3rd Inclusiva-net meeting: NET.ART (SECOND EPOCH). The Evolution of Artistic Creation in the Net-system

The encounter is directed by Juan Martín Prada. With the participation of Josephine Bosma, Steve Dietz, Gustavo Romano, Brian Mackern, Arcángel Constantini, Lucas Bambozzi, Daniel García Andújar, Franz Thalmair (cont3xt.net), Marisa Olson, Michael Mandiberg, Guadalupe Aguiar Masuelli, Lila Pagola, Curt Cloninger and Patricia Gouveia.

Free entrance, sign up here. First-comes, first-served basis. English/Spanish simultaneous translation.

March 2 through 6, 2009

Venue: Centro Cultural de España en Buenos Aires [Paraná 1159, Buenos Aires]

Organized by Medialab-Prado and the Centro Cultural de España (Cultural Centre of Spain) in Buenos Aires.

Introduction

This third meeting of the Inclusiva-net platform aims to develop an analysis of the current situation of artistic practices on the web from various theoretical and critical perspectives. It will comprise a set of seminars, a series of communications chosen from a public call for proposals, and debate sessions. Throughout the meeting, many topics will be addressed including questions such as: Can we speak of a second epoch in net.art? What do the new art forms based on on/off-line hybridization contribute? What critical reflection do new manifestations of digital creations in networks offer us? What are the new relations between creation and dissention?

Net.art: second epoch

Net.art, which arose in the mid-1990s as a form of creative exploration and critical experimentation of the Internet, is one of the contemporary fields of artistic creation that has contributed most to a new outlook on forms of artistic production and experience.

Its contributions include a focus on research into the aesthetic, linguistic and interactive possibilities offered by Web technologies and how they have led to a re-examination of what we consider art.

The Web can be seen as a new public space for critical interventions, and the major contributions of net.art during this decade are an in-depth reflection on the prevailing uses of telematic networks, the production processes for meaning and subjectivity within them, and their policies and exclusions.

The “social” nature of the Web today-- with its emphasis on social networks and a business model based on principles of collective, open participation, opinions and comments-- comprises a new framework in which we should reflect on the social and critical role of artistic thought. In fact, the most recent net.art proposals use the new social networks, participation platforms and metaverses as new contexts of reference and action, in which they test, once again, subjective and critical potentials, demanding a dimension that is always interpretive and open. The blurred borders between art and activism, between creation and dissention, are crossed once again by new forms of on line creation.

Given the drive to transform the aesthetic model of art itself into a model for specific communicative practice and social reflection, it could even be said that there is no “art” on the Web, but rather, an “artistic use” of it. An analysis of the evolution and future of these “artistic” uses of the Internet and the social thought behind them is precisely one of the main areas of study during this meeting.

Core themes for the meeting

• The evolution of artistic creation on the Internet, seen from the perspectives of Art History and Criticism, Aesthetics, Anthropology and Communication Theory.
• Net.art in the Latin American context.
• Net.art: criticism and curatorship. Recent initiatives and fundamental paths in the development of curatorship.
• New orientations related to institutions that manage the world of art and online artistic practices. The phenomenon of their disappearance from biennales and major international contemporary art exhibits.
• Beyond the Internet. From “net.art” to the new hybrid forms of “networked art”. From the computer screen to new portable networked devices.
• Developments in software art on Web 2.0.
• Artistic approaches related to the semantic web.
• “Amateur” audiovisual creativity in social networks.
• Blog-art. Artistic thought in experimental appropriation of blogs.
• Artistic proposals and metaverses. 3D social networks as new spaces for artistic intervention.
• The social and critical dimension of artistic practices on the Web. New developments in the relationship between art and online activism.
• The creative dimension of new social organizational behaviour through networks: from “flash mobs” to politicized “swarming”.

Contents of the Meeting

Seminars

Four three-hour seminars led by net.art specialists on an international level. See program

Papers

A maximum of ten papers (chosen from a public call for proposals by the committee coordinating the meeting) on the core themes to be presented by their authors during the meeting. See selected papers

Discussion group

A discussion group/critical workshop coordinated by the seminar leaders, comprised of all those presenters and attendees who wish to explore the themes addressed during the meeting in depth through a methodology based on dialogue and active discussion. The inscription to take part in this group will be in February, 2009. Group debate sessions will be held on 5 and 6 March from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sign up for the discussion group

Attendance

Free, prior registration required. Fist-comes first-serves basis. Attendees may ask to take part in the discussion group sessions.

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