dead.art(-missing!)LINKreSources

The first TAGallery-exhibition deals with itself: the link as the main medium for networking, collaborating, contextualizing along with its role as a sign for mutual estimation in a social environment is a fragile entity. It can loose its functions as quick as it has been set up by ahref. Either the server is not available for a certain time, the URL has changed or the artwork has been taken from the net. In each of the cases, the link which is not working stands for the ephemerality of Web-based art-forms. Even the big institutions in the network can't avoid broken links. "The requested URL was not found on this server" is just one of the representatives of an Absurdistan, which needs -- despite expanding technical assistance -- human care and maintenance, not to be transformed from net.art into dead.art.

In the first link-collection, the element of missing, i.e. the void where actually should be something, is extended above the often quoted discussion of the the 404-code (error message for "file not found") in the net-context. The symbolism of the 404 is no longer the main element of reflection, but it is replaced by the discussion of the simple fact that there is nothing where there should be something. The "reference to the missing" is replaced by the discussion of the "non existence" of the artwork and, thus, bound to a reflection about the work itself and its conditions of production. The actually arbitrary symbol transforms itself into an indexicalic sign, which remains, despite missing, still connected physically to the object: what may have lead to the fact that an artwork is no longer on the Internet? Why are the servers unavailable? Is the disappearance to be interpreted as a metaphor or as a conscious act of withdrawal? The first exhibition in the TAGallery refers with its inherent material to superior -- missing -- implications, which allows the freedom of interpretation.

Without works by: Richard Rinehart, Brian Mackern, Michael Lovatt, Wendy Battin, Fabio Doctorovich, Dan Egnor, Eidolon, Dr William Moritz, Sneha Solanki, Neil Zakiewicz

Tagger: Franz Thalmair [fratha]

Opening: 16 February 2006 (through open-end)