Net_condition: Art and Global Media

The global reach of contemporary media has greatly influenced social, political, and physical space. Indeed, we are becoming inhabitants of information space. net_conditioninvestigates the consequences of this phenomenon that is radically altering the public sphere, the private sphere, and the possibilities of creativity in the networked sphere. In studying the movement from photography to film, video, and now online art, art historians and theorists have held that each new medium introduces characteristics and conditions that are in some respects superior to those of previous media. The net is changing not only other media, but society itself, transforming social communication, art, and politics. The contributors view the net as a universal tool that is altering the local structures--from ethics to economics--of the historical world into nonlocal structures. In a world of distributed virtual realities, shared cyberspace, multilocal net-games, and online multiuser environments, millions of users interact in virtual info-spheres. In this global information world, net.art has become a means of expressing, as well as testing, social and political utopian ideas. net_conditionis published in conjunction with an international exhibition that took place simultaneously in Germany, Austria, Spain, and Japan. It includes the work of such critical writers as Pierre Bourdieu, Manuel Castells, Claudia Gianetti, Edward S. Hermann, Armand Mattelart, and Siegfried Zielinski. Copublished with ZKM/Center for Art and Media and with steirischer herbst.