Buying things that don't exist...

the topic of what to do with internet art is one that is very important to this blog. and there are many ways of dealing with that problem. today i have found a new way. Mark Napier (examples of his internet works can be seen here: potatoland.org) has sold 3 shares of his peice Waiting Room for $1,000 each. This is not the first peice of art that Napier has sold, but it is one of the first interenet peices to be made into a commodity and sold. what the buyer gets is a certificate of authentication and a CD-ROM with a program to install. the viewer installs the cd and is then promted to interact with the inages on the screen. with the interactions the abstract shapes change. but it doesnt stop there. if there are other people who are also logged they too will interact with the same image. it is described as a "visual chat room".
the fact that he is able to sell interenet art, especially in the post-dotcom boom era, is a good sign that there is more to internet art than a flash on a screen.
but the fact that these works may not last long does not necissarly make them not worth while. many works are created with more traditional materials, or performances, that are meant to be experienced at the time and then they are done.
one buyer was quoted saying:
"A lot of art is ephemeral. I'm willing to accept that it won't last forever. If it does, and people are willing to rewrite the code, I'll go with that. And if not, we enjoyed it while it was here."