Olia Lialine My Boyfriend Came Back from the War (1996) - http://archive.rhizome.org/anthology/lialina.html

I/O/D (Matthew Fuller, Colin Green, Simon Pope) The Web Stalker (1997) - https://anthology.rhizome.org/the-web-stalker

Olia Lialine My Boyfriend Came Back from the War (1996) - http://archive.rhizome.org/anthology/lialina.html

Jon Ippolito, Keith Frank, and Janet Cohen The Unreliable Archivist (1998) - http://three.org/unreliablearchivist/2010/

Mark Napier Riot (1999) - http://potatoland.org/riot/riot.html

The five pieces here more or less represent the artistic attempts to alter the fundamental features of browser, internet and virtual communication from their orthodox form. Olia Lialina’s My Boyfriend Came Back from the War (1996) allows users to proceed the narrative by clicking and thus splitting the windows. The Unreliable Archivist (1998) by Jon Ippolito, Keith Frank and Janet Cohen provides four sliders for adjustment. Users can therefore reconfigure the collage displayed at own will. The Web Stalker (1997-present) by I/O/D, an net art organisation and publication, invites users to participate in the production. They can draw rectangles and assign them functions freely to create their own authentic web page. Both Form Art (1997) by Alexei Shulgin and Riot (1999) by Mark Napier use the browser, HTML, or URL links as the raw materials for their creation – or, more precisely, for the creation of all the anticipants. One can click to generate contents that will exceed the confines of single page and the conventional one-way searching. Text and visuals from various resources are assembled together as the boundaries of browsers have diminished. It is conspicuous that artists presented here are all conscious about the restrictions of internet and browsers when the public might still think it is a complete free land. From proceeding a narrative to adjust the screen, to design the pages and generate contents, they resist the passive mode of using by freeing the users from pure receivers, from spectators to editors, designers and co-authors. Internet is considered as to some extent liberating the mass from a fixed social structure which, however, could be a deception. Internet can sometimes establish a more solid hierarchy and moreover, render users unconscious of it. Therefore, the artists’ efforts presented here to alter such rigid nature, to reactivate users, to redefine territory, ownership and authorship could be very enlightening.