The Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum
of Modern Art in New York have both served as spring boards
for ®™ark's efforts.
A press conference was hosted by ®™ark on
December 20, 1999 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The event
was originally scheduled as a presentation of ®™ark's
promotional videos ("Bringing IT to YOU" and other ®™ark titles)
as part of an ongoing educational series about contemporary
video at MoMA entitled "Video Viewpoints." ®™ark requested
that the allotted time be utilized instead as a press
conference that would bring attention to the plight of etoy, a
Swiss art collective embroiled in a legal battle with
online-retailer eToys in regaining the use of their domain
name, www.etoy.com, after online toy retailer eToys.com
slapped them with a lawsuit.
Claiming brand dilution, unfair competition, and
trademark infringement due to the similarity of their names
(i.e. "eToys" has an "s," while the artist group "Etoy" does
not) eToys.com sued the Swiss artists in California court. In
November, a Santa Monica judge granted eToys a preliminary
injunction that forced Etoy to cease using Etoy.com, which for
Etoy was like a death sentence. ®™ark, EDT, Fakeshop,
Rhizome.org, and countless other artists, activists, lawyers,
designers, and academics joined Etoy in an unprecedented
global protest.
This dispute was clearly not about
"cyber-squatting," for Etoy had been using www.etoy.com as
their online residence a full two years before eToys.com came
on the scene and the two had been co-existing online in a
peaceful manner for more than a year.
MoMA allowed the change of plans and opened up
the Museum to potential criticism (not to mention angry
artists, a marching band, a frenzied evangelist, and friends
of the movement) by allowing ®™ark to invite speakers to
explain the situation to the art community at large and
members of the mainstream press. Suzanne Meszoly, Director of
the Etoy advisory board, Douglas Rushkoff, National Public
Radio Correspondent and Etoy advisor, among many other
speakers addressed the gathering in the Museums's main
auditorium. Representatives from ®™ark dressed in Santa
costumes and beards moderated the event and introduced each of
the guests who each gave rousing speeches to an audience
bedecked in Santa Hats.
After weeks of protests, denial of service
attacks, and $50,000.00 in lawyers' fees, use of www.etoy.com
was restored to its owners. Proving a representative of ®™ark
correct in this cheeky statement to one reporter: "If you ask
for trouble loudly enough, people are going to be very afraid
to give it to you. It's not worth the bad publicity for them."
"This case merely demonstrates who has the right
to conduct business, operate, express themselves, and exist in
cyberspace."
-Suzanne Meszoly, etoy.CURATOR
What this boils down to is, indeed, a turf war,
where the museum is implicated as site of the struggle. Before
the event, the atmosphere outside the museum on 53rd St
alternated between festive and giddy as the Hungry March Band
played rousing Christmas carols despite the rain to the
sidewalk-cloistered crowd. The evangelist/performance artist
Reverend Billy preaching his way through the museums door, a
large crucifix complete with sacrificed Mickey Mouse over his
shoulder and the Bible under his right arm, preaching as to
the evils of the "commodity culture." In the auditorium, the
Reverend would later compare the actions of eToys to those of
his "abusive daddy," only minutes after a heavy-set museum
guard so sternly confiscated his "prop" as he entered the main
lobby. (I assume he was given the crucifix back after the
event from the man at the coat check booth.) Entering the
museum, a hush came over the crowd, the music stopped; tubas
were tucked neatly under the arm, as if they were all entering
some sort of temple. Under the watchful gaze of the guards
who, like ruler-brandishing nuns, would jump at the chance to
slap anyone across back of the hand if they even breathed on
the door wrong, MoMA invited Internet Art into the inner
sanctum.
And the cautious attitude was not without
justification. Previous art activist organizations have cause
much frustration to museums, especially around the big New
York-style institutions that show works of contemporary art,
MoMA being a prime example. The history of artist/activist
groups goes back a long way. There are countless who work
within the artistic field to form such collective operations
goes way back.
Visitors to the "Internet Art" section of this
year's Whitney
Biennial were greeted with the above statement from the
activist organization ®™ark (pronounced "art-mark") upon
entering ®™ark's website via a link from that of the
Whitney's. "This is not ®™ark.com!" the page heading read.
On the occasion of the Biennial opening (March
23, 2000) ®™ark changed it signature splash page, the main
entrance to their online presence, to allow viewers, who came
to it via the Whitney Museum, an alternative
entry into their practice. ®™ark replaced the content
normally appearing on their splash page with that of other
websites submitted by Whitney website visitors. ®™ark has in
effect curated an open Biennial, accessible to anyone who
comes to them via a link from the Whitney. Type in ®™ark's URL
(www.rtmark.com,) however, into any other browser window and
you go right to the original, non-altered ®™ark website. ®™ark
pledges the Whitney space to provide a vehicle whereby those
they deem worthy of support could be recognized under the
umbrella of the Biennial at large.
This intervention, architectural and conceptual
in nature, draws attention to the difficulties inherent in
bringing online art practices, ®™ark being a particularly good
example, into the museum. In recent months, ®™ark's is gearing
it strategy increasingly toward the museum as more and more
connections between this group and art exhibition structures
are forged. Though the stance that ®™ark's actions in 2000
Whitney Biennial takes appears to be somewhat abrasive, the
intervention is not so much about giving art institutions "the
bird." Rather, this action exposes the difficulties inherent
to displaying online artwork within the gallery walls
difficulties that are increasingly apparent as more and more
Internet Art projects are being brought in under the auspices
of institutions.