To fans of Rembrandt’s delicate touch, Schiele’s enervating line or Rothko’s immersive color, the Internet might not seem like the perfect tool for making art, but don’t tell Lindsay Howard that. The New York-based curator took her interest in digital media and ran with it, becoming one of the few experts in the burgeoning realm of Postinternet Art. She’s already curated digital art sales for a major auction house and helped turn young digital artists like Petra Cortright into art world stars. She even positioned movie star Shia LaBeouf as a new media artist that needs to be taken seriously—no small feat. We spoke to her (over the Internet, obviously) about the state of “net art,” how digital art can work in a real-life gallery and her current research on “ex-boyfriends and gambling.”
I’m interested in net art specifically because of its accessibility. I like that it’s available to anyone with an internet connection and that it can be viewed in one’s daily space, in addition to a museum or a gallery. The intimacy of one’s screen creates a powerful context for art, and it’s moving to see artist interventions in what’s become a space colonized for commercial interests. Along with this, there are many individuals who are developing best practices for archiving, collecting, and presenting net art. It’s an ongoing, lively conversation and debate that’s happening at institutions like Rhizome, The Whitney, and MoMA, and on message boards, listservs, and chatrooms across the web.
[“Source-observer”]
