Joseph Squier
I'm fascinated by the Web, but also profoundly
ambivalent. Don't let anybody fool you into
believing that the Internet is everything it's
hyped as. And don't be fooled into thinking
that its a place brimming with incredible art.
It isn't.
The Web, which is the Internet at its best, is
an awkward and clunky environment for an artist
to work in. The design possibilities are
excruciatingly limited. Images load slowly
under even the best of circumstances. And it
can get frustrating if you don't particularly
like watching video the size of a postage stamp,
or listening to sound in 20 second increments.
But still, I'm drawn to the Web and have even
committed myself to working in it as my chosen
medium. I'm not so much interested in what the
Web is, but rather in what it can become. I'm
particularly curious about how artists will
work here.
Independent of medium or tool or technique,
there are timeless aspects of art that endure.
Artists communicate.
They accomplish this by speaking a symbolic
language that is shared by the tribe. The Web
is a very unusual kind of tribe, but the word fits.
And like all tribes before it, there will be those
who give expression to the beliefs and values
of the group.
They'll call themselves artists.
The language they will use won't look or feel like
anything that we've experienced before. I don't know
what the exact shape of that language will be. It's
beyond my ability to imagine. But I know that I'm
witnessing its beginning.