Eastern Europe, following the ages of communism, was a great launching point for net.art since the landscape of these countries was open and pluralistic, allowing artistic celebration, expression, and expansion into new mediums such as the internet. This was indicative of political and cultural reform and international collaboration. Something that I did not know was that the art community was “exhausted” and “commercially exploited” in the 1980’s, and had completely crashed in the early 1990’s. This art community, however, began to recover as the internet began to take hold. Additionally, I did not realize the role the early rise of the internet played in propaganda, politics, social change, and more. Lots of money was flowing into the internet because it was taking hold so quickly. Artists thought they would benefit from this massive inflow of funding. Another significant part of this movement that I did not know the magnitude of was how many different ways people produced this net.art. There is so much variety and uniqueness to each piece. I originally thought that GIFs were the only form of internet art, however, there is so much more. I visited brandon.guggenheim.org and was surprised to see how detailed and extensive a “choose your own webventure” site could be. This one had several different images, movements, pages, and effects that made it super engaging and interesting for the user. I attached five images of early net.art that I found interesting. Some common themes I want to incorporate into my “choose your own webventure” are movement, engagement, surprise, and unique colors.
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