Some of My Favourite Web Sites Are Art
http://www.alberta.com/unfamiliarart/

Project #6:

WILL-N-TESTAMENT
Olia Lialina
http://will.teleportacia.org/

Olia Lialina is among the most established and celebrated Internet
artists. She generally makes work that relies on drama and passion,
using books such as The Great Gatsby and Anna Karenin as inspiration.
Her most famous work, "My Boyfriend Came Back From the War," is a
film-noir-esque piece about a wartime romance. Because of its
historically evocative and sentimental content, and its use of
frame-technology, critics such as Lev Manovich have written about "My
Boyfriend Came Back From the War" as being a new extension of the
Russian film tradition ("What will–or could–result from the
juxtaposition of the Netscape Navigator web browser's frames with
Eisenstein's theories of montage?").

With this project, "Will-n-testament," Lialina has shifted her focus and
aesthetic to a more personal drama: that of her own passing. Initially,
as "Will-n-testament" downloads, the page is blissfully quiet and empty.
Then, slowly, the image bounding boxes load the subversive, ironic last
will and testament. The will, a beautiful piece of text, lists the
artist's Web projects, intimately assigning each to family or friends.
At the same time, there is nothing private about the will. Each art
project is linked for perusal by unlimited audiences; each benefactor is
named; even Lialina's corrections are visible in blue ink.

In interviews, Lialina has said it takes her a couple of hours to
explain her work as a net.artist to some of her friends in Moscow. This
will bequeathes only digital objects (Web sites and email accounts), and
testifies to the potency and appeal of socializing and making art
online. Lialina's online life is filled with work and friends, so much
so that she senses, in advance, the impact of her life, and death,
online. This project is wonderfully morbid and self-promotional. Not
only does it position her art work as desirable, it also presents a
social web that contextualizes Olia as both popular and extremely
well-connected. The people to whom she leaves art projects are among the
most active and established figures in the field of internet art and
culture.

Finally, this project enforces Lialina's belief that Internet art
projects have economic value. Framed by the language of property, debt,
and transaction, "Will-n-testament" suggests that Internet art objects
are not just prized and dear possessions, but that they have market
value. Art collectors who want to invest in and possess a rare object
will be both intrigued and mystified by this project: on one hand Olia
Lialina posits her art work as being valuable, limited, and precious; on
the other hand, it is not clear how these Web projects will live on.
Will the inheritors horde them? Or restrict access? Will they sell?
License? Donate? I guess we will all have to wait and see…