In this phase of the art in Network there is many confusion... In what sense?

Do I imagine that it is not the only problem?
There is more. First, there is no type of bibliography on net.art. And, if it is, it is still very young, fragmented, and in supports as there can be the Network or publications more independent that are not recognized by the institutions like those who document the development of the art history. The second, critical instrument is missing. The criticism of art, of any type, from the Romanesque one till now, is based on certain instrument. And the historians, the critics of art of a period base on an instrument that works with that period. The digital art was born in the 90s, but it has been only 7 years since it is a consistent movement. It means very little in a centuries history. And the tendency of the critics is that of analyzing it with instruments that they already have, of the video and the perfomance. They think that what more looks alike to him and hence they pull. This is an error.

With solution?
In this phase the only way of working, of facing this phenomenon is to know it. And to know it you have to be hours and hours in front of the computer. What do the art critics do? There explore all the guides, all the museums, go abroad, try that they invite them to the conferences to see works and works and of seeing so many work his critical capacity is forming. But, skylight, they do not want to be the whole day in the Network. I do not do another thing in my life. I spend hours and hours in front of the computer. And there are the people as I. But, in these moments, there are many people who speaks about net.art without knowing what is. And it is that what creates the confusion.

And what is net.art?
The net.art, like any art, is capable of having a meaning. Not the whole world obtains something like that. There is the one who confuses the art high quality technological with commercial products or esthetic. And I do not say “comerciales ” in negative sense, but I refer that arise and are created from big investments, big interests, big companies. The art supposes an investigation of another type, the production system is different, it arises from the interest in the experimentation, from an evolution and a constant work, not for the proposal of a company. It has something behind. It is as if someone who was contemplating one Looked and was saying that “también a child might do it ”: we all know that it is not like that, that it does not work this way.

Precisely you have claimed often a project that groups and recognizes these works.
To the beginning, the artists of net.art thought like all the avant-gardes. They did not want to enter the system, were thinking his absolutely ephemeral works. They did not want that they were surviving not in the shape of memory, as it has been done, for example, with the performance. There was a rejection to the process of fetichización of the objects. But when the net.art began to develop they were the same artists those who began recognizing the need to preserve his works. In case of the art in Network, to preserve the works it is necessary to have a servant, to pay a place... the work in itself does not cost very much, but slope through that the artist lives, which could support it. Also there is a problem of means: the software or technological support on which it bases the work of art also is changing, and there are works that without these programs cannot already be visualized. . All this is difficult that the museums and the institutions in general deal with this topic of the preservation, collection and also production of the works of net.art.

So if they do not do it...
The art museums contemporary sound for definition centers which target is of preserving the excellent artistic expressions of his time. Moreover, they have the duty to preserve the minority expressions, because the majority ones survive already for themselves. And in this sense, Manolo Borja, the director of the MACBA, was very brave betting for “Antagonismos incorporating a selection of works of net.art in the exhibition of political art ”. When we see it with perspective, we will see that it has been the first art selection in Network that has been done for an art museum in Spain. Many of the artists that we select are now in big exhibitions, they inaugurated the period gone on from the P.S.1. They have been artists who in the space of six months have done a lot of way. And if in "Oppositions" they were located inside a net.art selection in "Animations" (the exhibition of the P.S.1) they are along with other types of artists, in the middle of the trip. Another problem of the countries of the Mediterranean is that, especially as for the technology, we come with a certain delay, if we compare them with the north of Europe or the United States.

It will be difficult to reach them.
But in the today world the fact of not having realized any things is not an excuse not to know them. If in most of the world the debate on the electronic art is more advanced, we also will have to put ourselves to it. All the countries of the Mediterranean area will have to be informed by this topic. And in this sense the museums can have a very important function. Because all the automanaged organizations are well, because there are the people who strains in a voluntary way... but the day that they it stop doing his contribution will stop existing. On the other hand, the museums guarantee a continuity.

Then, are they or not for the work?
Very well, I believe that the institutions have realized this duty because, they want to admit or not it, the United States is in charge in the western world. And two years ago Whitney Museum of New York admitted the net.art into his Biennial one. And it had not admitted anything new from a 75s, when the video accepted it. From here on, there were many exhibitions, it was something incredible. In the course of two years there were many exhibitions on this topic on that they were reflecting and including several types of digital art. I believe that the Macba has begun the way and, precisely, also in Barcelona there are interesting structures that are forming like Hangar. In Madrid, the new head of department of audio-visual of Queen Sophia also seems that it has interest in the digital art. The museums perceive that the net.art is important but they try not to stay too much evil and not lose a lot of money in case it was not working. This time the museums are supporting a movement in his beginning. To bet for it is not that it implies so much money, compared to the budget dedicated to other investments. But there also they are wrong because they usually think about the net.art like another discipline, with a separate budget. This would not even be necessary.

In what sense can it have changed into Internet the concept of the work of art?
It is something subjective. Between the spectator and a work of art always settles the slightly only and individually. A person in front of a picture sees something different from other one. But the perception of a work of art in Internet, want or not, it has more ways. It allows interaction. The same fact of being able to take a decision does that the user could introduce a different reaction. On the other hand, Internet is a way with an enormous democratic, great potential more than any other way. Access to he is had and it is possible to spread and to have a visibility across him. We do not know how all this will end up by developing, if it will turn into a more and more democratic way or less and less. I see with many worry everything what it is spending around ours on a global scale. And I believe that it is important to preserve the democracy in this way.

The Network lends to the achievement of a lot of works of collective art: can change this the concept of responsibility of the work of art?
The collective thing there is something that moves between utopia and reality. It is like a phase of your life in which you very want to live with another people. Then there comes already a phase of your life in which you want to have your apartment alone. In the life of the people there are moments in which this drive is had of groups form, to create something global, also it happens with the artists. I believe that the participants in these projects are a part of the work, the responsibility belongs to the one who has had the idea. Imagine, in a project of 200.000 earnings it might not establish a responsibility shared at this level either. But, on the other hand, they all know that they are part of this history, and that they are there inside. Many people know that in "Persistent Data Confidante" his secret is. There are many people who does things in the Network, and it is necessary to call them of some form, but artist is a word that expresses many attitudes before the life. It is not possible to use lightly.

It must be difficult to discern them...
90 % of the artists that I have known in 8 years that I take dealing with these topics, really is not imported by it for anything to be defined or that define him as an artist, they never say it about themselves. They have been doing things, and these things have been finding his way and have been the journalists, gallery owners and the others who have defined them as artists. An example is "Cointel". It is a project of two students. They did it, without any type of institutional support, because he liked the cómic. Without having any idea of net.art, they did not know that the net.art existed, and really they have done art colaborativo. On the other hand, there are students who hang the medal of having done art and not, they have done a student's good project, but not art. I see in some a fascination waste for the technology in itself that it does not have any meaning. But the situation will be purified very much. Iran falling down for your own weight the works that are weak conceptualmente. There is a series of persons who do the things of a serious way and others that do it in a more approximate way. And those who do it in an approximate way, although they are momentarily successful, are destined to disappear.