New York Times 1125 Artists Conduct and the Art

May 13, 1999

By MATTHEW MIRAPAUL

In that location May Be Coin in Internet Art Afterward All
eo Spiller closed a deal this week, and digital artists everywhere may be enriched past his feel.
Spiller, an artist in Ljubljana, Slovenia, volition pocket nigh $500 for "Megatronix," a piece of work of Web art that the Mestna Galerija, Ljubljana's municipal gallery, has just agreed to acquire. Negotiations for the auction were conducted openly on the Web, and the upshot was appear Midweek at a estimator-arts festival in the Slovene city of Maribor, which celebrated Slovenia's thriving Net art scene.

"Megatronix" is among the first pieces of Internet art to exist sold to a museum or collector, and the public nature of the transaction may aid establish pricing in this nascent segment of the art market.

The sale as well comes among a slew of new attempts to determine how digital artists might exist compensated for creating online works that, different traditional art objects, tend to be continuously changing, widely accessible and easy to duplicate.

At the CyberArt99 symposium held last Dominicus in New York, Maxwell Fifty. Anderson, director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, proposed a scenario that would involve paying royalties to digital artists displaying their pieces on a subscription-only site.

Soon after, Ciaran Doyle, director of Intel Productions, suggested that information technology would be possible to sell digital works through his division's new ArtMuseum.net venture, just as one might download a vocal from a music-manufacture site.

Starting this week, two online projects are trying yet some other approach: a Spider web version of cable television's pay-per-view model. At Hell.com, visitors who pay a $5 fee via credit bill of fare will be granted ii weeks' access to "skinonskinonskin," an interactive work past two of the private site's members. And at BindiGirl, a Web-based project by the New York creative person Prema Murthy, the artist is charging people $3 a month to view online videos of the weekly live performances she is doing to supplement the work.

1 method of selling digital art that has not succeeded -- so far -- is the online auction. Wolfgang Staehle, executive director of The Thing, an arts-oriented bulletin lath, recently used the pop eBay auction site in an effort to sell an archived area of The Thing featuring a number of Web-based art projects. Simply when the auction ended April thirty, the top bid of $1,125 was far less than the reserve price of $45,000, then at that place was no auction. Staehle said he is at present negotiating with a potential buyer.

The financial rewards of the booming Web economy have yet to trickle down to digital artists, most of whom are still performing labors of love or picking upwardly the occasional institutional commission. So information technology will be fascinating to see which, if any, of these new funding models will prevail.

Spiller'south sale of "Megatronix" nigh closely resembles the typical fine art-world transaction, merely with some digital-era conditions attached. For example, Spiller must keep the site upwardly to engagement technically, and the gallery is required to host the project on its Web site. The gallery is likewise permitted to identify an advert on the opening page of "Megatronix," with a revenue-sharing program even so to be negotiated.

Teo Spiller, a Slovenian artist, sold one of his Spider web-based works.

The bargain was hashed out over the past month in a public discussion forum on Spiller's site involving a panel of experts. Issues included whether Spiller would do good from future reproductions of the work. He will, although that condition resulted in a reduced selling price. Last week, he estimated that an outright auction of the project would earn him at least $3,500.
The game-similar "Megatronix" has links to images submitted by other online artists, just Spiller said they would not receive any of his $500 fee. "That would be a problem," he conceded in a phone interview concluding calendar week. "If I got a hundred new participants, then I would accept to pay more than than I get."

But the complications of selling a work that is not a stand up-solitary slice makes Spiller's project all the more interesting, said Brain Goldfarb, a forum participant who teaches estimator fine art at the Academy of Rochester.

"He'southward trying to close the deal," Goldfarb said terminal week, "merely he'south also trying to show the issues with it, and I think that's why his project is so valuable."

At Sunday'due south symposium, the Whitney'south Anderson said the Art Museum Prototype Consortium, which he founded, might offer some other model for generating revenue from digital fine art.

AMICO, which is scheduled to open in July, is a not-for-profit venture that will give educational institutions and other subscribers access to a huge database of art reproductions. In return for the rights to brandish some copyrighted images, AMICO volition make small royalty payments to artists-rights organizations.

Anderson said that a like arrangement could be made with a consortium of digital artists, which would then allow their works to be shown on the AMICO site. However, no such consortium currently exists, and Anderson ruled out deals with individual artists.

Intel's Doyle put along the idea that Cyberspace-based art might anytime exist downloaded for a fee from ArtMuseum.net, the visitor's new site for online versions of museum shows like the Whitney's current "American Century" evidence.

Doyle refuted the notion that buyers would insist on owning original piece of work, pointing out that music purchasers are perfectly pleased to possess a copy of a hitting recording. "I'll be able to accept the work of the next digital Picasso on my desktop," he said.

Anderson's and Doyle'south proposals were purely speculative, so the size of payments was not discussed. But fees are central to the pay-per-view programs that Hell.com and Murthy are launching this week.

Kenneth Aronson, the founder of Hell.com, said the $5-for-two-weeks program for Michael Samyn'south and Auriea Harvey'southward "skinonskinonskin" volition remain in force until June 1, when the fee will rise to $7.50 and the fourth dimension catamenia will drop to two days. He is besides negotiating with potential sponsors, who would share revenues with Hell.com's members.

"Because information technology'due south very complicated, I don't expect the attendance to be very great," Aronson said. Merely he is projecting that 20,000 visitors volition pay to explore the site.

Murthy, who will likewise sell "BindiGirl" souvenirs similar express-edition digital prints and underwear, said, "I'm kind of ripping off the model of a porn site."

At Dominicus's symposium, Martha Wilson, founder of the New York performance-fine art mecca Franklin Furnace, which now Webcasts its events, said, "Art does non accept the same draw as [the boxer] Evander Holyfield, and thus pay per view is doomed."

Aronson's rejoinder: "We're not presenting art; we're presenting experience." He noted that the average time spent by visitors at an earlier, gratuitous exhibition was 90 minutes.

Steve Dietz, director of new-media initiatives at the Walker Art Middle in Minneapolis, said: "If we think of Net art equally art, then we should be able to support it. If that's not happening, and so what is the problem?"

A few more "done deals" like Teo Spiller's, and at that place may non exist a problem.

arts@large is published on Thursdays. Click here for a list of links to other columns in the series.

Related Sites
These sites are not part of The New York Times on the Web, and The Times has no control over their content or availability.

Teo Spiller

Megatronix

Mestna Galerija Ljubljana, the Municipal Gallery of Ljubljana

CyberArt99

Whitney Museum of American Art

ArtMuseum.net

Hell.com

To access the BindiGirl project, get to The Affair, log in as a invitee and so enter the "Projects" expanse.

eBay

The archived area of The Thing that was up for auction can exist found hither.

Fine art Museum Epitome Consortium

Franklin Furnace

Walker Art Center

Matthew Mirapaul at mirapaul@nytimes.com welcomes your comments and suggestions.