At a Distance: Precursors to Art and Activism on the Internet

For those who want to argue that Internet-based work and collaborations are new kinds of art wholly determined by the Web's capabilities and codes, this edited collection offers a series of history lessons. Both editors are based at Sydney's University of Technology: Chandler is director of ""emerging field"" in new media and digital culture; Neumark is associate professor of media arts and production. The 20 pieces that they have collected here show, variously, how the politically engaged mail art, dematerializations, performances, broadcasts, happenings and other doings of the '60s through '80s (with an emphasis on the latter years) worked in the same networked fashion as Internet art-they just relied on slower and/or more familiar media, like the postal service, f-2-f contact or FM broadcasting. The best pieces here feature first-person accounts from the artists and collaborators themselves. Highlights include Jesse Drew's account of Deep Dish TV (a satellite-delivered alternative television network from the '80s) and Melody Summer Carnahan's story of The Form, a 1978 project that solicited one-line responses to each year of the 1970s (and predictions for '79) from a variety of artists and civilians. The rest can be high on jargon, but the spirit of play that pervades the work comes through regardless.