JavaMuseum – Forum for Internet Technologies in Contemporary Art
(JAVA= Joint Advanced Virtual Affairs)
http://javamuseum.org
JIP – JavaMuseum Interview Project
http://jip.javamuseum.org
JavaMuseum 2007
http://a_and_b.javamuseum.org
JavaMuseum 2010 – Celebrate!
http://2010.javamuseum.org/
Index
An introduction
What is netart?
Featured shows
JavaArtist of the Year Award
An introduction
Now a corporate part of “Le Musee di-visioniste – the new museum of networked art, JavaMuseum was founded in 2000 by Agricola de Cologne as a virtual museum focussing on net based art, a specific form of digital art based on technologies used in Internet.
In 2001, JavaMuseum started an annual program consisting of a competition and showcases, giving the JavaArtist-of-the-Year-Award to outstanding artists in the fields of net based art and some featured exhibitions with changing subjects.
Until 2005, JavaMuseum organized in total 18 showcases of “netart” in a global context, three competitions and many features including more than 500 art works by 350 artists from 40 countries which form a unique and most comprehensive collection of net based art worldwide and in Internet.
JavaMuseum recognized quickly the necessity of collaborations on different levels and started in 2002 a collaboration in concern of the annual competition with University of Manila and Digital Art Festival Manila/Philippines, in 2003 JavaMuseum cooperated with Computer Space Festival Sofia and Goethe-Institute Sofia/Bulgaria.
In 2004, JavaMuseum launched the collaboration with [R][R][F]2004–>XP- global networking project and several features of net based art in this framework.
Although all these activities were very successful and JavaMuseum got an excellent reputation through these activities, it became evident, that not only the online environment of the Internet, but also the entire global “netart” scene changed during the years. An important aspect represents also that “netart” did not emancipate and is still in a kind of ghetto, not widely accepted as serious form of contemporary art. But also many of the once active artists retired, but new artist generations were not able to replace them in quantity and quality.
During 2004, JavaMuseum decided therefore to stop continuing its previous kind of activities by the end of 2004 and complete them by organizing a final show, to be launched in a physical presentations series in Palestine, Israel and Germany in February 2005.
JavaMuseum named these activities between 2000 and 2005 the “1st phase”, which will manifest themselves as a project environment encompassing the 18 showcases remaining online for permanent as a documentation of net art 2000-2004.
But this extraordinary collection and the involved artists and artworks will also form in future the basis for organizing showcases in physical space in collaboration with physical institutions, as museums or galleries.
In this way, already soon, the next and 2nd phase will start.
What is netart?
As the term “netart” has no binding definition, it is good to know, how JavaMuseum is defining this term and its net based activities, thus.
Netart is in first place art, a specific form of digital art using specific programming languages/technologies used in Internet. net is not only related to this aspect, but mainly that net based art has to be located in Internet on an URL (Internet address) of itsown, and is this wayit has to be available online to the user at any time . In principle, all technologies/programming languages can be used for artistic creation by programming, but not all technologies are predestined for artists use. Not each artist is a good programmer, and not each programmer is an artist. In this way, many artists use pre-formatted software applications in order to create net based works. There are no general aesthetic criteria, as each technology/programming language has its own specific aesthetics, in addition offer the communicating technologies new options and new and unexpected kinds of aesthetics. But technology represents just a tool, and it is the contents which are as relevant transported and transmitted by using the tool.
By defining “netart”, JavaMuseum does not follow any ideology, and is therefore also not restricted concerning contents or technology and open for all subjects and topics artists are working on. “netart” as it understood and featured by JavaMuseum shows in the global context an unusual variety of presentations and artistic positions and adds a lot of new aspects to the spectrum and general definition of contemporary art.
Since 2002, JavaMuseum started a series of neart art features from different cultural regions around the globe and succeeded in presenting many artists who were not in the spotlight before, and gave an idea what could netart represent in a global context.
Showcases and features
Between 2001 and 2004, JavaMuseum realized 25 showcases and features.
All of them were based on open calls in Internet and curated by Agricola de Cologne
who also created the curatorial environments and project interfaces.
JavaArtist of the Year Award
During the years 2001, 2002 and 2003, JavaMuseum gave an Award,
JavaArtist of the Year Award – to outstanding artists working with net based media.
The winners were
2001
Tiia Johannson, Estonia
Jody Zellen, USA
Mary_Anne Breeze (MEZ), Australia
2002
Calin Man, Romania
2003
David Crawford, USA
Annie Abrahams, France
Tsunamii.net, Singapore
.
Contacts:
JavaMuseum –
Forum for Internet Technologies in Contemporary Art
www.javamuseum.org
[JAVA=Joint Advanced Virtual Affairs]
Director and curator:
Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
artvideoKOELN international
http://artvideo.koeln
artvideokoeln (at) gmail.com