Putting artists on-line
A short article by Alexei Shulgin on Russian net.art (1996).
Eastern European Art scene, as is known
is characterised
by historical separation
and geographical remoteness (especially
in case of Russia) from established
centres of contemporary
art / culture.
Artists here live and work in conditions,
completely different from those in the
West. Lack of
cultural institutions and
state/private support, poor
communications with the international art
world on one
hand bring a lot of challenge
and sincerity (almost completely
lost in
western part of the world) into artist"s
motivations.
But on the other, many
interesting ideas, projects and
exhibitions
remain underestimated, don"t become an
integral
part of the international culture
process. One
of the most essential aims of
Moscow WWWArt Centre therefore
is to
follow local art scene and to put the most
interesting
projects / art works (especially
those that easily fit
the internet format)
on-line, giving to artists, originally
confined by their life and work
circumstances, a possibility
of much
broader international audience. During
the last months Moscow WWWArt
Centre has produced internet
presentations of various projects / art
works of Moscow
artists. Some of them,
like "All for Sale" by Aliona Martinova
(http://sunsite.cs.msu.su/wwwart/aliona)
or "Contemporary
Art Workshop"
(http://sunsite.cs.msu.su/wwwart/caw)
have
attracted a lot of response from the
international net
audience. During my presentation at the V2 East
Meeting I would like to show some of
these projects
and talk about my
experience of this kind of work with
artists
and problems that arise from it. .........................................................
.....moscow wwwart centre............
(http://sunsite.cs.msu.su/wwwart)
.........................................................
