Key Concepts
Post-Internet
A paradigm (coined by Marissa Olson) in which the conditions created by the internet extend beyond the screen into physical life, ending the hard distinction between digital and material worlds.
Defines the movement and its historical significance
Digital Dualism
The now-obsolete distinction between the material world and the digital world as separate spaces. Post-Internet art marks the end of digital dualism; the physical and digital are mutually constitutive.
Historical anchor for understanding the movement's significance
Dematerialization
The conceptual art aspiration to make art escape the material burden of its own history by becoming pure concept. Links 1960s conceptual art to both art-and-tech collaborations and later net art.
Explains why tech seemed appealing to conceptual artists
New Media
A catch-all genre for art using digital hardware whose claim to originality rested on technological novelty — making it as disposable as its last system update.
Explains the ghetto-ization of tech-engaged artists 1970s–1990s
Net Art
A 1990s movement using the internet as a medium, split between techie artist-coders and artists using the internet for new types of one-to-many interaction. Still treated the internet as a portal to the future, not a universal condition.
Immediate predecessor to post-Internet
Dirt-Style Design
Arcangel's term for internet archaeology — remixing found relics of media culture from discarded videos, images, and dead tech. Reframed the internet as archive of its own obsolescence.
Shifted digital art from sterile to playful
Poor Image
Steyerl's term for pixelated, low-res images whose degradation carries authenticity as evidence of how they have traveled through time and space, analogous to organic decay.
Validates dirt-style aesthetics; challenges infinite reproducibility assumption
Surf Clubs
Group artist blogs (nasty nets, Spirit Surfers, etc.) where members shared a login to post original work alongside found images — blurring artist, curator, and archivist roles.
Organizational infrastructure of the early post-Internet scene
Dual Sites
Physical galleries outside art world power centers whose primary purpose was generating digital installation images for online audiences rather than live foot traffic.
Maps the physical-digital hybrid infrastructure of post-Internet exhibition
Athletic Aesthetics
The narrator's term for artists who overhauled production schedules around social media attention incentives — constantly releasing rather than spending extended time on single works.
Explains how platform logic reshaped artistic productivity
The Accidental Audience
The narrator's term for online audiences who encounter and share art without knowing it was made as art. A key post-Internet strategy: courting multiple, potentially hostile interpretive audiences.
Explains viral strategies built on ambiguity
Image Object Post-Internet
Virkant's concept that artworks exist as constellations — physical object + installation image + online reproductions + social media recontextualizations — with the installation image as the primary entry point.
Redefines what counts as "the artwork"
Dispersion
Seth Price's theory that distribution rather than production is how works accrue meaning, and that art fulfilling this purpose tends to be ignored by the art world.
Foundational permission-giving text for post-Internet art on the internet
Flippers
Dealer-collector hybrids who scouted social media for emerging artists, bought work in bulk at discount, created speculative buzz, then flipped remaining inventory at auction.
Explains the commercial turn's corrupting effect
Zombie Formalism
Bland abstract painting popular in the mid-2010s featuring uniform drizzled texture, optimized for digital viewing and collector appeal. Symptom of how CAD-driven image formats homogenized gallery aesthetics.
Symptom of the commercial turn
Corporate Spiritualism
Bewersdorf's philosophy: an artist and their art become a reflection of their total internet surfing habits — an infinite loop of consumption and creation expressed through corporate middle-America aesthetics.
A form of resistance through total passivity to the attention economy
Normcore
K-Hole's term for an intentional aesthetic of blending in rather than standing out, adopted once every projection of uniqueness had been memed into oblivion.
Logical endpoint of post-Internet irony exhaustion
Prosumer
The collapsed role of simultaneous producer and consumer of digital content. Used to describe Bewersdorf's philosophy and the broader post-Internet condition.
Describes the structural position of the post-Internet artist
Key Artists — Portraits
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Robert Rauschenberg
Neo-Dada / Art & Tech · 1960s
Collaborated with Bell Labs engineer Billy Kluver; co-founded Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT).
Wikipedia ↗
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Cory Arcangel
Pre-Post-Internet · early 2000s
Co-originator of "dirt-style design" / internet archaeology. His talk "Continuous Partial Awareness" was directly influential on the narrator.
Wikipedia ↗
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Ryan Trecartin
Post-Internet · mid-2000s
Released A Family Finds Entertainment on Friendster (2004) and I Be Area on YouTube (2006). Cited as the defining artist of post-Internet pacing and attention-economy critique.
Wikipedia ↗
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Amalia Ulman
Post-Internet · 2014
Performed Excellences and Perfections on Instagram — documenting a fictional life through shifting feminine aesthetics without disclosing it was art.
Wikipedia ↗
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Hito Steyerl
Critic / Artist · 2009
In In Defense of the Poor Image (2009), argued that pixelated low-res images carry their own aura — degradation as proof of how an image has traveled through time and space.
Wikipedia ↗
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Tao Lin
Alt-Lit · 2000s–2010s
Cited as one of the first popularizers of alt-lit writing — the online poetry and prose genre associated with post-Internet culture.
Wikipedia ↗
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Hans Ulrich Obrist
Curator · 2013
Organized 89+ in 2013, a sweeping institutional endorsement of ~300 post-Internet artists. Cited critically as accelerating the commercial turn by claiming an entire generation at once.
Wikipedia ↗
All Artists Mentioned
| Name | Movement / Period | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Wolf Vostell | Early art-and-tech, 1960s | Among the first to use technology as the form and substance of artworks |
| Jean Tinguely | Early art-and-tech, 1960s | Paired with Vostell as pioneers of technology-as-medium |
| Robert Rauschenberg | Neo-Dada / Art & Tech, 1960s | Collaborated with Bell Labs; co-founded Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT) |
| Michael Asher | Conceptual art, 1970s | Frustrated by aesthetic intrusion of tech hardware; wanted invisible light projection in the desert |
| Martine Neddam (Muschette) | Net art, 1990s | Creator of Muschette.org (1996), a sprawling narrative about a fictional 13-year-old girl online |
| Olia Lialina | Net art, 1990s | Referenced in connection with URLs offered for sale as alternatives to art objects |
| Ubermorgen | Net art / Trickster, 2000 | Created Vote Auction, a satirical website allowing people to sell their votes in the 2000 election |
| The Yes Men / RTMark | Net art / Trickster, late 1990s–2000s | Created forged websites for George W. Bush and the WTO; gave real speeches on their behalf |
| Eva and Franco Mattes | Net art / Trickster, 1998 | Built a media narrative around fictional artist Darko Maver, culminating in a real Venice Biennale exhibition |
| Seth Price | Pre-post-Internet, early 2000s | His 2004 essay Dispersion laid out a theory of art through distribution |
| Cory Arcangel | Pre-post-Internet, early 2000s | Co-originator of dirt-style design; gave influential talk "Continuous Partial Awareness" |
| Paper Rad | Pre-post-Internet, early 2000s | Co-originators of dirt-style; their 2006 video cited as first art reflecting 4chan/Something Awful atmosphere |
| Ryan Trecartin | Post-Internet, mid-2000s | Defining artist of post-Internet pacing; A Family Finds Entertainment (2004), I Be Area (2006) |
| Ryan McGinley | Contemporary, mid-2000s | Contrasted with Trecartin; romanticized youth culture through 35mm film |
| Kevin Bewersdorf | Post-Internet / Surf Clubs | Spirit Surfer co-founder; created Maximum Sorrow brand mixing corporate aesthetics with Silicon Valley spiritualism |
| Petra Courtwright | Post-Internet | Made videos dancing and trying on chroma key filters; compared to 1970s conceptual video artists |
| Jake Baccala | Post-Internet / Alt-Lit | Secretly operated the Horse Ebooks Twitter account (2011–2013), impersonating a spam bot |
| Katia Novitskova | Post-Internet | Perfected Bewersdorf's corporate convention prop-making aesthetic |
| Timur Sikin | Post-Internet | Same — corporate aesthetics as post-Internet medium |
| AIDS 3D | Post-Internet | Ancient Greek and Egyptian iconography + technofuturist aesthetics; cited as direct inspiration for vaporwave |
| Kate Statue | Post-Internet photography | Created authentic-looking installation images of galleries that never existed |
| Josh Cidorella | Post-Internet photography | Same group as above |
| Harm van den Dorpel | Post-Internet photography | Same group |
| Lucas Blalock | Post-Internet photography | Same group |
| Artie Virkant | Post-Internet | Wrote The Image Object Post-Internet (2010); part of the post-Internet photography group |
| Edward Marshall Schenke | Post-Internet / Jogging | Created conspiracy theory posts using Tea Party graphic design that collapsed into themselves |
| Aaron Noah Graham | Post-Internet / Jogging | Originated "destroyed technology" posts on Jogging |
| Sam Hyde | Post-Internet / Performance, 2013 | Performed Paradigm Shift 2070 at TEDx Drexel — a satirical lecture disguised as a real TED talk |
| Amalia Ulman | Post-Internet / Performance, 2014 | Performed Excellences and Perfections on Instagram without disclosing it was art |
| Conor O'Malley | Post-Internet / Vine, 2013 | 18-month Vine series depicting a man's class-conscious descent into madness in 6-second episodes |
| Lil B | Post-Internet-adjacent | Example of "athletic aesthetics" — breakneck production driven by social media attention incentives |
| Carles (Hipster Runoff) | Music blogging, 2007–2013 | Trickster documentarian of indie culture; coined irony-laden terms like bloghouse, chillwave; precursor to K-Hole |
| Molly Soda | Post-Internet | Carrying on the theory of the young girl trapped in the internet, originating with Muschette |
| Bunny Rogers | Post-Internet | Same lineage — Muschette → Molly Soda → Bunny Rogers |
Art Historians & Critics Mentioned
| Name | Key Argument | Why Referenced |
|---|---|---|
| Max Kozlov | Stagflation of the 1970s ended corporate tech sponsorship of art — companies could no longer justify the PR luxury | Explains the economic collapse of the 1960s art-and-tech honeymoon |
| Jane Livingston | LACMA curator; artists turned against tech for moral reasons (Vietnam War art-washing) and aesthetic ones (visible hardware) | Explains why prominent conceptual artists abandoned technology |
| Hito Steyerl | In Defense of the Poor Image (2009): pixelated low-res images carry their own aura; degradation serves as proof of travel through time and space | Validates the dirt-style aesthetic |
| Gene McHugh | His blog Post-Internet was the definitive critical source on the movement; most radical contribution: treating individual blog posts as worthy of critical review alongside physical shows | Most important critical voice sustaining the movement's self-understanding |
| Jason Musson (Hennessy Youngman) | On YouTube channel Art Thoughtz, simplified art world concepts by identifying power dynamics with comic accuracy — exposing how jargon obscures truth about race and class | Produced criticism as thoughtful as McHugh's, through comedy |
| Michael Sanchez | Art and Transmission: iPhones (2011) transformed the commercial art world; digital speed disabled critical judgment in favor of collective attention, making visibility equivalent to value | Central to explaining the "commercial turn" chapter |
| Oliver Laric | Versions (2009): photoshopped and multiplied images create a media landscape where authenticity is decided by viewers in real time; multiple versions increase rather than diminish aura | Major influence on post-Internet photographers and the narrator's own work |
| Artie Virkant | The Image Object Post-Internet (2010): artworks no longer exist as singular physical objects but as constellations of gallery object + installation image + online reproductions + social media | Central theoretical text for the movement |
| Seth Price | Dispersion (2004): distribution rather than production is how artworks accrue meaning; art fulfilling this purpose tends to be ignored by the art world | Foundational pre-post-Internet theoretical text |
| Paul Slocum | Defined surf clubs as group artist blogs where internet culture was the prevailing subject and lines between artist, curator, and archivist blurred | Provides the defining description of surf clubs |
| K-Hole | Trend forecasting group; coined "normcore" in their 2013 report Youth Mode | Logical progression of Carles's ability to name and deflate micro-trends |
| Hans Ulrich Obrist | Organized the 2013 curatorial project 89+, a sweeping institutional endorsement of ~300 post-Internet artists | Cited critically as accelerating the commercial turn; attempted to "get upstream" of museums by claiming an entire generation at once |
| Brad Troemel (narrator) | Wrote "Athletic Aesthetics" (2012) and "The Accidental Audience" (2013) — mapping how art goes viral to audiences unaware it is art | Self-citation; frames his own critical writing within the movement's history |
Form & Technique
Digitally Degraded Images & Objects
Seth Price's 2004 exhibition featured images and objects that evoked the degradation of digital distribution — the form itself was the argument about dispersion.
Internet Archaeology / Dirt-Style
Remixing found images, dead technology, and discarded media culture into new work. Treating digital refuse as an art medium.
Photoshop-to-Scale / Fake Installation Images
Digitally editing sculptures with stolen Google Image parts, presenting them alongside real sculptures. Ambiguity about authenticity used as viral strategy.
Food Sculpture
Low-cost, universally accessible medium used on Jogging. Enabled real-time conversational making across geographies.
Destroyed Technology
Smashing or wrecking hardware as an art gesture. Triggered simultaneous reactions of outrage (waste) and catharsis (relief from device addiction).
Chroma Key / Software Presets as Costume
Courtwright's use of digital filters as readymade stage identities. Automation of creative decisions delegated to the machine.
Direct-to-Print Corporate Production
Bewersdorf's use of online print services for the Maximum Sorrow brand; later perfected by Novitskova and Sikin.
Six-Second Vine Series
O'Malley's use of Vine's constraint as a serialized narrative form over 18 months — platform limitation as formal discipline.
Instagram as Performance Stage
Ulman's Excellences and Perfections using the platform's aesthetic conventions as characters in a durational performance without disclosure.
Automated Bot Poetics
Horse Ebooks as accidental poetry through machine misprocessing of text. Baccala's later human impersonation of the bot's syntax.
Movements & Periods
Early C20
Dadaism / Futurism / Constructivism / Bauhaus
Cited as early art-and-technology precedents: Dada's irrational combinations, Futurism's blind tech devotion, Constructivism's merger of art and life, Bauhaus's industrial inspiration.
1960s
Conceptual Art / Art and Technology (EAT)
Institutional collaborations pairing artists with engineers and corporations (EAT, LACMA program). Produced more paper trails than finished work. Ended with 1970s stagflation cutting corporate arts budgets.
Late 1960s
Cybernetic / Systems Art
Shows like Software (Jewish Museum), Information (MoMA), Cybernetic Serendipity (ICA London) merged conceptual art with information-processing technology.
1970s – 1990s
New Media
Post-1970s catch-all for art using digital hardware. Ghetto-ized in European museums and academia. Characterized by novelty-driven obsolescence.
1990s
Net Art
Used the internet as medium. Split between techie artist-coders and narrative/interactive artists. Still treated the internet as a specialized portal to the future, not a universal condition.
Early 2000s
Pre-Post-Internet
Transitional artists (Price, Arcangel, Paper Rad) who bridged net art and post-Internet. Originated dirt-style aesthetics and the theory of distribution-as-meaning.
Mid 2000s
Surf Clubs
Group artist blogs (nasty nets, Spirit Surfers) as the organizational form of early post-Internet. Precursor to Instagram meme culture.
Mid 2000s – Mid 2010s
Post-Internet Art
The central subject of the video. Defined by the collapse of digital dualism, social media as both subject and infrastructure, and a frenetic athletic production schedule.
2000s – 2010s
Alt-Lit / Weird Twitter
Online poetry and writing genre associated with post-Internet. Characterized by irony, non sequiturs, cryptic meme references. Ceased to be distinct once its style became the universal mode of online communication.
Mid 2010s
Zombie Formalism
Bland abstract painting optimized for digital viewing and collector appeal. Symptom of the commercial turn's homogenizing effect on gallery aesthetics.
2013 onward
Normcore
K-Hole's coined aesthetic of intentional blending-in. Adopted once every outward projection of uniqueness had been memed into oblivion.
2010s onward
Vaporwave
Later aesthetic movement cited as directly descended from AIDS 3D's ancient-iconography-plus-technofuturism. Now synonymous with being terminally online.
Memorable Quotes
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In a post-Y2K .com bubble world, their work presented the internet as a silly dystopia we could no longer avoid or escape.
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The poor image is the antithesis to the idea of digital images being infinitely reproducible because the poor image's low quality serves as proof of the way it's traveled through time and space.
— Hito Steyerl, In Defense of the Poor Image, 2009
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Being post-Internet is a paradigm where the conditions created by the internet exist beyond the screen and extend into the physical world.
— Marissa Olson (as paraphrased)
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A good review on CAD meant your exhibition was posted on CAD, and a bad review on CAD meant your exhibition was not posted on CAD.
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Making art went from a process of communication with your peers to a process of translation for your collectors.
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Every altered image creates a parallel world, the world in which it's true for that audience.
— Oliver Laric, Versions, 2009
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Basically, relational aesthetics is when someone with an MFA wants to meet new people but because they spent all that time pursuing an MFA they don't know how to talk to people normally...
— Hennessy Youngman, Art Thoughtz
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It's even tougher to go from being a starving artist to a decently fed artist to a starving artist all over again.
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The second you felt like you were back it was already so over.
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The only decision we're capable of making as artists is which end of the spectrum we aim to be a part of.