"010101"
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
http://010101.sfmoma.org/

"What if machines do have a subconscious?" asks Douglass Coupland in one
of the more ironic moments of "010101," the San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art's ambitious new showcase of online art. "If machines could
talk to us, what would they say?"

This question, which curators picked to help contextualize the artworks,
grows with meaning as you explore the exhibition–and download the
required plug-ins (including Flash 5 and Pulse 3D Player), wade through
cryptic interfaces and lengthy intro pages, and perhaps restart your
machine after multiple crashes.

Is this machine insane? Does it hate me? Or was the museum just a bit
overzealous in its first show of the new millennium?

Online art isn't always easy to view, but here the price of admission is
a bit high–especially for such a high profile show that targets a wide
audience.

That said, if you have a fast machine, generous bandwidth, and time to
play, the staging can be thrilling and the artworks are thought-
provoking.

This isn't a retrospective (like ZKM's "Net_Condition") or a collection
of existing works (like the Walker's "Art Entertainment Network"). Here,
in a rare show of faith to the medium, the museum commissioned all five
works on view.

In addition to the artworks, SFMOMA curators have done a laudable job of
experimenting with critical texts ("Think Texts"), visitor feedback, and
the live streaming of artist presentations ("Site Streaming").

A highlight of the show is Mark Napier's "Feed," which reads URLs and
spits out a whirlwind of colorful data. Like his previous works "Graphic
Jam" and "Shredder," "Feed" expands on the notion of an application as a
work of art. Interestingly enough, the piece only really came to life
when I selected the URL for Sexy.com–exploding in cascades of pink and
yellow which would surely make Coupland smile.

As SFMOMA's education director John Weber writes in a "Think Text" on
Sprawl: "All of this work represents a larger stream of visual
hyperconsciousness… This art is additive, not subtractive or
reductive. It is excessive and hyperbolic, not minimalist."

Erik Adrigard has also made an application of sorts. His commissioned
work, "Timelocator," presents an interface which continually changes
with the passing of time–a "web clock." At first glance it may puzzle
some viewers, recalling the simple graphic pleasures of Superbad, but
not much else: a bowling ball, dice, the Wailing Wall…

But spend time with the site and you may discover a clever process at
work. "Technology has become a vehicle to travel through time, rather
then space," says the artist in his statement.

Perhaps the most accessible work is by the British duo Thomson &
Craighead. Log in to "e-poltergeist," and your browser is taken over by
a mysterious force which launches its own windows and carries out
amusing searches at Yahoo.com. Pages of live queries for "Anyone there,"
"Please listen," and "Help me," twitch on your desktop.

Though the "Ghost in the Machine" browser freak-out is hardly original
(Jodi.org has mined this terrain for years), Thomson & Craighead's work
transcends the gimmick. By clicking on the search results, you can
wander into delightful corners of the human condition.

I clicked on a few links, and someone's post with "Please help me locate
local wine tasting groups" popped up. Another page begged: "Give example
how I can visit all web sex."

It's an engaging work, but one wonders how much stronger it would be if
users could stumble upon it serendipitously, instead of through the
confines of the museum's site.

Matthew Ritchie's commission, "The Hard Way," uses little of the Network
and hardly any computation, yet it's one of the most memorable works in
the show. Building upon the mythic universe he explores in his paintings
and drawings, Ritchie has crafted a narrative reminiscent of computer
games and comic books.

The use of the medium may not be new (relying mostly on simple hypertext
schemes), but Ritchie has created a series of compelling characters,
each with their own atomic elements and beautifully rendered
illustrations. "Penemue. She was pure information. Her body was a
library, her spinal column a crystal stairway of knowledge…"

It's more difficult to appreciate the mythic narrative from Auriea
Harvey and Michael Samyn (the Belgian-based team known as
Entropy8Zuper!). Their commission, "Eden.Garden 1.0," is a game-format
narrative based on the story of Adam and Eve. The characters,
representing the artists, are rendered in 3D using the previously
mentioned "Pulse 3D" software.

After crashing my computer twice, I finally managed to explore a level–
until I became lost, with the Adam character seemingly dead on the
ground and pack of giant bunnies hopping about. It's certainly amusing,
but the meaning is elusive.

+ + +

The online portion of "010101: Art in Technological Times" opened on
January 1st, 2001. The online show will be followed by an extensive
gallery exhibition on March 3. Sponsored by Intel, "010101" presents the
work of over 35 artists, architects and designers who are "responding to
a world altered by the increasing presence of digital media and
technology," the museum said in a statement.

The next "Site Streaming" tour, with Erik Adigard and SFMOMA curator
Aaron Betsky, is scheduled for February 22.