Medialab Prado

From the outset, the Internet has proven to be an ideal channel not only for communication and aggressive capitalism, but also for artistic creation and counterculture.

An historical glance at net-art, undoubtedly reveals how the development of a specific expressive language in the network has been consolidated over the years, configuring an autonomous artistic discipline. This has been supported and encouraged by the production of proprietary knowledge disseminated by portals like w3art, rhizome or the now-deceased aleph-arts, among others. Similarly and regarding the specifically artistic in this medium, there are several virtual galleries that exhibit and/or trade with artistic works hung on their zero walls and others of varying degrees of success, a variety of individual websites of artists "of all types", digital publications, notes, blogs, etc.

After being opened to the public in 2003, Second Life, a three-dimensional virtual universe hosted in the mesh of the Internet, has made it possible for these productions to coexist inside and on the fringes of a vast community of Internet users, which is characterised by being a paradigm of its time, a Zeigeist that modulates virtual environments, entertainment and information exchange platforms (specialised publications, chats, blogs, etc.) and because it is a popular spirit, or Volkgeist, open to concepts such as the accessibility, interactivity or reciprocity of the new technological media.

To what extent might the creative projects developed by avatars or groups of avatars in SL constitute an artistic reference, configured by an imaginary and a set of new, unique modus operandi or scripts, which enrich the R+D+i of new artistic practices in the future?

To what extent might this ultimately end up to be an empty phenomenon, devoid of any depth, stagnated in a mere extravagant transgression of "what is real", but subsidised by the speculative mesh that characterises the platform?