New York artist Maciej Wisniewski was tired of the same old Web surfing experience. "[W]e all got used to Mosaic in 1993, and that definition of a browser has stuck with us for quite some time. I had grown frustrated with it," said Wisniewski. So he created Netomat, a nonlinear browser.
Netomat was unveiled Friday, not at a trade show, but at the ultra-hip Postmasters Gallery in Manhattan's Chelsea art district.
It has been available for PC users since Monday, free of charge. By next week, Mac and Unix versions will be available, too. Java Runtime Environment is required to run the Netomat application.
When Netomat is running, random visuals and snippets of sentences mined from the Web float endlessly across a black backdrop, accompanied by clips of sound, if the user desires.
Users can specify a topic, then retrieve text, images, or audio -- or all three -- from the Internet on the subject. They navigate by typing keywords into the browser, not by pointing and clicking.
An analogy for the Netomat experience might be grooving to a DJ's mix of scratches and sampled tracks, with the vast amounts of information on the Web serving as the source for mixing materials. Traditional Web surfing, in contrast, would be more akin to listening to a commercial radio broadcast. In essence, data (from RealAudio, JPEG, HTML, and other files) is loosened from Web sites and viewed in a context the user determines.
"The typical browser is based on the page metaphor, but that's really just a suggestion. It's only one way of accessing and interacting with the network that is the Web," said Wisniewski, who works as a software developer for IBM by day. "The Web is not only a database or a static, flat file-storage system. It's one big application."
Wisniewski intends for Netomat's structure to be seen as flexible and modular. In fact, he feels it is more accurate to describe Netomat as a means for spawning an infinite number of new browser interfaces rather than as a browser itself. He plans on making Netomat's components available as open-source software so a whole new generation of anti-browsers might be born.
So why showcase Netomat at a physical art gallery?
"It's nice to take the browser out of the usual software context," said Wisniewski, whose other works of Web art have been on view at such prestigious institutions as the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. "To have Netomat shown in an art context provokes a different way of thinking about the Web, software, and the network concept. All of these things are now cultural phenomena. I'm asking, 'how do we deal with these things now?'"
Tamas Banovich, curator of multimedia projects and co-director of Postmasters Gallery, where Netomat will be on display for several weeks, believes Wisniewski's anti-browser fits right into the contemporary art world.
"Yes, the art context is tricky for Netomat," said Banovich. "But we're committed to addressing good work that reflects contemporary creative thought. And what's the purest form of contemporary creative thought? I believe it's coding. Software is artwork."
Other Web artists have used the browser as a medium of sorts: Mark Napier's "Shredder" and I/O/D's "Web Stalker" are two that have debuted in the last two years.
Such metabrowsers have not been easily sellable or collectible works of art, but Banovich hasn't ruled out a bankable future for Netomat.
"Because Netomat can cleanse information from ads, because it helps people define what they want from the Web as precisely or as widely as they wish, this might allow people to tailor their portals," said Banovich. "We're trying to develop such commercial applications, as well."
Wisniewski's thoughts on the commercial viability of Netomat are as mysterious at Netomat's free flow of Web data.
"I just finished programming it. It's very difficult for me to say," he said. "Is there commercial potential? Yes and no. Just look at this Web economy. It's so new. Yes and no is the only answer I can give at this point."
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