by osmosis

After over twenty years in the public eye, the Internet has finally begun to settle into itself.  Computing, surfing and sharing online have developed a foundation and framework of now commonsense "rules for the road," and tese guidelines for how we interact with the Internet are hardwired into every man, woman and child with access to a computer. 

The basic premise is this: We interface the web through a system of UI skins known as webpages, and we hop from page to page through clickable links.  Like most areas in life, the general public uses their time online to shop, watch and/or share.  So here's the important part.  It took this development of "computing norms" to give way to artists entering the arena and skewing the online signifiers.  Thus, Internet Art is born. 

Instead of embedding your art onto a page, the page itself (and how you manipulate it) becomes the work of art.  Some of the most interesting online mediums have come from manipulated Youtube vids, UI interaction and GIFs.  Here are some examples of talented artists using the gift of a new medium.

53 o's

This site has been up for a while now, and is the most impressive and inventive collection of skewed online media.  Through a series of short experiments, Javier Morales plays with simultaneous youtube videos, GIF images, short films and manipulated UI.  One of the founders of 53 o's also runs a blog called Nasty Nets, which collects these experiments from around the web.  My favorite pages are "Lord of the Flies" and "100 Meter Marquee"

Videogramo

I found this site through a Beautiful / Decay article.  This Spanish group of artists work with GIF images, which are basically really simple, limited animation clips that look like Jpegs with a bit of movement.  The images that Videogramo are coming up with definitely stretch the limits of this somewhat archaic format.

Jimmy Joe Roche

Lastly, I wanted to bring up a great artist who isn't neccasarily manipulating the Internet, but is definitely a pioneer for online video art.  Jimmy Joe Roche is a Baltimore artist and filmmaker, who recently collaborated with Dan Deacon on a DVD titled Ultimate Reality.  His films utilize psychodelic splashes of colors and mirrored and layered images.  He also often manipulated pixelation inside his films.  The result is an enlightening and often seizure inducing journey.