Well -

I'm quite intrigued by this thread, as at the College Art Association 2002
in Philadelphia I announced the net art is dead as 'Your ol' Aunt Edna'.
This is a bit of a misnomer, as this related more to the 'life' of net art'd
to its cooptation by institutional agendas.  The 'death' of net art, or its
so-called demise, likely alludes to the inability tof the museum to
integrate it on any appreciable scale, the inscription of fashion upon it,
the increase of artists using it as a medium before it attains sufficient
prestige, and a depetion of funds, by and large by the net art community,
whether by decreasing grant funding or the actual spending out of reserves.

First of all, let me say that I do not feel that net art is 'dead' in any
sense of the word.  It is definitely out there, or I wouldn't be getting so
damned many missives from Rhizome, Turbulence, etc.  It seems that I keep
seeng more and more and more net art.  Unfortunately as a curator, I find
less and less and less of it compelling . I think that the last piece that I
even remember is David Crawford's Time and Motion series, which is heavily
rooted around serial photography, which brings forth another whole
conversation that is outside the scope of this noe.  In many ways, I think
that this is similar to a phenomenon that I call the "Sally Struthers
Effect".  This refers to a series of American television ads for 2-year
correspondance-based technical college programs in the US for careers which
"are in great demand, and pay fantastic money".  This is what happened to me
for my first degree in electronic technology before I got my engineering
degree after sojourns into asian studies, sociology, art history and studio
art.  In short, i n the beginning I let my parents convince me that a
pedantic tech school ad should be believed from the perspective of a
foreshadowing of the future.  It was a start.

What I witnesses afterwards was a repeating patterrn of new
technologies/techiques that created a temporary vacuum of desire, with a
subsequent flood of hopefuls into that area.  This was the case in computer
repair, desktop publishing, paralegals, ad infinitum.  Can it be said that
net art is the victim of the desperate art throngs for recognition, seeking
out the 'next big thing'.  Problem is, by the time you get there after
hearing it, it's often too late.  Vuk already retired by the time the
throngs arrived.

Another aspect I see is what I call the "prosumer effect'.  This comes from
consumer computer culture overlaying itself upon other areas of culture.
One example is that of a show I was exhibiting a large-scale print in in
1994, with a mother and her 9-year old viewing it, with her saying "maybe
you can do that!".  Upon askign her about her comment anonymously, she said
that their son was good with a computer, and that he could possibly do that
due to his proficiency with it.  Another aspect of this during the rise of
the Bryce 3-5 landscape programs, the Net was swamped with a profusion of
nearly identical landscapes, and some entrepeneurs trying to sell barely
passable works as masterpieces.  Can it be said that with the heightened
visibility of net art, that there is a great profusion of this work using
the "I can do this too" dictum?  I would reply that yes, you can, but what
is it you're making/saying?  I woudl say that much of the work I have seen
is experimental or developmental, which I wholeheartedly support, but much
seems to lack a sense of reflection on their technique or content while
caught up in a sense of aesthetic determinism, which you might know is a hot
button with me.

Therefore, it seems like there is a lot of new net art, but so much of it is
truly forgettable, as the works seem to wither translate traditional media
to the new media, or repeat themes/techniques I saw in 1997.

In regard to the museum/gallery, to look at the institutional engagement
with net art is a huge subject in itself.  I'll be hopelessly brief.  There
are so many issues at play here; the culrutal materialism as the amassing of
unrealized capital in the vaults of of the world's museums, the lack of a
salable object ( I realize that from Dada to Fluxus, this is challenged as
well, but even Fluxus made objects eventually), as well as the desire of the
museum structure to appropriate the genre the moment it finds any money (I
know of at least two examples of this), thus sucking it dry.  In addition,
there are problems of material investment, upgrading, technical support,
physical representation, and so on that are taxing upon institutions that,
at least in the US, are facing increasing cutbacks in funding.  In addition,
the attempts by individuals and groups to link net & new media art to the
established art world before the solidifcation of the genre (or at least
moreso than it is now) serves to somehow dilute the movement rather than
reinforce it  Of course, there would be questions as to whether net artists
should have day jobs as Jon Ippolito suggests, or whether technological
artists should suffer on until time for retrospectives, living a
contemporary version of the life of Van Gogh?

So with all that said, I can boil the previous paragraph to say that the
material outlay for acquisition and upkeep of equipment that is close to
that of a home user is mor ethan many museums can handle.  But then, if one
is to see it in the museum, it should be similar to the movie theater vs a
television and DVD.  But conversely, as the genre begins to get a shred of
legitimacy.  Colleagues in the art centers are trying to link it to the
contemporary art world or scions of same.  In my opnion, this is a little
premature, but then this is indicative of the rapid fire nature of the
electronic culture.

As a quick aside, it seems that from a historical perspective that
legitimacy in art practice is built on materialism, by and large, even from
the perspective of Fluxus.  I feel that eventually New Media has to start
building objects on a greater scale.  Although this is not a universal
sttatement, it is one that addresses the realities of historical art prctice
and the ways in which artists can address the issues of legitimacy and
recognition.

The background music for this next paragraph should be Bowie's "Fashion".
In the last year, and especially since shows such as the Whitney's
Bitstreams, and SFMoMA's 10010101.... (you know the one) exhibition, there
seem to be certain memes on the institutional level that are defined by the
various venues around the world as 'fashionable', or ones that are currently
of heightened recognition, such as the code as art meme, gaming, and so on.
Much of this, by admission of the curators themselves, is somewhat
arbitrary, and fuels threads of discussion on the institutional scale, but
is admittedly not inclusive.  It's the method of creating a contextual
framework that is more accessible to the audience, and so increasing the
chance of recognition, funding, etc. In this case, it's a bit of a Faustian
bargain.

And lastly, in light of the increasingly deteriorating art funding area (at
least in the US), states are eliminating entire funding genres,a dn the
federal government is increasingly scaling back national programs.  This is
only indicative of overall systemic decreases in funding, and the effects
are widespread.  The complexity of the effects from the 'race to the bottom'
seem so wide-ranging and complex, I won't try to address them here.

Oh, one last thing - there is the continual background noise of
technofetishism in regard to techniques used online.  there are many who
assert that HTML-based art is dead - I mean HTML-only work, maybe some
animated GIF's, etc.  I would disagree, but the available terrain to explore
is well worn.  Such an area of net art is a great challenge.

My apologies, but I am going to trail off rather abruptly as I  have to
attned to some things in the flesh.

but I hope that this serves as a touchstone for some lively debate.

Best,
Patrick Lichty