Networks

The dawn of the electronic media age in the 1960s initiated a cultural shift from the modernist grid's determination of projection and representation to the fluid structures and circuits of the network, presenting art with new challenges and possibilities. Artists have used the 'space of flows' as a basis for creating utopian scenarios, absurd yet functional propositions or holistic planetary visions. Others have explored the economies of reciprocity and the ethics of generosity, in works that address changed conditions of co-dependence and new sites of social negotiation. The 'infra-power' of the network has been a departure point for self-organized counter-culture and the creation of new types of agency. And a 'poetics of connectivity' runs through a diverse range of work that addresses the social and material complexity of networks via physical structures and ambient installation, the mapping of the internet, or the development of robots and software that take on the functions of artist or curator.