Page 109 - Fundação MEO - Net Arte no Triângulo das Bermudas

1. On the option of writing Given the lack of studies that systematise, synthesise
the title of the exhibition or analyse the phenomenon of net art in Portugal, and
with the term ‘Net Arte’ see
Ponte text’ in this book. how the Internet, in general, has manifested itself as
2. See, for example, the a creative tool in its culture and society, and consi-
studies by Baigorri and
Cilleruelo (2006), Corby dering the exhibition Net Arte no Triângulo
(2006), Daniels and Reisinger das Bermudas: contributos para
(2010), Rinehart and Ippolito
(2014), and Dekker (2018). uma reflexão sobre arte e Internet
3. Including the theses by em Portugal [Net Art in the Bermuda Triangle:
Albuquerque (2013), Pereira
(2019), Furtado (2023), but contributions to a reflection on art and the Internet in
also the publication by Portugal] , we thought it would be helpful to draw up
1
Barranha at al (2015), among
other articles in scientific a chronology to make visible the relationship between
journals dedicated to the arts.
art and the Internet in the country. The authors of
this chronology have developed autonomous studies from the pers-
pectives of contemporary art and art history. These studies seek to
understand the specificities of digital art in Portugal, thus contributing
to its knowledge and future memory.
For several decades now, there has been a great deal of research
in the areas of curating, exhibiting, collecting and preserving digital
and net art . When compared to Portugal, the field of research
2
is robust in other cultural contexts. To date, it is possible to find
two studies and one text that refer more specifically to the pheno-
menon of net art. The master’s thesis NET.ART, by Lino Azevedo
Fernandes, developed in the field of ‘Sociology and Globalisation
Studies’ at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra,
in 1999; the text “Net Art Portuguesa de 1997 a 2004” [Portuguese
Net Art from 1997 to 2004] by curator Luís Silva, which accompanied
the online exhibition organised by Atmosferas, in 2005; and the
book As Artes Tecnológicas e a Rede Internet em
Portugal [The Technological Arts and the Internet in Portugal],the
output of a scientific project developed by researchers at the Centre
for Communication and Language Studies (CECL, now ICNOVA),
published in 2009. In recent years, the development of digital culture
and new media has contributed to the addition of other studies to this
list . However, none of them aims to analyse the local context and
3
only occasionally refer to projects by Portuguese artists. Therefore,
thirty years after the stabilisation of the Internet in Portugal, we
believe that the first studies are incomplete and that it is possible to
draw a more complete picture of net art in the country.
The development of technological art in Portugal was a complex
phenomenon, mainly occurring on the margins, making it difficult
to reconstruct and understand in a historical context. The lack of
systematic documentation makes it particularly hard to establish
a chronology. However, the Portuguese case is not unique.

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Sofia Ponte & Luis D. Rivero-Moreno
Sofia Ponte & Luis D. Rivero-Moreno