Page 154 - The Black Box Book

This was also a time during which the platform economy, with its
services and apps, began to replace the web browser with mobile interfac-
es; generating a web that was developing into a more compartmentalised
environment that was (and still is) centralised and made of interconnected
services. Increasingly, the distinction between online and offline sites of
display started to disappear. Although such fading distinction started to
be explored in earlier projects, such as the Widget Art Gallery (2008–)
by artist Chiara Passa, which functions as a 3-dimensional “single art-gal-
lery room that fits into people’s pockets” (Widget Art Gallery, 2008),
other artists started to explore it in connection to the commercialisation
of the web and its corporate rhetoric, which was progressively sipping
into the day-to-day life of its users. An example is Projected.Capital
(2018), curated by Silvio Lorusso and Sebastian Schmieg, which, via
a Paypal button (and a fee), allowed artists to buy a piece of a website
that would display their art online while beaming it on the walls of Roehrs
& Boetsch gallery in Zurich (Switzerland) — a commentary on the workings of
the art system and the role of the artist in it. Another example is
#exstrange (2017), curated by artist Rebekah Modrak and myself, which
used eBay and its auction system as a site for artistic production and
cultural exchange across geographical locations — an exploration on
the role of marketplaces and their algorithmic classification when browsing
for items to purchase.
The pandemic broke at the point in time in which this type of cu-
ratorial exploration was taking off, and with it it halted the experimental
activities of platforms like Greencube.gallery (2017–), which was founded Figure 7: Birch, R. & Smith, R. (2010-2013).
by Guido Segni and Matìas Ezequiel Reyes with the aim to “to flow in and Field Broadcast. Retrieved from
out of the digital screen in order to stress the limits and the relationship http://fieldbroadcast.org/index.html
between virtual and real.” (Greencube.gallery, 2017). From this point Screenshot of computer desktop from 2010.
onwards, the trajectory that curating exhibition on the Web was taking
started to take a different turn.

THE CURATING TRENDS THAT HAVE AROSE

Until 2020, the lineage I sketched above indicated how the curation of
web-based exhibitions acted as a context-sensitive practice proposing
manifold approaches to operating in the online environment. The trajec-
tory of its development goes from working with websites site-specifically
to highlight the qualities of the web medium, to reflecting upon viewing
habits in the context of contemporary art, as well as creating curato-
rial strategies based on communal efforts. Further, it includes explor-
ing alternative archival structures and audience-based categorisation,
and critically confronting the role of mediation that interfaces have in
the day-to-day lives of users.
In the year 2020, however, the general focus of contemporary art
institutions and galleries shifted away from critically observing the char-
acteristics of the technological context in which curating takes place
— as highlighted in the above-mentioned essay by Paul. While many
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