Beyond the Future: Papers from the Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

CROSSING OVER: THE ENTRY OF INTERNET ART AND ELECTRONIC ART FROM ASIA I NTO THE INTERNATIONAL MAI NSTREAM Ni ranjan Rajah The Assimi lation of Internet Art into Mainstream Art Contexts 'The in itially interesting strategies by wh ich net artists dissociated themselves from the art system gave rise, subsequently, to a more dogmatic attitude in the late 90s, that decreed Internet art to be rad ical only if it existed solely on the mon itor screen. Nevertheless, the question of how to present net projects in physical space is no less important than it is for non-technology-based works . ' 1 In the 'early days', Internet art required some techn ical understanding of networks and computing. It was the domain of the special ist and remained well on the margins of the contemporary art mainstream . However, just as 'icon and mouse' software transformed the notion of computer l iteracy, the World Wide Web has simplified and 'democratized' Internet access. As multimedia and video conferencing capabilities go on-line, fluidly articulating image, text, sound and video, the Internet is fast becoming a medium for the presentation of h itherto unimagined hybrid art forms. If the Internet was attracting artists even when it was a highly specialized arena, contemporary artists are now going on-line at a tremendous rate. While initially, most art sites simply used the World Wide Web for presenting 'information' about artists and their work in other med ia, today, many artists have begun to treat the Internet as a medium for art itself. Meanwhile, the physical presence of museums and galleries and their institutional authority have been displaced by the proliferation of 'virtual galleries' all over the I nternet. While the traditional art institutions themselves have been lead ing in the development of web sites to expand and increase access to and exposure of their collections of phys ical works of art, most galleries still have not responded to the Internet as a medium for artistic production in its own right. Most are yet to install adequate infrastructure with in the Gallery's premises. While most institutions and arenas recognize the need to integrate Internet art into their productions, many still run Internet projects from the hard drives of 'unplugged' computers. Indeed , art institutions must develop their infrastructure and curatorial strategies to engender an integration of the gallery with cyber-space. Any rift between new med ia and old will, in the short run, stifle the new arts, but in the long run it is the physically rooted art that will be left behind. The Absorption Of Asian Art Into the Electronic Art Mainstream 'An analysis of Japanese web projects and related art/entertainment projects would give interesting insights into the nature of the emerging d igital community. Take for example Post Pet, a best-selling email software by a Japanese artist Kazuhiko Hachiya and d istributed by Sony Computer. This is a virtual pet which is supposed to deliver email for the user but has a life and will of its own . It might not be available when the user needs it, while it m ight start writing and delivering email on its own . After they d isappear from the screen, as the pets live a short l ife, they enjoy an after-life in their parad ise where the former owners can visit them . Post Pet is a projection of Japanese ideas of self and identity onto cyberspace . ' 2 In the last decade, art from the 'Asia Pacific', 'Asia' and 'Southeast Asia', has been gathered and exhibited in various regional centres with superior cultural infrastructures. The administration of these expansive and comprehensive exh ibitions, curated on the basis of national sections, has produced what can be described as neocolonial curatorial hierarchies with national co-curators feed ing powerful central selection committees and, invariably, there seems to be an insistence on national particularities with which the co-curators are obliged to comply. In the course of these developments an auto-oriental ism has emerged in which Asians understand each other in terms of national idioms . As artists from non-western countries struggle to domesticate d ig ital technology, there has emerged a similar tendency for them and the new curators of new media art to put forward works that i ndex national id ioms. This amounts to a kind of 'techno-oriental ism' which favours d igital expressions of indigenous forms over attempts to address the universal issues of art and technology. The problem with this scenario is that the centre stage seems to belong to those from the centres of cultural power, while the 'others' are relegated to ornamenting the periphery. In constructing the emerging digital aesthetic, it is important to recognize we all have equal claim to the centre. Indeed , Asians must apply digital technology in the arts without recourse to superficial cultural 1 55