Rhizome is a non-profit organisation. Since the early 1990s, it has been one of the first to focus exclusively on online production forms and the broader spectrum represented by new media art. Rhizome is engaged in the presentation and creation of online discussion platforms, conservation and much else. Particular attention is paid to archiving works which, with the publication of a twenty-year-old database, is now focusing on a well-organised archival and conservation system that, with Net Art Anthology, retraces the history of net art, reviewing it work by work, both re-presenting and re-contextualising it.
This is also being done with the view to outlining a possible canon for net art. The exhibition was originally meant to last two years and has now reached its 4th chapter. In the meantime, some works selected by Net Art Anthology will be presented s part of the exhibition “The Art Happens Here: Net Art’s Archival Poetics” at the New Museum in New York. This includes 16 works created in different forms: sites, software, websites, sculptures, graphics, books and merchandise. The intention is to offer a space in which to consider the internet as a social process, a material infrastructure and a live experience.
The Art Happens Here: Net Art’s Archival Poetics, New Museum, New York, 22.01 – 25.05.2019
images: cover 1) Net Art Anthology at Rhizome.org, screenshot from website (2) Eduardo Kac, «Reabracadabra», 1985 (reconstruction). Animated poem for Videotexto. Courtesy the artist
