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Presentation Dates

West Orlando WordPress Meetup

Register at Meetup.com

October 19th, 2023

Virtual

WordPress as a Paintbrush

Internet Art Then & Now

My Background & Perspective:

Art

  • 2017: B.A. in Art History
  • Contemporary Art Museums & Galleries

Products

  • 2020: UX Design Bootcamp
  • Independent Product Designer
  1. Net Art: Setting the Stage
  2. WordPress: Then ’til Now
  3. Future: What Now?

Net Art

Setting the Stage

Jurassic Park

VCRs and Cassette Tapes

President Bill Clinton

1993 – 2001

Cartoon Network

Oprah Interviews Michael Jackson

90s

Pulp Fiction

Metallica plays at the GRAMMYs

CDs

Gameboy

Internet History

Apple Macintosh II

Photo: Hellis at it.wikipedia

Word Wide Web

1991

First Internet Service PRovider

1994

HTML released to the Public

1992

1 million People Online

Getting People Online

1

Government

3

Corporations

2

Universitites

4

Public

Internet Art

Conceptual

Relating to or based on mental concepts

Digital

Electronic technology that generates, stores, and processes data

Internet-centric

Global computer network for information and communication

Early Examples

JODI

Joan Heemskerk and
Dirk Paesmans

1995

"Code Poetry"

Demo:
“wwwwwwwww.JODI.org”

“When you work with computers, you have sound and you have image, but in the computer you also have code. And we tried to play with that a lot.”

- Joan Heemskerk (JODI)

Olia Lialina

1996

"Netfilm"

Pioneer, Organizer, Curator

Demo:
“My Boyfriend Came Back From the War”

"I was not very fond of this format back then. I would have preferred it to be a video, but animated GIF was the only way to get a moving image in the browser."

- Olia Lialina

Mark Amerika

1997

"Epic Novel"

Selected for 2000 Whitney Biennial

Demo:
“GRAMMATRON”

"What is kind of scary is the possibility of never reaching production closure because of the advent of all these software applications."

- Mark Amerika

Timeline

1996

New York Times goes online

1997

Forming a definition

Late 90s

  1. Net Art: Setting the Stage
  2. WordPress: Then ’til Now
  3. Future: What Now?

WordPress

Then 'til Now

# of Websites

WordPress

2003

What it is:

Open-source

Content Management System: Theme, Plugins, Media, Database, “Core”

How it helps:

  • easier to build websites
  • easier to build companies
  • easier to publish content
  • easier to connect to people

Web History

Major Factors

  • Smartphones & PCs
  • Social media
  • Blockchain

WordPress

Revolutionizing the Web

  • Transparent
  • Democratized
  • No-code Options

'internet art'

Understanding a definition

  • minimalism
  • expressionism
  • cubism

Newer examples of internet art

ANI + SUZI

Platform Art

Comedy

Marketing

Demo:
“Amazon Dating”

Shawné Michaelain Holloway

Power Structures

Identities

(Viewer Discretion Advised)

Raphael Rozendahl

w. 2000 - present

Sells websites as art

  1. Net Art: Setting the Stage
  2. WordPress: Then ’til Now
  3. Future: What Now?

Future:

What now?

What Now?

Net Art's Function

  • Understand the Past
  • Experiment with the Present
  • Imagine the Future

2016

2022

“Only when users start to express themselves with these technical innovations do they truly become relevant to culture at large.”

- Olia Lialina

GRAMMATRON REMIXED W/ CHATGPT

CMS: WordPress

Front-End: Elementor

Content: AI (ChatGPT)

Website:

"My focus is and has always been to look at the role that technē, technicity, plays...

To really investigate the prosthesis I am."

- Mark Amerika

Go forth and make art!

Thank You!

WordPress as a Paintbrush

Internet Art Then & Now

Rachel Winchester