Conformism in net.art–an interview with Nelli Rohtvee

Raivo Kelomees: Is there conformism in net.art?

Nelli Rohtvee: I am not a communication expert. I can only give my
personal view. Well, it's an obvious statement of course that net.art
should never represent something, not the outside world. It should only
represent itself. It should fight and be as radical as possible. To
define its new territory will not be that simple because we have already
history of mail art, video and the interactive new media art. So net.art
is situated, by its very nature, because it's us within this history and
context. Although it is exposed to turbulent forces, it is trying to
escape… but in fact it can't.

The conformism is that in the end it will accept history as it is,
accept the rules of representation, the gallery system, museums,
catalogues, etc. But we should not blame net.art as a phenomena for
this.

R. K. Don't you see some personal conformism in web-projects, or pages
which are made by artists. You can see different festivals which are
asking for web-projects. Not only video and interactive art. People very
much want to see web-projects, net.art…

N. R. The question of market demand for net.art is obvious. So there is
market opportunity for someone. If he or she calls herself a net.artist
then they are successful instantly because there is nothing else. You
can almost start from scratch, know very little about computers and the
history of art and technology and just do whatever you like because
there is nothing else. So in that sense, you know, maybe you could
demand that all the rising stars of net.art should study history of mail
art and they should know everything about situationism and fluxus. They
should know everything about conceptual art, etc.

Why is this art system so powerful? Because it has the power to define
what art is. So if net.artists are just doing whatever they like, they
can do that, but they can't do that for a long time. They can go crazy
for a while, if they have enough creativity, maybe they will have the
financial resources to continue with this, let's hope so. The other
development you see is that while in this creation of net.art the
question is who will have a power of definition what is net.art and what
is not. Today the so-called net.art group is extremely small, almost
like a sect. They are more operating like an artist group, a movement
and cannot claim to be the only ones in this field, as there are many
others, also developing useless, suberversive net esthetics.

R. K. But is it possible to define which kind of pages are so-called
art-pages, web-art, net.art. Which kind of pages do the juries at
international electronic art festivals prefer?

N. R. You should have a look for example at the so-called net.art
group–which is a specific group of about 10 or 15 net artists. So all
the others out there on the web are not included. But I don't think that
a process of exclusion is strong here. This is a relatively random
group. They came together in a specific setting, but I don't think they
are particularly avant-gardist. I see very much that they come from a
specific configuration in the development of a non-American Internet
culture.

R. K. Finally, could you quickly define the net-based artist?

N. R. I am not quite sure, but I can see that there are some differences
in the field. You have the commercial people who are interested in
making money. It doesn't matter with what, with content or access. And
within net.art there is the distinction between theorists, some of them
having an academic background, some of them are the art guerilla
activists, they are busy with all kind of social, political and economic
themes. And you have artists who are dealing with aesthetic issues. I
think by definition, net.art deals with communication in the true or
false sense, or even in the subversive sense.

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Estonian artist and critic Nelli Rohtvee (raivo@artun.ee) has been
active in the art scene since 1986, first as a painter and author of
de-collages, then with video and later with net.art. Nelli tries to make
simple, "cheap" pages
(http://www.artun.ee/homepages/nelli/nellinet/net1.html), which are
presented without plug-ins and are available to low-end computers.