science

The Thing (art project)

The Thing (art project) 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 The Thing (art project) rather than just read about it. In short: The Thing is an international net-community of artists and art-related projects that was started in 1991 by Wolfgang Staehle. The Thing was launched as an email mailbox system accessible over the telephone line network in New York City feeding a Bulletin Board System (BBS) in 1991 before their website was launched in 1995 on the World Wide Web.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

The Thing is an international net-community of artists and art-related projects that was started in 1991 by Wolfgang Staehle. The Thing was launched as an email mailbox system accessible over the telephone line network in New York City feeding a Bulletin Board System (BBS) in 1991 before their website was launched in 1995 on the World Wide Web. By the late 1990s, The Thing grew into a diverse online community made up of dozens of members' Web sites, mailing lists, a successful Web hosting service, a community studio in Chelsea, Manhattan, and the first website devoted to Net Art: bbs.thing.net.

History

The Thing BBS (1991) In 1991, The Thing began as a Bulletin Board System (BBS) focusing on contemporary art and cultural theory. In 1990, the writer and art curator/critic Blackhawk (aka Peter Von Brandenburg), having curated the Power for Peace: Our Lost Horizon art exhibition at White Columns and produced the cyberpunk documentary film Cyberpunk directed by Marianne Trench, taught Wolfgang Staehle many of the abilities he needed to start the original The Thing BBS. Blackhawk was the first person Staehle turned to after conceiving the idea for an electronic culture resource based on the model of Joseph Beuys's Social sculpture. Blackhawk and Wolfgang jointly set up the editorial structure of the original BBS and planned for many of the then experimental activities that took place. Other people who helped develop and shape the content of the early BBS included Josefina Ayerza, Dike Blair, Donald Newman, the original programmer, Jordan Crandall, David Platzker, Josh Decter, Rainer Ganahl, Julia Scher, Barry Schwabsky, Morgan Garwood, Franz von Stauffenberg and Benjamin Weil. A second node, The Thing Cologne, was added in 1992, followed by The Thing Vienna in November 1993. Nodes in Berlin and elsewhere were soon to follow.

The Thing on the Web (1995) The Thing changed its form when a website was created for a presentation at the 1995 Ars Electronica. Credits on the 1995 website also name Nicky Chaikin, John F. Simon Jr., Wolfgang Staehle, Rob Keenan, Darryl Erentzen and John Rabasa. In 1995 The Thing set up an independent art network with hardware of its own that offered arts communities ways to establish themselves, to send information to one another and also to conceive of new artistic practices deriving from conceptual art and from performance art. The idea was that working with the Internet was a way to operate around the institutions of art distribution of the day. In 1998 Max Kossatz designed The Thing Communicator a website mimicking many functions of the original BBS including member login, chat and messaging. The most interactive area of The Thing consisted of various message boards offering forums for art theory debate, news and gossip, ongoing dialogue and an open-access flow of information as well as several online versions of art journals. Alongside discussion forums The Thing has offered artworks in the form of graphics downloadable to the home personal computer – for example by Peter Halley.

thing.net communities The Thing has enabled a diverse group of artists, critics, curators, and activists to use the internet in its early stages. At its core, The Thing is a social network, made up of individuals from diverse backgrounds with a wide range of expert knowledge. From this social hub, The Thing has built an array of programs and initiatives, in both technological and cultural networks. During its first five years, TT became widely recognized as one of the founding and leading online centers for new media culture. Its activities include hosting artists' projects and mailing lists - as well as publishing cultural criticism. The Thing has also organized many public events and symposia on such topics as the state of new media arts, the preservation of online privacy, artistic innovations in robotics, and the possibilities of community empowerment through wireless technologies. In 1997, thing.net communications, LLC, an internet service provider (ISP) was incorporated by Wolfgang Staehle, Gisela Ehrenfried and Max Kossatz. The ISP was to provide a financial backbone for The Thing Inc. (a 501 c 3 non profit organization). thing.net has hosted arts and activist groups and publications including P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Artforum, Mabou Mines, Willoughby Sharp Gallery, Zingmagazine, Journal of Contemporary Art, RTMark and Tenant.net. Among many others, artists and projects associated with thing.net have included Sawad Brooks, Heath Bunting, Cercle Ramo Nash, Vuk Cosic, Ricardo Dominguez, Ursula Endlicher, etoy, GH Hovagimyan, Jérôme Joy, John Klima, Jenny Marketou, Mariko Mori, Olivier Mosset, Prema Murty, Mark Napier, Joseph Nechvatal, Phil Niblock, Daniel Pflumm, Francesca da Rimini, Beat Streuli and Beth Stryker.

The Thing global The Thing Amsterdam was founded by Walter van der Cruijsen The Thing Basel was founded by Barbara Strebel and Rik Gelles The Thing Berlin was founded by Ulf Schleth The Thing Cologne was founded by Michael Krome The Thing Düsseldorf was founded by Jörg Sasse The Thing Frankfurt was founded by Andreas Kallfelz The Thing Hamburg (1993–94) was founded by Hans-Joachim Lenger The Thing Hamburg (2006–2009) was founded by the local art association "THE THING HAMBURG" The Thing London was founded by Andreas Ruethi The Thing New York was founded by Wolfgang Staehle The Thing Stockholm was founded by Magnus Borg The Thing Vienna was founded by Helmut Mark and Max Kossatz The Thing Roma was founded by Marco Deseriis and Giuseppe Marano

Footnotes This article incorporates text from "About: The Thing" and "Wolfgang Staehle: Resume", publications released into public domain by their author.

References Josephine Bosma, 'Constructing Media Spaces', in: 'Media Art Net 2', Wien, Springer Verlag, 2005. Dieter Daniels, Gunther Reisinger (Eds.) Net Pioneers 1.0: Contextualizing Early Net-Based Art, Sternberg. 2010. Christiane Paul, Digital Art, London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., p. 111 Edward A. Shanken, Art and Electronic Media. London: Phaidon, 2009. ISBN 978-0-7148-4782-5, p. 50 Mark Tribe and Reena Jana. New Media Art. Cologne: Taschen Verlag. pp. 22–23

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Thing (art project)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Thing (art project) 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 The Thing (art project) 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 The Thing (art project) 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 The Thing (art project)

In research: The Thing (art project) 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 The Thing (art project) 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: The Thing (art project) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American artist groups and collectives, American digital artists, Artists from New York (state), so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Thing (art project) 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.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “The Thing (art project)” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study The Thing (art project) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Thing (art project) 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 The Thing (art project) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Thing (art project) in simple terms?

Why does The Thing (art project) 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 The Thing (art project)?

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 The Thing (art project).