Internet Art and Activism

This essay will examine the links between Internet art and activism within the Internet. It will examine the precursors to this activism and what has caused its rise within Internet art. We will also examine the TOYWAR campaign and the group responsible for its conception, online arts collective RTMark.

In late 1999 the online toy company eToys.com offered to buy the domain name www.etoy.com from the Austrian online arts collective that owned it. They offered over $500,000 in cash and the stock options, which etoy, who had registered the domain name several years before the toy company existed, turned down.[1] The Toy giant, valued at this point at around $4 Billion[2], launched legal action to shut down etoy’s website. They claimed the reason was to protect their brand from confusion and also as a response from their customers who had missed the ‘s’ off of their website address and been confronted with, eToys claimed, profanity, pornography and other objectionable material.[3]
What resulted from this was a massive activist campaign resulting in what has been called “One of the greatest [art] works of the 20th century”[4] It was formulated and initiated by internet art group RTMark and was known as TOYWAR. It resulted, ultimately aided by the dotcom crash of 2000, with the liquidation of eToys, giving total victory to the underdogs.

Before we go any further we need to see how RTMark operate as a group. They are known for their anonymity and regularly use fake names and outlandish bureaucratic job descriptions. The reason for this, according to David Ross, is that they wish to “… [hide] their aesthetic practice as Duchamp did…declaring what they’re doing as non art”[5].
Self-described they are “…brokers of bounties for acts of creative subversion against mass-produced items.” [6]
They combine with other activist groups and manipulate the media, cunningly deploying websites and involving publicity, satire and sharp graphics in order to create activist and highly publicized art works. These include a fake G.W Bush website during the 2000 election and the remodeling of Barbie and G.I Joe voice boxes.[7] These are examples of the works that got me interested in RTMark as an artistic and activist force working within the Internet.

In order to understand where some of the activist ideas and practices that were used in the TOYWAR campaign we need to briefly examine the history of the Internet and some early influences on RTMark.

The World Wide Web, as we know it, was the brainchild of Briton Tim Berners-Lee. In the 1980’s Berners-Lee proposed the idea of a de-centralized, networked research database[8], one that was not confined by national borders or library closing times. These types of computer networking systems were already being used by organizations like the US military and some research institutes. When a global system was proposed it combined with the increase in affordability and ease of use in Personal Computers (PC) developed by IBM and Apple Corp. through 1980’s. This meant that members of the public could now afford a new PC and were able to connect to this globally networked system, the Internet.

To go back a little bit further than the start of the Internet we can see links between the ideas of Internet artists and the work of Marcel Duchamp and the Dadaists of the early twentieth century[9]. Duchamp and Dada were some of the first to embrace the ideas of randomness in their work (for example, poems made from chance word combinations) and they also helped move artistic practice away from conventional pictorial representation. They were also very activist in their art making and theories in response to what they saw as the appalling social conditions and mindless violence that existed in Europe during World War One. So these reactive and activist ideals are again being used by a group of artists who are challenging pictorial representation, the use of materials and the combination of ideas, as were Dada and Duchamp.

Tracking further forwards in time we cannot overlook the influence of art practice through the 1950’s and 60’s This period saw artists begin to question many things, among them the emphasis placed on object-based art and the ideas of “…formalist aesthetics…[10]” that went with this. Groups like Fluxus and artists like Allan Kaprow and his ‘Happenings’ explored dematerialization, involved the public and looked more at the role of the concept in art-making practice[11]. Importantly artists were also exploring the ideas of communication and the creation of networks for exchange of information[12]. The relevance and influence of these ideas are clear when we look at the way in which much activist art on the Internet is built around networked methods of information exchange and is created without materials.

Probably one of the biggest changes during the early days of the Internet and Internet art was that of communication. Artists, and anyone else for that matter, now had the ability to communicate instantaneously throughout the networked world, free from restrictions of borders and countries. Just as importantly for the artistic community artists could now communicate with the public and each other free from political control or mediation by the dealer/gallery and art institution framework[13]. Through the 1994-95 time period Internet artists like Vuk Cosic and Alexi Shulgin were trying to create a sense of community on the Internet within which art as was “…conspicuously present in ones’ everyday activities and was a collective goal.”[14] They employed the nature of the Internet itself, immediacy and immateriality[15] to connect groups through email and bulletin boards. 1997 saw the real take off of Internet art with several collective shows, two of which were curated by Alexi Shulgin (Desktop Is and Form Art)[16] and one of my favorite works of this period, collective I/O/D’s pioneering piece of alternate software Web Stalker[17]. This software presented each web page viewed as an interconnected 3D diagram mapping the links and page connections of a website.

So the ideas of community and free sharing of information and art have been a part of Internet art right back from its emergence. These ideas have given artists working within the Internet a freedom from the censorship and control that can exist within the gallery and dealer world. The first shift outside of the gallery world could, in part, be attributed to the performance art of the 1960’s, and Mail art[18], both of which removed art practice from being stuck, statically in a gallery. The communication abilities of the Internet seem to open artists up to a much more diverse and often more politically challenging creation of art. In what other way would something like TOYWAR be able to take place? The internet gives the ability for many people to take part, anonymously, and with a tremendous impact.

‘Real world’ activism is incredibly relevant to such Internet activist events as TOYWAR, and is something which we must look at in order to understand where activist events like this have come from. The virtual ‘sit-in’ of eToys domain, detailed further on, also ties in nicely to the ideas that acts of civil disobedience are a recognized political act. We only have to look at events such as the protests against the WTO talks in Seattle in 1999[19] to see that civil disobedience can get a political point across. If the public had not made their thoughts known by the massive demonstrations held, the WTO would continue its abuses of international trade unaware of political feeling towards them.

The creation of art for the examination of social change is not something new and has been seen throughout artistic history. Two key areas for this were arguably the 1930’s and the 1950’s and 60’s.[20] It is important to note that while much art was produced in aid of specific objectives, be it anti-war or pro-free speech and Civil Rights, the art was produced for the main part by what Mimi Yahn calls art ‘professionals’[21] While the idea that art should be in aid of the people was cemented into thinking it was still not recognized that activist art should be by the people as well.

Mimi Yahn points to the ‘Bread and Puppet Theatre’ in 1962 as an example of upending the ideas that art could only created by ‘professional’ artist’s and this idea survived through the commercialisation of art in the 1970’s. The survival of what she calls guerilla/street theatre created an environment in which activists would create artistic works to aid them in demonstration for a particular cause.[22] It is this overturning of the idea of ‘professional’ art activist that is something that I see linking firmly to RTMark and the way that they carried out the TOYWAR campaign.

This leads us into an examination what actually happened during the TOYWAR campaign.
RTMark did not set out to destroy the toy company eToys. They simply created a project that made the public aware of what the toy company was doing and then helped create a framework within which the public could protest against eToys. Pages like RTMark’s ‘Disinvest’ area (preserved in their archives) lists eToys shareholders and provides templates, open to editing of course, on what could be said to these shareholders about the company they own stock in. Similarly, another RTMark page listed eToys employees, gave details on how to write to them, and provided examples of what to say in letters suggesting that they should quit their company. Disinvest and Quit eToys emails flooded the toy company’s server, slowing the process of orders. Another tool was the game The Twelve Days of Christmas which made use of software called ‘Floodnet’ (developed by the Electronic Disturbance Theatre[23]) to hobble the toy giant’s website and render its data meaningless in the chaos of pre-Christmas orders. With many campaigners running this software it created what has become known as a virtual ‘sit-in’[24], constantly requesting refreshes of eToys page from its server and creating massive backlogs and the eventual collapse of the server. These events were in fact what lead to the devaluing of eToys stock and the eventual collapse, aided by the Dotcom bubble bursting in early 2000, of the entire toy company.

These tactics arise from the notion that it isn’t one ‘professionals’ job to create this sort of protest, it is up to many people whether they wish to aid in such an activist project or not. And in fact this becomes the very crux of the creation of TOYWAR as a work of art. This mass participation by many different individuals is the actual artistic piece[25], the coming together of people from all over the world to protest against the capitalist maneuvers of eToys using the particular qualities and power of the Internet to do so. The way in which this has become a recognized work of art is what really interested me[26]. TOYWAR pushes the boundaries of what is considered art, in much the same way a computer virus can be art, it seems the destruction of a company through the use of the Internet can also be called art. I found it extremely interesting that it is this bringing together of people in protest, while exploiting the nature of the Internet, that makes up this piece of art.

So we have looked at what preceded the rise of activism in the Internet and what actually took place during TOYWAR. Now we must look at how works like TOYWAR reflect these activist ideas and carry them out.
Firstly, though, there needs to be some classification. The Internet, thanks to its ease of use as a tool for global communication, has become something which activist groups all over the world use. However, in many cases this use may only be a web presence and communication by email with participants.[27] This activism is something that I think needs a slight differentiation from the likes of RTMark and the TOYWAR campaign. These works are based almost entirely on the Internet and are talking about and reacting to events that are internet specific. They also exploit the Internet, the ability to act semi-anonymously, and make use of computer related programs and software (e.g. the use of Floodnet open source software[28].) In my eyes this seems different from a “Save the Burmese One Footed wobbling Rattlesnake” website that sends out and email to interested individuals once a month and simply holds up a web presence for this cause.

The TOYWAR campaign highlights many activist ideas that are present in Internet art. First and for-most is the clear anti-capitalist undertones that run through much of Internet art. The position of RTMark can be surmised in this quote released on December 12th 1999 “…eToys says etoy.com was hurting sales by disturbing those who stumble upon it. Well, eToys' domain is disturbing people who want to see great Internet art but stumble upon eToys instead, and so why not say eToys shouldn't exist? Why should financial might make right? If they want to play by barbaric rules, we will too." [29] This idea of the corporate giant always being the one who is right and just is what RTMark, etoy and their supporters wish to protest against and make it clear to the Internet using public that it should not necessarily be this way.

Another way in which corporations are taking over the Internet is the merger and partnership of Internet companies like AOL and media giant Time-Warner. They joined forces to push Time-Warner product and media content on all AOL domains and affiliated websites[30]. Another example of this is a deal between search engine AltaVista and Shell Oil. Every time somebody searches for environmental issues side bar ads extol Shell’s environmental achievements[31]. In this regard it seems that the Internet has become the realm of companies with the goal of pushing a product in the pursuit of profit.
The anti-corporate reaction of Internet artists and activists is to list transgressions that they see large multi-national, profit making companies have made since the Internet became an effective tool of global capitalism. These transgressions include the abuse of power over branding and copyright issues. Members of RTMark became concerned with the “….increasingly materialistic culture and growing margins between people and profit….”[32] that was coming from corporations throughout the world. Within TOYWAR we can see the clash of two types of economy and lifestyles in the Internet. We can see the clash between the importance of market value and the ideas of gift giving and exchange of opinion amongst interested parties. The clash of lifestyles can be shown as the consumerist attitude of eToys in the gaining of a domain name as opposed to declaring “…the exhibition of complex social practices, rather than art objects, the object of art…”[33] It is these clashes that groups like RTMark and etoy sought to bring out and make us aware of within the Internet, but also in the ‘real’ world as well. They want it to become known that the Internet is being riddled with these corporations keen to uphold traditional consumerist acquisition and profit making.

However we must examine the other side of some of these issues as well. In a review of a ‘net.art’ exhibition, Conexion Remota at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona in 2001 Peter Schauer writes that while the work on display was full of anti–capitalist sentiment none of the works dealt with the key point that the Internet itself is in fact maintained and looked after by these companies. He goes on to say if these companies were to collapse it “…would return artists and activists to the photocopier and poster paint.”[34]
This raises some questions about TOYWAR and RTMark’s goals. During TOYWAR part of the attack was directed at Network Solutions (NSI) who manages the domain names for all internet addresses on the web. This is a profit-making organization and was under heavy fire from TOYWAR campaigners for its termination of etoy.com and email[35] when they were not actually asked to do so by eToys court order.
The interesting part is that while this is just the sort of behavior that etoy and RTMark are fighting against what would happen to the Internet if there wasn’t anyone like NSI to manage domain names? What if there were no companies running the Internet and maintaining it? While I don’t think the actions of the NSI were acceptable Schauer’s comments do allow us to see the other side to RTMark and etoy’s protests.

From this we can see that the brand names of companies on the Internet are just as important as anywhere, it is the tool with which they integrate their product into our lives and the Internet has become a useful device to aide in this. But it is interesting to stop and think about the business as it were, of where these companies get their information to aide in the branding and proliferation of their products.

A classic capitalist model tells us that ‘uniqueness’ of something adds value.[36] So where do the companies come up with the information on the consuming public in order to create their latest ‘unique’ product? Within the Internet, the process known as ‘data-mining’, involves the surveillance of an internet user and the recording of their movements through digital space. Since the release of Netscape Navigator back in 1994 internet browsing software has had the built in ability to allow companies to record information about the content that a person is viewing with that browser[37]. Personally I find this sort of surveillance unnerving and I was very interested to note that at a recent security conference in Sydney it was revealed that, per capita, more people from Auckland and New Plymouth want to know how to make bombs than anywhere in the world.[38] This information was collected by Google and gives an example of the idea that information about everything we do on the net is collected and, depending on the nature of it, possibly sold[39] to companies in order to give them an edge in the constant drive for more revenue.

This surveillance is also an attempt to control copyrighted material and its distribution over the net. The freedom of the Internet to distribute material and information is a long standing issue and many of the proponents of the open source movements are at odds with big business on the Internet. RTMark and ‘real world’ groups like Surveillance Camera Theatre[40], who act out plays and messages of protest in front of CCTV cameras through out the world, stand against the ideas of corporations controlling copyrighted information.
We may be seeing the first signs of a Digital Panopticon[41] if media companies are allowed to impose a top down system to control and continuously monitor the distribution of information. This could create a climate in which people would be to fearful of monitoring to share copyrighted material. This may be what corporations the world over would like but they will have to get through groups like RTMark and any free-thinking member of the public in order to impose such a system.

In conclusion, one of the biggest points from this is the way in which works like TOYWAR are still challenging the ideas we hold about art making practice. RTMark and their supporters employed the Internet as an effective tool to create interest, protest and civil disobedience in order to modify the public’s perceptions about the corporate climate and abuses on the Internet. The exploited the immateriality and ephemeral nature of the Internet highly successfully, but it is these qualities that leave us with a lingering suspicion about whether what happened in TOYWAR was art.
The Internet has opened a door to allow activists and artists to openly and easily collaborate, sharing ideas with many artistic groups from the last century. Despite this it has become clear that the Internet is not the utopian democratic dream that many thought it would be, and the behavior of corporations on the Internet has created this.
The creation of works like TOYWAR is a push by many individuals against the conditions of security and monitoring not to mention corporate practices that take place on the web. The organized mass participation, while not a new idea, has become even more effective when we look at the results of the TOYWAR campaign. It is these ideas and the exploration of new technology that is a creating interesting results in the creation of art around the world.

[1] Author not recorded. Legacy. Publication Date not shown. www.rtmark.com/legacy/etoypress.html Retrieved 04.06.07 10.20am

[2] Stallabrass, Julian. Internet Art. The Online Clash of Culture and Commerce. Tate Publishing Ltd. London 2003

[3] Stallabrass, Julian. Internet Art. The Online Clash of Culture and Commerce. Tate Publishing Ltd. London 2003

[4] Wolfgang Staehle quoted in
Greene, Rachel. Internet Art. Thames and Hudson. London 2004

[5] Greene, Rachel. Internet Art. Thames and Hudson. London 2004

[6] Sterling, Bruce. The Power of The Fake, Exploring Net.art’s new Frontier. From Modern Painters, April 2006 Pages 3-35

[7] Sterling, Bruce. The Power of The Fake, Exploring Net.art’s new Frontier. From Modern Painters, April 2006 Pages 3-35

[8] Greene, Rachel. Internet Art. Thames and Hudson. London 2004

[9] Greene, Rachel. Internet Art. Thames and Hudson. London 2004

[10] Greene, Rachel. Internet Art. Thames and Hudson. London 2004

[11] Annmarie Chandler and Norie Neumark. Critical Perspectives on Distance Art/Activist Practices in ‘At a Distance, Precursors to Art and Activism on the Internet’. Eds: Annmarie Chandler and Norie Neumark. The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts 2005

[12] Annmarie Chandler and Norie Neumark. Critical Perspectives on Distance Art/Activist Practices in ‘At a Distance, Precursors to Art and Activism on the Internet’. Eds: Annmarie Chandler and Norie Neumark. The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts 2005

[13] Annmarie Chandler and Norie Neumark. Critical Perspectives on Distance Art/Activist Practices in ‘At a Distance, Precursors to Art and Activism on the Internet’. Eds: Annmarie Chandler and Norie Neumark. The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts 2005

[14] Greene, Rachel. Web Work. A History of Internet Art from Artforum International, v38, No.9, Amy 2000. Pages 162-7,190

[15] Greene, Rachel. Web Work. A History of Internet Art from Artforum International, v38, No.9, Amy 2000. Pages 162-7,190

[16] Greene, Rachel. Web Work. A History of Internet Art from Artforum International, v38, No.9, Amy 2000. Pages 162-7,190

[17] Greene, Rachel. Internet Art. Thames and Hudson. London 2004

[18] Annmarie Chandler and Norie Neumark. Critical Perspectives on Distance Art/Activist Practices in ‘At a Distance, Precursors to Art and Activism on the Internet’. Eds: Annmarie Chandler and Norie Neumark. The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts 2005

[19] Highleyman, Liz. Scenes from the Battle of Seattle. Published November 30th 1999. www.black-rose.com/seattle-wto.html Retrieved 08.06.07 1.19pm

[20] Yahn, Mimi. The New Wave of Activist Art. In ‘Z Magazine Online’ July/August 2006 Volume 19 Number 7/8. http://zmagsite.zmag.org/JulAug2006/yahnpr0706.html retrieved 11.06.07 1.15pm

[21] Yahn, Mimi. The New Wave of Activist Art. In ‘Z Magazine Online’ July/August 2006 Volume 19 Number 7/8. http://zmagsite.zmag.org/JulAug2006/yahnpr0706.html retrieved 11.06.07 1.15pm

[22] Yahn, Mimi. The New Wave of Activist Art. In ‘Z Magazine Online’ July/August 2006 Volume 19 Number 7/8. http://zmagsite.zmag.org/JulAug2006/yahnpr0706.html retrieved 11.06.07 1.15pm

[23] Greene, Rachel. Internet Art. Thames and Hudson. London 2004

[24] Grether, Reinhold. How The War was Won, An Agents Report. Published 26.02.2000
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/5/5843/1.html. Retrieved 14.06.07 2.03pm

[25] Grether, Reinhold. How The War was Won, An Agents Report. Published 26.02.2000
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/5/5843/1.html. Retrieved 14.06.07 2.03pm

[26] Grether, Reinhold. How The War was Won, An Agents Report. Published 26.02.2000
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/5/5843/1.html. Retrieved 14.06.07 2.03pm

[27] Surman, Mark and Reilly, Katherine. Appropriating the Internet for Global Activism.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?id=732 Retrieved on 04.06.07 10.20am

[28] Greene, Rachel. Internet Art. Thames and Hudson. London 2004

[29] Author not recorded. Legacy. Publication Date not shown. www.rtmark.com/legacy/etoypress.html Retrieved 04.06.07 10.20am

[30] Stallabrass, Julian. Internet Art. The Online Clash of Culture and Commerce. Tate Publishing Ltd. London 2003

[31] Stallabrass, Julian. Internet Art. The Online Clash of Culture and Commerce. Tate Publishing Ltd. London 2003

[32] Thompson, Seth. Reconfiguring the System: Rtmark and Agricola de Cologne, Afterimage. Vol. 34, Issue 1/2 Special Issue Retrieved from Bill Robertson Library Data base search: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=12&sid=bcf71261-ac16-455f-999b-8fe7beacb869%40sessionmgr107 Retrieved 25.05.07 13.14pm

[33] Grether, Reinhold. How The War was Won, An Agents Report. Published 26.02.2000
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/5/5843/1.html. Retrieved 14.06.07 2.03pm

[34] Schauer, Peter. Nebulous world of net.art. in ‘Arts Review’ Issue 52, October 2001 page 89. Published by Richard Gainsborough Periodicals

[35] Author not recorded. Legacy. Publication Date not shown. www.rtmark.com/legacy/etoypress.html Retrieved 04.06.07 10.20am

[36] Stallabrass, Julian. Internet Art. The Online Clash of Culture and Commerce. Tate Publishing Ltd. London 2003

[37] Stallabrass, Julian. Internet Art. The Online Clash of Culture and Commerce. Tate Publishing Ltd. London 2003

[38] Author not recorded. Internet stats suggest interest in bomb making high in NZ. http://www.tv3.co.nz/tabid/213/Default.aspx?&articleID=28282 Published 04-Jun 18:16
Retrieved 04.06.07 10.24pm

[39] Miranda Zuniga, Ricardo. THE WORK OF ARTISTS IN A DATABASED SOCIETY: NET.ART AS ONLINE ACTIVISM. Retrieved from Bill Robertson Library Database: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=12&sid=bcf71261-ac16-455f-999b-8fe7beacb869%40sessionmgr107 Retrieved 25.05.07 13.14pm

[40] Author not recorded. The Surveillance Camera Players:
Completely distrustful of all government.. www.notbored.org/the-scp.html. Retrieved19.06.07. 9.23 am

[41] Barbrook, Richard. The Digital Panopticon, Part 2. http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/hrc/theory/regulationofliberty/t.11%5B1%5D.html. Retrieved 19/06/07 9.16am

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