The Internet is the great masterpiece of human civilization. As an artifact it challenges the pyramid, the aqueduct, the highway, the novel, the newspaper, the nation-state, the Magna Carta, Easter Island, Stonehenge, agriculture, the feature film, the automobile, the telephone, the telegraph, the television, the Chanel suit, the airplane, the pencil, the book, the printing press, the radio, the realist painting, the abstract painting, the Pill, the washing machine, the skyscraper, the elevator, and cooked meat. As an idea it rivals monotheism
Virginia Heffernan
Throughout this quarter we've explored and experimented with Internet art through the lenses of different online cultural niches; each community having different goals and perspectives, each celebrating their own masterpieces, like net.artist Olia Lialina's My Boyfriend Came Back From the War, digital folklore enthusiast Cameron Askin's homage to GeoCities and the CSS Art of cascading stylesheets virtuoso Diana Smith. In her book Magic and Loss, Virginia Heffernan zooms out and views the Internet itself as a massive work of art. She explores the logic, aesthetics and values of the Internet as a collective cultural whole. The entire book is worth a read, but we'll just be reading the Preface.