The Story of netomat
netomat was conceived as a network-based art project by Maciej Wisniewski as an open, free-form, and flexible alternative to traditional page-based HTML browsers and search engines. This unique, multimedia network 'viewer' launched in 1999 at the Postmasters gallery in New York City and was downloaded by nearly a million people in more than 80 countries.Maciej then partnered with Tamas Banovich, curator and co-owner of Postmasters, to expand the vision of the art project and to productize the powerful technology. In the fall of 2000, they partnered with two software veterans, Alan Gershenfeld, former SVP of Activision Studios and Kris Ramanathan, former Head of US Operations for Financial Models Company, to found netomat, Inc.
Exhibitions
Below are a few of the artistic explorations developed by netomat and Maciej Wisniewski - all built upon the core ideas and underlying technology of netomat.
netomat
Whitney Art Museum: Data Dynamics & Bitstreams
March 20, 2001 - June 10, 2001
netomat takes visitors for a ride into an unexplored internet. Unlike traditional web interfaces such as web browsers, which retrieve only predefined web content and rely on the model of the page, netomat engages a different internet - one that is alive and unpredictable. In response to words and phrases typed in by the viewer, netomat interacts with the internet to retrieve text, images and audio, which it flows onto the screen. Using a new, audio-visual language designed specifically to explore the unexplored internet, netomat reveals how the ever-expanding network interprets and reinterprets cultural concepts and themes.
Visitors enter a netomat theater where they are surrounded by a collage of streaming images, text, animations, voice and music triggered by a series of inputs. Visitors can then transverse the internet's data structure by selecting both the inputs and steering the visual flow of the information.
www.whitney.org/datadynamics/
www.whitney.org
Whitney Art Museum: Data Dynamics & Bitstreams
March 20, 2001 - June 10, 2001
netomat takes visitors for a ride into an unexplored internet. Unlike traditional web interfaces such as web browsers, which retrieve only predefined web content and rely on the model of the page, netomat engages a different internet - one that is alive and unpredictable. In response to words and phrases typed in by the viewer, netomat interacts with the internet to retrieve text, images and audio, which it flows onto the screen. Using a new, audio-visual language designed specifically to explore the unexplored internet, netomat reveals how the ever-expanding network interprets and reinterprets cultural concepts and themes.
Visitors enter a netomat theater where they are surrounded by a collage of streaming images, text, animations, voice and music triggered by a series of inputs. Visitors can then transverse the internet's data structure by selecting both the inputs and steering the visual flow of the information.
www.whitney.org/datadynamics/
www.whitney.org
netomatheque
San Francisco Institute of Art:Telematic Connections: The Virtual Embrace
February 7, 2001
View netomatheque
San Francisco Institute of Art:Telematic Connections: The Virtual Embrace
February 7, 2001
View netomatheque
3 Seconds in the memory of the internet
Postmasters Gallery
January 12, 2002 - February 9, 2002
3 seconds' explores the internet by searching the memory and probing the subconscious of the network. Reversing the standard view of the internet as a reflection of the world, Wisniewski challenges the viewer to see what the internet projects onto the world.
This spatial three part projection presents the memory of the internet. Three slices of time will be arbitrarily selected by the artist from three different decades in the internet's development. In three simultaneous live feeds, netomat will crawl the visible and invisible internet and display what was created or modified at these moments in time and still remembered today. These include messages exchanged, news posted, documents published as well as log and error files. A liquid, image-transforming interface created by the artist where each pixel is visibly "live" evokes memory itself. Here, the traces of what is left on the web reflect subjective memory rather than objective archive and emphasize the vast scale of the internet as an organic and fluid entity.
Contributing to the production of "3 seconds in the memory of the internet" were Steve Cannon, Thomas Escobar and Christian Wenger of netomat, Inc.
Postmasters Gallery
January 12, 2002 - February 9, 2002
3 seconds' explores the internet by searching the memory and probing the subconscious of the network. Reversing the standard view of the internet as a reflection of the world, Wisniewski challenges the viewer to see what the internet projects onto the world.
This spatial three part projection presents the memory of the internet. Three slices of time will be arbitrarily selected by the artist from three different decades in the internet's development. In three simultaneous live feeds, netomat will crawl the visible and invisible internet and display what was created or modified at these moments in time and still remembered today. These include messages exchanged, news posted, documents published as well as log and error files. A liquid, image-transforming interface created by the artist where each pixel is visibly "live" evokes memory itself. Here, the traces of what is left on the web reflect subjective memory rather than objective archive and emphasize the vast scale of the internet as an organic and fluid entity.
Contributing to the production of "3 seconds in the memory of the internet" were Steve Cannon, Thomas Escobar and Christian Wenger of netomat, Inc.
original netomat
Postmasters Gallery
June 1999
netomat originated as a conceptual art project created by artist/programmer Maciej Wisniewski. Seeking to transcend the limitations that standard web browsers and search engines placed on people's interactions with online information, Maciej demonstrated through this alternative web interface that one could engage information on the internet in an entirely new way.
By treating the internet as one large, distributed application - instead of simply a series of linked HTML pages - Maciej empowered users to explore and interact with, not just view, the information retrieved from this expanded network.
Maciej's vision hearkened back to the early promise of the internet - to create an environment where users could access, share and effectively use a growing body of information available across an expanding network of computers.
The original netomat touched a nerve. It was launched at Postmasters Gallery in New York in June 1999. Since its initial release, this version of netomat has been downloaded by over a million users in 80 countries.
Learn more about the original netomat!
Postmasters Gallery
June 1999
netomat originated as a conceptual art project created by artist/programmer Maciej Wisniewski. Seeking to transcend the limitations that standard web browsers and search engines placed on people's interactions with online information, Maciej demonstrated through this alternative web interface that one could engage information on the internet in an entirely new way.
By treating the internet as one large, distributed application - instead of simply a series of linked HTML pages - Maciej empowered users to explore and interact with, not just view, the information retrieved from this expanded network.
Maciej's vision hearkened back to the early promise of the internet - to create an environment where users could access, share and effectively use a growing body of information available across an expanding network of computers.
The original netomat touched a nerve. It was launched at Postmasters Gallery in New York in June 1999. Since its initial release, this version of netomat has been downloaded by over a million users in 80 countries.
Learn more about the original netomat!
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