baby sloths are cooler than internet art
I have a permanent hate on for capital-A-Art. When two different articles, one of which is extremely out of date, start talking about my beloved internet in the context of the aforementioned capital-A-Art, I get grumpy. What makes it worse is that neither of the articles expresses an opinion that I can argue with. This leaves me with a sort of vague malaise, and an uncertainty about how to best go about dissecting the articles. To be honest, I just don't care. I don't care about what these articles are saying. It means nothing to me, just like normal art. And there might be the problem. By using the internet for the creation of art, they make the internet into art. That's not cool. I don't want my internet to be important or venerable. (I know that not all art strives to be that way.) I don't want my internet to be art. People take art seriously, even if it isn't. People try to read into art, even if there's nothing to read. Lots of people are bored by art. This is not the fate that I want to befall the internet. The internet may well be the coolest thing since refrigeration. Art doesn't need to be on the internet, because for all intents and purposes, the internet does a very handy job of being the forum and medium for expression that art is supposed to be. The internet has become what art used to be for. Why put art on the internet if the internet transcends (or is) art?
I have a serious issue with these articles, and I don't know why. The problem is that I have a mental block surrounding the discussion of these articles. I've had them read for ages, but every time I sit down to write about them, I can't. I come up with something else to do, eating, watching TV, checking facebook every twenty minutes, looking for pasta sauce recipes, even doing readings for other classes. I can't write about these articles, and I don't know why. I've been trying for a week. I've had the document open, part written, for about eight days. I think it's the vague malaise. I'm just bothered by the ideas in these articles, but not fired up about them. I don't like them, but I can't find anything to hate. There's nothing to hate, but I just don't like them. I think that these articles may hit uncomfortably close to home for me. It bothers me on a fundamental level that an artist would create avatars for people, and then not let them do anything with those avatars. It just seems wrong. It seems like a manipulation of the internet (which I suppose it is meant to be). It bothers me that an artist would want to create machines that operate at a distance over the internet, but that don't actually do anything useful. I just don't like it. It seems to be the embodiment of what many people don't like about art. It's the embodiment of “It's a fine technology, but what can it do for me?”. There's no point to it. It doesn't feel meaningful, and it's not even beautiful. I just don't get it.
Having said that, I will attempt to elaborate on some of the things that vaguely bother me about these articles. Or more specifically, the one aspect of the two articles that bothered me the most.
I'm not such a fan of this Jon Ippolito person. I feel like he doesn't get it. He claims to debunk the myth that art on the internet is only for “an arcane subculture” (his words). He thinks that anyone can like internet art. I beg to differ. What's awesome about the internet is that no matter what arcane subculture you belong to, you'll find your kind. Interested in reading about the latest developments in cupcakes? There are blogs about that. Want to look at pictures of trees (presumably elms) with Dutch elm disease? Google has you covered (17,000+ pictures). Cats who look like Hitler? Covered (in fact, they call them “kitlers” for short). The point is that the internet is supposed to be obscure and self referential. The internet was built to share information that most of the general populous isn't interested in. And let's face it, no matter how noble or humanist the intent, art isn't meant for everyone, either. Lots of people just aren't interested in it. Why should they bother with it on the internet if they don't care about it in real life?
I'm not saying that art is bad. I'm not even saying that art on the internet is necessarily bad. I'm just saying that like many people, I'd rather use the internet to look at pictures of cute baby sloths. (Three toed, not two toed. The two toed ones are just creepy.)