Art and web : towards an aesthetics of
interactivity ?
This panel will present a joint reflection on interactivity in web art
by one artist and two researchers. The presentations will be based on
demonstrations of artistic pieces and analyses of several artistic web
sites.
To gain a better understanding of what art is on the web, we have to
address the question from a semiotical and esthetical point of view :
what are the different forms and patterns of interactivity, and from a
sociological and ethnological point of view : how viewers become actors.
We will therefore analyse the processes of conception and design of web
interfaces and their appropriation by the internet users.
The aesthetics of web art are of a plastic but also a relational nature
that play on different time and place dimensions as well as on a balance
between determinacy and openness of the system. What is it to be a user
of the web and what kind of esthetical experience is then provided ? An
interactive work of art on the internet always raises the question of
shared authorship and consequently that of the status of artists on this
specific media of diffusion. We have to understand what are the
political and social stakes of this new art form.
Screen savers, movie websites, artistic chats, dance for the internet,
this session will provide a view on the artistic diversity of art on the
net.
The following debate will then provide a reflection on the private /
public nature of web art and subsequent consequences on intimacy and
social practice.
Each presentation will take 20 minutes and the remaining time will be
devoted to the debate.