Same Great Content Now Without the Paper!

The themes found in Net.Art are not new ones... they are the same themes found in pretty much every new movement of art. one thing i found interesting was presented in this article. it describes the history of one of the first major art magazines. not so much a magazine to talk about art, even though it did at times, but as a magazine as art. much like today we find websites designed not as informational sources but as works of art themselves. the magazine discussed is FILE, which began with the cover being a parody of LIFE magazine. This was an attempt to be subversive to the medium of magazine and its culture as well as to mass media. Which as we have seen is parallel to what the net.artists are attempting to do with wither various webpages. (in general, compared to file the sites i've shown have been more directly subversive to their medium) we find ourselves in a maze of random pictures and digital pages that mimic the internet as a whole. or we find ourselves interacting with blocks of color only to realize that there is no more meaning coming out of this peice than we are putting into it.
FILE magazine focused more on articles and images that were comical and satyrical reflecting the media and advertising. The first issue focused on an article about Mr. Peanut, with him on the cover. It found itself in the strange inbetween of subverting the media culture while also being a part of it, which is true also for the net.art movement. They both simultaneously reject the medium and almost seem to protest it at times while at the same time use it and revel in its power.
Over the years FILE began to coinside with the New Wave movment in art and music, and became more of a magazine for that subculture.