Art in the informational mode

We provide a brief overview of significant developments in new media arts practice and theory during the period 1996-2001. It draws from a Web-based hypermedia doctoral dissertation entitled ´realising the virtual: the Internet as a space for transformatory art practice´ which incorporates creative works undertaken as research and praxis. The dissertation addressed the question of the potential of Internet-based new media arts practice, as a form of cultural activism, to effect positive social change. We trace shifts in art´s orientation, through computer and telecommunications mediation, from that of ´a work´ to that of ´media´ (from materiality to temporality); and in its operational mode, from that of the televisual to the telematic (from vision at a distance to data-banking at a distance). A key focus is the evolution of a new genre, ´netArt´, the basis for which is critical engagement ´in the mode of information´ [Poster, M., (1990)].