We imagine net.artist as a hacker, using hectoliters of coffe to produce days and nights HTML code, install web servers, digitalise sounds and pictures and program CGI scripts. The most obvious characteristic of their art works is, they are not tangible.
Teo Spiller, renomed net.artist from Ljubljana, turns those stereotypes upside down. On the group exhibition "Ground of my studio" (http://www.wowm.org/gradec/) in the gallery Gradec in Zagreb, he shows "Tangible net.art". His work provocative responses to tendencies of the art system, to put to museums everything, recognised as art.
"net.art is an intimmate experience. User touches art work with his interfaces: keyboard and mouse. On the screen he or she observes art works responses. Putting such works in museums is senceless. They are there for everyone, connected to Internet" says Spiller.
Museums reminds him on something dusty and forgotten. He asked a hipotetic question, how will they in a far future understand fragments, "archeologists" will find about net.art. And how will they exhibit it in their museums. Spiller guess about this in his new opus
Opening of the exhibition is on 18 th of December 2003 at 7 PM.
ARTISTS STATEMENT:
I begun my artistic career with digital graphic arts and though I most produced net.art works in last 7 years, I also did some experiments with digital graphic arts. I realised, my "life" on the Net strongly influenced to my artistic perception. According to this, I found a big challenge to try doing some tangible objects "about" net.art.
At the net.art.trade forum, I organized as "public negotiations" about buying/selling my net.art work "Megatronix" to Ljubljana Municipal gallery, we also discuss about dilema, how to exhibit and preserve net.art works.
net.art is an intimate experience, where user "touch" art work with his interfaces – mouse and keyboard – watching on the screen, how work reacts on his or her actions. Exhibiting that kind of works in museums has no real sence, since they are available to everyone with an Internet connection.
net.art is not tangible and for the future generations there will only remain texts and pictures about it. There from they will try to restore, how net.art at the changing of the milleniums looked like
So I throw about, what to exhibit in museums. My first assotiation to museum is crowd of tourists in Louvre, wanting to see Mona Lisa. So I throw about "net.art souvenirs", a kind of substitute for those, who were too late to face net.art work "live".
The presentation of net.art in museums will be reasonable in the future, when original digital art works will be lost. I guess, how will this look like after few centuries. A virus attacked my computer and collapsing files and directories with some uncomplete parts left reminded me on archeological excavations, part of something, what used to be whole once. From such pieces archeologists reconstruct things and events from the past. From parts of my works (HTML codes, icons, etc.) I simulate such objects "about" net.art.
There will be some damaged printscreens, they will try to simulate, how a net.art work act (organigrams), how the artists working environmets looked like (paintings on canvases), they will sell souvenirs with pictures of objects found (cups & T-shirts, if they find any original work, it will be sold on black market for very high prices (CD-ROMs).
BIOGRAPHY
Teo Spiller’s net.art works have been exhibited on media and computer art festivals all over the world, including UNESCO day of poetry in Milano; Irish museum of modern arts in Dublin; "The masters of graphic works" biennial in Gyor; Machida city museum of graphic arts in Tokyo; Venice Biennial; Museum of modern arts in Ljubljana and Ljubljana Municipal Museum.
In addition, his work is in public and corporate collections, including those of Ljubljana Minicipal Museum, Municipal museum of art in Gyor, Hungary and Rhizome artbase, New York city.
About his work were writen many articles, including New York Times online, CIAC electronic magazine and Radio Austria 1 an TV Gajba.
He organized more group artistic events with respectable participants from aroud the world. Best known are "net.art trde forum", as he as one of the first net.artists in the world sold a net.art work, and INFOS 2000 "off-line net.art contest".
He wrote many articles about net.art and had several lectures about it, including a workshop for art teachers in cooperation with Ministry for culture of RS.
Teo Spiller was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 1965. He lives and works in Ljubljana, he is married and a father of two children.
Teo Spiller, net.artist
Website: http://www.teo-spiller.org/
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