science

Post-Internet

Post-Internet is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Post-Internet rather than just read about it. In short: Post-Internet is a loosely defined 21st-century art movement that generally referred to contemporary art concerning the concept of the Internet no longer being perceived as a novelty in society. In 2006, artist Marisa Olson coined the term "postinternet art" to describe her work.

Key takeaways

Post-Internet belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Post-Internet to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Post-Internet from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Post-Internet is a loosely defined 21st-century art movement that generally referred to contemporary art concerning the concept of the Internet no longer being perceived as a novelty in society. In 2006, artist Marisa Olson coined the term "postinternet art" to describe her work. The term was then adopted by writer Gene McHugh who authored a blog titled "Post-Internet" in 2009, which further discussed and popularized the concept into a movement growing out of previous Internet Art. The movement is associated with the 21st century contemporary art world and aimed to reflect the ubiquity of the Internet in the Information Age through practices derived from the Internet as a medium or its effects on aesthetics, culture and society. Notable artists include Jon Rafman, Artie Vierkant, Ryan Trecartin, Brad Troemel, Joshua Citarella, Molly Soda, Cory Arcangel, Stepan Ryabchenko, Parker Ito, Kalup Linzy, Amalia Ulman, Petra Cortright, Ryder Ripps, Andrew Norman Wilson, DIS, Seth Price, Katja Novitskova, Jonathan Monaghan, Rachel de Joode and Lizzie Fitch.

Etymology In 2006, artist/curator Marisa Olson coined the term "postinternet art" in an attempt to describe her practice. Digital art and the internet date back to the 1970s, post-internet art refers to art made after the internet became a ubiquitous part of day-to-day life. According to the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, rather than referring "to a time 'after' the internet", the term refers to "an internet state of mind". Eva Folks of AQNB wrote that it "references one so deeply embedded in and propelled by the internet that the notion of a world or culture without or outside it becomes increasingly unimaginable, impossible." According to a 2015 article in The New Yorker, the term describes "the practices of artists [whose] artworks move fluidly between spaces, appearing sometimes on a screen, other times in a gallery." Fast Company's Carey Dunne summarizes they are "artists who are inspired by the visual cacophony of the web" and notes that "mediums from Second Life portraits to digital paintings on silk to 3-D-printed sculpture" are used. There is theoretical overlap with writer and artist James Bridle's term New Aesthetic. Ian Wallace of Artspace writes that "the influential blog The New Aesthetic, run since May 2011 by Bridle, is a pioneering institution in the post-Internet movement" and concludes that "much of the energy around the New Aesthetic seems, now, to have filtered over into the "post-Internet" conversation." Post-Internet art is also discussed by Katja Novitskova as being a part of 'New Materialism'. Wallace considers the Post-Internet term to stand for "a new aesthetic era," moving "beyond making work dependent on the novelty of the Web to using its tools to tackle other subjects". He notes that the post-Internet generation "frequently uses digital strategies to create objects that exist in the real world." Or as Louis Doulas writes in Within Post-Internet, Part One (2011): "There is a difference then, in an art that chooses to exist outside of a browser window and an art that chooses to stay within it." The term is controversial and the subject of much criticism in the art community. Art in America's Brian Droitcour in 2014 opined that the term fails to describe the form of the works, instead "alluding only to a hazy contemporary condition and the idea of art being made in the context of digital technology."

History

In 2009, Gene McHugh adopted Marisa Olson's term "postinternet art" and authored the blog "Post-Internet", which began the movement while further discussing and popularizing the concept. Artist and creator of Image Object sculpture series Artie Vierkant also developed the idea. The term has been described as loosely defined while the movement itself grew out of Internet Art and Net.art. That same year, artists Brad Troemel, Artie Vierkant and Lauren Christiansen created the Tumblr blog The Jogging which received attention for its work in post internet art. The blog showcased Google Images and online products photoshopped together as artworks. The site grew in the summer of 2012 due to the inclusion of several new members.

Exhibitions There have been a number of significant group art shows explicitly exploring Post-Internet themes. There was a 2014 exhibition called Art Post-Internet at Beijing's Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, which ARTnews named one of the "most art exhibitions of the 2010s" which "set out to encapsulate the budding movement." MoMA curated Ocean of Images in 2015, a show "probing the effects of an image-based post-Internet reality." The 2016 9th Berlin Biennale, titled The Present in Drag, curated by the art collective DIS, is described as a Post-Internet exhibition. Other examples include:

Body Anxiety, all-female online group show curated by Jennifer Chan and Leah Schraeger that quotes Ann Hirsch saying, "whenever you put your body online, you are in conversation with porn." The Last Brucennial, New York, 2014. Part of the Brucennial series of exhibitions curated by Bruce High Quality Foundation. “We came out of a tradition rooted in institutional critique, but we’re dated to the internet. Back then, it felt like you had to do things in real space for it to count. Now you start on the internet and then do it in real space,” the collective told Spike Magazine critic Victoria Campbell looking back on 700 works by female artists for the last edition, in 2014, of the group show started in 2009. Raster Raster, Aran Cravey Gallery, Los Angeles, 2014 2015 Triennial: Surround Audience at New Museum, New York, 2015 Zero Zero, Annka Kulty Gallery, London, 2016

Notable artists

Gallery

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Post-Internet

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Post-Internet claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Post-Internet before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Post-Internet ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Post-Internet

In research: Post-Internet appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Post-Internet in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Post-Internet is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2000s in art, 2010s in art, 21st-century neologisms, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Post-Internet outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Post-Internet in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Post-Internet means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Post-Internet out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Post-Internet in simple terms?

Why does Post-Internet matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Post-Internet?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Post-Internet.