The Art Happens Here: Net Art’s Archival Poetics features sixteen works from throughout net art history, showcasing a wide range of forms—websites, software, sculpture, graphics, books, and merchandise—while offering a space for considering the internet as social process, material infrastructure, and lived experience.
Net art is a practice that uses our evolving information networks to create art that isn’t bound by place or time. The Art Happens Here: Net Art’s Archival Poetics, on view at the Gund Gallery now through December 13, 2020, presents just a handful of the most compelling works from the history of net art. While these works don’t necessarily share forms, functions, methods, or outcomes, they do share in an exploration of the capacity of the network to create new models of community action.
Sharing food has always been an integral part of how the Gund Gallery has connected with the community. The annual fall Community Feast was conceived by the Gallery in 2014 with inspiration from the exhibition Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art and has since become a Kenyon tradition. The Community Feast is a time when the entire Kenyon College and Gambier community come together on Middle Path to share a picnic-style meal harvested from local producers. This year will be the first time this traditional celebration has been canceled.
As the current global pandemic continues to disrupt in-person gatherings, can we adopt the methods of net art to bring our community together online? Can we invoke the communal spirit of an event like the Community Feast on the network in a way that doesn’t try to simulate it, but instead encourages its evolution in this new online environment?
Help us create a community cookbook!
Think about a recipe that is special to you. You could select one that brings back memories of sharing a meal with friends and family. Maybe you have a special family recipe you’ve never shared before. Or something you have always wanted to make, but have never had the opportunity to try. Anything will do, but sharing a recipe you care about will make the biggest impact! Submit your recipes online. You can do this by filling out our Google Form or posting a photo on Instagram with the hashtag #NetArtCookbook.
Submissions must be received by Thursday, December 31, 2020, to be included. The online community cookbook will be compiled daily throughout the project, allowing it to grow and change with the level of community involvement. The cookbook will be made available as a PDF on our website, gundgallery.org. Then join us for a Virtual Community Feast over the winter intersession when we cook our favorite dishes and share a meal together over Zoom. Details will be forthcoming.
“When life gives you garlic, make garlic bread.”
Follow this link to view the COMMUNITY COOKBOOK in Google Docs.
About Near & Far:
Contemporary art often pushes physical, intellectual, and societal boundaries. It has the power to affect change and expand understanding. In that spirit, we have been working to make remote experiences with our exhibitions ever more accessible. Near & Far offers you a new way of engaging with the Gund Gallery through a series of virtual experiences, programs, exhibition activations, and online artist-in-residence interactions.
The Gund Gallery exhibitions and programs are made possible, in part, by the Gund Gallery Board of Directors and the Ohio Arts Council.
Images, top to bottom:
Garlic graphic from Remo Remo Designs. Courtesy of the artist.
Installation view of The Art Happens Here: Net Art’s Archival Poetics highlighting Shu Lea Cheang, Garlic=Rich Air, 2002/2003/2019. Electric cart, garlic, Wi-Fi hotspot, website,21-minute single-channel video. Dimensions variable.
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