All right! It's playtime!

Below is my personal selection of 10 net artworks for the beginner. I've provided navigational tips for each, when appropriate, and I have also attempted to elucidate the statements they make and the questions they raise.

Note: The dates provided represent the year each work debuted. Some remain as they were when launched, while others are “living” projects that continue to be updated.

JODI.org
Heemskirk, Joan, and Dirk Paesmans. (1995).

JODI.org is an early pioneer of net art, and one that relates closely to the “traditional” artistic precedents: it uses basic elements of web design (text, color, images, tables, links) as if they were paints to splatter or sculptural elements to scatter, creating Internet abstract expressionist paintings. You never know where the next click will take you… you may not even be able to find the next link to click. But it’s not simply nonsense; use your browser to “view page source” of the home page for an inkling about what may lie beneath.

Shredder
Napier, Mark. (1998).

Input the URL of any website and watch as Shredder literally turns the site inside-out, treating HTML code and links as design elements while warping images and tossing elements of page layout like a salad. Are the results more or less “attractive” than the original, controlled design? Also, within the shredded page, the links still work, so you can click for further deconstruction.

Nobody Here
Nobody. (1998).

A blog reconfigured as an interactive experience, Nobody Here is practically limitless in its creativity. Every diary-like text entry is illustrated with uniquely interactive images. The viewer is invited to play and play, though the goofy fun of the interactive elements is balanced by the emotional weight of the writing. Visitors can also choose an insect icon to represent themselves, then leave comments on individual pages. If you encounter Herman the hermit crab, try shaking him out of his shell.

0100101110101101.org
Mettes, Eva, and Franco Mettes (et.al.). (1998).

There are many conceptual projects to explore on this collective’s unpronounceable site. (I am informed that it represents a capital letter K in binary code.) I recommend Biennale.py, describing how they launched a computer virus at the 2001 Venice Biennale as a work of art, and Life Sharing, a project that allowed the public complete access to their computer from 2000-2003, challenging notions of privacy while positioning the “private” self as a public work of art.

Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries
Chang, Young-Hae. (2001).

Chang uses Flash technology to set narratives to propulsive music, so turn up the volume!  The texts, some political, some personal, flash by at near-subliminal speed, as if to compete with the Internet’s (and TV’s) unwanted barrage of hyper-animated advertisements. They’re all fascinating, but I particularly recommend: Metablast, in which blog commentary on a previous artwork becomes the text of the new artwork; Artist’s Statement No. 45,730,944, a deeply cynical examination of self and net art; and Orient, a frantic rocket ride through American stereotypes of Asian cultures. 

Shop Mandiberg
Mandiberg, Michael. (2000).

Michael Mandiberg’s concept was to offer every single thing he owned for sale on the Internet – including the computer equipment and software he used to create his site, and even his personal time. The more of his possessions you bought, he theorized, the more like him you could be, or the more of him you could own.  Though he is no longer for sale, the site remains online. His “sales pitches” for the various items are as wryly funny as they are incisive about consumer culture. And he did sell more than 100 items.

Blackness for Sale
Obadike, Keith. (2001).

Taking Mandiberg’s notion of self-as-commodity even further, Keith Obadike auctioned off his blackness on eBay in 2001. The seller’s description listed the possible benefits and drawbacks of using Keith’s “blackness” in various situations, (e.g., useful when telling race-based jokes, but not so handy when confronted by law officers). eBay shut the auction down after 6 days; Obadike was obviously making a statement, and eBay was obviously uncomfortable with that statement. Keith and his partner Mendi have many more net art projects worth investigating at their BlackNetArt site.

They Rule
On, Josh. (2001).

If you’ve ever suspected that major corporations are interconnected by a network of cronyism (or even if you haven’t), They Rule will be an eye-opener.  Begin by choosing a large corporation (e.g. Coca-Cola or General Motors). Right-click to reveal a context that allows you to look them up online, or (most importantly) see who sits on their Board of Directors. Now right-click on a Board member to see what other companies’ Boards they sit on. The visual execution is graceful and clever. My favorite touch: The more companies a person is in partial control of, the fatter their generic Male or Female icon. You can also save your network map and view maps that other visitors have created.

TraceNoizer
LAN. (200?).

TraceNoizer is a conceptual software application designed to help you muddle and diffuse the traces of your online activity. First, it asks you to input your “identity”; then it searches the Web for all instances of “you”; finally, it begins constructing clones of “you” and posting them to new pages that are freely hosted by various Web providers. The catch: Each clone is a deliberately faulty copy of the one preceding it, so, theoretically, TraceNoizer will eventually have posted so many false versions of “you” that anyone looking for you on a search engine like Google will not be able to determine which “you” is “real”.

The Dumpster
Levin, Golam, with Kamal Nigam and Jonathan Feinberg. (2006).