ABSTRACT

Net Works offers an inside look into the process of successfully developing thoughtful, innovative digital media. In many practice-based art texts and classrooms, technology is divorced from the socio-political concerns of those using it. Although there are many resources for media theorists, practice-based students sometimes find it difficult to engage with a text that fails to relate theoretical concerns to the act of creating. Net Works strives to fill that gap.

Using websites as case studies, each chapter introduces a different style of web project--from formalist play to social activism to data visualization--and then includes the artists' or entrepreneurs' reflections on the particular challenges and outcomes of developing that web project. Scholarly introductions to each section apply a theoretical frame for the projects. A companion website offers further resources for hands-on learning.

Combining practical skills for web authoring with critical perspectives on the web, Net Works is ideal for courses in new media design, art, communication, critical studies, media and technology, or popular digital/internet culture.

chapter |2 pages

Introduction to Net Works

part I|4 pages

Formalism and Conceptual Art

chapter 2|9 pages

Youtube as a Subject

part II|2 pages

Collections and Communities

chapter 3|11 pages

WTF?!

part III|8 pages

Crowdsourcing and Participation

chapter 5|11 pages

Mechanical Olympics

chapter 6|10 pages

Google Maps Road Trip

part IV|3 pages

Data Visualization

chapter 7|11 pages

Superfund365

chapter 8|10 pages

Pastiche

part V|4 pages

Error and Noise

chapter 9|7 pages

Luscious *

chapter 10|10 pages

Tumbarumba

part VI|7 pages

Surveillance

chapter 11|9 pages

F'Book

What My Friends are doing in Facebook

chapter 12|8 pages

Traceblog

part VII|3 pages

Tactical Media And Democracy

chapter 14|8 pages

Oiligarchy

Molleindustria/Paolo Pedercini

part VIII|4 pages

Open Source

chapter 15|9 pages

The Real Costs *

chapter 16|10 pages

Add-Art

Sharing, Freedom, and Beer

part IX|3 pages

Hacking and Remixing

chapter 17|8 pages

Pigeonblog

chapter 18|10 pages

Joycewalks

part X|2 pages

Performance and Analog Counterparts

chapter 19|9 pages

The Gandhi Complex

The Mahatma in Second Life

chapter 20|7 pages

Alerting Infrastructure!

Challenging the Temporality of Physical Versus Virtual Environments