There is a problem of exhibiting projects made for the web in an exhibition. There is a shift as with all type of transfer. And the museum is not the ideal place.
Projects or pieces are thought for a specific environment (in this case the online pc with a screen) isn't this what should be seen, and not so much the physical space. But after all, what kind of environment do computers usually have? They are on office tables, with a neon light, some papers, and a chair. I think the importance of this type of space should not be avoided nor minimized. It belongs to something which is usually abstracted.
Working on the documenta-halle space, and needing to present the projects on the dX website, this apeared to me the best solution. I hate futuristic spaces reinterpreting other peoples work.
The only real solution is for every artist to think specifically about his/her own space, and then stretch apart from pure web projects to installation pieces. Look at the Crandall and Makrolab pieces, the artic circle trailer.
As we spoke about this (specially with jodi) in Kassel, I knew the problem and the risks to create a web situation, apart from the rest. I insisted on having an independant web situation to avoid curatorial conflict between Catherine David and me. If I had wished 10 different specific spaces for the 10 projects on the site, probably none would be in Kassel. I feel very empiric, and fatalist. I know in five or ten years such pieces will be handled in another way (specially by the artists themselves. This was the very first an obligatory way, to open and reveal such problems. Not hide them, nor be kicked out, just start to give tracks.
Simon Lamuniere