0100101110101101.org Eva y Franco Mattes // Ivan Abreu// Amy Alexander // Marcelí Antúnez // Kim Asendorf //Gazira Babeli // Lucas Bambozzi // Ryan Barone //Giselle Beiguelman // Amy Berk // Luther Blissett //Natalie Bookchin // José Luis Brea // Christophe Bruno// Maite Cajaraville // Martin John Callanan // Young-Hae Chang // Azahara Cerezo // Paolo Cirio // ArcángelConstantini // Vuk Cosic // Andy Cox // Critical ArtEnsemble // Minerva Cuevas // Santiago Echeverry //Vadim Epstein // Evru // Fiambrera Obrera // GonzaloFrasca // Belén Gache // Daniel García Andujar // DoraGarcía // Emilio Gomariz // Ethan Ham // Robin Hewlett// Steev Hise // Ricardo Iglesias // Daniel Jacoby //Sergi Jordá // Scott Kildall // Ben Kinsley // JoanLeandre // Les Liens Invisibles // Olia Lialina //Fernando Llanos // Rogelio López Cuenca // Iván Lozano// Alessandro Ludovico // Peter Luining // Brian Mackern// Miltos Manetas // Rafael Marchetti // Iván Marino //Antonio Mendoza // Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga // AntoniMuntadas // Mark Napier // Eduardo Navas // SantiagoOrtiz // Christian Oyarzún // Paolo Pedercini // RaquelRennó // Ricardo Barreto y Paula Perissinotto //Benjamin Rosenbaum // Santo_file Marco Bellonzi y DavidCassacuberta // Mario Santamaría // Mark Shepard //Alexei Shulgin // Mark Skwarek // Darren Solomon //Stanza // Nathaniel Stern // Igor Stromajer // Tallerd'Intangibles Jaume Ferrer y David Gómez // Philipp W.Teister // The Electronic Disturbance Theater // The YesMen // Thomson & Craighead // Eugenio Tisselli //Ubermorgen // Sander Veenhof // Angie Waller //

NETescopio is an online archive, developed by theMEIAC since 2008, designed to preserve works of artgenerated for the web. The museum's server functionsas a back-up and stores mirror copies of net art workswhich are online on their creators' sites and also ofthose which, for different reasons, are no longeravailable. Thus, the MEIAC is positioned as the firstmuseum in the world to generate a file with thesecharacteristics, and is moving ahead with a view toexpand its activities beyond its physical space.

This selection of works, all belonging to theNETescopio archive, emerged from a reflection on theprocesses that led artists to their development, ratherthan from an analysis of the formal characteristics ofthe works. Far from making an apology of the new mediumper se, the artists confront the concept of technologyas entertainment and the social stereotypes androutines that the new medium promotes as something thatis habitually used in society, examining the boundariesbetween public and private, the notion of authorshipand copyright. This traveling exhibition is presentedas a “mobile lab" that seeks to redefine online artpractices and to imagine their future.

Look into the NetNET.ARTographyOrganized by Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), the MuseoExtremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo (MEIAC)and the Edith-Russ-Haus, and curated by Gustavo Romano,this travelling exhibition meets the challenge of showingartistic practices on the Internet, and not solelyimmaterial, interactive and variable art works, but havingrecourse as well to multiple strategies of documentation,contextualization, reflection, and discussion.

“Blick ins Netz. NETartographie” is the progeny of theNETescopio Project (http://netescopio.meiac.es/),which the MEIAC launched in 2008. The choice of worksand their arrangement are based on the three workinglines or production strategies used since it began toshow art on the Internet nearly 20 years ago:Desmontajes (2008), encompassing online productionsfrom the early years of the Internet; Re/apropiaciones(2009), sampling or remixing of symbolic materials;and Intrusiones (2011), interventions in common spacessuch as Wikipedia or Google Maps.

With more than 70 artists from all over the world, theinitiative features a large number of Spanish andLatin American artists who, quite possibly because oflanguage barriers, are not yet well-known beyond theirhome cultural territories. In a context that we mightdub “cyber-geographic”, Spanish-speaking web art nowhas the chance to draw new cultural borders andestablish new flows of information, generating newrelational architectures.

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This publication is edited in conjunction with the exhibition Look into the Net. NET.ARTographyEdith-Russ-Haus for Media Art, Oldenburg, Germany. March 7 – April 21, 2014

Editor: Acción Cultural Española (AC/E)Translations: Gustavo Romano, Joanna Porter. Copyediting: Joanna PorterGraphic Design: El vivero. Printing: Willers Druck

© Texts, Gustavo Romano.© All images, the artists.© 2014, Acción Cultural Española (AC/E)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, with-out the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed in Germany

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As an initial phase of theNETescopio project, for thisexhibition the focus has beenplaced on productions whichcame about during the earlyyears of the web. Works whichexperimented, for the first time,with the medium and whichplayed with its particularities interms of interactivity, the use ofinterfaces or alternativebrowsers, the tactical use of themedia, and other strategieswhich gradually defined thelines of activity conductedduring the first years of art onthe web.

From a 1.0 web of staticand closed content, we haveevolved to what Dale Doughertywould call the Web 2.0, with ahierarchy involving interactionand the creation of socialnetworks, transcending themere publication of contents forsupposedly passiveconsumption. Under this newweb paradigm, we arewitnessing the appearance ofanother model: Net Art 2.0.

Perhaps it is time, then, toreview those first works, whichwith a greater radicalism andwith a focus on experimentationand the deconstruction of themedium, began to define thoseexplorations which today aretaken up again within a newcontext of production anddistribution.

# DisassemblingINTERFACESCode, Hacking, Navigation,Browser, User, Resistance, Content,Container, HTML, Serendipity, URL,Remix.

The advent of new technologiesled to a considerable improvementin the field of communications.Their contribution, among otherthings, involved, and continues toinvolve, the guaranteedtransmission of messages with theleast expenditure possible, withbetter and wider diffusion, and withthe lowest level of error in theirreception.

The symbolic productions whichart generates, rather than seekingthe message’s clarity, actuallyfavour its opacity. In thecommunication system, artfunctions like noise. As Deleuzewould say, “art doesn’tcommunicate, it resists.” Artisticproduction generates a space ofreflection which does not seektruths, but instead sabotageslanguage, its structure and its signs.

The different works which makeup this selection adopt a viralbehaviour which will be reflected invery different ways, whilehighlighting the clash between artand communication. The less clearthe message is, the richer the worksare in their meanings, and thegreater the effort necessary byviewers to recodify them.

# DisassemblingSTEREOTPYESCamouflage, Transvestism, MediaIcons, Recycling, Waste, Market,Panic, Identities, Digital Kitsch,Antiheros, Paranoia, Invasion,Tourism.

The greatest product whichconsumer society sells is thecomfort arising from belonging toit. What matters is not the product,but how it is sold. Or, in any case,both product and sale form part ofthe same alluring phenomenon ofseduction.

The Internet reverts the powerrelationship promoted by the one-directional nature of traditionalmedia. Though not without hurdles,information begins to circulateindependently of the market’sadvertising rules and its logic.

Through different methods, suchas humour, disorder, mimicry,parody or camouflage, the pieceswhich make up this selectionchallenge the stereotypes ofpropaganda, understood as social,political, military or mercantilepropaganda.

The process which manufacturesheroes and villains in the area ofthe social conflicts which thispropaganda attempts to impose,begins to fracture and fall apart. Asystem of cultural recycling is set inmotion, as a catalyst for socialremixing, with attitudes oftransvestism, fury, disregard andimpertinence.

# DisassemblingDAILY LIFETechnology, Self-management,Corporation, Control, Intervention,Public Space, Sabotage,Interference, Appropriation, Loss,Routine, Radiofrequency.

Certain projects on the web canbe best appreciated if we understandthem not as works, but as acts ofparticipation. It’s aboutparticipation in a new public space,the Internet, a place of exchange, ofmeetings, a sphere for personal andcommercial transactions. But like allparticipation in a public space, theaction can be camouflaged in itssurroundings and the nature ofartistic projects can be overlooked.It almost seems like at the verymoment in which the word “art”appears, participation is unmasked,and loses all of its danger, its edge.Fiction should meld, blending itselfinto reality in order to maintain itsintensity and thus be able tosubvert it.

In this section we will findproposals which undertake adeconstruction of daily reality, ofsocial order, of individual routineand of the spaces occupied byprotocols of personal interactionand exchange. All of this will beconveyed through irony and theappropriation of corporatestrategies, or rather, by sliding intoand participating in the interstitialspace of interpersonalcommunications or relationships,taking advantage of noise, surpriseand perplexity.

# DisassemblingTHE SYSTEM OF ARTWork, Market, Original, Copy, Bits,Diffusion, Reuse, Virulence, FTP,Ephemeral, Collection, Bubble,Reification.

The appearance of newtechnological devices and thephenomenon of reproducibility havenot only transformed art, but alsoour daily routine and our way ofperceiving the world. In the works inthis section, and also underlying thewhole project of web art, some ofthe following questions are raised:

How does the market respond tothe absence of goods? How doesone collect a series of bits inconstant flux, always appearing anddisappearing?

Can we call artists programmerswho showcase their skill in the useof software applied to the absurd?Or those who deceive with cheapJavaScript tricks? Or with graphicsretrieved from the browser’s cache?Or those who spread viruses on theweb?

Has the digital recovered its“aura” through the singularity of theURL, that is, the domain name ofInternet sites, which are unique andunrepeatable? Will this be what anart gallery can sell?

After nearly twenty years ofproductions on the web, thesequestions remain relevant.

# DisassemblingNARRATIONSNon-lineal, Machine, Toy, Software,Rewriting, Electronic Poetry,Author-Reader, Cannibalism, TextProcessor, Labyrinth, Avatar.

The Internet is fundamentally anetwork made up of a collection oftexts. But in this context theconvention of the printed word,which is definitive and unalterable,has given way to another convention- fragile, mutable and unfinished –with an exponential capacity forexpansion, dissemination andreplication by reader-writers locatedthroughout the web. This rupture ofthe linearity of narration is linked toother ruptures, such as that ofHistory, the truth and the author asan omniscient narrator, all of whichgive rise to fragmented texts, toreading as an act of decoding, tomachine-poets programmed torecite words, to the toy book andthe loss of the reader-author.

Avatars, fantastic heroes, graphicadventures, virtual toys, puzzles,board games and rattles are justsome of the examples which we willfind in this selection of works which,like a koan, will question whetherwe are pieces or players. Whomoves who? Who reads and who isread?

RE/MIXESRemix, Recombination, Patchwork,Recycling, Rewriting, Montage,Recomposition.

The recombination of materials isa practice which in the visual artshas traditionally been associatedwith the collage, especially withregard to fixed images, painting orphotography. In regards to thedigital realm, however, uponincluding the temporal element, thispractice is much more linked to thenotion of cinematographic montageas pioneered by Sergei Eisenstein.

If the general public’s channel-surfing has led to a kind ofexperimental montage creation,thanks to the power of the remotecontrol, the television screen hasnow exploded, offering multipleviewing possibilities. Today, screensconnect us via the Internet to infinitecontents which are remote anddistant from each other, not onlyspatially but in terms of meaning,generating with each click that"dialectic collision" of whichEisenstein spoke, now in potentiallyinfinite directions.

This exhibit focuses on arecurrent practice in artisticproductions on the web: the re-appropriation and reuse ofsymbolic materials. Unlikeother technological media,digital media makes possiblenot just reproduction, butmanipulation as well. Insteadof invariability, it offersperpetual mutation. Ratherthan copying, remixing.

This has introduced aseries of reflections not onlyregarding the notion oforiginals and copies –concepts whose meaning fadesin the digital realm - but alsoregarding ideas such asauthorship, possession andcollecting. The artist’s role onthe web will no longer be thatof a creator, but rather that ofa "redirector" of information.

RE/INTERPRETATIONSCover, Reenactment, Date,Reinterpretation, Free Version,Remake, Copyright.

Unlike remixes in whichmaterials are taken independentlyfrom the narratives containingthem, there are a few works whichare based on the creative work ofother artists and which respecttheir organization in the same waythat a musician reads and playssheet music. While in music or incinema this practice is not onlystandard but an actual tradition,it is not as established in the areaof the visual arts. Remakes,covers, free versions or evenkaraoke are somewhat distantconcepts which are associatedwith and introduced from otherdisciplines.

Various concepts enter intoplay here, such as authorship,original ideas and closed works.There are also various strategiesused by certain artists in order togenerate a "crisis" around theseconcepts in the digital realm.

RE/COLLECTIONSCache, Involuntary Collections,Serendipity, Object Trouvé,Wunderkammer, Clip Art.

Towards the end of the pastcentury a new “continent” wasadded to those already known. Acontinent made of nothing butinformation, and which is inconstant flux. The metaphor for theInternet is that of an endless sea inwhich the user is like a sailor whouses bookmarks as anchors in anattempt to grant some kind ofephemeral structure to a universewith no land in sight and no stars toguide him.

This sense of randomness will beessential to our experience astravellers, an eternal act ofserendipity which will take us fromport to port, making us graduallyforget the destination towardswhich we set out.

To our surprise, these accidentalencounters will have unexpectedresults, as vestiges of our days arestored in our computer’s cache.The authors of this section’s workswill salvage these vestiges, theseunintended information collisions,crafting unforeseen associations,circumstantial “bays” andunanticipated “lighthouses” to aidus before we continue our aimlessvoyage.

RE/CIRCULATIONS Exquisite cadaver, Cooperation,Joint Authorship, Simultaneity,Recirculation, Negotiation,Copyleft, Wiki.

Information recirculation andjoint authorship are not newconcepts but on the Internet theyhave found the ideal platform inwhich to function. The Web'simmediacy and its power to goaround the world in seconds haveallowed humanity to becomeconnected at lightning speed.

In the field of art we have gonefrom taking turns, with exquisitecadavers for example, to the kindof instant negotiation, discussionand collaboration permitted by a“wiki.”

We can define networking as thepromotion of social nexuses andthe creation of two-waycommunication tools madepossible by the latest technologies.From this perspective we see thatnot all net art falls into thiscategory, but rather only thoseworks in which art ceases to be an“object” (albeit a virtual one) madeby “artists” and instead becomes akind of platform, a space, ameaning machine with parts beingadded constantly, depending uponthe participation which it attracts.

RE/ENGINEERINGReappropriation, Distortion,Reengineering, Disassembly,Deviation, Reformulation,“Hacktivism”, Reassignment ofmeaning.

Though all remixing involves achange in meaning with respect tothe original work there are certainworks which wage decided attackson the ideas conveyed by theoriginals. We will, thus, find worksundertaking these attacks withtactics like sabotage or distortion.

There are also other tacticscomparable to certain living beings’survival mechanisms. The ability tocamouflage themselves in theirenvironment, for example, has beendeveloped by species such as thechameleon and some butterflies tokeep from being seen by both theirprey and predators. We can alsocompare them to the ploy used by alegendary wooden animal: theTrojan Horse. The well-known onlineversion of this tactic, Trojan Horses,have surpassed viruses as a threat,mainly thanks to their ability toenter our systems by hiding insideother programs. Like viruses ormemes, which are reproducedthrough a human carrier used as avehicle, certain arguments arepatiently kept out of sight, onlysubsequently exploited to achievemaximum “infection” levels.

# IntrudersIN 2.0 PLATFORMSActionism, Isolation, Cartographies,Drift, Dystopias, Public Space,Metaverses, Social Networks, VirtualRelationships, Vigilance, Web 2.0

The Internet –and the web inparticular– has evolved at a frenziedpace since its origins, and it hasgradually shed the legacy oftraditional audiovisual media,especially with regard to the emitter-receiver paradigm, which becameunsustainable in a network based ona horizontal and rhizomatic structure.

These new environments andplatforms, which have gone so far asto change the Web’s name, pushing ittoward the new stage known as 2.0 –Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTubeand even Second Life– have emergedas our new metropolis and housingdevelopments, our new marketplaces,public squares and coliseums, wherewe carry out all kinds of exchangesand interactions: business,friendships, conflicts, and revolutions.

The works presented in thissection make use of these platformsfrom a range of perspectives andwith a range of purposes. Some ofthe proposals follow in the traditionof performance art and urbaninterventions, conveying them todigital environments, while othershighlight the new customs andconsequences of this new virtualsocial life, or explore notions such asisolation and virtual relationshipsand their specific netiquette.

This third stage is focused onproposals consisting of anartistic intervention using anew public space: the Internet:It includes projects thatintervene in shared-usespaces, such as Wikipedia andGoogle Maps, those whichparody or subvert private-usepages, and those whichstealthily infiltrate users’computers and corporate ITsystems.

There are also instances ofindividual proposals whereartists play the role of spies,intruders and solitary flaneurs,as well as group projectsexecuted by artistic collectivesand productions, and whichrequire the mass participationof viewers.

Web 2.0, Public Space,Vigilance, Flaneur,Cartographies, Hacktivism,Drift, Cyber-demonstration,Cooperation, Espionage,Glocal, Augmented Reality,Objective Randomness.

# IntrudersIN THE PUBLIC SPACEActionism, Cartography, Control,Drift, Public spaces, Happening,Intervention, Sound Landscape,Psychogeography, AugmentedReality, Bait.

One of the more salient featuresof the so-called mobile technologiesis the possibility of hybridizing theexperience in "real" space withgeo-localized and personalizeddigital information. The mobilenetwork offers us real-time accessto synchrony and allows for thespeedy interaction with realelements around us.

The projects collected in thissection will make use of thebenefits of this hybrid reality whileat the same time reflecting on itsdangers and limitations. In a hyper-labelled world where nouncategorized or unlegislated areasremain, where there is no spotwithout coordinates, the artistoffers us a shield of noise andfutility against the technological re-territorialisation of the public spaceand the idea of efficiency,confronting the notion of cost.

# IntrudersIN YOUR COMPUTERAudience, Automatism, ObjectiveRandomness, Pollution,Détournement, Desktop, Out-of-field, Invasion, Manipulation,Machine, SPAM, Rituals, Viruses.

The frame disappears as theedge of the painting or image, andis replaced by the computerscreen. A frame no longer has theability to lock in the image, whichhas acquired a temporal dimensionand an infinite potential for theconstant permutation of the datathat flocks to it. The limitations areoffset by depth and speed.

And that frame is no longer inmuseums and galleries; it nowsurrounds us at all times. We havedelegated tasks to our computerswhich used to be carried out by ourbodies. The screen has becomealmost a skin that separates usfrom the “outside”, from what isbeyond our domestic network.

In the face of this scenario it isnot surprising that many artists aredriven to delve into and work onthis new “canvas". Not onlythrough the usual safe paths,opening the doors to theirwebpages and inviting us to enjoytheir works, but by entering oursystem, breaking the frame, which,this time, is the browser, or alteringthe behaviour of programmesinstalled on our hard drive.

# IntrudersVIRTUAL INTRUDERSChange, Collaboration, Cover, Drift,Stereotypes, Strategies, Gender,Inclusion, Narrative, Participation,Soundtoy, Terror, Violence.

The artists who delve into theworld of videogames tend to do sofrom a range of angles, but theyalways aim to do more than simplyoffer entertainment.

There are those who emphasizethe making and structure of thegame, those who hack into existinggames or who use the developmentof the game as an opportunity toexperiment with collective creation.Others encourage us to makedecisions regarding issues we hadnot examined before, by putting usin unknown situations orenvironments.

Playing means daring to enternew realities. The role proposed forus in these games is that of playingat being intruders, excluded or setapart, but also spies, readers,musicians or passers-by. They allask us to perform the reverseengineering which was necessary tobuild or intervene on the game, i.e.to untangle a story, or to dismantlea structure in order to reassembleit and thus understand itsmechanisms.

DISASSEMBLINGS

RE/APPROPRIATIONS

INTRUSIONS # IntrudersIN THE CORPORATEWORLDDNA, Biotechnology, CyberManifestation, Dystopia,Encyclopaedia, Future,Hacktivism, Parody, Pathologies,Networks, Resilience, Techno-addictions, Technocracy, Utopia.

Technology opens upperspectives for progress towardsa Utopian future, especially if webelieve the advertising of marketleading companies. But it wouldalso open the door to a dystopianfuture if we look at thetechnocrats’ plans. When weassess the supposed transparencyand impartiality of technology, weshould not listen to these sirensongs, but consider furtherinvestigating its mechanisms.

The use of technology by artistscan also be analysed from thisviewpoint. There are some whoseize upon the advertisingrhetoric, but taking to the extremeassumptions. There are those, onthe other hand, who usetechnological tools like a judo holdto unbalance their opponents, andthere are those who resort to ironyto play down such stereotypes.

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