Networking: La Rete Come Arte

For those literate in Italian, there’s an interesting book, Networking: The Net as Art, on the intertwining histories of art and network culture in Italy which is freely available online as well as in print.

From the description at networkingart.eu:

The book represents a first tentative reconstruction of the history of artistic networking in Italy, through an analysis of the realities which during the past twenty years have given way to a creative, shared and aware use of technologies, from video to computers, contributing to the formation of Italian hacker communities.
Written by Tatiana Bazzichelli, with the preface of Derrick De Kerckhove and the epilogue of the videoartist Simonetta Fadda.

Networking means to create nets of relations, by sharing experiences and ideas in order to communicate and experiment artistically and where the publisher and the reader, the artist and the public, act on the same level.

In Italy, thanks to the alternative use of Internet, during the past twenty years of experimentation a vast national network of people who share political, cultural and artistic views has been formed. Active in underground environments, these projects use diverse media (computers, video, television, radio and magazines) and deal with technological experimentation, or hacktivism, depending on the terminology used in Italy, where the political component is a central theme.

The Italian network proposes a form of critical information, diffused through independent and collective projects where the idea of freedom of expression is also a central theme.

The book describes the evolution of the italian hacktiviam and net culture from the Eighties till today. At the same time, it builds a reflection on the new role of the artist and author who become networker, operating in collective nets, reconnecting to neoavant-garde artistic practices of the 1960’s (first and foremost Fluxus), but also Mail art, Neoism and Luther Blissett.

Leave A Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.