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[April 2nd 2002]
Photo by Miltos Manetas
Hellomypet.com - Dot com art
Web domains are the new art objects. In the future
people will start buying them. That's what L.A. based artist Mai
Ueda (born 1978 in Osaka, Japan) told Kristine Ploug,
when they spend a few days in March talking by e-mail.
Mai Ueda
3/15/02 11:59:35 AM -08.00, Mai Ueda wrote:
Hi Kristine,
Here is what I think about net.art after contemporary art. I recently
saw some contemporary artists making Flash pieces for the Whitney
Biennale, most of them doesn't know what to do with flash.
They can't get away from contemporary art identities, they would
use letters which are talking about love or political things.
Instead flash animation should be as easy as naming while programming
is as difficult as theory. They should easily come out with little
nice ideas for it. Miltos Manetas says that websites are the new
art objects and that people should start collect them. I agree
with him and I have started buying different .coms as romanticus.com,
hellomypet.com etc...
I hope that in near future, we will be selling them very expensive,
with pretty interactive pets on it.
Best, Mai
3/18/02 9:27 AM +1.00 (CET), Kristine Ploug
wrote:
Hey Mai,
That's a funny idea - please fill me in about your thoughts about
it, I find it very interesting. Who do you think will be willing
to buy it and will it be bought as a work of art or a pet? Will
there be a "feeding the pet" device attached like the
Japanese artificial pet Tamagocchi that seemed to be a big deal
a few years ago? In what way will the pets be interactive?
Best, Kristine
3/18/02 11:42:09 AM -08.00, Mai Ueda wrote:
Kristine,
It 's not a TAMAGOCCHI. It will be bought as an artwork, probably
very expensive by collectors or Museums. There are already different
nice pieces such as Golan Levins at electronicorphanage.com
etc. but people don't know yet how valuable they are and
they don't even think of buying them. Even the artists don't think
of selling them directly on the Web as a domain, which would be
a unique piece. They would sell them as an installation with a
machine and mouse with it. Very cheap taste.
Mai
3/19/02 12:27 PM +1.00 (CET), Kristine Ploug
wrote:
Mai,
What is gonna turn people around and start buying the Web domains
as art? One thing is the museums that try to stay on top of the
technological developments in art (SFMoMA and Whitney particularly)
- they might follow ones it becomes popular. But what is gonna
make people regard net.art as something you buy? Doesn't Manetas
also believe that all content on the net should be free to anyone.
What do you personally plan to do with your domains? How do you
plan to market them?
Best, Kristine
3/19/02 12:20 PM -08.00, Mai Ueda wrote:
Kristine,
It shouldn't be difficult, but unfortunately I don't know how
will it happen. Soon there will be more pretty pieces around and
people will start thinking that they want to own them...I already
want to own some pieces from different artists such as jesusswimming.com,
modifyme.com etc... but
I am just not rich enough. Net.art should be free and open for
the public, in the way that you can see traditional art in the
Museums and galleries but the property of the piece itself can
belong to a collector. I myself, just buy the domains and create
a pretty image for them. Some galleries are already interested
in them, they are the professionals and they should come up with
a marketing plan.
Mai
3/21/02 3:02 PM +1.00 (CET), Kristine Ploug
wrote:
Hey Mai,
I agree that it is the up to the gallery/museum's marketing professionals,
but I find your views interesting. Plus it seems to be a very
central theme these days, property rights on the net.
What I still don't quite comprehend about your project is that
you are saying you want to put pretty interactive pets on your
sites. However, it is nothing like a Tamagocchi. Would you elaborate
on that a bit? Also, ones people buy a domain, what is gonna happen
to it given that software etc. changes rapidly and the software
used on the site will be obsolete in no time.
Best, Kristine
3/21/02 6:03 AM -08.00, Mai Ueda wrote:
Kristine,
As everything else, culture is based on emulation, the most interesting
stuff will stay somehow and old stuff will disappear anyway.
Mai
More Mai Ueda…
www.maiueda.com
Mai
Ueda at whitneybiennal.com
: www.electronicorphanage.com
Photos of Mai's
performance at Lyon biennial.
Photos for a French
magazine Influx for their text about technology and body, they
also used #16 as a cover of this issue.
A drawing little video
of Mai's next performance eat the bugs.
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