Some strategies for a theoretical Web 2.0 Net.Art

Web 2.0 net.art (as opposed to net art 2.0) is summed up by the following code, to be pasted into any browser on any Web site:

javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0

I don't think anyone should underestimate what it means that anyone can edit anything on the Web until it suits them. The individual net.artist is obsolete. Legions of net.artists have replaced them, and they're called "users." And they are operating inside of pre-existing architecture: We Are All Graffiti Artists Now.

Web 2.0 Net.Art (W2.0N.A) is about providing a space on the network where the users can extend that creativity as well as edit and manipulate the work of others. Certainly, generating content will always be important, but remixing content is enough now to merit a free pass. One could be tempted to make another, more suitable Web lingo pun: Post Net.Art. Not because it's "after Net.Art" but because, like mail art was named for the mechanism that delivered that art, W2.0N.A is driven by "post" functions: Posting to a blog, posting to YouTube, posting to Facebook.

Open Source
In an environment using established architectures for truly interactive art, open source is crucial. Net Art that comes with a zip file of its components, and preferably with an upload ("post") function (or at least a link-to button) that can display what other people are doing with those zips. If the artist is working inside an architecture, that work needs to be shared as distinct components; if the artist is creating an architecture, it needs to be malleable.

Syndication
Syndication of work is another element, because it makes use of the "social user." But an RSS feed alone isn't malleable enough. I would question whether viral dissemination and syndication are the same, certainly, making use of viral dissemination is a key component, which is a neat new twist for defining Web 2.0 Net.art: It's almost gonna have to "go viral" to count. A piece of art that no one modifies or expands is DOA.

Social Media
Because W2.0N.A requires the network to exist, it can't exist in isolation from the social network. Which is why the 2.0 archetypes so far consists of "surf clubs" as opposed to "bloggers." A surf club comes with its own network built right in, so the evolving nature of the work is apparent. You post, it goes live, and the work enters into an environment rich with mutating agents willing to remix, expand, or ignore it.

Interaction
As a new medium, interaction with the work changes from passive observation to active manipulation of data: versioning, remixing, mashing up. This was a theoretical hallmark of the html art, but it was never a component of the art itself. More a passive by product. But the way people engage with the Web is different now (if this art were to have a revolutionary slogan to paint on walls, it would be "javascript: document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0"). Now we want to vote on the news we read, comment on blog posts, record "responses" to YouTube videos.

A Time-Based Medium.
W2.0N.A is a time-based medium where the time is always "immediately." Print, in contrast, exists over time; it acknowledges the past as stabe and "history" traditionally carries itself in the metaphors of print and film: History is a pre-determined, uneditable storyline. W2.0N.A is the deconstruction of all possible "finales," it goes on or it is abandoned. If it's a historical metaphor, it's for the emergence of democratic ideals as a final system and the end of inevitable histories. You don't like the ending? Build your own. Make the structure evolve. This is contrary to forgone conclusions in print. Novel as history, Internet as present.

What else?