The Politics of Online Curating
Joasia Krysa, Curator, lecturer in "Art&Technology" at the University of Plymouth

Kurator Software, Version Beta 1.0
Duncan Shingleton, Digital Media artist, programmer

Curating Media/Net/Art
CONT3XT.NET, Platform for the presentation and discussion of (New) Media Art

Editors: CONT3XT.NET (Sabine Hochrieser, Michael Kargl, Franz Thalmair) Design: Ulrike Ostermann Translations: Erika Doucette Proofreading: Astrid Steinbacher Contributions: Penny Leong Browne, Yueh Hsiu Giffen Cheng, CONT3XT.NET, Ursula Endlicher, John J. Francescutti, Jeremy Hight, G. H. Hovagimyan, Ela Kagel, Joasia Krysa, LeisureArts, Eva Moraga, Scott Rettberg, Duncan Shingleton, Luis Silva, David Upton, xDxD xD and many more participants of the mailing list [CC] Publisher: Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt Financial Support: Municipal Department for Cultural Affairs of the City of Vienna/Net Cultures ISBN: 978-3-8370-0880-7 Pages: 160, Paper Perfectbound Price: € 25,00 >>> buy now Copyright: All texts released under a Creative Commons License (see catalogue)

Introduction of the Catalogue (Download   PDF)

Curating Internet-based Art in a media of its own developed into a multifaceted communication process on content among users of all backgrounds and provenances. Net curators are deemed cultural context providers, meta artists, power users, filter feeders or simply proactive consumers. Curating (on) the Web, as termed it in 1998 already, not only creates a public space for Net Art protagonists, but also enables them to participate in creating their own public space, which often takes on the form of discursive models. Handling technological developments and knowledge about existing channels of communication are integral parts of net curating, as are providing resources, initiating collaborations and remaining in contact with international networks.

Expanding the curators’ field of action--allowing them to incorporate more than the supervision, contextualisation and exhibition of artwork in museums, galleries or off spaces--is closely linked to the media-specific characteristics of art produced on the Internet. Internet Art does not necessarily have to be presented in a customary exhibition space, because as long as there is a computer with Internet access, it can be accessed anywhere any time. In many cases, Net Art emerges through the participation of an audience with diverse approaches to the Internet, which comments on, transforms and disseminates the artworks in many different ways. In addition, the somewhat rather communicative mechanisms on which this art is based are simultaneously its subject, thus allowing it to function as a reciprocal "feedback loop" between the original author and the user.

In the 20th century, the numerous postulations on the end of authorship and the end of concept of the "work of art" as a definable entity with a definable set of limits (Werkbegriff) gave way to a discourse--which, in turn, is constituted through its own development and reception processes--as they also accompany the advancement and visualisation of these very processes. In this vein, curators are those who set up contexts for artists who provide contexts.