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Abstract
Networked art is not just a niche cultural form. This dynamic sphere of creative practice has significant implications for the histories and futures of cultural production. Networked art has been the subject of evolving aesthetic contemplation and debate for over two decades. Yet the institutional, economic and political dynamics that are intimately involved in shaping these debates have been largely overlooked in discursive analyses of this particular stream of techno-culture. The importance of networked art is not limited to the aesthetic or formal peculiarities of its form/s. Networked art has induced a range of ‘deterritorializing’ forces (in the Deleuzo-Guattarian sense) that are permeating the deeply entrenched organizational logics of Art worlds and unhinging the traditional tenets of cultural production as never before. This thesis conducts an empirical analysis of the aesthetic, economic, political and institutional milieu through which networked art has been assembled within the contemporary cultural landscapes of the US, UK and Australia. As the socio-cultural impacts of emergent information and communication technologies continue to unfold, the defining qualities of networked art are proving ever more difficult to locate. I do not intend to look for these qualities in the confines of the Internet nor within any specific medium or system of technologies. Networked art is the product of what I call a digital ethos – a fluctuating nexus of ideas and practices that are shaping and shaped by network culture. This thesis finds emergent techno-cultural practice in a pervasive digital ethos; on the margins of increasingly antiquated institutional, political and economic infrastructures; and, perhaps most importantly, at the heart of discursive and institutional transformation.