Note on Being a Net Artist (Live-from-Heaven Remix)

20 years of being a net artist include 20 years of

        explaining the difference between hypertext and net art
        explaining the difference between net art and net.art
        removing the dot from net.artist
        being called the first Web star (first by W magazine)
        being mixed up with European net.artists
        being called a pioneer

        getting email invitations to international festivals
        getting festival invitations addressed to my net art characters
        declining festival invitations addressed to my net art characters
        declining to send CD versions of my net art
        rejecting the art market by resisting objectification

        being told that that I am nothing but a writer
        being interviewed about net art as something new

        believing that the work will live in perpetuity
        remixing the work into compatible versions
        archiving the work for special collections
        storing the ephemera in boxes in the garage
        playfully spreading rumors of net art's demise
        having a sense of humor about it all

        learning to be a professor of net art
        learning from my students what net art is

these are not the only things that happened to me,
but the ones that appear first thing in the Paris morning.

(thanks to Lia for the ongoing inspiration)

Mark Amerika is a pioneering internet artist and theorist. He is a kind of cyberpunk feminist and Professor of Intermedia Art, Writing and Performance at the University of Colorado.