“Certain people, like for example myself, don’t talk any more specifically about net literature, but are using the term net art in general. Both terms cannot be separated any more. Whether you create images or texts: it is based on the same material. The alphanumeric code is the foundation of every digital work. This shows, that the different art genres are merging, and I think, this is a good development.”

Sabine Breitsameter:

Johannes, the field of net literature has been developing rapidly during the last years. Which aspect of it is currently the most dynamic one?

Johannes Auer:

I think, today we are in a calm phase, which I, personally, find quite enjoyable. In the beginning, there was the big hype. Net literature became the object of theory. Especially net literature has been establishing an academic discourse, which I consider very interesting, and which had been quite helpful. Now, everything has calmed down and we are now in a phase, where we can work concentratedly.

At the moment, it is difficult to make a definite statement about the situation of net literature. However, there are a number of interesting new developments. At the moment, for example, “Code Works” are very much in discussion, in which the programming language itself becomes a literary product. I think, that’s very interesting.

Sabine Breitsameter:

This is a topic, we had been recently talking about with Florian Cramer. What is your interest in this approach?

Johannes Auer:

I once had been referring to it as a “binary idealism”. If you read Plato’s book about “The State”, there is a nice example about a craftsman, who is building a bed. The bed is an image of the pure idea. After this, a painter comes and draws the bed – which means: he creates an image of an image, which is considered less valuable. At the moment, we are having a similar situation in the computer world: The point of departure is the machine code I/0. That’s the basic idea, the pure thing. Then, the programmer comes, who can speak the machine codes and is able to interact with the machines. He is similar to the Plato’s craftsman. And finally, there is the artist, who needs the programmer, and he creates something, which is visible on screen or audible by loudspeakers – and this is the image of an image of an image, and therefore less valuable. – I think, that’s a nice parallel, but it is not my personal standpoint. – Yes, I am interested in code,. I think, it is very interesting. And it is not wrong to make code a subject of net art – this must be clear. But I think, also those things happing at the surface, on screen, or displayed by any kind of system, are relevant as well. Everything, which I can take out of any kind of interface is artistically relevant.

Sabine Breitsameter:

There is the critique that net literature is strongly related to mere concepts, and that sense and aesthetics cannot really come into play by this. Do you think, this critique is just?

Johannes Auer:

I would say yes, if I think of a number of projects. I mean projects, which are easily accessible, and if you got their basic principles, it’s o.k. and enough. But there are many works, and I want to emphasize that, which I think are complex and are functioning very well on the long run.

I would like to name as an example Susanne Berkenheger. She dramatizes her Hypertext by means of the Browsersoftware, so that they become a kind of theatre, which adds to the text level. I also would like to name the early works of Olia Lialina: In her work in „My boyfriend came back from the war“ she is using frames, a very simple tool. Her work is very narrative and is strongly related to film. By these simple means, a story is structured, which is also interesting to look at. There are also further developments of concrete and visual poetry on the web, which really work: I have been doing experiments together with Reinhard Döhl. Döhl had been putting his early works from the 60s into the web, like for example „das buch gertrud“. It fits very well into the Internet. – So in general I would say, there are a number of good approaches, which are also a lot of fun.

What I had been characterizing here shows the momentary state of net literature. Many things are co-existing. There is not the one and only paradigm about “real” net literature. Certain people, like for example myself, don’t talk any more about net literature, but about net art in general, because both cannot be separated any more. Whether you created images or texts: It is based on the same material. The alphanumeric code is the foundation of everything. This shows, that the different art genres are merging, and I think, this is a good development.

Sabine Breitsameter:

However, most of the projects, which call themselves net literature are still based on hypertextual models, which means on modular principles. By mouse click, single elements can be arranged in a more or less arbitrary order. This principle has become quite worn out. Isn’t this quite out-dated today?

Johannes Auer:

The modular principle is a central aesthetic moment of net literature. Of course, in some productions it can be criticized. But I also believe, this critique is related to certain habits. If somebody is convinced: “Literature is something which is between a book jacket and has pages, which I can turn”, then it will be difficult to connect to the notion of net literature.

However, there are many things, which get stuck in the modular and don’t make much more sense. But the critique cannot be based on these examples. And, if you explore Code Poetry, it is not at all modular. It is something very fundamental, which stems directly from medium, and for this, such a critique simply does not fit.

Sabine Breitsameter:

It is significant, that netbased art, also net literature, recurs often to artistic concepts which are related to the arts of the 1960s or 1970s, like the idea of interactivity and participation for example, or chance operations or concrete poetry. Critques complain, that most net art is finally nothing more than a new edition of the failed 1970s art experiments…

Johannes Auer:

For sure, net art today, is not only re-inventing the wheel, but also putting new tyres on the wheel and making the wheels move backward or bringing them to stagger. With the new medium of the Internet we have simply got more possibilities to produce art: to actualize “old” things, but also to create new things.

Sabine Breitsameter:

Thank you, Johannes. We will go on with the topic of net art traditions in the first half year of 2004, by interviews with Reinhard Döhl, Robert Adrian and others.

Biography

Johannes Auer [aka Frieder Rusmann], *1962, net artist and curator, lives in Stuttgart/Germany. Started net literature and art projects in 1996, for example: Wertschöpfung / Creation of Value, 2002; Log-Book of a Common Journey, 2002; concrete_maschine (TM), 2003; The Famous Sound of Absolute Wreaders, ORF Kunstradio Wien, 2003.

More: http://auer.netzliteratur.net

Exhibitions from 1994: ReadMe!, Kunsthalle Bern, 2002; FILE 2002, Paço das Artes, São Paulo; HyperText 03, Nottingham UK, 2003; one_year_stand, galerie muellerhoffmann, Stuttgart 2003; Lore schweigt, Video/Projektion auf den

Rheinfall, “Wort und Bild Festifall”, Schaffhausen 5./6.9.03 [with Pipilotti Rist, Roman Signer a.o.]; FILE 2003, Paço das Artes, São Paulo.

More: http://www.rusmann.de

Texts about net literature and net art on http://www.netzliteratur.net

In autumn 2000 the update-Verlag Zürich published the CD-ROM “Kill the

Poem” (together with Reinhard Döhl), ISBN 3-908677-08-4

http://www.cyberfiction.ch/poem.html