18 years of being net artist were 18 years of
explaining difference in between net art and web art
explaining difference in between net.art and net art
removing the dot from net.artist
being called media artist
being mixed up with the austrian artist Lia
being called cyberfeminist
getting to know that i'm in a show from vanity search
getting requests to send screenshots in 300 DPI
refusing to show the work offline
refusing to show the work without address bar
rejecting Internet Explorer (and later Safari)
being told that there is no fee for online works
being interviewed about net art economic models
praying that it works in the next browser version
updating for the next browser version
making no back ups
editing files directly on server
ignoring the rumors that net art is dead
learning HTML
teaching web design
these are not the only things that happened to me,
but the ones that were there from the very beginning and never went away
Olia Lialina is a pioneering internet artist and theorist. She is an Animated GIF model and Professor for New Media at Merz Akademie, Stuttgart.