the commodification of net art

From Browser to Gallery

(and Back):The

Commodification of Internet Art

Some ideas…Do as you would in the old days

1. Spatialization

2. Commissions

3. Commercialization

Monetize online

1. Just make the work

about money: Create

“alternative economies”

for work to exist in

2. Adapt to online shopping/virtual museum…etc.

Artie Vierkant, Monochrome Arc, 2010.

Ryan Trecartin, Any Ever, PS1, 2011.

Vuk Cosic, Documenta X, part of the exhibition Net-art per me at the Slovenian Pavilion of the Venice Biennial, 2001

Documenta X, Kassel, 1997

Oliver Laric, Kopienkritik, 2011. Skulpturhalle Basel

Postinternet Survival Guide from Survivaltips.tumblr.com, curated/compiled by Katja Novitska, 2010

Spatialization

Success in net art

• Winning a webbie award!

• Lots of traffic, Likes, Reblogs and sitehits?

• Mentioned on Rhizome, Furtherfield or VVork

• Klout score of over 50

• Winning Turner Prize• Interviews and good

reviews• Museum/festival

distribution• Gallery representation• Commissions. Art Fairs.• Nice documentary on

your life’s work• Your name in textbooks

Success in Contemporary Art

•Museum distribution•Going viral•Nice documentation•Net-famous but poor

Teo Spiller-Megatronix (1997)sold to Municipal Museum of

Ljubljana for 85000 SIT ($500 USD)

Image not available :[

Let’s talk about AURA• Linkrot and URLs on a unique domain name• Documentation of the internet exhibits

some “aura of the digital”, or “looks like it exhibited somewhere”

• Versions

Rafael Rozendaal 2011 www.artwebsitesalescontract.com

/Specifies sale by:- a disc with website, files and online content- five successive collectors-Rights to resell domain as long work is kept as a whole- transfer of domain name to collector

Commissions/SupportTurbulence.org

Rhizome

Daniel Langlois Foundation ($$$)

Whitney Museum Artport (gone)

TATE (gone)

Guggenheim (gone)

Walker Arts Center

Ars Electronica

Institute of Networked Cultures

http://www.numeral.com/eicon.html

John F. Simon, Every Icon (1997)

Given:

An icon described by a 32 X 32 grid.

Allowed:

Any element of the grid to be colored black or white.

Shown:

Every icon.

Eduardo Kacs, Genesis, Ars Electronica, 1999 /2001

Various platforms made just for selling the artz

• Art.sy (domain name change pending?)• VIP Artfair (just for collectors/dealers)• Art Micro Patronage (buy credit/membership

and pay for art)• S-editions by Rafael Rozendaal• Kickstarter• Deviantart.com• Artobjectculture.net (previously artobj-cult.biz)

LUCY CHINEN & EMILIE GERVAISARTOBJECTCULTURE.NET

http://artobjectculture.net/PastArtObjects/

“Our “art object tax” is a logistical term for making something more expensive because its art…We are playful with the idea of money and buying. Art commerce is a culture in itself.”

Artobjectculture.net 2012

“I prefer to use technology when it is mainstream, when everyone has it, because I want to reach a large audience. If you work with brand new tech your audience is limited.” Rafael Rozendaalhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2nKns9_fM8

Kim Asendorf & Ole FachGif Market 2011

http://www.gifmarket.net

Jonas Lund, thepaintshop.biz/, 2012

“The Paintshop Rank™ is calculating the price by analyzing a set of criteria, such as Artfacts ranking and Google Ranking of the author, the quality ranking in relation to the amount of views, the amount of Facebook likes and Tweets. The underlying assumption is that two general things matter for the price, the reputation of the artist and the popularity of the painting itself.”Jonas Lund, 2012

Commodity Critique!

http://history.etoy.com/

Conclusion• Emerging artists more willing to adapt work to

sell/exhibit in offline spaces• Nothing wrong with selling work. It’s time net

artists got some $$$ for free labor• Models that adhere to traditional art sales

processes are probably more problematic in an online environment

• I thought commodity critique was cool.• Sell stuff as long as you get to keep making it

the way you wanted it to be

“Hyperbranding”-Brad Troemel 2012

Everything you post can be seen as a performance contributing to a persona-as-brand on the internet!

So carefully curate your Facebook posts…

i.e. Man Bartlett, Petra Cortright, Ryder Ripps, Parker Ito, Netochka Nezvanova…etc.

Thanks for listening!• You can find the first manuscript of this article

on:

www.jennifer-chan.com

Pool Postinternet Critical http://pooool.info/• Ofluxo.net volume 1• jennifer7chan@gmail.com