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Jodi demonstrates that Net art has become the
latest stage for artists to construct experimental forms and
narratives, challenge convention, initiate dialogs, introduce
new strategies, threaten old paradigms. The medium of interactive
networked computing clearly captured the imagination of artists
in the 1990s.
"We are honored to be in somebody's computer"
boast the Jodi authors Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans (hence,
Jodi), who have not only gone beyond the interface, they have
abolished it. Jodi.org,
their magnum opus launched in 1995, contains pages flash and
burn, scrolling and displaying uncontrollable computer code,
fragmented shards of interface elements (menus, buttons, etc...),
code stripped bare of its functionality, a once symbolic language
now transformed into a surreal magic theater of the absurd.
Jodi forces us to question the representation
of data, its translation, its mapping, its conventional application
for visualizing and decoding the language of programming into
metaphors and signs we can interpret and utilize. Ultimately,
Jodi.org is Code stripped of all functionality, Code
for its aesthetic value, Code as abrasive language, Code as
hallucination, Code as theater.
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