Thesis Research

Source: Internet Art

pg. 97: “To poach ‘Documenta X’, Cosic used a shareware program that copied almost every file from the official web site curated by Simon Lamuni?re (b. 1961). Like Sherrie Levine’s photograph After Walker Evans and other appropriationist works, Cosic’s clone of the site, called Documenta Done (1997), articulates the technical capabilities of reproduction and raises questions about authorship.

While Levine’s work articulated feminist positioning in official art-historical canons by using the proposition ‘after’ to denote a hierarchical relationship, Cosic’s clone seemed to denigrate the original by offering it a web address subservient to a Slovenian art lab and then the artist’ domain: http://www.ljudmila.org/~vuk/dx/ Descr.ibing Documenta Done as a readymade, a manufactured, often prosaic object that becomes reassigned as art, Cosic announced that net artists were ‘Duchamp’s ideal children’. Cosic also cited archival and access concerns as well: ‘Once upon a time, in September of 1997, the web manifestation of the “Documenta X” was taken off the web by the management. So, I did the copy that is still the only publically available one. This actions speaks loud enough. My next idea in this department is to articulate a grassroots artists’ initiative where as many as possible sets of complete works by net.artists would be toasted on DVDs and given away for web masters to make mirrors….’ Drawing on the artistic inscription provided by ‘Documental X’ to form his readymade, as he would with any other source, Cosic suggested that, online, all material was fair game.”