Networked Art: Shredder 1.0, Mark Napier (1998)

Shredder 1.0, Mark Napier (1998)
http://www.potatoland.org/shredder/shredder.html

This work is typical of much digital art because it is an artwork that places importance on formal instructions. It require the creator to have the basic knowledge of computer programme code, which is the essential language to build the website and they have to use that code to build the art since if the code wrong, it is not possible to do it. So the artist only able to use formal instructions to do the artwork.

Secondly, art objects is less consider in net art, it is more consider in the concept of the work. It is because the object only contains colour and the images that under the programme code, it is not easy for the general public to understand it since all the elements of the website have been change to another format that looks complicated.

Actually, this work looks like internet browser, it provides the area for the people to type the website and have the list for the bookmarks. Most of the area is the webpage. When the people type the website URL or select one of the webpage from bookmarks, it like the formal internet browser that load the webpage but the content looks quite different what we see, it randomly to generate a website that looks unusual.

The artist borrowing the idea from the website and use the JavaScript to generate the images of the website has been enlarged, changes the shape and divided into different type of square that merge together. The text only include html code and mixed together, without other general text that we see in webpage, so it looks interesting that the webpage looks destroyed by the computer virus. So the work is success to break through the boundaries, to make us feel surprise.