A few weeks ago, I sat down with net.art pioneer and former adaweb
curator Benjamin Weil to chat about adaweb and his recent appointment as
the Director of the New Media Center at the London Institute of
Contemporary Art (ICA).

How adaweb produced art projects intrigued me. Their practice of
artist-designer dialogue and concept refinement really came through in
our talk–next time you visit adaweb, reconsider the notion of process.
The production process at adaweb was much richer than source code
communicates.

Benjamin and his team of Vivian Selbo, Ainatte Inbal, Cherise Fong and
Andrea Scott helped ground art work made on the Internet. Look for great
things coming from the London ICA's New Media Center in the future!

+ + +

Rachel Greene: Which adaweb projects worked best? Which were the least
successful? What about the writer/designer collaborations you were doing
when ada lost funding–I thought that was a brilliant idea. Let's start
with those.

Benjamin Weil: We were trying to bring in younger, less established
writers because we thought they could expand into the digital medium,
bringing excitement to it as well. At the same time, we thought it could
be a real asset to writers who are in earlier stages of their careers.
Another point was that we wanted original writing, not re-processed
texts.

With Darcey Steinke, we met, talked, and she said she wanted to write a
new piece. Darcey wanted to get really involved with the production
process. She was interested in what she could do with the Web, and also,
critically for her, how it might affect the way she writes. Basically,
she writes books and articles. The whole idea of writing for the Net and
exploring how people read on the screen, addressing issues of how people
read differently in a book opposed to on the screen, how does a
dematerialized text rematerialize in a different form with pictures and
interface…she was very very interested in all these issues.

Ideally, I would like to continue that kind of series. It's not
dissimilar to what we did with the art. Take for example Julia Scher and
Jenny Holzer, which were the first two big projects we did. I consider
both of those projects classics.

I can't really use the terms "unsuccessful" or "successful"–many of the
artists wanted to be involved with pioneering the medium, and they were
interested in really pushing the boundries. It's interesting to me to
think for instance that people would consistently wonder, mostly in the
beginning but still later, why I was bringing artists to the Web who had
no experience in that medium. People would say "those artists have
nothing to say about the digital;" "it's not going to be
interesting–they will use the Web to make a vanity project." It's not
true, Absolutely not true.

I think that as much as its important to look at the work of Alexei
Shulgin, joDi, Heath Bunting, Michael Samyn–all these people who have
been really pioneering, teaching themselves the technology, it's also
important to consider artists like Julia Scher, Jenny Holzer and
Lawrence Weiner. They have really important contributions to make to the
definition of this medium. Even if maybe the Lawrence Weiner project
didn't achieve what we would have liked to have seen it achieve–but
that was only because technology moves so fast.

RG: Why do you say that?

BW: Because the technology, Palace, is one no one uses. That was a real
disappointment. When we made that project, Palace was striving forward,
and seemed to be this thing everyone was talking about. When we
approached the people from the Palace, they were so excited…thrilled
to have Lawrence's project using Palace. Little did we know, little did
they know, that the interest was going to disappear soon after.
Environments are difficult because they are so undefined territory.
Palace required a separate software, and people don't really know how to
handle that well. So from "Homeport" users have an abstract notion of
exchange and a very minimal environment, and it's a nice thing, but no
one used the technology. So the Homeport Palace was never never full.
But Lawrence's input was so significant. It contributes to the grounding
of the history of the Internet.

People seem to always invoke Conceptual Art, but another point here is
that these artists ae interested in the issues of audience, and issues
that have risen from network technologies. Reaching an audience beyond
the traditional art audience was something that these artists were
concerned with all along.

I think that the David Bartel project was really seminal too. It really
considered the issue of interactivity by having this live archive and
sculptural space, and reflected interests that he has had for a long
time. It was also the first project that offered the visitors an
opportunity to participate in the definition of its completion. Indeed,
"Arrangements" was offered for beta testing.

For me, the most compelling works were ones that were idea-driven, and
tried to find technological solutions, rather than being
technology-driven. The temptation to make projects about the technology
is huge–but there is so much to explore: the architecture, the
structure, the mental territory, the virtual space, the "network." Yes,
you can use the latest Shockwave, and VRML or whatever, and make
something that is incredibly sophisticated, but to me the ideas, and how
a project makes you think differently, that is really important.

There is so much art today that is incredibly slick and perfect as an
object or an environment. It's not really there to make you reconsider
the world, or walk away with a new thought, vision, etc. I would say it
is over-aestheticized and under-idea-ized. I don't totally buy it
because it's not about ideas. When form prevails, I am less comfortable.

The ex-adaweb team, mainly Ainatte Inbal, Susan Hapgood, and myself
worked on a project which is soon to be on the Guggenheim Cyberatlas
site. It started as an enhanced links page on adaweb, but when ada
finished, we decided to move it somewhere else. We had a difficult time
with it. We discussed each and every project we chose, and had to narrow
the list down from about 50 to 15. It was really hard and of course we
left out things that were important. But it was a chance to lay out what
we think is the core of different thinking about about the network,
about web space, the lego aspects of html, about the structures, how
they contain ideas, how they involve the viewer, and how they make the
viewer think about their experience.

RG: So when you would sit down with an artist, how would it work? It was
obviously a team production, but how would it start? Some of the artists
didn't even know the Web from a potato.

BW: Yes, most of them didn't know the Web at all. Especially in the
beginning it was a very abstract concept to them. The idea was to look
at the Web, at commercial sites, homepages, no art projects. We didn't
think that was necessary. We explained the concept of adaweb and
discussed how they reflected on this medium.

By that time, the artist would usually start asking questions, like
"this interests me" or "can we do this?" and we would say, "let's look
here–this web site addresses this issue in an interesting way." The
concept for their piece would emerge, and we would refine it with
sketches that Vivian [Selbo], Ainatte [Inbal] or Cherise [Fong] would
make. The process was really about dialogue–between us and them,
bouncing ideas off of one another. We would talk to an artist, they
would go off, think of something, call us back, ask if it was feasible,
and maybe we would say "yes, we could do it this way, or resolve it that
way." All of the artists challenged us with the technology, not to make
something "gee whiz" but to make the back end more and more
sophisticated. We focused a lot of time on the hidden parts of the
project.

RG: I bet your production team, like Vivian, knows the plumbing, and the
insulation and the in between pages…must have been very interesting
back in the production room.

BW: Vivian was invaluable because she had no problems working with other
artists, and using her technical skills to work with their artistic
ideas. She could understand how someone was thinking in an artful
manner–she was so instrumental–she also has this incredible sense of
where to step in and where to leave space. However, this was the spirit
of the whole adaweb team.

To maintain this spirit called for a very humble approach to our task.
In a way, it was almost like being in the service industry. But then
again not, because it really was so much about dialogue. it was really
about pushing the ideas up, up, and up, until we had the concept really
refined. With Julia Scher, for example, which I consider one of the most
seminal projects produced by adaweb and one of the most interesting art
projects produced online, dialogue became concretized in steps.

We started with a trailer, and then there is the interface derived from
the white house homepage as the departing point, which really gives a
sense of what her work is about (and we knew we didn't want to just put
a catalogue of her work–we wanted to do something really web
specific)–that was Securityland. And then from there rebuilding pieces
like the Konsent Klinik. Or like Wonderland, which was not built by us
but by students. With Wonderland, we supervised and helped Julia make
choices, but the students actually built it.

RG: Students built Wonderland?

Yes, it is the part for children she added to Securityland last year.
Julia was teaching a workshop at RPI and asked her students to work
with her. She was very interested in adding to and changing the site,
for example when a page didn't make sense anymore. Basically, she
treated the web as a reflexive environment, something that was alive in
a way.

I somewhat feel a little strange about these projects going to the
Walker to be treated as discrete historical objects. In my view the
least successful projects were the contained ones that had no growth
potential.

Matthew Ritchie's was another project that was incredibly interesting to
me. The idea with "The Hard Way" was to mimic a game environment, which
of course we couldn't do, so we tried to play with the whole idea… and
then there was the "The Hard Way Phase 2," and there was going to be the
"The Hard Way Phase 3." Again, Matthew came back and had looked at the
Web, and he had realized this and this and this about the Web, and
wanted to implement these ideas. Lawrence was the same way. It's funny
we are talking about this because he called me just a few days ago,
wanting to do something. I would love to work with him again.

RG: So tell me what's going to happen at the ICA. Are you going to
produce more web art?

BW: It's hard to tell. I am definitely interested in pursuing some of
the things we were exploring at adaweb, but it will be different because
the production resources and the context are very different at the ICA.
The ICA is an institution with a history prior to the advent of digital
media, and this will undeniably have an important effect on how I
envision the development of a new media program.

For the first phase of projects, I am going to invite artists over to
introduce projects produced specifically for the ICA. I'd like artists
to come and interface with the public in a different way, either
presenting at a conference, giving a talk, or doing a workshop. I'd like
them to be involved at that level. As far as artists who need production
support, I will work with them one on one, raising budgets on a project
by project basis.

In light of what I said before about the history of the ICA, I think the
program is also going to be informed by what other programs of the ICA
are doing. For instance, if I find out that there is going to be a big
exhibition coming up–and that the artist is very interested in doing
something online, then I would like to work with him/her. In fact, I am
very interested in the possibilites of Web documentaries. I've been very
impressed by the way DIA has been documenting their exhibitions online.
The Juan Munoz project they put online for their Munoz show was really
amazing. It wasn't a catalogue, it wasn't a documentary–it was really
an art project. It clearly informed how you would perceive the exhibit,
but it also conveyed the spirit of the exhibition very nicely.

RG: I just realized you are going to a public institution, resulting in
a major shift of roles for you. You will have totally different powers.
People who wouldn't be interested in adaweb will be interested because
of the profile and nature of the ICA. I think you really will have an
opportunity to bring industry and arts together.

BW: That was a huge motivation for me in taking the job. I hope I will
be able to bring together people I couldn't bring together before. My
wish is to inform a dynamic of collaboration and cooperation among the
media arts community. I'd like to be able to initiate partnerships
between corporations such as Real Networks and artists, foster a
constructive dialogue between the people who contribute to the
development of the network from a software standpoint and the ones who
can creatively use it to produce artworks of all kinds.