PORT: Navigating Digital Culture Organized by a r t n e t w e b MIT List Visual Arts Center January 25 through March 29, 1997

CULTURE IN CYBERSPACE
November 18, 1996/Volume 01, Issue 38
ISSN 1089-3652

*NOTEWORTHY ON THE WEB*

THE FLUX OF DIGITAL CULTURE

One of CinC's favorite art web sites, Artnetweb, is once again doing something interesting. The latest foray is PORT, "an exhibition of networked digital worlds on the Internet." The idea is to present, document, and discuss various net exhibits in a "Reference Gallery" space. This activity will run concurrently with an exhibit by Joseph Kosuth in an adjoining main gallery at the MIT List Visual Arts Center from 1/27/96 to 3/29/97.

At this point there is not a whole lot to see at the PORT web site. A few images here, a few concepts there. But reading the proposal for the exhibit provides some intriguing clues about where things might go. "Our primary concern is how to present the flux of digital culture, particularly the networked environment of the Internet, in a temporary physical state," reads the document. "Ours is a work of mediation with a position of facilitator both for the public and for the artist/creators. We hope that the borders between the two will be crossed in many ways as is happening in so many areas of the art world."

The main inspiration for the project is Kosuth, who is credited with "dematerializing the art object." Artnetweb is responding to what they see is Kosuth's call for "uncertainty in art... made more feasible and comprehensible with the rise of digital culture, creating not undifferentiated chaos but possibilities. Rather than drawing a curtain of irony over this window to make the illusion disappear, artists now have the ability to create a multiplicity of windows." PORT: http://artnetweb.com/port/

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Culture in Cyberspace is produced by:

Information Networking and Management Associates (INMA) News and information services/ http://www.radix.net/~wlefurgy/welcome.htm

Copyright 1996 by William G. LeFurgy; all rights reserved. Excerpts and sample copies may be distributed for non-commercial use so long as they are attributed and provide the CinC e-mail address (wlefurgy@radix.net).

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