Reading this article, I kind of had a "Wait, what?" reaction to the fact that these types of interactive websites, which have been around for as long as I can remember being actively involved in internet culture, are considered a form of art. Especially the Facebook projects that are described, which are little more than the role-playing games that so many of us have participated in for years. Sometimes I feel I am a bad art historian because my first reaction to some things is to be "Wait, that's considered ART?". But thinking about the types of sites and interactive cyber projects this article talks about, I guess they should be considered art...as strange as it seems to me (probably because I'm so used to taking them for granted due to seeing them and interacting with them so often). But people do put a lot of time and effort into designing such internet spaces, so it's only fair to give them credit for their effort and to call their work art. (but I'm still a little doubtful about that Facebook RPing nonsense.)
What still weirds me out about this whole topic, though, is the fact that people are actually paying thousands of dollars for ownership of these internet projects and sites. That, I find, is kind of dumb. But then again, I kind of have a prejudice against the art market in the first place, as I think that many art historians have. Oftentimes the price a collector pays for art goes up and up not because of the talent or innovation of the artist, but because, somehow, due to marketing and word-of-mouth, owning that art becomes a status symbol. Much of the art market becomes centered around owning the next big thing, or the current cool thing, to look good among your peers, or merely to try to turn a profit. For this section of the art market, there is extremely little appreciation or understanding of the actual art. And that's what I find disagreeable and sad, and more than a bit distasteful.
In any case, no one can deny that the type of internet art the article speaks can sometimes be pretty neat. Here are a few such sites that I've bookmarked recently, which I think would probably fall under the label of "internet art".
The URL Project - Rafael Rozendaal's collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA allows YouTube commenters to come up with URL names and Rozendaal creates an internet art site using that URL. Some of them are fun. Rozendaal is one of the most famous "internet artists" at the moment, and his sites are the epitome of what the article above is talking about when it refers to internet art. I've included links to a couple I like, but all of them can be accessed via the links at the top of each of the pages. Many of these are interactive via clicking, but many are just simple repetitive animations, which I suppose are artistic but...I feel they're lacking. Once again, this guy has become famous for doing simple website programming that many internet users have been doing since the advent of the internet. I feel like the only people who'd think this was worth the money are those who don't spend much time on the internet in the first place. They pay $5000 a piece for these little sites, just to say they own them. What do you think of that?
(Warning: some of the sites are pretty epileptic, and one in particular refers to self-harm, so be careful clicking through the little linked images)
Short Explanation Video
Into Time
Looking at Something
...meanwhile, the following sites are much more impressive works of internet art, in my opinion.
Incredibox - create your own music in this fun drag and drop interactive game
Draw a Stickman - popular site lets you create your own stick figure hero that becomes part of an animated adventure
100,000 Stars - an interactive zoom-in/zoom-out map of the galaxy
The Quiet Place - a simple, relaxing exercise in the form of a sort of poem
Weave Silk - weave beautiful, colored pieces of silk in your own artistic patterns. I LOVE this one.
Create Your Own Nebula - another click-and-drag create-your-own-art website. create gorgeous star nebulas of a variety of colors. really neat.
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