M. Rivers and T. Whid

The daring duo of net art..MTAA!

Michael Sarff and Tim Whidden are the net artists behind M.River & T. Whid Art Associates. The two met in art school in Ohio, after they both went their own ways, the two reunited again and created MTAA in Brooklyn, New York in 1996. Their art is net based. They use the internet not only for the distribution of their art, but also as a material that is part of their art. The mediums they explore are video, internet, software and sculptures for their conceptually based art.

A definition of net art by Steve Dietz is: “Internet art projects are art projects for which the Net is both a sufficient and necessary condition of viewing/expressing/participating. Internet art can also happen outside the purely technical structure of the internet, when artists use specific social or cultural traditions from the internet in a project outside of it. Internet art is often, but not always, interactive, participatory and based on multimedia in the broadest sense.”

I thought this was a perfect definition to define MTAAs art. M. Rivers and T. Whid have been creating digital art works since 1997. Their work has evolved and changed since they first started MTAA. In the beginning their work consisted of diagrams and interactive art on the net and over the net. In the last few years it has evolved into more of the digital based technology realm that is taking over the world. Much of their recent work is video footage of the two of them doing different dialogues, while still using interactive art over the net. While most of their work is the presentation of a performance of the two of them, they also involve the entire worlds public. They open up their art to everyone who chooses to be involved. In a recent piece of theirs Automatic for the People: (). They opened up a voting poll to the public through online viewers and museum visitors, to determine what they wanted MTAAs next performance to be at SFMOMA on February 7, 2009. http://www.mtaa.net/aftp/

On February 7, 2009 they involved everyone who showed up for the performance at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. That day both M. Rivers and T.Whid spoke to the crowd and then all together everyone there built robots out of the materials that where brought for the show. Both the artist and the public came together to create this live performance/ interactive art. In this digital based world today art can be this interactive part of life. Art use to be something that was only interactive to the people who were around it, such as live art performances or when one would visit a museum of gallery. But today almost all art on the internet is interactive, even if you’re looking up a photograph your still interacting because you’re logging on to look at that art. I think this is a reason that MTAA’s art work is so successful, because it is interactive, but to only those who want to interact with it and access it.

After looking at some of MTAAs pieces of work....my favorite piece of theirs is (Love+Hate)x100.

http://www.mtaa.net/art/love+hatex100/

I think this is my favorite piece because there is no sound involved in the piece, just the visual. I like how the love is coming out of the left counting up and the hate is coming out of the right counting down. I like how simple the loves and hates are. I really connected with this particular piece because I could relate to all the loves and hates that are put forth.

Another one of their works is Our Political Work.

http://www.mtaa.net/art/opw/
This particular work actually is quite annoying at first. The two of them M. Rivers on the left and T. Whid on the right, scream into the camera and make other noises. As your watching this for the first time you wonder is this really classified as art? As I started to think about that question more and more looking through their work I decided....who am I to judge what is and what isn't art in this world? The two of them are putting themselves out there in this newer digital art form. Their interacting with others and involving others in all they do…..so why shouldn’t this be art. So I watched this video a couple more times to try and understand what they are putting across with it. The more I watched Our Political Work the funnier it became to me. The screams that come out of their mouths and how hard they are trying to scream is actually entertaining to me. One review on this specific piece of work says, "While Our Political Work has the appearance of the familiar two channel video installation, it is far more complex. Driven by custom software, each viewer sees a unique combination of small performances of hysteria. This work exists in a space between the server and the computer. MTAA's Simple Net Art Diagram (1997) http://www.mteww.com/nad.html provides context; in that piece, a lightning icon with the words "The art happens here" appears on a line connecting two computers. As in much of their work, the internet is used not only as a system for distribution, but also as a material. The computer code, fiber optic cable, your computer and mine all become the substance of their work.”

For MTAA , I think that the internet is essential for their art to work. The two have built all their work from a digital base, all of their pieces of work are interactive through the internet. They display and get their work out there through the internet and networks across the world. Our technology based world has brought us to new levels of interaction. Anyone who has access to the internet can view MTAA…..people across the world from us can interact with the art of MTAA just from the comfort of there home. It use to be that one would have to travel to interact with certain art they wanted to see. Now everything is so instantaneous. This could be good in a certain sense, for artist who are digitally based this is just another evolution of their art. Internet has brought the art world into a new realm and MTAA is a part of that. For more information on them as well as all of their art pieces in reverse chronologically visit.

MTAA