Something I have been thinking more and more about has been how to discuss networks in art works in a more out of the computer domain way i.e. not just discuss the internet or other computer enabled networks in isolation because of the technical barriers they (still) create to the wider public but to relate these networks or connect them to ‘real’ world networks whether those be physical / social / biological etc.

Obvious examples of this are Masaki Fujihata’s Light on the Net (physical, image above, a similar project can be viewed here)

and Ken Goldberg’s Telegarden (biological, image above) which both discuss the use of the network / virtual world to affect the ‘real’ world. It seems this connection is almost always one way from the virtual to the ‘real’ yet it seems to me a simbiotic or maybe parasitic relationship between the two should be established. What about for example a web spider which relies on a garden to produce energy to run its server so that it can research information on the web concerning simbiotic relationships. The more or less successful it is decides the gardens amount of water / light?

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