[This interview was completed in the fall 2000 for the online+print
exhibition ON OFF at afsnitp.dk and in the printed magazine Hvedekorn,
both based in Copenhagen, Denmark (http://www.afsnitp.dk/onoff/). Issues
touched upon are: the role of programming in creation and appreciation
of net art, the market value of net art, the (art) history of
programming, the (non)physicality of the net, and the formal and
political dimensions of net art.]

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

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Andreas Broegger: I see a connection between the idea of *touching*
physical material and your Shredder project. Shredder seems to treat the
virtual as *material*, just like another of your projects does, Digital
Landfill, a virtual, public garbage dump for web material.

Mark Napier: Yes. Both the Shredder and Digital Landfill contrast the
physical and virtual worlds. The Shredder appears to rip a web page to
pieces, and Digital Landfill uses the metaphor of a garbage dump to
'dispose' of unwanted digital material. I want to satisfy a physical
urge to get hold of this virtual 'stuff', the material of the web,
whatever that is, to act upon it, to alter it, even if it is the content
of another web site that is supposed to be off limits to me. In the
process it becomes clear that you can't really shred the web the way we
can shred the 'real' world, but that's what makes it fun to try.

AB: I also like the fact that you break with the usual packaging of
virtual products, which in a way seems to me very limited. For instance,
browsers and operating systems reduce the packaging and handling of an
endless variety of virtual products to a limited range of procedures,
such as clicking and dragging (despite the fact that these techniques
have taken a long time to perfect). Why do computer files, such as texts
and images, have to be "square"? Of course, this resembles our usual
containers for information like the text page or the television screen.
But do you think we will abandon the square shape of screens and virtual
windows, and in the future have screens and files which are, e.g., round
or triangular, and maybe even have a tactile dimension built into them,
like real packaging and real objects?

MN: I don't think rectangles will go away any time soon. They've been a
dominant interface element for thousands of years (rows of text are
basically 'rectangular'). Some software interfaces break with the
tradition of square buttons and windows. And the web, with its
proliferation of unique graphics for interface elements, has loosened up
the standards in windowing operating systems. Still standards arise
fairly quickly, i.e. the 'rollover' effect, where a button changes color
when the mouse passes over it, which started as an unusual addition to
web pages and now is nearly ubiquitous. Interfaces benefit from being
simple and standardized. The mouse is a simple device that can perform a
wide variety of tasks through a simple operation like drag and drop. The
simplicity is what makes these interface elements powerful.

There have been attempts to make the virtual world look and act like the
real world, through VRML for example, but these seem to have failed, at
least for now. A two dimensional web page is usually easier to navigate
than an illusion of three dimensional space. The computer interface is
still two dimensional, and translates awkwardly into the spatial
dimension of a rendered 3D space. When it comes to navigating
information, the written page is a more familiar metaphor than 3D space.
We read newspapers, for instance, which are mostly text. The layout of
text and images on a page is a familiar and practical way to present a
wide variety of information.

We don't need to replicate 3D space in the virtual. VRML worlds don't
need to have gravity. They don't even need a flat plane on which people
walk. The first time I visited Active Worlds I spent the whole time
flying. It just made sense as a way to get around in that space. I
didn't want to have to navigate on the ground, the way I have to in the
real world. These worlds don't need a 'ground' at all. The VRML world
can exist as a spherical space without gravity, which could give access
to more experiences more conveniently than a traditional world with
gravity and a horizontal plane.

So to answer your question, I think that real packaging and real objects
have a lot of drawbacks when compared to virtual objects. It is easier
to navigate in a virtual world that is non-tactile. While there is a
vicarious thrill to simulated spaces, that's a different kind of
experience than the day-to-day process of navigating the web.

AB: Is there a real life parallel of RIOT as is the case with Shredder?

MN: The real life parallel to RIOT is a real riot, I suppose. When you
have two cultures and classes facing off in a confined territory, like
Tompkins Square here in New York in the late eighties, you get a forced
overlapping of ideologies. Beatnik squatters vs. yuppies and real-estate
developers. RIOT pursued that physical clash, but in a virtual arena, by
overlapping very different web sites into one browser window. For many
people the result is an insult, because they see their domains as
unassailable territories, or at least that's what they want them to be.

AB: This leads me to a last set of questions. Shredder, RIOT, and
Digital Landfill have a kind of "anarchic" feel to them, and you have
previously found yourself in a legal battle with Mattel over your
Distorted Barbie images. To what extent is there a political dimension
in your work? And how do you see this dimension in relation to the more
formal issues you talked about earlier?

MN: These works have an element of frustration, a desire to influence,
to affect an environment that has been structured to be outside of my
control. I enjoy finding ways, through code, to get inside somebody
else's web page. That's essentially what the Shredder and Riot do. I
used code to get around the rules of division and territory that the
browser imposes. These rules are artificial, they are created by
software, and as a programmer I have access to software too, so I can
undo some of those rules and create a web browser where two or three
different web domains can be overlapped in one window. The word "domain"
has a such a territorial sound to it, yet that territory exists only so
long as browser software follow the rules. It begs to be broken.

I see this as a question of personal identity, not so much a political
issue. I'm interested in how we react to the web, as humans, as physical
bodies, as individuals with our own personal concerns: a desire to be
seen, to be known, but also to be private. That can be political, but I
don't take it that way.

The formal issues of technology create new legal challenges. The web
gave me a means to publish the Distorted Barbie, the same means that
Mattel employed when they made Barbie.com. Through this medium, Mark
Napier and Mattel meet on new terms, and are suddenly producing very
similar products. Technically there's not much difference between my web
site and Barbie.com. Now the corporation has to compete in a new way
with an individual. The 'soft' world created by code has different rules
than the 'hard' world that we're familiar with and that will lead to
changes in law and politics, however slowly.

AB: Do you think net art invites a new constellation of the political
and the formal in art?

MN: The internet creates a new level of portability for art, and that
changes the nature of art.

About five hundred years ago the invention of oil on canvas
revolutionized art by creating a portable, standardized art form.
Anybody with a wall could hang a painting, and that opened up the
possibility that art could become a private activity, outside of the
public and commercial projects sponsored by state and religious
authorities. The convenience and practicality of the new medium made it
easier to distribute. Coupled with new knowledge of the natural world
that allowed for richer rendering of subjects, oil paintings became
compelling and desirable objects with enough potential to survive for
hundreds of years as the medium of choice for visual art.

The net has a similar potential to alter the nature of art, by creating
a very portable art form. Net art can be viewed by anyone with a
browser. They view the art in the same way, in the same space in which
they view any other site on the web. Give or take a few plug-ins, the
equipment for viewing net art is no different from the equipment needed
for viewing the web itself. This creates a much broader means for
distributing art, not just the artwork itself, but also spreading the
conversation about art.

I don't think that art itself has much impact on the political. But the
structure of the internet creates many challenges to the existing legal
and political system. The internet brings new definitions of ownership.
Objects and territory are redefined. New conceptions of value arise, and
new ways of creating value. For example, in open source projects many
people work together to create software. The value of this process is
not reduced to a profit motive, to a dollar amount. The software has
value for those that use it, so programmers are willing to contribute
time and skill to creating what they need. The resulting open source
product is not a commodity to be owned..

The internet is spawning changes in business, in software development,
in economics and law. The changes we see in the art world are part of
the larger process.