DXARTS 490 A: Special Topics in Digital Arts and Experimental Media

Writing on his blog “Post Internet” between 2009 and 2010, the writer Gene McHugh defined the “post-internet” as a condition in which “the Internet is less a novelty and more a banality," a description that has only become more accurate in the past decade. Today, there is arguably no technology more banal, more ubiquitous, and more necessary than the internet. Nor have there ever been more journalistic, scientific, and cultural analysis of how the internet is transforming society, by changing the way we think and behave, work and consume, date and love, read and write, learn and talk, eat and dress, watch movies and TV, even vote. If the internet has changed everything, including how we see the world, then its presence must also be felt in the realm of art. The internet's influence on art is obvious in art that is actually made online—works that are typically called internet art or net art. But how has the internet influenced art made offline, for instance, traditional mediums like paintings and sculptures? Furthermore, what new mediums and styles have evolved in response to the internet’s infiltration of all aspects of daily life? And what does it mean to call a work of art "post-internet," especially if it doesn't actually live online?

This is a studio and discussion-based class in which students are introduced to making art on, and in dialog with, the Internet. The class examines historical and recent examples of Internet Art, as well as the emergence of Postinternet aesthetics.