Introducing fwd:// – Ding an Sich

When Piotr Szyhalski’s  Ding an sich came out almost 20 years ago, the New York Times said: “Szyhalski’s user-controlled creation is deeply involving and richly allusive. It is his most fully realized work to date and one of the most accomplished pieces of art on the Web.” Since then, like the street cars that ran along the streets of Minneapolis or Saint Paul’s Union Depot, early net art projects like Ding an sich have been in a state of digital decline, no longer fully accessible because of changes in the Internet’s infrastructure and protocols.”

With the support of an innovation grant from the National Endowment for the arts, in collaboration with the Weisman Art Museum and the Walker Art Center, where I originally commissioned Ding an sich, a dedicated team at Northern Lights.mn and our partners, working with programmer Tyler Stefanich, has recuperated Ding an sich as a free app for the iPad. Download it today.

As part of the effort, Northern Lights.mn announces the launch of fwd://, a new platform dedicated to publishing artist apps. From Vannevar Bush’s Memex (1945) to Ted Nelson’s hypermedia (1963) to today’s social media platforms, there is a rich history and context for a virtual public sphere of creative expression. We are interested in the “app” as a new container for earlier media projects, such as Ding an sich, as well as new works designed to take advantage of the possibilities of new platforms. fwd:// produces and presents creative work in the expanded spaces of a virtual public sphere.