The Web as an Art Medium

A work of art is created by an artist using a particular medium, for example, a painter will choose oil painting because the qualities of oil paint will help give the piece "a look" that the artist is intending.

In furniture design, a particular oak table might be highly regarded because the crafter brought out the natural qualities of the oak wood, the rings, notches and designs within the oak itself.

This has to do with aesthetics. In your Web aesthetics papers, you had to assess Web sites in terms of how well they took advantage of the unique qualities of Web media.

These qualities included:

(See qualities unique to Web media and King's chapter on Web aesthetics for more on this)

• Web site boundaries are ill-defined (it sometimes is a seamless transition from one site to another; how do you know if you really left?)
  
  
• Web sites use "associative linking," meaning the path through a site is non-linear and "pages" of the site are not experienced in any particular order. Instead, users trace their own route through the "text."
  

Web content can be multimedia, interactive and user-controlled.

Web Aesthetics and Web Art:

Web aesthetics can be applied differently when used to think about Web art, as opposed to using Web aesthetics to assess the usability and quality of a commercial Web site, as in your Web aesthetics papers.

In your Web aesthetics paper, you examined "how well" these sites "took advantage" of the uniqfue qualities of Web media. In the Web art assignment, you should think about how you can use the qualities of Web media to communicate your message.

For example, let's subvert the three "qualites" that were mentioned above.

Web-site boundaries are ill-defined. In a commercial Web site, this might go unnoticed, or it might be a source of confusion. How do I know where I am?

A work of art, on the other hand, might intentionally play on the ill-defined boundaries by "tricking" you into thinking you are still "in the art piece" when actually, you have already left the Web site and are surfing the Web. How might a viewer look at a Web site differently if they think they are looking at a piece of art? On the other hand, a work of Web art might lead you to believe that you are at another Web site, when you are still within the art piece.

Requiem for a Dream

Web sites use associative linking. A commercial Web site that does not include any links to any other pages might be considered a poor site because it does not take advantage of the Web's inherent ability to link to any other page on the Web.

On the other hand, a Web art piece that does not include any links can be seen as commenting on the linear/nonlinear nature of the Web. By intentionally removing the link, you communicate through what is obviously and intentionally missing.

Web content can be multimedia, interactive, and user controlled.

BUT: Web content can also be text-only (it is possible to make a page with no pictures and no links), it can be non-interactive and machine-controlled (animation or the use of the meta refresh tag to automatically load new pages instead of allowing user to click, like in the example above).

Likewise, a broken link or a broken image in a commercial site is considered unprofessional and reflects poorly on the company. But in art, a broken link might be used intentionally to communicate meaning.

More Examples of Web Art

Frames: My Boyfriend Came Back From the War: this hypertext narrative uses HTML frames, a way to view 2 or more different HTML pages in one window. You might want to also read this analysis of the piece that talks about the artists intentions.

Pop-up windows: can be very elegant. See this photo exhibit Hände,
It is simple to make pop-up windows in Dreamweaver

Animated GIF: Using Fireworks, you can animate a GIF image. An animated GIF can be animated and a rollover

See the page for JavaScript in Dreamweaver