Throughout history, Art has confronted moments in which the resilience of its practices was jeopardized. The “death of art” debate is recurrent among different authors who, faced with signs of crisis regarding forms of expression, question the vitality and continuity of art forms. In the specific field of artistic production created for the Internet¹ – the so-called net art, web art or internet art, among other current definitions – we will find reverberations of these terminating omens. It is interesting to think that this production, although recent when compared to the tradition of other art forms (since its arrival is related to the commercial opening of the Internet in the 1990s), has already had its downturn announced for years. One of the first manifestations of that was evidenced by the artist Alex Galloway, who in 1999 declared that Net.art is dead. Galloway’s categorical finding took into account technical constraints that threatened the continuity of artistic creations on the web. In a way, his opinion was based on the considerations of historian Tilman Baumgartel (1998), a year earlier, observing that technical innovations are decisive for marking one era and renewing another (Pereira, 2019), that is, all technological production is dated, as a tribute to its time, and consequently, invariably subject to obsolescence and disappearance.

In the 1990s, the historical creations of such works as those conceived by JODI, Alexei Shulgin, Olia Lialina or Vuk Cosic, for instance, were inevitably devised considering the dynamics that involved the Internet browsing experience of that time – and the entire semantic field arising from that experience – such as narrowband speed, the precariousness of dial-up connections, the use of computers much less powerful than the ones we currently have, the amateurism of a great deal of Internet sites, the lack of digital literacy of a large number of internauts, the waiting time for loading more elaborate sites, the hitherto incipient control of large corporations, among other conditions. Added to these dynamics are the ephemeral technical conditions capable of rendering certain features of the works impracticable: for instance, the Portuguese researcher José Manuel Pereira (2019) points out that one of Olia Lialina’s classic works, My boyfriend came back from the war, created in 1996 and consisting of a sequence of hypertext pages with images, took advantage of the low speed of the Internet connection at the time in order to create a suspenseful effect while each of the images was loading; therefore, in a narrative structure like the one presented by the site, there is loss of an important effect on the experience of the audience.

Regarding Brazilian creations, ONOS – ON Operating System, created by the artist Fabio FON in 1999 can be mentioned. It simulated an erratic operating system with similarities to the Microsoft Windows version used at that time (Nunes, 2003). The work became unfeasible when Internet browsers disabled the possibility of displaying an Internet page completely full screen, without any visible buttons of the original system; if ONOS intended to confuse the users by pretending to be an operating system, when the buttons of the real system were forcibly visible, the work became unfeasible in its poetic strategy.

Resuming, Galloway, back in 1999, pointed out this sensitive exhaustion of the web aesthetics – Net.art is dead – while observing the works of the first decade of creators; obviously, new generations of artists emerged in the face of new technological dynamics consistent with their time. In history, one of these dynamics is named by the thinker Lev Manovich (2005) as the Flash Generation – referring directly to the Flash animation software, which revolutionized the display of multimedia content even in times of slow connections, and draws our attention to the fact that this context was crucial to the emergence of an alternative model to that of the film and television industries. Macromedia Flash was fundamental to consolidate the web as the means of communication that it is today, either from the perspective of experience – bringing video, animation and music together – or from the technical perspective – plenty of video sites, as YouTube, used Flash in their early days. Many artists created works using Flash over the years, inscribing its relevance in the field of culture, such as the iconic journey of the duo Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, started in 1999, with their striking animations. However, despite its enormous importance for the Internet culture, obsolescence has also been merciless to the well-known software and, in 2020, Flash died – or, more precisely, it stopped being seen in the most widely used browsers in the world. With the end of Flash², a significant part of the Internet culture in its early days ceases to exist as a matter of fact.

Back to the web history, the bursting of the so-called Dot-com Bubble, beginning in 2001, which meant the end of many Internet-based companies, had a direct impact on the enthusiasm encompassing Internet culture. Olia Lialina, artist and researcher of artistic production on the Internet, reports that at the time of the financial collapse there was a dark time for production, with no events or journalists willing to talk about online initiative; the artist says researchers would not hesitate to talk about the death of net art in the presence of net artists who were still working, online or offline, carrying out Internet projects (Lialina, 2007).

Considering different phases of the production of art for the Internet in Brazil, the year 2013 is considered by historian and art critic Maria Amelia Bulhões to be a milestone in the decrease of artistic production conceived for the Internet, evidencing a certain abandonment of this type of practice (Bulhões, 2022, p. 64). For the author, this reduction does not have a single obvious reason, but the main one is considered to be the disillusionment with the utopian and experimental aspect of the Internet getting dissolved by the dominance of large corporations and the string of standardizations that the web goes through. Also contributing to presume that production for the Internet was outdated, was the dissemination of the term post-internet art to define works created in other media that had the Internet as a theme, comprising a phase in which the Internet would have become an omnipresent and central element in our life context, and without which new forms of life and production would not be conceivable (Martín Prada, 2017). In other words, if the Internet is intertwined with life itself in current times, what sense would it make to have an artistic production especially conceived for it?

In any case, although experiencing less repercussion than in previous decades, artists continued to create works essentially linked to the Internet – especially in formats that were not restricted to browser-based works (or sites), coming up with works that expand the domains of creation with the Internet, as installations, performances, or even with the use of social networks. A predominant characteristic is that artists no longer deal with the web as a new medium, but as a mass medium – often, this production emerges as a response to the hegemonic dynamics of the web and digital media.

Everything seemed to indicate that producing art for the Internet would continue to be a field of specific interest; but in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, the scenario changed significantly. With the pandemic, the world of culture was forced to migrate to the Internet due to the need for social isolation. As in other areas, physical spaces – museums, theaters, galleries, cinemas, cultural centers – were closed and the Internet became the main channel between artistic creations and the public. Displaying art to people, even on the Internet, in any form, whether through posts on social networks, recorded videos, live broadcasts, Internet websites, virtual environments, among other possibilities, was essential to alleviate the suffering caused by the health crisis. Thus, many artists brought their creations to the Internet with the purpose of displaying works that existed in other media, forms or previous situations (such as paintings, drawings, installations, etc.) bringing records – photographic or videographic. Clearly, the displaying of art through the Internet was of fundamental importance for artists, institutions, researchers, the public and the art market, especially while cultural spaces remained closed. Other creators, on the other hand, followed a more experimental and bolder path, understanding the specificities of the Internet as an intrinsic part of the work to be exhibited (Nunes, 2022).

Thus, during the pandemic period, production of works created specifically for the Internet resumes, significantly reversing the perception that this production³ was in decline. Art creation is channeled through the Internet because health conditions were not favorable to other means, that is, the risk of contamination in presential meetings had to be avoided. However, with vaccination starting in 2021 – and the consequent drop in the number of deaths in 2022 – the scenario becomes more favorable for other means and forms; the Internet no longer seems so indispensable for artists. In this sense, would art production conceived for the Internet be destined to return to what it was before the pandemic? Would the return to normality mean a new downturn for Internet art works?

To better understand these issues, it is worth noting that the pandemic represented a boost in digitalization and an increase in technological dependence (Paniagua, 2022); regarding other activities, even after the most severe period of the pandemic, companies and institutions have increasingly made more services available online, as well as maintained remote work, distance learning, and non-presential or “hybrid” events. The push that society as a whole received to live online for many more hours than before the pandemic may have had more lasting, perhaps permanent⁴ consequences – and artistic production, especially that designed for the web, can and should be a reflection of this current context.

Intending to think about the current status of production for the Internet after the most severe period of the pandemic, Brazilian artists Soraya Braz and Fabio FON (Fabio Oliveira Nunes) put out a call for artists from all over the world in the context of The Wrong Biennale⁵ with the provocative title Net art died but is doing well (in Portuguese: A net art morreu mas passa bem⁶). The call was announced in July 2023, receiving submissions of dozens of works from different countries: recent works were sought – created in the years 2021, 2022 and 2023 – that dialogued with the historical paradigms of art production for the Internet (net art, web art, internet art, among other definitions). Works created in the first year of the pandemic, as well as those developed in previous years, would not be included. Each artist could submit only one individual work; or a maximum of two, in case one of them was created in group (Fon & Braz, 2023). The call was made in the context of the sixth edition of The Wrong Biennale, a digital art biennial that has been taking place since 2013, coordinated by Spanish curator David Quiles Guilló; the selected works give rise to a pavilion of the biennial⁷ (Figure 1).

The choice to hold this exhibition under the form of a pavilion at The Wrong Biennale is emblematic; not only because it is the largest digital art event⁸ on the planet in terms of number of participating artists and curators, but especially because its structure is essentially horizontal, independent, experimental, free from monetization and algorithmic control, keeping alive the dynamics that web art (net art or internet art) envisioned in its early days, including the search for an institutionalization that can be alternative to conventional art circuits. At the same time, The Wrong seems to be the result of the organic nature of alternative circuits that hold a significant part of digital art, produced in experimental contexts, often on the fringes of the contemporary art system.

There were 55 works chosen to participate in the exhibition Net art died is doing well. The selected artists are Adele Jarrar (Palestine), Albena Baeva (Bulgaria), Anastasia Koroleva (Spain), Andres Manniste (Canada), Andrey Koens (Brazil), Annina Rüst (Switzerland/USA), Antoni Hidalgo Hidalgo (Spain), Ben Grosser (USA), Blanche the Vidiot (Hungary), Chelsea Thompto (USA), Coletivo Entre Nós (Brazil), Colin Black, Zsuzsanna Szegedi-Varga and Jaka Železnikar (Slovenia), Cristiane Duarte, Rolf Simos and Rosangella Leote (Brazil), Danilo dos Santos (Brazil), DJ Malinowski (USA), Eloísa Nieto (Chile), Esteparia (Argentina), Everest Pipkin (USA), Flavio Siqueira (Brazil), Gabriel Pessoto and Nicole Kouts (Brazil), Gretchen Andrew (USA), Gustavo Romano (Argentina), Henrique Fagundes (Brazil), Henrique.exe (Brazil), Jandir Jr. (Brazil), Jazon Frings (France), Jim Andrews (Canada), John-Robin Bold (Germany), Júlia Sodré (Brazil), Jürgen Trautwein and Silvia Nonnenmacher (USA), Karen Eliot (country undeclared), Koundinya Dhulipalla (UK), Larissa Campello (Brazil), Leonardo Souza (Brazil), Lima Charlie Art Collective (USA), Lindsey Arturo (USA), Maria Sucar (Brazil), Mercia de Assis Albuquerque (Brazil), Michalis Zacharias (Greece), Niklas Wallenborg (Sweden), Noah Travis Phillips (USA), Onty (Canada), Pedro Ferreira (Portugal), Polina Enuvesta (Russia), Rachelmauricio Castro (Brazil), Sandrine Deumier (France), Suzete Venturelli (Brazil), Tansy Xiao (China/USA), Vera Sebert (Austria/Germany), Vinícius Ladivez (Brazil), Yoona (USA), 100porcent_genuine (100 %) (Brazil). Fabio FON and Soraya Braz, in addition to being curators, also participated with individual creations. In terms of the number of participating artists, this is one of the largest exhibitions for works that are specifically net art (or web art or internet art) in recent years.

Selection criteria was based on the analysis of the submitted works in light of the premises of an artistic production “of” and “for” the web, that is, having the Internet as a medium – not as a reference to other works, or even experimental works within the premises of the idea of the web, transcending the conventional usage of digital tools, therefore we presented different profiles of artists. There are pioneering names in this field of activity, such as Gustavo Romano, an Argentine artist based in Spain who has been working since the 1990s in the dissemination of web art, and Suzete Venturelli, a Brazilian artist who has been working in computer art in the context of university research since the early 1990s. These are two references among a diversity of active – and renowned – names in the field of digital art in their countries, constituting the majority of the participants, and also young artists, beginners with the Internet medium – guaranteeing the vitality of this production for the next generations.

The exhibition is held exclusively online, following the premises of The Wrong Biennale, under the form of a website specially developed for the show (Figure 2), available at https://fabiofon.com/netart-is-doing-well. On this website, each work is presented in the form of a card that provides access to each work and its information, such as the synopsis written by each artist, each author biography, and link to access the work – all works being maintained by the artists, who were responsible for making them available throughout the exhibition period. The order of the works exhibited followed a path defined by the curators based on affinities between the creations, providing the public with a fruitful path.

Far from being able to determine the limits of the submissions present in the exhibition, but intending to briefly enlighten the reader on the diversity of creations, we can briefly ponder: among the selected works there are, for instance, sites that date back to the so-called Web 1.0 – the more classic resources of the network language – which is the case of www.i-still-loooove-you.com by Niklas Wallenborg, Orcas by Andres Manniste, o-p-h-e-l-l-i-a-you.live by Yoona, Cuando miro por la ventana by Eloísa Nieto, Quimera by Leonardo Souza; sites with essentially participatory dynamics such as Enigma n^2022 by Jim Andrews, Minus by Ben Grosser, Do You Feel Lonely Like I Do? by Júlia Sodré, Confessionário de Mater Licentia by Maria Sucar, pisoPaulista by Vinícius Ladivez, Linear Sense by Esteparia; the usage of the Internet itself as a motto in Things I do when I’m bored by Pedro Ferreira, Browsing the Internet, from Ljubljana by Colin Black, Zsuzsanna Szegedi-Varga and Jaka Železnikar, internet-as-a-gallery.space by Koundinya Dhulipalla, Swapping Stickers: Instructions by Gabriel Pessoto and Nicole Kouts, Eight Triptychs by Onty, Anonymous Animal by Everest Pipkin, 27251 (no wires, no limits) by 100percent_genuine (100 %), I Have Everything I Need, No. 8 (from affirmation ads) by Gretchen Andrew; poetic actions on social media such as @rachelmauricio_castro by the duo Rachelmauricio Castro, @encontre.exe by henrique.exe, @apocketstuff by Jandir Jr., #vanlife by Karen Eliot, SoundCloud Gazing: PLAYLIST by John-Robin Bold; the three-dimensional environments – metaverse and similars – present here in actions such as Captas City by Soraya Braz, Pendulum by Michalis Zacharias, Soundwalk by Anastasia Koroleva, We are sorry to inform you that curated by Adele Jarrar, Lotus Eaters by Sandrine Deumier, Respiros Dissonantes by Coletivo Entre Nós, Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace by Henrique Fagundes; creations with augmented reality such as Doll House by Albena Baeva, A Sua Performance: explorando a performance artística em tempos de pandemia by Suzete Venturelli, Landmarks by Chelsea Thompto.

Furthermore, dialoguing with the debate about artificial intelligence, there are works that bring algorithmic actions as a leading character such as Notation for understanding a structural sadness by Andrey Koens; Procura-se Helene Alberti by Larissa Campello, Channel 01 by Gustavo Romano, This person exists by Danilo dos Santos, AIDOJ by Fabio FON, Tell me by Antoni Hidalgo, 7 herbs by Cristiane Duarte, Rolf Simos and Rosangela Leotte, A.C.A.S.O.: Algoritmos Cruzando Aleatoriedades e Sublimando a Ordem by Assis Albuquerque, JaZoN Ex. by JaZoN Frings, Circumlocution Machine by Tansy Xiao; there are also works that are on the threshold of forms such as Demopolisium by Polina Enuvesta, TEMPER_ SUBJKT41 by 100porcent_genuine (100 %), plant-based vision by blanche the vidiot, TTASEIN by Jürgen Trautwein and Silvia Nonnenmacher, B4t3nd0 @ç@i by Flavio Siqueira, Memento Mori Glitch (rehearsal) by Noah Travis Phillips, PAC-MOM: A game about gender, work, and food insecurity by Annina Rüst, Journey to the Planet of nuclear chewing gum by Vera Sebert, Elevator Album by DJ Malinowski, Margaritaville 39 by Lima Charlie Art Collective, Titanic Solo by Lindsey Arturo. The exhibition is a broad compilation of productions selected according to the type of techniques and poetics developed, requesting for more detained approaches later.

Aspiring to reflect on the current status of production for the Internet after the most severe pandemic period, the exhibition certainly shows significant evidence that many paths are being taken by artists in order to poetically occupy the web today. And, especially, as a direct reaction: having in mind the years in which the works submitted to the call were produced, most of the works were made in 2022 and 2023, given that the latter included works created until June, with practically the same number of submissions as the former (as shown in Figure 3). Considering the set of works in the exhibition, it can be said that the production of art for the Internet persists being fully effervescent; the rumour of its end is, in fact, the announcement of its resilience, in the same way as art itself has always demonstrated in the course of time.

The Net art died but is doing well exhibition took place during the period of exhibition of The Wrong Biennale – from November 1, 2023 to March 1, 2024. Some of the works exhibited, especially those created by Brazilian artists, are registered at the Web Arte no Brasil enterprise, available at the web address https://www.fabiofon.com/webartenobrasil, which displays the research conducted by Fabio FON since the year 2000, with the purpose of cataloging and analyzing production created by Brazilian artists for the Internet.