The Last Man Standing
The Last Man Standing
Web Site Story
1999
by calin man
[reVoltaire archive is a work in progress developed on a given equation that will have 0, -1 or 1 as a result. the reVoltaire archive files are perceived as elements of the equation. seen as a time line, the equation is not complete so far. for this reason parts of the archive can be accessed on cd-rom or on the net as independent works.]
The Last Man Standing is a web site story _ part of reVoltaire archive / net.art_kit
Abstract: Tim Hallwood, spokesman for the Catholic Press Office, declared that, finally, the net will have a patron. cybernauts will be able to invoke the protection of Saint Isidore of Seville, the author of the first database. dissatisfied, the characters of the reVoltaire archive propose unanimously the candidature of Isidore Isou, the Pope of Lettrism. author of movie pictures of variable length, and of exhaustive philosophical treaties, printed in three copies [one for the French Academy, one for his friends, and one for himself]. Isidore of Seville and Isidore Isou are measuring, man to man, their forces, in single-handed combat, in the cyberspace: Netscape Communicator vs. Internet Explorer. In the end there will be only one.
Bibliography:
Calin Man _ The Last Man Standing
by Rossitza Dasklaova for the CIAC's Electronic Art Magazine, no. 12 (January 2001), Montreal.
"Designing an interface in which the two major browsers Netscape and Explorer are set up in a face to face combat in cyberspace, Calin Man shows the role and the place of net.art as a particular kind of mediator in the world of the Internet. Actually, the artist creates a space for net.art by doing the impossible, merging the two competitors and placing them next to each other. In "The Last Man Standing," net.art is bravely viewed not as a buffer or judge between the two but rather as a redeemer of the Internet space and a shamanic mediator sanctifying cyber territories. Part of The Golden Virus and Other Web Site Stories project, which was presented in the exhibition Through the Looking Glass curated by Patrick Lichty and at the FCCM 2000, The Last Man Standing also won the second price at INFOS 2000 (off-line) net.art contest in Ljubljana.
"Derived from filmic tradition in its framing and imagery, as well as in its use of narrative, The Last Man Standing is endowed with an iconographic semblance to Olia Lialina's net stories / net films such as "My Boyfriend Came Back from War" and Lev Manovich's "Little Movies Vol.1." The style of the project is based on film montage theory, while bordering on the idea of a classical net.art beauty, that is authenticity.
While split in two, the frame within a frame in this work puts together two separate and irreconcilable units referring to the no mercy battle waged between Netscape and Microsoft. Framing each other and yet framed by the artists, divided and united at the same time in their new dwelling, these giants of the pixelized world are dwarfed within the frame and turned into two fictional characters in a baseball-bat duel. Calin Man takes the real-life fact of the largest Internet war and as in previous works plays with clich