JC: Do you view Net art as a commodity?

JBC: Although most art has become a commodity, I think that traditional net art falls outside this categorization for several reasons. Since online art requires the existence of a network that is transient, meaning it will constantly change over time, Net art itself becomes very "of the moment". There is no telling whether or not a Net art project can and will exist even a year from its completion due to technological advancements in online delivery, networks, and software. Since these projects often rely on third-party software (such as browsers, operating systems, etc), the artist has less control over both the medium they are working in and the delivery mechanism for their art. This brings up questions about archiving Net art as a commodity, since the owner of the art will never be able to maintain the exact state of the network from the time they purchased the art. Since the web is a public digital medium, all online content can be cloned or copied without loss of quality. This brings Net art and other forms of online media into questions of ownership, copyright, and originality.

JC: Since MouseMiles falls into the category of Net art, do you see yourself (or someone else) consistently updating the site www.mousemiles.net for years to come? Also in my last set of questions, you stated that you saw MouseMiles as a long-term objective, but do you think MouseMiles will eventually lose its resonance in the Net art world?

JBC: I see MouseMiles itself as a starting point that brings up questions relating to the adaptation of individual desktop interaction to collective experiences through the network. I think this relationship (along with MouseMiles) will change over time as new interfaces are introduced and gain global momentum. I think MouseMiles in its current incarnation will probably, like most other Net artworks, lose its resonance over time, but its precedence into thinking about new forms of physical displays for shared network interaction will remain relevant. My work exists as a series of questions about how we experience technology, digital media, networks, and interactivity. In this sense, I never claim that my work is "finished" or supplies any answers, it is only a starting point for people to start thinking about these relationships and how they shift our perception of what is possible with computers and interaction design. This focus can sometimes bring about new technological applications, but mostly it is meant as a starting point to question how we experience and interact with information and why or why not this is important.

In this interview, Jonah Brucker-Cohen has addressed how web-based media can interact and cross boundaries from virtual space into physical space. The artist has taken an everyday object, the computer mouse, which a majority of the population comes into contact with on a daily basis and has transformed its movements. With Canada having one of the world’s highest numbers of online users, MouseMiles seems to be catered to a North American audience1. Therefore, when juxtaposed against other countries or continents such as Africa, MouseMiles does not seem relevant to the majority of the world’s population2. Could global geographical boundaries be broken through MouseMiles? The possibility is present as time passes and the modern world progresses, but MouseMiles today gains the most mileage from North American users who have easy access to the Web whether at work, home or both. North Americans exclusively dominate the collective. Time spent on the Net obviously affects how much mileage is recorded and stored through MouseMiles3. The amount of time a user spends clicking or moving the mouse will determine how much data is transformed and the distance the model train travels.

Footnotes:
1According to Ipsos-Reid (2002), in Canada, 75% of the Canadian population has Internet access and of that percentage, 53% check their email daily.
2Africa has 12% of the world’s population and only 0.8% of the world’s Internet users (Source: 2002).
3In 2000, the average Canadian would spend about 5.1 hours a week on the Internet, which is one more hour than an American (Source: 2000).