4

Feminist aesthetics Òis not a way of evaluating artor our experience of it, but rather examines andquestions aesthetic theory.Ó5 Hal FosterÕs Òanti-aestheticÓ establishes a similar practice. His anti-aesthetic is not meant to suggest a Ònegation ofart or of representation as such.Ó6 Instead, he isresisting ongoing beliefs, which are often associ-ated with Immanuel Kant, that aesthetic judg-ment, or deliberations about what is beautifuland pleasurable, are universal.7

This article is politically aligned with feministaesthetics and a version of FosterÕs anti-aesthet-ics. It considers the cultural aspects of aestheticsas well as such ÒtasteÓ-oriented issues as colorand composition. Aesthetic engagement is relatedto spectatorship because objects are understoodthrough particular embodied positions, culturalvalues, beliefs, and points of view. All of theseaspects of aesthetics are an important part ofcontemporary criticism. People and other compo-nents of the environment are understood throughaesthetic criteria. For instance, power is deliveredto certain individuals through seemingly univer-sal codes of beauty, such as body shape and skincolor.

Contemporary artists may seem to haveresisted aesthetics by downplaying bodily repre-sentations as well as beautifully and skillfullyproduced works in favor of a more theoreticalproject, or an anti-aesthetic. However, theseartists still employ a set of aesthetic conventions,including the copied (Sarah Charlesworth,Sherrie Levine, and Richard Prince), and low(Mike Kelly, Karen Kilimnik, and PaulMcCarthy). The net artists discussed here alsoemploy an anti-aesthetic because they critiqueart aesthetics and produce sites that are inter-twined with varied forms of web culture.However, such potentially critical strategies ascopying aspects of the web and quoting popularculture can become solely an aesthetic stylewhen they are consistently repeated withoutpolitical intent.

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net art

Net art is sometimes described as Ònet.artÓ oreven Òart on the net.Ó It usually includes e-mailprojects, text-based performances, and otherInternet-based forms. Website projects are prob-ably the most common type of net art.8 It hasbeen widely discussed on listservs and other e-mail-based communication forums, including7Ð11, Rhizome, The Thing, Museum-L, nettime,and the World Wide Web ArtistÕs Consortium.9

The term Ònet artÓ suggests that there is a consis-tent set of aesthetic guidelines for producing andevaluating these cultural works. The variedproducers and critics that engage with net arthave also tried to establish a vocabulary and setof expectations for this form through discussionsand production practices. Some of the reoccur-ring attributes of net art, which have beenmentioned in these discussions, are collaboration,interactivity, formalism, and reflexivity.

The works of Jodi, Luining, Samyn, and manyother net artists share a loose set of visually andpolitically aesthetic properties. However, thereare also online and net art practices with differ-ent aesthetic criteria. Describing a completelyunified net aesthetic is stymied because many ofthe artists resist fully delineated categories andstable terms. In fact, this Òslipperyness,Ó inwhich artistic identity is challenged, the relation-ship between a title and the content of a workshifts, and display strategies are used to makeÒnewÓ works, may be an aspect of this aesthetic.

Net art has been associated with a number ofessential aspects of the web. According to BrettStalbaum, net artÕs formalism Òinvolves theexploration of the HTTP protocol, HTML, andbrowser specific features as a unique medium ina Greenbergian sense.Ó10 Stalbaum and othercritics of net art have been referencing moretraditional understandings of formalism:

Formalism usually refers to an over-emphasisin ethics or aesthetics on form over content. ÉFormalism has been used to describe a twen-tieth-century view in aesthetics, art history,and literary criticism that values artistic formover artistic content and that is thereforeopposed both to representationalism and real-ism in the arts.11

However, net art can do more than employ thestructural elements of the medium. Many net artworks visualize the webÕs language, a code thatoften remains hidden, and re-represent theelements of the web in countless reflexive config-urations. These net artists pastiche and critiquetheir medium in ways that are significantly differ-ent from formalist art.

Net art is often described as an alternative totraditional art concepts and the limiting aesthet-ics of the gallery system. To some extent, it mustmove the viewer away from the confines of thephysical gallery and the object-oriented focus oftraditional art forms because of its means ofdelivery. Steve Dietz may argue that Òrather thantrying to assimilate net art into our existingunderstanding of art historyÓ it could Òprob-lematize many of the very assumptions we take tobe normal, if not natural.Ó12 However, there area variety of artistic movements that have signifi-cantly challenged art conventions and then beenincorporated into the canon.

It is quite ironic that art remains a part of thediscourse and is embedded in the movementÕsname, because many net producers and criticshave been ambivalent about calling these worksÒart.Ó This is a familiar strategy. Jay DavidBolter and Richard Grusin argue that Òpopularculture often wants to deny traditional high art aclaim to superior status, but still to appropriateits cachet and vocabulary, as it does, for example,with the terms digital art or computer art.Ó13

Through their strategy of quotation and denial,net artists manage to elide their relationship tosuch high art ÒproblemsÓ as class privilege, hier-archical evaluation, claims of mastery, and theexclusion of other voices while still marking theimportance and cultural worth of their work.However, the occasional resistance to the art labelproduces new versions of incomprehensibility,because these works are difficult to understandand culturally locate, as well as high-art exclusiv-ity, because net art sites like hell.com were onceonly available by invitation. Spectators who arefamiliar with contemporary art and its debateshave an advantage in engaging with these net-based works.

It is certainly the case, particularly with newkinds of works and aesthetic strategies, that art is

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more easily recognized when such contextualdevices as museums and gallery-like structuresdemarcate it. In 1996, Alexei Shulgin and theMoscow WWWArt Centre commented on thedifferent ways that art and aesthetics could func-tion online and founded an award for Internetweb pages that provided an Òart feelingÓ ratherthan having intentionally been produced asworks of art.14 Their accompanying manifestostates that the Òinternet is an open space wherethe difference between ÔartÕ and Ônot artÕ hasbecome blurred as never before in XX century.ThatÕs why there are so few ÔartistsÕ in thisspace.Ó15 They suggest that an artistÕs identity isreliant on institutional affiliations. ÒThere ispossibility of misinterpretation and loss of Ôartis-ticÕ identity here. This might be welcome. Thereare no familiar art institutions and infrastruc-tures.Ó However, familiar institutions and infra-structures have been appearing on the web inescalating numbers.

Net artists have had the opportunity to presenttheir works in different ways online and to haveseemingly different relationships to art struc-tures. Early online organizations like ŠdaÕweb,which released its first project in 1995, offeredthe spectator access to works by Heath Bunting,Jodi, Jenny Holzer, Micha‘l Samyn, Julia Scher,Alexei Shulgin, and Lawrence Weiner but theterm ÒartÓ was never mentioned.16 Of course, forsome spectators, a number of these names wouldhave immediately marked this as an art site. Inany case, the Walker Art Center incorporatedthese net works into its virtual museum presenceafter ŠdaÕweb lost its funding. Jodi also appearson the Rhizome site where the term ÒartÓ hasbeen frequently employed. Rhizome is anonprofit organization that Òpresents new mediaart to the public, fosters communication and crit-ical dialogue about new media art,Ó and offers aweb-based Òartbase.Ó This artbase providesaccess to a featured number of Òart objectsÓ andan alphabetically organized database of docu-mented works.17 Organizations like Rhizome mayactually counteract the indeterminacy of onlineidentification by calling these varied representa-tions Òart objectsÓ and by providing spectatorswith label-like details.

These works may be called ÒartÓ but there are

still problems in conceptualizing net artÕs rela-tionship to traditional forms because of the unfa-miliar aspects of the medium and the ways thatspace and display, two key ways that viewersunderstand their encounter with art, have beenskewed online. The structure of the web and thedifficulty in determining the borders or limits ofa website make it difficult to identify individualnet art works or to describe where these worksend. The ÒedgeÓ between works of art and thesurroundings are almost impossible to conceptu-alize online because there is little physicality. Wecould include the browser frame, e-mail interface,or other supporting structures as well assurrounding sites, computer screen, and thecomputer ÒboxÓ itself as part of net art.

There has been a continuing drive to collectand show net art within the museum structureeven though its attributes make it difficult tophysically display and some net art relies on itsposition ÒoutsideÓ the art market for its impact.The possibility that net art will present newformal and political aesthetic strategies hasbecome increasingly unlikely with the growinginfluences of such traditional structures as thegallery and museum. The larger functions of netart and its shifting identity and address arecurtailed by its containment within more familiarart structures. Luther Blissett maintains that netart is ÒEveryone with his own site, everyone withhis own domain, everyone with his own gallery,they are throwing themselves into the trammelsof traditional art.Ó18 However, even the tradi-tional museum and other structures for display-ing and selling art face new challenges onlinebecause they cannot fully transform digital repro-ductions into original and aura-imbued works ofart.

The museum and other websites, which seekto maintain the aura of objects, still struggle withthe issues introduced in such articles asBenjaminÕs ÒThe Work of Art in the Age ofMechanical Reproduction.Ó Benjamin suggeststhat the authority of the object dissipates when itcan be mechanically reproduced:

One might generalize by saying: the techniqueof reproduction detaches the reproducedobject from the domain of tradition. Bymaking many reproductions it substitutes a

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plurality of copies for a unique existence. Andin permitting the reproduction to meet thebeholder or listener in his own particular situ-ation, it reactivates the object reproduced.These two processes lead to a tremendous shat-tering of tradition.19

The shattering of tradition that Benjamindescribes is only intensified in the online envi-ronment where the material basis of the museumand its possession of objects are continually chal-lenged.

Directors and curators of a number of leadingmuseums, including David Ross who is the direc-tor of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,believe that museums should play a significantpart in the development of net art. Ross is inter-ested in linking net art to more canonical formsof art production, in order Òto develop standardsand a critical evaluation framework for looking atnet art based on our idea of what art should actlike or do.Ó20 Yet his goals appear to be differentfrom some net artists who want to challenge theart system through their online production prac-tices. SFMOMA has certainly played a part inauthorizing this form by establishing a Webbyprize for ÒExcellence in Online Art.Ó21 TheirWebby symposium panel on ÒThe Artwork in theAge of Online CommunicationÓ acknowledgesÒThe Work of Art in the Age of MechanicalReproductionÓ and the problematic of copyingonline. It also appears to replace these challengesto the traditional system and materiality with avisceral presence or a new aura in the form ofhuman interaction.22 Of course, online commu-nication is often delivered textually. It is copiedwhen portions of e-mails are reposted and indi-vidual users save their chat session logs.

There have been a variety of constituenciesinterested in publicizing and commodifying netart. Art.Teleportacia, which describes itself asÒThe First Real Net.Art Gallery,Ó has worked todefine the worth and originality of this form.Art.TeleportaciaÕs insistent use of the termsÒfirstÓ and ÒrealÓ and ArtcartÕs claim to be Òthefirst net.art_shopÓ indicate that there are prob-lems with maintaining aura online.23 DouglasCrimp could have been thinking about theseonline institutions when he suggested that Òif thewithering away of the aura is an inevitable fact of

our time, then equally inevitable are all thoseprojects to recuperate it, to pretend that the orig-inal and the unique are still possible and desir-able.Ó24 Art.Teleportacia may be concerned withestablishing ways that individuals and institu-tions can own some kind of original net art andArtcart may offer the Òoriginal printÓ along withscreen-based works but they also confront adilemma because there is reason to believe thatthe Òone thing mechanical reproduction cannot,by definition, reproduce is authenticity.Ó25

Attempts to authenticate and market net arthave instead highlighted such ÒproblemsÓ as thelack of clearly official agencies online, the easydownloading and transferring of simple html-oriented web-based projects to other sites, andthe inability to fully archive works outside theInternet. Online works can be transferred tomore stable and clearly defined formats like CD-ROMs but this transfer irrevocably alters thework and web-based links are usually lost.26 Thisdestroys the webbed quality of these works andtheir relationship to the larger structures thatmany of these works are commenting on andquoting. To some extent, net art is viable onlywithin the particular ÒenvironmentÓ in which ithas been situated. In other words, net artrequires some supporting online structure tofacilitate its full functioning. The multiple andreproducible aspects of net art, which can beunderstood as its distinct lack of uniqueness andoriginality, have also been part of its character.In this sense, the concept of uniqueness hasnÕtfully dissipated.

However, reproducibility is still a problem forthe various constituencies that want to make netart into a commodity. Art.Teleportacia arguesthat original net art works can be identified bythe Òlocation barÓ or url address.27 ÒOne cancopy HTML code and images of simple netproject, but URL canÕt be doubled.Ó28 Of course,there are certain instances where the url can befaked. Art.TeleportaciaÕs argument suggests thatthe originality of net art is based on the unique-ness of its supporting address, which wouldpresumably allow for the authentication of net artwithin virtual galleries or other institutionalstructures, rather than any unique attributes ofthe work.

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Location-based originality and the existence ofauthorizing urls would allow online galleries aheightened control over net art works. Notsurprisingly, a variety of artists have argued thatthis connection between net art and the address,which performs as a kind of physical location, isill conceived. Micha‘l Samyn does not Òthinklocation is of much importance. The network hasbecome a place on its ownÓ29 It might be moreaccurate to say that the network has insistentlyremained a non-space where exact and fixed loca-tions are inconceivable. The identity of specificsupporting servers has been supplanted by otherinternal net relationships that are establishedthrough hypertextual links, search engine list-ings, listserv conversations, and user browsing.

Art.Teleportacia proposed that uniqueaddresses substantiated original works of net artafter their Miniatures of the Heroic Period webÒshow,Ó which included a number of for sale webpieces, was manipulated and reposted to anothersite by 0100101110101101.org .30 This collabora-tive has resisted the continued institutionaliza-tion and commercialization of net art. Theircomments evoke the political aspects ofBenjaminÕs work on mechanical reproductionand underscore why an aesthetic, which stressesthe problems with original works of art, might beemployed online:

Theoretically every work of art can be repro-duced, but with Net art the reproduction isabsolutely identical to the original one. Itfollows that it becomes a Ònon-senseÓ to perpe-trate such concepts that seemingly functionedin the real world. The notion of author ingeneral, [and] therefore concepts like authen-ticity and plus-value, are strictly connected tothe economic, institutional, and juridicalaspects of traditional art. É Net art requestsnew production, preservation, and fruitioncriteria that often conflict with the old rules ofthe art system, like the necessity of critics andmuseums.31

Net artists like 0100101110101101.org sabotageother sites or make them ÒfailÓ in order toencourage a more critical look at what technologydelivers.32 They are invested in reproducibilitybecause making an exact copy of something onthe web negates the originality of net art works.

However, the claims for the critical work thatthese copies can perform, as well as the celebra-tion of other reproduction media, can also ironi-cally establish a kind of unique status for them.It is possible that reproductions can hold theirown kind of aura for academics, artists, intellec-tuals, and Marxists through such devices. Forinstance, the dismissal of authenticity, rejectionof traditional forms of aura-imbued art, andacknowledgment of indistinguishable copies mayincrease net artÕs worth in art markets wherepostmodern appropriation has been institutional-ized. It is certainly ironic that value and a differ-ent kind of aura are produced through criticalstrategies that are seemingly designed to resistsuch effects.

These tactics have promoted the copy, whichaccording to Benjamin could politically reconfig-ure art and culture by allowing the masses accessinto a system of exchange and power that hadpreviously excluded them. However, these strate-gies have not necessarily made net art compre-hensible to all viewers. For instance, in hypertextand web-based works, users are often unsurewhat will occur when they ÒfollowÓ particularlinks or paths. This may suggest that previousconceptions of user navigation are inadequate.Surfing has provided one understanding of theInternet. It has been Òused by analogy todescribe the ease with which an expert user canuse the waves of information flowing around theInternet to get where he wants.Ó33 However,hypertextual documents may also produce unin-tended connections and mistaken paths. A moreappropriate term for encountering materialonline might be Òblundering.Ó Such a termsuggests the difficulty in recognizing net art andother online materials and the ways that thesesites are open to various interpretations. In somecases, this may be the intention of the artists andprogrammers.

an aesthetic of failure

The hypertext critic and enthusiast George P.Landow has favored the productive aspects oflinked computer documents. However, he hasalso suggested that computer breakdowns, codingerrors, and the disorientation of viewers are

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important, and sometimes positive, aspects of themedium.34 He traces this interest in disorienta-tion to modernist and postmodernist tendenciesin the arts and literature. ÒJoyceÕs Ulysses, T.S.EliotÕs Waste Land, and William FaulknerÕs TheSound and the Fury Ð to cite three classics ofliterary modernism Ð all make disorientation acentral aesthetic experience.Ó35 Such aestheticscan be designed in order to encourage the viewerto perceive differently.

Feminist aesthetics and anti-aesthetics haveinvited such alternative perceptions by attendingto the social structures through which we seeobjects. In a similar way, the intermingled formaland political aesthetic of net art encourages thespectator to address the ways that technology isunderstood. Jonathan Crary suggests that theacknowledgment of failure and the disjunctionbetween streamlined technology and rot is oneway to induce an awareness of aesthetics and theunderlying presumptions that accompany tech-nology. He argues that society will increasinglyengage with such conflicting terrains as PaulVirilioÕs high-technology world of ÒabsolutespeedÓ and Òthe decaying, digressive, terrain ofthe automobile-based city.Ó36 For him, Òanysense of breakdown, of faulty circuits, ofsystemic malfunctionÓ can begin to disrupt theproduction of a Òfully delusional world.Ó CraryÕscall to highlight and even produce failure, whichhe identifies with such writers as Philip Dick andDavid Cronenberg, is also achieved by theactions of some net artists.37

The incompatible contemporary settings thatCrary highlights also appear in many literary andcritical writings about technology. WilliamGibson, Bruce Sterling, Neal Stephenson andother cyberpunk authors depict male characterswho must correlate the almost omnipotent powerthat they can gain by Òjacking inÓ to the machinewith the limits of their physical environmentsand corporeal bodies.38 The artist Lee Bul alsotries to understand the Òcontradiction betweenthe growing faith in the creed of new technologyand the chastening reality of things constantlybreaking down.Ó39 According to Bul, Korea is aÒplace of casual catastrophes: bridges and depart-ment stores collapse, subterranean gas mainsexplode, and the jumbo jets of Korean Air, the

national carrier, routinely go down.Ó Of course,an examination of international events indicatesthat the reliance on certain kinds of technologiesand the failures of both human and machinereadings are ÒglobalÓ issues. BulÕs list of break-downs has no national borders.40

Popular entertainment has also provided afascinated and terrified audience with innumer-able representations of technological failures.These include airplane disaster films like Alive(Frank Marshall 1993), Airport (George Seaton1970), Airport 1975 (Jack Smight 1975), AirportÕ77 (Jerry Jameson 1977), and The Concorde:Airport Õ79 (David Lowell Rich 1979); othertransportation failures such as The PoseidonAdventure (Ronald Neame 1972) and RunawayTrain (Andrei Konchalovsky 1985); architecturalhorrors such as the Towering Inferno (IrwinAllen and John Guillermin 1974); and computer-oriented failures such as 2001: A Space Odyssey(Stanley Kubrick 1968), The Net (Irwin Winkler1995), and War Games (John Badham 1983). Inmany of these films, instances of sabotage orother improper human interventions reveal poorconstruction practices and other technologicalinsufficiencies. These films may confirm thespectatorÕs concerns about technology or encour-age the viewer to see the technological infra-structure in new and uneasy ways.

The familiarity, if not outright fascination,that contemporary culture has with such narra-tives of technological failings suggests whyÒrecent media art is preoccupiedÓ with Òfallibil-ity, limits,Ó and rupture.41 The net artists whoare engaged with failure use a series of strategiesthat are similar to those employed in disasterfilms. Sometimes they shock the viewer withbreakdowns, technological confusion, and illegi-bility in order to warn the viewer against believ-ing that technology is highly functional. TerryWinograd and Fernando Flores argue that break-downs Òserve an extremely important cognitivefunction, revealing to us the nature of our prac-tices and equipment, making them Ôpresent-to-handÕ to us, perhaps for the first time. In thissense they function in a positive rather than anegative way.Ó42 Winograd and FloresÕs argu-ment underscores the important work that netartists can perform by rendering Òaccidents.Ó

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These highlighted and simulated failures encour-age the viewer to more carefully attend to thefunctional and aesthetic properties of theInternet. However, another group of spectatorscan never engage with this political aestheticbecause its codes remain incomprehensible orinvisible.

jodi

The artists Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans,who collaborate on Jodi, produce an aesthetic offailure by intentionally misusing the properties ofhtml. They quote such common website blundersas improperly written html, broken forms, andmalfunctioning java. When it first appeared onthe web, this work produced a number of produc-tive conversations on listservs about the parame-ters of net art. The work was particularlychallenging because spectators had to visuallyconfront a version of web programming:

We use certain elements, like a virus, whethera virus is present, or whether things go wrongwith somebodyÕs ÒcacheÓ, somebodyÕspersonal computer. A lot of these elements arecollages of things that are found on the net.The natural environment of us, of Jodi, is thenet and you can find a certain condensed formof the net in Jodi.43

Heemskerk and Paesmans disassociate Jodi froman art context by describing the Internet as itsÒenvironment.Ó

Jodi has disrupted the familiar aspects of webpages by literally overwriting them with all sortsof incomprehensible material. Part of this mater-ial is the support code for all web pages that hasnow been revealed to the spectator. On the web,this code is masked and yet also availablethrough the use of the browserÕs ÒPage SourceÓmenu option, which allows the spectator to seethe html for any given page, or through errormessages and other malfunctions, which makethe programming of any individual site visible.JodiÕs work suggests that the usual structure ofthe web has somehow been turned around. Thiscan produce a kind of panic or trauma in thespectator who mistranslates these texts andbelieves that the computer has crashed. Whenfollowing links from the Jodi site, the spectator

is likely to misidentify coding errors and otherglitches as part of JodiÕs project. Through thisprocess, the spectator is encouraged to read allweb material in a different way after engagingwith the Jodi site.

JodiÕs work rejects a literal reading of htmland print media in favor of a more visual presen-tation of text. Blocks and shaped units of wordsas well as other aspects of the web are offered upfor the spectatorÕs aesthetic contemplation. Therevealed snippets of html on various Jodi sitessuggest that the documents are transparent.However, spectators who are not familiar withhtml or who cannot imagine why a web pagewould intentionally be written ÒwrongÓ will failin their contemplation because the underlyingcontent layers are not accessible to all viewers:

Jodi.orgÕs pulsing green and black blankness isnot so blank as it seems, that is; one just needsto know where to look. In the browserÕs toolbar menu, there is a command to viewÒDocument Source.Ó The source code comesup as a text document, and what is revealed isthat there is a whole layer of pictorial, ASCIItext art ÒbelowÓ the surface of jodi.org.44

JodiÕs work is as much about blindness as it isabout visibility. It operates by shifting the spec-tator between confusion and comprehension:

We get a lot of email. In the first couple ofweeks after we put up the site we got a lot ofcomplaints. People were seriously thinkingthat we made mistakes. So they wanted toteach us. They sent us emails saying: You haveto put this tag in front of this code. Or: I amsorry to tell you that you forgot this or thatcommand on your page.45

Jodi suggests that some spectators are unwillingto give up certain forms of programming logicand control. Ironically, it is JodiÕs work thatencourages these spectators to perform suchÒspectatorial limitations.Ó These spectators maybe alienated or they may eventually be inculcatedinto the codes of net art and read web materialsdifferently. In either case, satisfaction in navigat-ing JodiÕs site is unfortunately based on theknowledge that such spectators fail to compre-hend. Jodi and some other net art works, perhapsunintentionally, operate by creating an ÒinsideÓ

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and ÒoutsideÓ online in the same way as suchcategories as ÒnewbieÓ and ÒguestÓ consolidatepower in virtual communities by labeling userswho are not a part of the system.

Readings of JodiÕs site as confusing or error-riddled code are certainly suggested by the frontpage of %20Wrong, which greets the viewer witha 404 message. It evokes the common web errormessage Ò404 Error Ð File Not FoundÓ thatoccurs when a user tries to access a file that is notavailable. The 404 message usually marks the endof a ÒpathÓ or the termination of the userÕsprogression through a series of pages and links.However, in JodiÕs work the 404 message is onthe first page of their %20Wrong site and thusmarks the beginning. The spectator who detectsthe link can access the site despite the errormessage but has been warned that proper files,clearly marked links, and exact meaning are notavailable Òwithin.Ó

There are a number of sites that explore thehistory, aesthetic, and collect unusual versions of404 messages.46 The codes of the web havebecome so established that most of these sitesrefer to certain 404 messages as Òclassic.Ó Thissuggests that 404s are an integral part of the web.Stuart Moulthrop argues that 404 error messagesÒmay be the most profound thing one can sayabout the World Wide Web Ð the best represen-tative for all its shifting multiplicity.Ó47 These404 messages act as a stand-in for the largerstructure of the web where addresses and stylesare temporary. Sarah PapeshÕs 404 messageadvises, ÒOops! You didnÕt find the file you werelooking for, but LOOK, hereÕs all of those socksyou lost in the clothes dryer!Ó48 She implies that404s provide a substitute for the expected mate-rial at the same time that they remind us aboutwhat has been lost.

JodiÕs, PapeshÕs, and other designersÕ errormessages evoke loss or a missing gap in the web.They highlight the ways that the system func-tions and malfunctions. Speaking about hyper-text, Terry Harpold argues that the navigation oflinks and paths Òpresumes displacement, separa-tion and loss, departures and farewells.Ó49 Themissing gaps that Jodi foregrounds and thepotentially melancholic sense of absence thatthey evoke are a crucial part of the Internet.

Absence, according to Derrida and other writers,is also an aspect of writing.50 There is theÒabsence of the sender, the addressor from themarks that he abandons, which are cut off fromhim and continue to produce effects beyond hispresence and beyond the actuality of his mean-ing, that is, beyond his life.Ó51 Online textscontain and intensify these absences by making itmore difficult to locate authorship or even artic-ulate the physical location of the text.52

The sense that something is missing does notnecessarily have to produce a completely negativeexperience. The 404 error messages and otherkinds of disappearances that happen online mayoffer an erotic of the medium. Roland Barthessuggests that the Òintermittence of skin flashingbetween two articles of clothing (trousers andsweater) between two edges (the open-neckedshirt, the glove, and the sleeve); it is this flashitself which seduces, or rather: the staging of anappearance-as-disappearance.Ó 53 Versions of thisonline erotic flickering, such as the downloadingof web pages, the delivery of sequential webcamimages, the flashing of banners, the occasionalstaccato of Flash images, and the qualities of thescreen, are a significant part of online spectator-ship and may keep users engaged because theyare always waiting for more.

There are also other kinds of intermittenceonline. N. Katherine Hayles argues that informa-tion technologies create Òflickering signifiers,characterized by their tendency toward unex-pected metamorphoses, attenuations, and disper-sions. É When a text presents itself as aconstantly refreshed image rather than a durableinscription, transformations can occur that wouldbe unthinkable if matter or energy, rather thaninformation patterns formed the primary basisfor the systemic exchanges.Ó54 However, thereare also ways that these absent and shiftingelements stabilize and even become a form ofonline materiality. The highlighted errormessages by Jodi and 404 fan sites change disap-pearances into appearances. They reconfigure thenon-site of incorrectly typed addresses and miss-ing material into desired destinations.55 Withthis restructuring of the 404, spectators see some-thing that is meant to inform them that there isnothing there. This produces a significant rift

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between the intended conventions of the web andthe ways that this material is read by some spec-tators.

There are alternative renditions of manyJodi projects. A version of the web-based%20Wrong piece on the Rhizome site presentsa completely different opening page.56 Inthis piece, the processes of failure and break-down are evoked by the flickering backgroundthat abruptly shifts from black to gray, theÒTransfer interrupted!Ó message, the visibilityrather than functionality of certain sectionsof html code, the ÒaccessDeniedPageÓ warning,the malfunctioning forms, and theÒ%Diconnecting%Host%20wrong.htmÓ noticeat the bottom of the page. Failure, or the specta-torÕs inability to identify JodiÕs work, also occursbecause its position as art was repressed. AsHeemskerk and Paesmans argue, there is ÒnoÔartÕ-label on it.Ó However, JodiÕs work also doesnot follow the conventions of web design, whichÒis not about art, itÕs about making money. Tomake money, you donÕt want to design a site thatmight confuse someone.Ó57

The work of net artists like Jodi is linked torecent feminist theory through its tactics ofdisorientation, ideological failure, and a ruptur-ing of the Òlaw.Ó Judith Butler argues that repe-tition and a failure to master certain identitycategories may offer the ÒotherÓ a unique form ofagency:

My recommendation is not to solve this crisisof identity politics, but to proliferate andintensify this crisis. This failure to master thefoundational identity categories of feminism orgay politics is a political necessity, a failure tobe safeguarded for political reasons. The taskis not to resolve or restrain the tension, thecrisis, the phantasmatic excess induced by theterm, but to affirm identity categories as a siteof inevitable rifting, in which the phantasmaticfails to preempt the linguistic prerogative ofthe real.58

Butler calls for the rifting of categories as a wayof reconceptualizing identity politics.59 Shecontinually repeats or rehearses aspects of certainarguments until they fail. Net artists also useexacting repetition of technologies, sites, andstyles and the failure to master craft as a way

of reworking traditional ideas about artisticidentity.

ButlerÕs proposal and the work of net artistslike Jodi suggest a postmodern celebration offragmented identities. Butler wants to Òresistboth the claim that feminism is being ÔruinedÕ byits fragmentations É and the claim that frag-mentation ought to be overcome through thepostulation of a phantasmatically unifiedideal.Ó60 These practices are antithetical to Òexis-tential literature and psychoanalytic theorizingÓthat presumes that the divided self is Òin need ofunification and reintegration.Ó61 Jodi employsfailure for its political and disrupting effectsrather than as a way of achieving a more readableand coherent work. There is rarely a move toachieve a reintegration of sites or identities.

However, Jodi and other net artists havedisrupted their own politics by constantlyemploying and repeating ruptures, breakdowns,and confusion so that they are instituted as amore formal aesthetic. So many net artists nowwork in this way that it has become a conven-tional web strategy:

Immitators of the Jodi style abound.From HotwiredÕs recent RGB feature(www.hotwired.com/rgb/opp/++++++++++++++++++/) to the design group e13(www.e13.com), from San FranciscoÕs super-bad.com to BrooklynÕs experimental perfor-mance space Fakeshop (www.fakeshop.com),net art these days is taking a giant step awayfrom print-oriented graphic design and towardan aesthetic of the machine, of code, of thecrash.62

In discussions about net art, on lists likeRhizome and nettime, Jodi is often used tocontextualize other net art works. There has alsobeen a tendency to collapse JodiÕs name withother rupture-oriented net art. Eryk SalvaggioÕsAbsolut Net.Art project, which included a Jodisimulation, has often been mistaken for JodiÕswork. His Òfavorite comment in response to thework was: ÔI donÕt care who made it, its stillJODI.ÕÓ63 SalvaggioÕs work and such commentsunderscore the problems with establishingauthorship and specific categories online but theyalso suggest that artistic originality has beentransmuted into a style rather than overturned.

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JodiÕs processes of confusion, which resist suchthings as legibility, linear reading, conventionalculture, ÒhighÓ art, and authorial mastery, arerelated to avant-garde art practices like Dada andSurrealism. However, like these other practices,JodiÕs constant association with net art has insti-tutionalized and legitimized the work.64 TheRhizome site describes %20Wrong as ÒA nicetidbit from the kids who invented net.art.Ó65 Bybeing anointed as Òinventors,Ó Jodi is incorpo-rated back into a series of art discourses, net artis provided with a lineage, and its worth is vali-dated. JodiÕs work becomes Òa literal origin, abeginning from ground zero, a birthÓ and origi-nality and aura are recreated online even thoughthe Internet setting is still conceived of by someas a site in which mechanical and digital repro-duction have destabilized the very possibility oforiginality.66 Spectators have become familiarwith and accepted the ÒrightnessÓ of an aestheticthat was once wrong and relied on the strange.The aesthetic of failure has faltered because criti-cal distance can no longer be maintained with theincorporation of this material into the art canon.

peter luining

Peter Luining produces an equally troubledaesthetic of failure by juxtaposing and misquot-ing computer games and post-painterly abstrac-tion in D-TOY 2.502.338.67 This work presentsthe spectator with a series of colored squares thatmove inside a larger square grid. The movementof the square units is accompanied by a pulsatingnoise that seems to be produced by their progres-sion. The color, composition, and the accompa-nying sound change when the computer spectatorÒcatchesÓ and ÒclicksÓ on the moving elements.

Luining establishes and denies the workÕsformalism. For instance, the grid-like arrange-ment and hard-edged quality of the colored unitsevoke post-painterly abstraction, but this formal-ist aspect is disturbed because the underlyingÒmaterialÓ is code rather than paint. A whitebackground emphasizes the flatness of the image.Yet this rendering of flatness and computerimmateriality is contradicted by the sound effectsthat accompany the shapeÕs progression throughthe composition. In one part of the sequence,

each shift of the units within the maze-like struc-ture produces a reverberating sound as if themoving square is hitting against hollow walls. Inanother sequence, a static-like sound suggests thatthe moving square ÒobjectÓ is scraping along anuneven channel that remains invisible to the eye.

It may be difficult for the spectator to estab-lish a relationship to these works or to read themÒproperlyÓ because of these conflicting messages.In many of his works, Luining contradicts theviewerÕs visual and auditory perceptions.Interestingly, Luining dismantles the spectatorÕsability to determine things by actually allowing ahigh level of engagement or Òinteractivity.Ó Thiscontradicts various theories, from BarthesÕs workon the writerly text to LandowÕs arguments forhypertext, which imagine that reader agencyoccurs with the ability to control the materials.Instead, the work renders a bodily disorientationin which signals can no longer be taken as reli-able.

Despite this problem, the work continues toprovide the spectator with varied effects. Itsfrenetic sound and speed seem to duplicate theintense fascination and immersion of computergames. Luining underscores this connection bycalling many of his pieces Òtoys.Ó Their design,which lets spectators manipulate simple abstractrepresentations as if they were objects, may seemto suggest games like Pong. However, in Pongthe user identifies the white ÒblipsÓ as paddlesand ball, and LuiningÕs work does not make anysuch stable references.

The limited instructions provided on the D-TOY 2.502.338 site may be called a Òmanual,Ówhich suggests that this is a game with rules andparameters, but there is no detailed explanationof the game play:

manual: click on the moving blocksfor maximum effect: put monitor brightness50% & contrast 50%soundvolume 20%

The aesthetic of LuiningÕs instructions, with itsfocus on terse commands and numerical adjust-ments, removes his works from the realm of art.Yet, his ÒtoysÓ fail to deliver a clear set of rulesor a standard form of game play. There is noapparent success achieved through interaction,

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clear directions about the ways to navigate, orobvious ending. Instead, each of these quotationsacts as a false clue or misdirection. The shiftingfunctions of the work, in which it can be readalternately as a form of art or computer game,suggest the computer technique of morphing, orthe Òtransformation of one image into another bycomputer.Ó68 The spectatorÕs decision to engagewith one of the conflicting elements effects thereading of the work.

The workÕs function is purposefully kept in anunfixed state by the hosting site. Both LuiningÕsD-TOY 2.502.338 and SamynÕs The Fire from theSea are part of the Lifesaver project that is spon-sored by the Dutch television station VPRO:

Lifesavers are small interactive programsexclusively made for the Internet, and aimto occupy the user for approximately fiveminutes. They are situated somewhere betweenpopular and avant-garde culture, and arecreated by young producers who operate in thehazy area between media, art, and subcul-tures.69

These pieces, like JodiÕs works, are not fullyidentified. However, they do have some physicalexistence because they are represented by a Òhalf-page graphic design in the VPRO televisionguideÓ that is designed by the producer andappears when the Lifesaver is released.

LuiningÕs design is worth noting for the waythat it depicts the spectator.70 In the ad, anabstracted female figure contemplates a largestraight-edged abstract work so that only herback is revealed. This depiction of aestheticconsideration and transcendent contemplation,with the spectator waiting for her revelation infront of the work of art, is troubled in a numberof ways. The originality of LuiningÕs image andthe possibility of online authenticity aredisturbed because the image seems to reference afemale figure from Oskar SchlemmerÕs BauhausStairway, c.1932. In SchlemmerÕs work, thefemale figure shifts her body in space as she navi-gates new architectural and educational environ-ments. However, LuiningÕs figure is pushed tothe periphery of the composition rather thancentered in front of the work. She appears to beembedded in an abstract Òart workÓ that is like

LuiningÕs compositions. This suggests thatimmobility is an aspect of Internet spectatorshipand engagement with LuiningÕs toys.

LuiningÕs depicted spectator is intimately closeto the contemplated object. The computer user isalso bound to the computer screen rather thanrepeating the ideal spectatorial and criticaldistance of traditional Hollywood film. Mary AnnDoane has suggested that women film spectatorsare often arranged in intimate connection withtheir own images on the screen.71 If nearness tothe screen is a feminine position then computerusers are feminized. ÒProblemsÓ with the genderposition of computer users are also underscoredby the portrayal of male nerds, geeks, and otherobsessive computer users as abnormal and notÒappropriatelyÓ masculine.72

It seems unlikely that this was LuiningÕs intentbut it may be possible to reprieve the negativeeffect of womenÕs closeness to their bodies andrepresentations based on the ways that this imageand new technologies function.73 Unfortunately,it seems likely that computer spectatorship willbecome a more stable experience as Internet andcomputer technologies become an ever morecentral aspect of culture. Before a newly solidi-fied form of empowered male spectatorship isfacilitated through closeness, there are someunique opportunities to intervene in the waysthat certain versions of gender, race, class, andsexual difference are produced through specta-torship. LuiningÕs work might contribute to thisby showing the spectator how interactivity doesnot necessarily lead to an empowered position.

More traditional ideas about art, like that ofthe individual and unique work, are alsodisturbed by the ways that D-TOY 2.502.338 canbe manipulated. The ÒfinalÓ work is presentedas a discrete abstract composition that is framedagainst a white ground, but the workÕs edge orlimits become increasingly hard to delineate asthe spectator interacts. The work can be changedinto a series of similar pieces through the Òzoomin,Ó Òzoom out,Ó Òplay,Ó and other Flash Playermenu options. The zoom in option produces aseries of micro works, since it is clear that this isan enlargement of a section, which are the samesize as the first view. These are both details andcompletely different works in which each view

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becomes an abstract composition reminiscent ofKenneth NolandÕs or Ellsworth KellyÕs paintings.Yet these views have no autonomy outside thespectatorÕs manipulation.

The possibility of identifying an original orunified structure is destabilized by the ways thateach of these parts becomes a whole that iscentered within the browser window. Thebrowser-based setting is like Andr� MalrauxÕsÒMuseum without Walls,Ó which is producedthrough photographic books and Òhas createdwhat might be called ÔfictitiousÕ arts, by system-atically falsifying the scale of objects; by present-ing oriental seals the same size as the decorativereliefs on pillars, and amulets like statues.Ó74 Inthe Internet setting, there is no constancy to aworkÕs height or depth. The dimensions of thescreen and other settings, rather than the moretypically stable aspects of the work, determinethe ways that viewers see things online.

Online art is largely reliant on such displaytechniques as the framing operations of browserwindows and already established museum vernac-ulars for its context. Of course, these aspects mayalso cause a workÕs coherency to fail. Luiningtries to displace the stability of his site and theparameters of his art by changing the displaytechnique instead of the work:

I donÕt think it is exciting always to present mywork in the same way. By often presenting thework anew, by adding variety, one gets adifferent experience. When you visit my site intwo weeks, you see the work presentedcompletely differently, so to speak. I think itis important to not always present work in thesame way, even if the work is the same.75

If net art is often difficult to detach from itssupporting display structure, in the same waythat site-specific installations are sometimes diffi-cult to distinguish from their surroundings, thenpresenting the work differently allows Luining todestabilize its constancy. He cites but does notdeliver the expected conventions for art andcomputer games. The ability to read these worksas original and authentic is disturbed by thequotation of disparate styles. Luining puts pres-sure on a variety of irreconcilable aesthetic stylesor ÒmovementsÓ so that their codes fail. His

aesthetic may avoid the canonization and institu-tionalization of other online works if the displaymechanism through which spectators encounterthese works continues to evolve. However, thespectatorÕs ability to engage with these worksthrough other sources suggests that this aestheticof disorientation, misquotation, and spectatoriallimitations is also being incorporated into a netart canon.

michaël samyn

Micha‘l SamynÕs The Fire from the Sea is morevisually complex and painterly than JodiÕs orLuiningÕs work.76 Its depiction of running chil-dren, walls of fire, and fluttering butterfliesappears to be aligned with a romantic vision anda traditional kind of art production. However,SamynÕs work also acknowledges its means ofdelivery and critiques the properties of thecomputer. The Fire from the Sea, like JodiÕswork, begins with a warning. ÒThis piece is notuser friendly and deliberately counter-intuitive:roll over to load, click to unload. It can evenbring a fast computer to its knees. That is exactlythe point.Ó77

Such warnings suggest the ways that the spec-tatorÕs physical body is impeded throughout TheFire from the Sea. Moulthrop indicates that spec-tatorial disturbances are a common occurrence inhypertexts:

ÒProfound shockÓ could describe the condi-tions from which these texts emerge as well asthe effect they address, and perhaps aim toreproduce. Hypertext may be a technology oftrauma, reflexively figuring its own assault onthe textual corpus in terms of insults to thephysical body.78

A kind of spectatorial trauma is produced inSamynÕs work since he does not let the spectatormaster the interface. His instructions are unreli-able because the spectator must ÒclickÓ ratherthan Òroll overÓ the word ÒEnjoyÓ in order toengage the piece and its promised programming.Yet some spectators insist on believing that hisinstructions provide the correct way to access thework.79 This can lead to a frustrated reloading ofthe opening screen, which is particularly painfulwhen using a slow computer and connection.

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Samyn and his partner Auriea Harvey emphasizethe unpleasant or even traumatic encounter ofthe spectator with interfaces in theirSixteenpages search engine.80 In this net artwork, the user must manipulate an avatarthrough a maze and ÒworkÓ in order to gatherinformation. When this representation of a fleshybody is improperly steered into a ÒwallÓ it makesstrange sounds of pain or despair. This mayprovide a gripping reinterpretation of the userÕsinteraction with interfaces.

SamynÕs work does critique and even occa-sionally sabotages the expectations of spectatorswith expensive technologies and high-bandwidthaccess but his work can be frustratingly inacces-sible to spectators with outdated technologies andmore limited Internet access. For instance, TheFire from the Sea has a tendency to stall slowcomputers and dial-up connections even thoughit can also slow computers with faster processorsand connections. Thus, his critique and resis-tance to a certain Internet and technology econ-omy is most readily available to those who are apart of that system.

The Fire from the Sea, unlike JodiÕs andLuiningÕs work, employs a fairly traditional formof overlapping translucent layers and a darkground as a way of rendering depth. The browserwindow acts as a frame through which the spec-tator gains access to this spatial world. Points oflight seem to render a night sky that is seenthrough the browser/window. However, the spec-tator is forced to contend with the means of deliv-ery as well as the content. The spectator mustengage with the workÕs illusionistic window ontoanother world, which is a familiar paintingconvention and Òreads on the picture plane incorrespondence with the erect human posture,Óand the computerÕs mouse navigation and menu-based controls, which suggest different bodilyorientations.81 A version of Leo SteinbergÕsÒflatbedÓ subject position is produced by thesedifferent elements. This flatbed position, whichdisorders the traditional vertical relationshipbetween viewer and art object, offers new specta-torial positions such as floating over flat iconsand topographical maps. However, the difficul-ties of the interface and the slow processing speedmean that the flatbed position can also generate

fractured, disabled, or even illegible views.The spectator cannot access the coherent

narrative that SamynÕs animation might imply oreven manipulate the elements according to afamiliar set of computer codes. Of course thisdisplacement has already been foregrounded byhis warning at the beginning of the piece. Rollingover what seems to be a translucent torso at thebeginning of the work allows the spectator tomanipulate a series of visual and sound elements,which includes a tangle of octopus legs. However,this ÒbodilyÓ control quickly changes into arepresentation of a throbbing organ-like mass offlesh that is covered in blood red spots. This isone of the many failures and ÒinsultsÓ to thecorporeal body that this work evokes. The puls-ing image suggests the catastrophic toll of AIDSmore than it does computer viruses or codes. Itis only by ÒtouchingÓ each mark, engaging onsome metaphorical level with the viral body, andchanging its sores from dark burgundy to brightred that the spectator gains some level of controlover the piece.

The bottom register of marks, which functionas Òbuttons,Ó provide a fairly clear set of effectsthat include (from left to right) clouds, a pair ofwomanÕs lips, butterflies, and a wall of flames. Alayered soundtrack, which includes ocean noisesand a womanÕs slow melodic singing, accompa-nies these images. The date stamp on some of theimages, which evokes the low-tech of camerasnapshots, contradicts the complex visual andaural effects. Playing children, fluttering butter-flies, and other captured instamatic momentsmay seem to provide the spectator with a nostal-gic past, but navigating the buttons means thatan animated wall of flame or scorching sun oftenburns out these possibilities. The nuanced quali-ties and the non-narrative composition encouragenavigation without providing the spectator with afinal destination.

Through such effects, Samyn renders bothaesthetically attractive compositions and somekind of critique of the medium. He works to keephimself between fixed and expected positions bydescribing himself as a Òbad designer and an ex-artist.Ó82 Samyn and Harvey have often resistedtheir individual authorial role by identifyingtheir combined projects as entropy8zuper.org.

aesthetic of failure

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SamynÕs work borrows from the computervernacular but it is critically and aestheticallypositioned in a slightly different way than thework of many other net artists. He uses thesedifferences to distinguish his work and to estab-lish a different position for his production. In aninterview with Alex Galloway of Rhizome, Samynnotes that it is strange to Òbe appreciated bysomeone @rhizome. We always have the feelingthat Rhizome is interested in a totally differentkind of Art, you know the kind of art that*looks* conceptual and only uses code as anaesthetic element and is never about anything butitself.Ó83

SamynÕs critique of net art suggests that poli-tics is always linked to an aesthetic. He states thatduring the online reaction to the CommunicationDecency Act Òwhen every website made itshomepage black as a protest against censorship, Imade the homepage of FFF black too with thetext ÔThis page is black as a result of aestheticconsiderations.ÕÓ84 What SamynÕs critique doesnot address is that aesthetic strategies can alsoenable political projects. Samyn and Òthe typicalÔblinking pixelÕ net artists abuse this technologyÓand embrace failure.85 His critical project may beto use these technologies Òto make somethingpoetic and beautiful that is about human thingsrather than machines.Ó86 However, his openingwarning in The Fire from the Sea suggests thathe is also engaged with the aesthetic of code.SamynÕs aesthetic of failure, including his misuseof computer conventions, clearly engages withand resists the aspects of other net art.

conclusion

In the work of Jodi, Luining, Samyn, and a vari-ety of other net artists, clear navigational mark-ers and links are suspended in favor of movingthe spectator towards a cacophony that, at leastfor some spectators, is never fully realized.Turning the ruptures in this work into more elab-orate site-wide, browser, or system failures is aproblem because at least some spectators must beengaged for net art to maintain an audience. Netart works quote and perform failures while alsokeeping a precarious relationship with function-ality. The net art works discussed here contain a

version of Roland BarthesÕs punctum. Theseworks contain Òthat accident which pricks me(but also bruises me, is poignant to me).Ó87

However, the poignancy and pain of interactingwith individual works eventually dissipate as thespectator grows acclimated to the site and discov-ers the highly constructed aspects of the failures.This may even be a necessary aspect for net artto function.

However, Barthes has suggested that no punc-tum can be intentionally produced, persist overtime, or be shared by viewers. In the photographsthat he discusses in Camera Lucida, the shocksfrom individual aspects of the photos eventuallydisappear. Some other point of interest mayreplace these but there is no way to recapture theflashes of blindness and confusion. Changingsites and aspects of the work can keep the spec-tator in a more prolonged period of blundering.However, as the spectator becomes more familiarwith the work, clear and less critically orientednavigation probably replaces an attention andconsideration of particular interface tools andrepresentations. It is ironic that net art mostclearly engages with ÒaccomplishedÓ Internetusers and those who are familiar with art conven-tions. These spectators can find an entrance pointand understand the quotations of the sites, andyet it is just these spectators who will probablyquickly decode all of the failures that these worksperform. It seems likely that the spectators whoengage are most safe from the destabilizingeffects of these works.

All of this suggests a problem with the kindsof failures that occur in this work and the formsof repetition through which they are achieved.Judith Butler indicates that repetition can beused to unravel dominant cultural beliefs.However, the forms of repetition that occur inthese net art works and the ways that they havebecome institutionalized suggest that repetitionmay also reinstall traditional categories and formsof power. This problem with the politics of repe-tition is certainly indicated by the ways thatJodiÕs repetitions have become a stylistic conven-tion rather than encouraging further interroga-tions of programming and technology.

Repetition of particular phrases and ideas(which may admittedly be different from ButlerÕs

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repetition of the law) also negates the politicalmessages in other net art works. For instance,Jennifer LeyÕs Catch the Land Mine! quotes aclick and catch form of online ad campaign tocall attention to the catastrophic loss of life andbody parts that occurs because of the prolifera-tion of land mines.88 However, the initiallydisturbing effect of being blown up after tryingto ÒcatchÓ a mine is not intensified with repeti-tion. The reoccurrence of the same page andironic texts about our poor sense of body imageseem to cause apathy rather than concern afterany lengthy engagement.89

There are certainly situations in which repeti-tion can be a critical strategy; however, the ongo-ing viability of such instances remains unclear.According to Rose, the trends in recent mediaart, such as a focus on ÒinsufficiencyÓ and Òfalli-ble corporeality,Ó is Òan acknowledgment of thelimits of performativity.Ó90 Rose suggests thatButlerÕs performative repetition is not a success-ful strategy for producing politically productiveworks. The relationship between disruptive reit-eration and reinscription needs to be more care-fully articulated. In the meantime, the problemof ongoing repetition should warn politicalgroups and theoreticians against solely organizingtheir work around such effects.

Despite the critical writings about the politicaleffects of failure, this strategy also presents someproblems. The ongoing recognition of net artonline and the interest of many traditional artinstitutions in this form indicate that theaesthetic of failure will become increasinglymore stylistic. The institutionalization of theaesthetic of failure as a common kind of onlinestyle threatens to compromise its ÒwrongnessÓand provide instructions for spectators whopreviously engaged with the strange and unfa-miliar properties of these works. The challengefor net artists, software producers, technologycritics, and spectators may be to find new criticalstrategies rather than relying on repetition tohighlight the ways that tech-nologies have been constructed.Perhaps with such effects andaesthetics we can continueto read carefully as well asdifferently.

notes

This article could not have been written withoutthe generous support of the Institute forAdvanced Study and the National Endowment forthe Humanities. My colleagues at the Institutewere helpful in addressing the relationshipbetween net art and Internet studies. MaggieMorse was particularly kind in listening to some ofthe ideas represented here. Gary Banham, whoedited this issue, and Richard Hamilton and SaulOstrow, who refereed this article, also providedinsightful comments. Important revisions to thisarticle were supported by an NEH summer semi-nar that Kate Hayles led at UCLA. The criticalthinking about hypertext that developed in thisseminar was invaluable to my own conception ofthe relationship between hypertextual readingapproaches and net art failures. Conversationswith Kate Hayles and a number of seminar partic-ipants, most notably Jenny Bay and WilliamGardner, allowed me to reconceptualize aspectsof this article.

1 Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Ageof Mechanical Reproduction” in Illuminations , ed.Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken, 1983).

2 James A.H. Murray, Henry Bradley, W.A. Craigieand C.T. Onions (eds.), Oxford English Dictionary,vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961) 148.

3 “Xrefer-Aesthetic,” The Thames and HudsonDictionary of Art Terms (London: Thames, 1984),available <http://www.xrefer.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=647986&secid=.->, 24 May 2001.

4 Mary Devereaux, “The Philosophical Status ofAesthetics,” available <http://www.aesthetics-online.org/ideas/devereaux.html>, 24 May 2001.

5 Sarah Worth, “Feminist Aesthetics” in TheRoutledge Companion to Aesthetics, eds. Berys Gautand Dominic McIver Lopes (London and NewYork: Routledge, 2001) 437.

6 Hal Foster, “Postmodernism: A Preface” in TheAnti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, ed. HalFoster (Port Townsend, WA: Bay, 1983) xv.

7 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. J.H.Bernard (New York: Haffner, 1951).

8 Some critics have suggested that there are polit-ical implications to the terms that are used todescribe online art works. Josephine Bosmaargues that “replacing the term ‘net art’ by ‘webart’ causes a negligence of art history within a

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political and economic environment. The radicalimplications of net art are replaced by the muchless threatening aspects of web art.” JosephineBosma, “Text for Moscow: Between Moderationand Extremes. The Tensions Between Net ArtTheory and Popular Art Discourse,” Switch 6.1,available <http://switch.sjsu.edu/web/v6n1/arti-cle_b.htm>, 19 July 2000.

9 Not all of these lists approach the issue of net artin the same way. Josephine Bosma has argued thatnettime has largely evacuated net artists from itsforum and disrupted critical exchanges. “Now thatnettime has chosen to mostly close the door toart, the development of net art has lost a centralpoint for critical cross disciplinary thought from amulticultural perspective.” Josephine Bosma,“Text for Moscow: Between Moderation andExtremes. The Tensions Between Net Art Theoryand Popular Art Discourse,” Switch 6.1, available:<http://switch.sjsu.edu/web/v6n1/article_b.htm>,19 July 2000.

10 Brett Stalbaum also argues that it “isboth productive and ironic that these sitesturn to a specific historical manifestation ofmodernism as an escape avenue.” Brett Stalbaum,“Conjuring Post-Worthlessness [excerpt],” onlineposting, 20 Aug. 1999, Rhizome, available<http://rhizome.org/object.rhiz?1543&q>, 31 July2000.

11 Peter Saint-André, “The Ism Book: ‘F,’ The IsmBook: A Field Guide to the Nomenclature ofPhilosophy,” available <http://www.monadnock.net/ismbook/F.html Formalism>, 31 July 2000.

12 Steve Dietz, “Why Have There Been No GreatNet Artists?,” Webwalker 28, 23 Apr. 2000, available<http://www.walkerart.org/gallery9/webwalker/index.html>, 23 July 2000.

13 Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, “DigitalArt” in Remediation: Understanding New Media(Cambridge: MIT P, 1999) 142.

14 Moscow WWWArt Centre, “WWWArtAward,” available <http://www.easylife.org/award/>, 23 July 2000.

15 Vuk Cosik and Alexei Shulgin, “Who Drew theLine?,” Net Criticism, ZKP2 Proceedings, June 1996,available <http://www.nettime.org/desk-mirror/zkp2/theline.html>, 23 July 2000.

16 Benjamin Weil, “Untitled (äda’web),” WalkerArt Center: Gallery 9, available <http://www.

walkerart.org/gallery9/dasc/adaweb/weil.html>, 2Aug. 2000.

17 Rhizome, “Rhizome.org Info,” available<http://rhizome.org/info/>, 22 July 2000. ThroughRhizome’s search function the user can also gainaccess to its artbase:

The Rhizome ArtBase is an online archive ofInternet art projects. The goal of theRhizome is to preserve Internet art projectsfor the future, and to provide a comprehen-sive resource for those who are interested inexperiencing and learning more aboutInternet art.

Rhizome, “Rhizome ArtBase: The Net ArtResource,” available <http://rhizome.org/artbase/>,22 July 2000.

18 Luther Blissett, “0100101110101101.ORG- -art.hacktivism,” online posting, 26 June 1999,Rhizome, available <http://rhizome.org/cgi/query.cgi?a=query&q=jodi&f=&start=10&target=12>, 17July 2000.

19 Benjamin, “The Work of Art” 221.

20 David Ross, as quoted in Reena Jana, “DavidRoss: Director, San Francisco Museum of ModernArt,” Flash Art International Jan./Feb. 1999: 34.

21 For a press release from the first SFMOMAprize in May 2000 see SFMOMA, “SFMOMA PressRelease,” available <http://www.sfmoma.org/info/press/press_webby.html>, 5 Aug. 2000.

22 SFMOMA, “SFMOMA Press Release,” available<http://www.sfmoma.org/info/press/press_webby.html>, 14 June 2001.

23 Art.Teleportacia, “FAQ,” available<http://art.teleportacia.org/art-ie4.html>, 17 July2000. Artcart offers works by Peter Luiningand a number of other net artists. Artcart,“Artcart – Be Avantgarde – Buy Net.art,” available<http://artcart.de/>, 3 Aug. 2000.

24 Douglas Crimp, On the Museum’s Ruins(Cambridge and London: MIT P, 1993) 112.

25 Bill Nichols, “The Work of Culture in the Ageof Cybernetic Systems,” Screen 29.1 (1988): 23.

26 Discussions about this issue have occurred at aSFMOMA panel on net art as well as in otherforums:

One of the most forward-thinking SFMOMAcurators, Betsky came under fire for his

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“butterfly-pinning” method of archivingwebsites, in which he burns them onto a CDand renders links dead. While Betsky saidthat the work maintains its beauty withoutactive links, artists and new media enthusiastsin the audience expressed their discontentwith giving privilege to form over function.

Marisa S. Olson, “Weighing In on Net Art’sWorth,” Wired News 15 May 2000, available<http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,36320,00.html>, 4 Aug. 2000.

27 Art.Teleportacia, “FAQ,” available<http://art.teleportacia.org/art-mac.html>, 9 Sept.2000.

28 Art.Teleportacia, “FAQ,” available<http://art.teleportacia.org/art-ie4.html>, 17 July2000.

29 Michaël Samyn, as quoted in Art.Teleportacia,“Under Construction,” available http://art.teleportacia.org/art-ie4.html>, 17 July 2000.

30 For a discussion of this issue see Luther Blissett,“0100101110101101.org--art.hacktivism, ” onlineposting, 26 June 1999, Rhizome, available<http://rhizome.org/cgi/query.cgi?a=query&q=jodi&f=&start=10&target=12>, 17 July 2000.

31 This site is a parody of Britannica.com.0100101110101 101.org, “Britannica.com,” available<http://www.britannica.com/bcom/origina l/article/0,5744,8800+2,00.html>, 2 Aug. 2000.

32 “Xrefer-machine aesthetic” in BloomsburyGuide to Art (London: Bloomsbury, 1996),<http://www.xrefer.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=439085&secid=.->, 24 May 2001.

33 Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing(FOLDOC), “Surfing from FOLDOC,” available<http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?surfing>,14 June 2001.

34 George P. Landow, Hypertext 2.0: TheConvergence of Contemporary Critical Theory andTechnology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1997).

35 Landow, Hypertext 2.0 118. Of course theselinkages are also an attempt to relate computer-based works to more canonical forms of produc-tion.

36 Jonathan Crary, “Eclipse of the Spectacle” in ArtAfter Modernism: Rethinking Representation, ed.Brian Wallis (New York: New Museum ofContemporary Art, 1984) 290.

37 Crary, “Eclipse” 291.

38 See, for instance, William Gibson, Neuromancer(New York: Ace, 1984); Neal Stephenson, SnowCrash (New York: Bantam, 1992); and BruceSterling, Holy Fire: A Novel (New York: Bantam,1996).

39 Lee Bul, “Beauty and Trauma,” Art Journal 59.3(2000): 106.

40 For instance, the work of James Der Derianhighlights such “accidents” as “A U.S. EP-3E AriesII aircraft on a routine reconnaissance flight is in amid-air collision with a Chinese fighter plane” anda “CIA-contracted surveillance plane [that]detects a suspicious plane flying over the Amazonand alerts the Peruvian Air Force, which shootsdown a Cessna carrying not drugs but U.S. Baptistmissionaries and their two children.” James DerDerrian, “Global Events, National Security, andVirtual Theory” in Information, Technology, andSociety: Proceedings, Institute for Advanced Study,8–10 June 2001, 2.

41 Christine Rose, “The Insufficiency of thePerformative: Video Art at the Turn of theMillennium,” Art Journal 60.1 (2001): 29.

42 Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores,Understanding Computers and Cognition: A NewFoundation for Design (Reading: Addison Wesley,1985) 77–78.

43 Dirk Paesmans, as quoted in Josephine Bosma,“Interview with Jodi,” online posting, 16 Mar.1997, nettime, The Beauty and the East, ZKP4Proceedings, May 1997, available <http://www.ljud-mila.org/nettime/zkp4/38.htm>, 23 July 2000.

44 Peter Lunenfeld, “The World Wide Web: InSearch of the Telephone Opera” in Snap to Grid: AUser’s Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Cultures(Cambridge: MIT P, 2000) 84.

45 Jodi, as quoted in Tilman Baumgärtel, “Interviewwith Jodi,” Telepolis 10 June 1997, available<http://www.heise.de/tp/english/html/result.xhtml?url=/tp/english/special/ku/6187/1.html&words=Baumgaertel>, 19 July 2000.

46 See, for instance, “404 Error,” available<http://www.sendcoffee.com/minorsage/404error.htm>, 31 July 2000; Jenni Ripley, “404 ResearchLab,” Plinko.Net, available <http://www.plinko.net/404/>, 31 July 2000; and “404 Not FoundHomepage,” available <http://www.mindspring.com/ isixtyfive/404page/404.html>, 31 July 2000.

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47 Stuart Moulthrop, “Error 404: Doubting theWeb” in The World Wide Web and ContemporaryCultural Theory, eds. Andrew Herman and ThomasSwiss (New York: Routledge, 2000) 261.

48 Sarah Papesh, “sarahpapesh.com:: onlineportfolio:: 404,” available <http://sarahpapesh.com/404.html>, 31 July 2000.

49 Terry Harpold, “The Contingencies of theHypertext Link,” available <http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/ harpold/papers/contingencies/index.html>, 5 July 2001.

50 For a discussion of this see Terry Harpold,“The Contingencies of the Hypertext Link,” avail-able <http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/ harpold/papers/contingencies/index.html>, 5 July 2001.

51 Jacques Derrida, “Signature Event Context” inMargins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: Uof Chicago P, 1982) 313.

52 What we read isn’t on the screen, under theglass, or distinctly located on the hard drive.

53 Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, trans.Richard Miller (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995)10. Of course, these glimpses of flesh or webcamimages can also repulse the spectator.

54 N. Katherine Hayles, “Virtual Bodies andFlickering Signifiers” in How We BecamePosthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature,and Informatics (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999) 30.

55 Usually all mistyped addresses on a specific sitewill produce the same effect.

56 Jodi, “%20Wrong,” online archive, 1 Jan. 1996,Rhizome, available <http://rhizome.org/artbase/1678/wrong.html>, 1 Aug. 2000. Other sites withversions of this work include “%20Wrong,” avail-able <http://www.502.org/404.html>, 2 Aug. 2000.

57 Vincent Flanders, “Web Pages that Suck – BadNavigation,” available <http://webpagesthatsuck.com/badnavigation.html>, 4 June 2001.

58 Judith Butler, “The Force of Fantasy: Feminism,Mapplethorpe, and Discursive Excess,” Differences:A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 2.2 (1990): 121.

59 Strangely, Butler’s call to performativity alwaysseems best resolved by her own critical practiceand repetition of texts.

60 Butler, “The Force of Fantasy,” Differences 2.2:124, n. 7.

61 David Payne, “Failure and Personal Identity” inCoping with Failure: The Therapeutic Uses of Rhetoric(Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 1989) 34.

62 Alex Galloway, “browser.art,” online posting,30 Jan. 1998, Rhizome, available <http://rhizome.org/cgi/query.cgi?a=query&q=jodi&f=&start=30&target=12>, 19 July 2000.

63 Eryk Salvaggio, “Absolut Net.Art: ProjectDescription,” online archive, 5 Nov. 1998, Rhizome,available <http://rhizome.org/object.rhiz?1690&q>,30 July 2000.

64 Jodi, as quoted in Tilman Baumgärtel, “Interviewwith Jodi,” Telepolis 10 June 1997, available<http://www.heise.de/tp/english/html/result.xhtml?url=/tp/english/special/ku/6187/1.html&words=Baumgaertel>, 19 July 2000.

65 Jodi, “%20Wrong,” online archive, 1 January1996, Rhizome, available <http://rhizome.org/artbase/1678/wrong.html>, 1 Aug. 2000.

66 Rosalind Krauss, “The Originality of the Avant-Garde” in The Originality of the Avant-Garde andOther Modernist Myths (Cambridge: MIT P, 1994)157.

67 Peter Luining, D-TOY 2.502.338, online archive,9 Mar. 1999, Lifesavers, available <http://www.vpro.nl/data/lifesavers/10/index.shtml>, 4 Sept.2000.

68 AllWords.com, “AllWords.com-Dictionary,Guide, Community and More,” available<http://www.allwords.com/query.php?SearchType=3&goquery=Find+it%21&Language=ENG&Keyword=morphing>, 14 July 2001.

69 VPRO, “VPRO Aflevering,” available <http://www.vpro.nl/lifesaversmanualuk>, 15 Sept. 2000.

70 VPRO, “VPRO Aflevering,” available <http://www.vpro.nl/lifesaversmanualuk>, 20 Sept. 2000.

71 According to psychoanalytic and apparatustheory, male cinema viewers achieve an ideal spec-tatorial position because of their physical distanceand intellectual detachment from the screen.However, female spectators are conceived asbeing inextricably bound to their bodily processesand tied to a version of their image within thescreen. Women’s nearness to the cinema image isless than ideal. According to Noël Burch, such anintimacy prevents the spectator from a compre-hensive understanding:

If he is too close, so close that his field ofvision does not include the whole screen, his

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eyes must change focus as the centers ofvisual interest shift, and he will never be ableto grasp the total visual effect created by theframed image.

Noël Burch, “Editing as a Plastic Art” in Theory ofFilm Practice, trans. Helen R. Lane (New York:Praeger, 1973) 35. Mary Ann Doane argues that itis the “opposition between proximity anddistance, control of the image and its loss, whichlocates the possibilities of spectatorship within theproblematic of sexual difference.” Mary AnnDoane, “Film and Masquerade: Theorizing theFemale Spectator” in Femmes Fatales: Feminism,Film Theory, Psychoanalysis (New York: Routledge,1991) 22.

72 The difference between these identity posi-tions is usually explained as “geeks must be born,nerds are made.” Internet and Unix Dictionary,available <http://www.msg.net/kadow/answers/n.html nerd>, 12 Apr. 2001. Geek is defined as“One who eats (computer) bugs for a living. Onewho fulfills all the dreariest negative stereotypesabout hackers: an asocial, malodorous, pasty-facedmonomaniac with all the personality of a cheesegrater.” “The Jargon Lexicon (4.2.3),” available<http://tuxedo.org/jargon/html/entry/nerd.html>,12 Apr. 2001. Of course, these positions may nowbe viewed as desirable with the economic andsocial rise of the programmer. Films such asHackers (Iain Softley 1995), with its portrayal ofhip teenage computer users, have also changed theway that computer users are conceived.

73 I presented a longer discussion of this conceptin Michele White, “Too Close to See: Men,Women, and Webcams” in Information, Technology,and Society: Proceedings, Institute for AdvancedStudy, 8–10 June 2001.

74 André Malraux, “Museum Without Walls” inThe Voices of Silence: Man and His Art, trans. StuartGilbert (Garden City: Doubleday, 1953) 24.

75 Peter Luining, as quoted in JosephineBosma, “Interview with Peter Luining.” Onlineposting, 3 May 2000, Rhizome, available<http://rhizome.org/cgi/query.cgi?a=query&q=jo&target=12&search=+search+>, 17 July 2000.

76 Michaël Samyn often works with Auriea Harveyon their collaborative website. They won the firstSFMOMA Webby Prize for Excellence in OnlineArt in May 2000. Michaël Samyn and AurieaHarvey, “if (1+1==1) {e87=true;};” Available<http://www.entropy8zuper.org/>, 24 Sept. 2000.

77 Michaël Samyn, The Fire from the Sea, available<http://www.vpro.nl/data/lifesavers/16/index.shtml>,21 Apr. 2000.

78 Stuart Moulthrop, “Traveling in the BreakdownLane: A Principle of Resistance for Hypertext,”available <http://www.ubalt.edu/ygcla/sam/essays/breakdown.html>, 7 July 2001.

79 I have encountered this insistence more thanonce while presenting The Fire from the Sea tostudents at the University of California SantaCruz. This “problem” with the instructions hasalso produced interesting conversations.

80 Michaël Samyn and Auriea Harvey,“sixteenpages.net,” Sixteenpages , available <http://sixteenpages.net/>, 20 July 2001.

81 Leo Steinberg, “Other Criteria” in OtherCriteria: Confrontations with Twentieth-Century Art(New York: Oxford UP, 1972) 82.

82 Michaël Samyn and Auriea Harvey,“*g*e*n*e*s*i*s*,” available <javascript:parent.genesisF.go(‘biographies.html’);>, 4 Aug. 2000.

83 Michaël Samyn, as quoted in Alex Galloway.Online posting, 18 Apr. 2000, Rhizome, available<http://www.rhizome.org/fresh/>, 24 Sept. 2000.

84 Michaël Samyn, as quoted in fokky, “Art andDesign – An Interview with Michael Samyn,”online posting, 3 Oct. 1997, Rhizome, available<http://www.rhizome.org/cgi/to.cgi?q=871>, 24Sept. 2000.

85 Michaël Samyn, as quoted in fokky, “Art andDesign – An Interview with Michael Samyn,”online posting, 3 Oct. 1997, Rhizome, available<http://www.rhizome.org/cgi/to.cgi?q=871>, 24Sept. 2000.

86 Michaël Samyn, as quoted in Alex Galloway,online posting, 18 Apr. 2000, Rhizome, available<http://www.rhizome.org/fresh/>, 24 Sept. 2000.

87 Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections onPhotography, trans. Richard Howard (New York:Hill and Wang, 1981) 27.

88 Jennifer Ley, “Catch the Land Mine!! – Win aFree Prosthetic …” Catch the Land Mine!, available<http://www.heelstone.com/banner/>, 17 July2001.

89 Jennifer Ley, “Catch the Land Mine!! – Win aFree Prosthetic …” Catch the Land Mine!, available<http://www.heelstone.com/banner/pic3.html>,

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17 July 2001. My observation of people using thisnet art work in lab situations suggests that move-ment through the piece is escalated in attempts to“win” the game. The meaning of the texts seemsto give way through such engagements.

90 Rose, “The Insufficiency” 33.

Michele WhiteDepartment of Telecommunications108 West HallBowling Green State UniversityBowling Green, OH 43403USAE-mail: mwhite@bgnet.bgsu.edu

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Because I am alone. It is my dialogue, my society, my companion, my confidant. It is also myconsolation, my memory, my scapegoat, my echo, the reservoir of my intimate experiences, mypsychological itinerary, my protection against the mildew of thought, my excuse for living, almost theonly useful thing I can leave behind.

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ISSN 0969-725X print/ISSN 1469-2899 online/02/010194-01 © 2002 John X. Berger

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