[Internet news from Wired News. Read the latest Internet news stories, scan technology news headlines. Wired News also provides cyber-culture and political news about the wired world [] [] [[] [Navigation bar] [BaCartier Foundation Gets Lesson in [Hewlett-Packard PhotoSmart digital photo system] Digital Art by Frederic Madre [Stocks] [Top Stories] [go] 5:01amÊÊ17.Apr.98.PDT TOP STORIES PARIS -- French art organization Fondation Cartier pour l'art Today's Headlines [delivered] contemporain dipped a prudent little toe this week into the waters of Broadcom Makes a [go] net.art by launching its first Web Big Splash installation piece, ValŽry Grancher's "self." Barksdale Just [Search] Says No to Grancher, whose previous work [WIRED magazine] "obsessions" was created for the Paycheck CAPC art museum in Bordeaux, France, is accustomed to the hardships that Hypertext Guru arise from presenting Web Has New Spin on installations to museums. Though Old Plans Tuesday's launch was no exception, Grancher seems committed to -- if Tribunal amused by -- the shepherding of Torpedoes digital art into the world of 'Cyber-Pirate' museums, whose curators may not know what they are getting into. Saffo: Leave That Middleman The Cartier Foundation, established Alone outside of Paris in 1984 by the rarified jewelry company of the same Singapore, name, attempts to promote Taiwan Put On contemporary art "in all its forms." Anti-Piracy Show In addition to standard exhibits, it has played host to well-documented Earthquake Data events such as the reunion of the as Moral '60s art rock band Velvet Imperative Underground. The center relocated in 1994 to a swank new building in Java Programmers Paris, and has become the focus of a a Keen, popular weekly nocturnal art events Dedicated Bunch known as "the nomadic nights," which feature dance, theater, and cinema. Cendant Fires Chief Financial "For us Internet art is a total Officer discovery and an adventure," says Helene Kelmachter, assistant curator Caveat Surfer: at the foundation. "Grancher was Consumer somewhat reassuring because he had Protection Up to accumulated knowledge behind him and You had several existing projects.... We were touched by the elegance of his Netscape-Sun style." Rumor Resurfaces Grancher came into the art world in Web Portals Play a roundabout way. In the late 1980s, Leapfrog he organized chill-out spaces at raves. Grancher began setting up Keeping Up With lights and tying sensors to dancers' the Joneses wrists to produce rhythmic input for oscilloscopes. As he puts it: "I Nader Takes knew that there was some cultural Biotech Patent aspect to what I was doing, right, to Task but art?" Cartier Grancher's first Web piece, "alone," Foundation Gets is an accumulation of email Lesson in confessions from patients suffering Digital Art from epidemic diseases (almost solely AIDS, but he doesn't want to Sun Profits exclude anyone), who are asked to Rise, Modestly tell the worst experiences they've had dealing with other people. Created several years ago, "alone" [$5902 for a Silicon Graphics workstation.] still grows at its own slow rate. [] The patients' messages are printed and solidified in wax as so many layers, kept forever. Each confession is also flatly iconized on Grancher's Web site. When Cartier representatives asked Grancher to create a work on the theme of "gardens" or nature, he suggested an Internet piece instead. The foundation had a virtual gallery on its Web site that it clearly did not yet know what to do with, and it OK'd the project. Although that project, "self," was supposed to be unveiled at the time of the season's reopening of the chic foundation, on 10 April, the installation was only available Tuesday thanks to the efforts of the artist, who spent a hellish Easter weekend finding a working server. "'Self'" he says, "is based on elementary mental interaction ... from which derives very poetic mythologies." The visitor is asked to provide just one word that will be connected to a still picture from a webcam in Antarctica. New images will be provided every hour; words entered within that time frame will be bound with that image. Grancher says he gets a thrill out of seeing users figure out how to get the program to work in unexpected ways. That thrill might come more easily because Grancher no longer owns the piece. Among the vagaries of buying or commissioning online art is the question of originality and property. "I contractually bind to not keeping a copy of the site or duplicate it somewhere else," says Grancher. This makes him the only person in the world unable to do so, as was demonstrated by the entire duplication of the German art fair dokumenta site by artist Vuk Cosic just before it was supposed to disappear forever. While Grancher's contemporaries create works as diverse as the dark and funny machine art of =cw4t7abs to the macro color splash distortions of d2b, and rely mostly on passion and self-funding, the art world is still learning to grasp the rules of this new version of an old game. The contractual absurdity is another example of age-old administrative rules intended to govern gallery-based art hitting a wall when applied to net.art. Grancher jokes that he sees one every day. He should be seeing plenty of other chances for amusement: The Cartier Foundation, Kelmachter says, has set itself the goal of staging from six to nine virtual gallery projects a year. 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