ART 314: Digital and Time - Based Art

Project three research

Olia Lialina

I was shown this artist by Tyne because of the similar concepts being explored. Olia Lialina is known as a pioneer in the medium of net art. She is from Moscow, Russia and has studied film criticism and journalism at Moscow State University. She has created 15 web projects, has two blogs, along with writing and curating events. Out of the 15, the one that was first presented to me, as well as the most related with the concept of my project. It was a web project entitled My boyfriend came back from the war. It is an abstracted narrative about a guy returning from a war, and the girlfriend of the solider telling how she cheated on him. You have to figure out which image or text to click on next in order to be revealed piece by piece, and at times, the narrative doesn’t flow, but eventually the participant of the story gets enough clues to find the conclusion of the story. After clicking and following the images and the story you find out they speak of a future marriage between them and it ends with a blank box. It is interesting the way it is understandable through all the abstractions. I also liked the imagery that was placed along with the text and how well the highly contrasted and pixeled the images were to run smoothly with black and white of the texts and the boxes that shaped the layout. I enjoyed going through this web story, it was very interactive and keep my attention because I wanted to know how this dramtic story played out. I really enjoyed the part of the story, where she talks about how she kept his picture, and the slight changes in the photos made it look almost animated. I think this project and the artist gave me more ideas as to how to go about telling a narrative story in a not quite linear way to add to the involvement of the viewer of the piece.

Jody Zellen

www.jodyzellen.com

After following links and links of digital literature sites, net art sites, and information of non linear storytelling, I came across Jody Zellen. She is an artist who works in several different mediums such as photography, installations, public art, as well as net art. Zellen has 13 net art projects under her belt, ranging from 1997 to present year. Most of her projects were really interesting and kept me compelled while viewing them. The one that most resinated in my mind was her 2001 project entitled, Random Paths. It was meant to be almost like a poetic take of ones history of travel. When clicking through the links, a smaller pop up will appear with a grid of different images relating to the text that was clicked on. When scrolling a mouse over the grid the image changes to a different image. Those images will be later recognized while returning to the bigger page with the text. On one of the hyperlinks, there is a small video that appears, with unidentifiable imagery happening. Another hyperlink will bring the viewing participant to another project of hers. This I think is a humorous jump, that continues in a seemingly never-ending loop of clicking links to continue to follow aimlessly through the pages. Zellen’s net artwork is very interesting and helps further my idea process with my coming digital project. The randomness and labyrinth like qualities are elements I enjoy interacting with as a participant of art. The importance of her project is others’ desires to keep clicking on the next step to see what lies in the next page. Which is something similar to my concept, with a story told through hyperlinks. I was considering whether or not to do a very realistic linear story or to go more abstract and after viewing Zellen’s and Lialina’s work, I found the abstracted qualities heightened my interest in the next click, so I am leaning towards creating a more labyrinth-esque story for my interactive project.