Post-Internet is a 21st-century art movement[1] involving works that are derived from the Internet or its effects on aesthetics, culture and society.[2]

Post-Internet art is a contemporary art movement influenced by Internet culture. The installation Maid in Heaven / En Plein Air in Hell (My Beautiful Dark and Twisted Cheeto Problem) by Parker Ito (White Cube, 2014) serves as an example.

Definition

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Post-Internet is a loosely-defined term[1] that was coined by artist/curator Marisa Olson in an attempt to describe her practice.[3] It emerged from mid-2000s discussions about Internet art by Gene McHugh (author of a blog titled "Post-Internet"), and Artie Vierkant (artist, and creator of Image Object sculpture series).[4] The movement itself grew out of Internet Art (or Net Art).[4] According to the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, rather than referring "to a time “after” the internet", the term refers to "an internet state of mind".[5] Eva Folks of AQNB wrote that it "references one so deeply embedded in and propelled by the internet that the notion of a world or culture without or outside it becomes increasingly unimaginable, impossible."[6]

The term is controversial and the subject of much criticism in the art community.[1] Art in America's Brian Droitcour in 2014 opined that the term fails to describe the form of the works, instead "alluding only to a hazy contemporary condition and the idea of art being made in the context of digital technology."[7] According to a 2015 article in The New Yorker, the term describes "the practices of artists [whose] artworks move fluidly between spaces, appearing sometimes on a screen, other times in a gallery."[8] Fast Company's Carey Dunne summarizes they are "artists who are inspired by the visual cacophony of the web" and notes that "mediums from Second Life portraits to digital paintings on silk to 3-D-printed sculpture" are used.[3]

There is theoretical overlap with writer and artist James Bridle's term New Aesthetic.[9][2] Ian Wallace of Artspace writes that "the influential blog The New Aesthetic, run since May 2011 by Bridle, is a pioneering institution in the post-Internet movement" and concludes that "much of the energy around the New Aesthetic seems, now, to have filtered over into the "post-Internet" conversation."[2] Post-Internet art is also discussed by Katja Novitskova as being a part of 'New Materialism'.[10][11]

Wallace considers the Post-Internet term to stand for "a new aesthetic era," moving "beyond making work dependent on the novelty of the Web to using its tools to tackle other subjects". He notes that the post-Internet generation "frequently uses digital strategies to create objects that exist in the real world."[2] Or as Louis Doulas writes in Within Post-Internet, Part One (2011): "There is a difference then, in an art that chooses to exist outside of a browser window and an art that chooses to stay within it."[12]

Influence

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Vaporwave is among the Internet-centric microgenres and subcultures spearheaded by the post-Internet movement.[1]

The movement spearheaded microgenres and subcultures such as seapunk and vaporwave.[1] In the early 2010s, "post-Internet" was popularly associated with the musician Grimes. Grimes used the term to describe her work at a time when post-Internet concepts were not typically discussed in mainstream music arenas.[13] Amarco referred to Yung Lean as "by and large a product of the internet and a leading example of a generation of youths who garner fame through social media."[1]

Exhibitions

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There have been a number of significant group art shows explicitly exploring Post-Internet themes. There was a 2014 exhibition called Art Post-Internet at Beijing's Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, which ARTnews named one of the "most art exhibitions of the 2010s"[14] which "set out to encapsulate the budding movement."[2] MoMA curated Ocean of Images in 2015, a show "probing the effects of an image-based post-Internet reality."[15] The 2016 9th Berlin Biennale, titled The Present in Drag, curated by the art collective DIS, is described as a Post-Internet exhibition.[16][17][18] Other examples include:

  • Raster Raster, Aran Cravey Gallery, Los Angeles, 2014[19]
  • 2015 Triennial: Surround Audience at New Museum, New York, 2015[20][21]
  • Zero Zero, Annka Kulty Gallery, London, 2016[22]

Notable artists

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Amarca, Nico (March 1, 2016). "From Bucket Hats to Pokémon: Breaking Down Yung Lean's Style". High Snobiety. Retrieved May 24, 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Wallace, Ian (March 18, 2014). "What Is Post-Internet Art? Understanding the Revolutionary New Art Movement". Artspace.
  3. ^ a b Dunne, Carey (2014-03-10). "9 Post-Internet Artists You Should Know". Fast Company. Retrieved 2021-01-26.
  4. ^ a b Connor, Michael (November 1, 2013). "What's Postinternet Got to do with Net Art?". Rhizome.
  5. ^ a b "Art Post-Internet". UCCA Center for Contemporary Art. Retrieved 2021-01-23.
  6. ^ a b c d e Folks, Eve (3 March 2014). "Concerning Art Post-Internet". AQNB.
  7. ^ Droitcour, Brian (2014-10-29). "The Perils of Post-Internet Art". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2021-01-26.
  8. ^ Kenneth, Goldsmith (2015-03-10). "Post-Internet Poetry Comes of Age". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2016-09-14.
  9. ^ "The New Aesthetic and its Politics | booktwo.org". Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  10. ^ "Post-Internet Materialism Martijn Hendriks & Katja Novitskova - Features - Metropolis M". www.metropolism.com. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  11. ^ "Katja Novitskova's Work In A Post-Internet World – the Future In A Mediated Reality < 1/2015 < Issues - kunst.ee". ajakirikunst.ee. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  12. ^ Doulas, Louis (2011). Within Post-Internet, Part One. pooool.info.
  13. ^ Snapes, Laura (February 19, 2020). "Pop star, producer or pariah? The conflicted brilliance of Grimes". The Guardian.
  14. ^ Durón, Maximilíano; Greenberger, Alex (17 December 2019). "The Most Important Art Exhibitions of the 2010s". Artnews.
  15. ^ "Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015 | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  16. ^ "You missed the 9th Berlin Biennale". showerofkunst.com. Retrieved 2020-12-15.
  17. ^ a b "DIS – the post-internet collective Curating the 9th Berlin Biennale". fineartmultiple.com. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  18. ^ a b ""Die Stadt ist internationaler geworden" | Monopol". www.monopol-magazin.de (in German). Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  19. ^ a b ""Raster Raster" at Aran Cravey Gallery, Los Angeles •". Mousse Magazine (in Italian). 2014-04-07. Retrieved 2021-01-26.
  20. ^ "2015 Triennial: Surround Audience at the New Museum". DAILY SERVING. Retrieved 2021-01-26.
  21. ^ a b "Exhibitions".
  22. ^ a b "Exhibition // 'Zero Zero' Proposes A New Post-Internet Landscape". Berlin Art Link. 2016-07-17. Retrieved 2021-01-26.
  23. ^ Vierkant, Artie (27 October 2009). "Information, Aesthetics & Fun: An Interview with AIDS-3D". Hyperallergic.
  24. ^ "R-U-IN?S / GARDEN CLUB KAI (KARI) ALTMANN 2009 - ONGOING". Rhizome Anthology. 27 October 2016.
  25. ^ McLean-Ferris, Laura (21 July 2014). "Aleksandra Domanović". ArtReview. Domanović has ... created paper-stack sculptures (made by printing to the edge of blank A4 paper, at full bleed) that commemorate the day in 2010 that the .yu domain was taken off the Internet.... The memorialising of this moment makes sense for an artist so committed to the Internet as a form...
  26. ^ "Parker Ito, or the anxiety of over-hyped young artists". Judith Benhamou-Huet Reports. 2016-09-11. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  27. ^ "Rachel De Joode". Akoya Books. 10 October 2016. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
  28. ^ Heuser, Biance (4 May 2016). "HIJACKING CLASSICAL SCULPTURES IN VIENNA Artist Oliver Laric Open-Sources Museum Sculptures and Shows How Technology Has Changed Authenticity". Ssense.com.
  29. ^ "Berlin Biennale | Participants". September 2022.
  30. ^ Moulon, Dominique. "ARS ELECTRONICA 2017".
  31. ^ Culture, Magazine Contemporary (2012-01-30). "Post Internet Survival Guide, 2010". Magazine Contemporary Culture. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  32. ^ No, Ryder Ripps Didn't Do the CIA Redesign|CQ
  33. ^ "6 'Postinternet' Artists You Should Know". 5 March 2014.
  34. ^ Frank, Simon (March 2019). "Timur Si-Qin MAGICIAN SPACE 魔金石空间". Artforum.
  35. ^ Sánchez Gómez, Laura (2023-01-02). "Futuros postdigitales en español: tensiones postidentitarias en la creación electrónica" [Post-digital futures in Spanish: post-identity tensions in electronic creation]. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies (in Spanish). 24 (1): 121–133. doi:10.1080/14636204.2023.2177024. ISSN 1463-6204.
  36. ^ Post-Internet Art is the Fast Food of the Contemporary World
  37. ^ "Interview Theo Triantafyllidis". 12 February 2024.
  38. ^ "Frieze Editors Debate the Artist of the Decade | Frieze". Frieze. 13 December 2019. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  39. ^ "magazine / archive / Ann Hirsch | MOUSSE CONTEMPORARY ART MAGAZINE". 2015-03-18. Archived from the original on 2015-03-18. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
  40. ^ "Berlin Biennale | Participants". Retrieved 2020-12-15.
  41. ^ Mallonee, Laura (2019-02-07). "Is That a Hand? Glitches Reveal Google Books' Human Scanners". WIRED. Retrieved 2023-11-07.

Further reading

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  • Novitskova, Katja. Post internet survival guide 2010. Berlin: Revolver Publishing, 2011. ISBN 978-3-86895-350-3
  • McHugh, Gene. Post Internet. Notes on the Internet and Art 12.29.09 > 09.05.10, Brescia: Link Editions, 2011.
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