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Tag: internet culture

Website as original medium

Posted by Chad Mazzola

Back in the late '90s when I first starting going online, it seemed that the idea of using a website as a medium for artistic expression was still being explored. The first site that comes to mind is Kottke's Osil8. The site featured short, self-contained "episodes" mainly composed in the primitive HTML/JPG/GIF language of the day. (Javascript and Flash were introduced as nearly exotic elements.) Most episodes were ironic, inventive riffs on the burgeoning internet culture.

While the self-reflective nature of Osil8 (using the medium to represent the medium) has in no way been abandoned by the web culture that followed it, what does seem to have changed is the use of the web as a legitimate medium for artistic expression. While there has been a proliferation of sites that serve as the distribution channels for photography, illustration, video and audio, websites themselves are less and less treated as genuine expressions of an artistic impulse.

Another star of the '90s internet that c ... more »

Posted: May 18, 2008 2:28 am | 1 comment
Tags: art, blogs, internet culture

Zeldman on "The vanishing personal site"

Posted by Chad Mazzola

Jeffrey Zeldman, one of the most well-known first generation bloggers, recently wrote a post where he notes the trend of outsourcing content on personal sites:

Our personal sites, once our primary points of online presence, are becoming sock drawers for displaced first-person content. We are witnessing the disappearance of the all-in-one, carefully designed personal site containing professional information, links, and brief bursts of frequently updated content to which others respond via comments. Did I say we are witnessing the traditional personal site’s disappearance? That is inaccurate. We are the ones making our own sites disappear.

My last post was an attempt to say much the same thing.

Posted: June 5, 2008 2:53 pm | 0 comments
Tags: blogs, internet culture