"Artist Jenny Holzer has been experimenting with electronic media since the early 1970s, when she first introduced her signature truism posters to the people of New York. From the political ("Government is a burden on the people") to the nonsensical ("Everything interesting is new"), Holzer's truisms are a distinctive fixture of postmodernism. [...] Investigating new forms of expression within the public sphere has naturally led Jenny Holzer to work on an interactive Web project, Please Change Beliefs." ~ Hotwired May 1995
"Freaky screens; weird (or insightful) comments about life; general artistic chaos with links to match - äda 'web uses the new cyber medium with great energy and creativity. You can contribute to Jenny Holzer's 'please change beliefs' project here. Very strong eye and mind candy, for those with a sweet tooth!" ~ Xplore Site of the day January 20 1996
"A stunning work-in-progress encouraging interactivity, äda 'web combines the artistic rigor of Soho with the energy of a circus funhouse, and includes net specific works by Jenny Holzer and Jane Veeder, among others."
~ Time Out April 10 1996
"If you're a Jenny Holzer fan, you'll want to see what she's up to on the Web. This is a wonderful example of really interesting and quirky ideas. But you have to see it through Netscape!! Don't miss it. Lots has been added since the site first opened." ~ NetWatch Top Ten May 1996
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"Perhaps the best-curated art site on the web." ~ The New York Times 1996 |
"Probably this is the most unique site among the web site on modern art. Outstanding is a project by Jenny Holzer. This is an internet version of "Self-Evident Truth", a project to represent her works and it has been on line more than a year. Participants simply rewrite "self-evident truth", and this is interesting. So why don't you try also?" ~ Japan Industrial Design Promotion September 1996
"The irony of fickle machinery wasn't lost on IndieNet conferencers like äda 'web's Andrea Scott, who tried for 20 minutes last Saturday night to pull up her curated art site, and finally quit." ~ Indienet October 1996
"[äda 'web's pages] are meant to break all of the paradigms of classical design concepts in order to take a medium that is set up to logical and methodical and abuse it to the point where it is the very opposite. This way they can make the viewer engage more with the project. They are forced to relearn all that they know about how to move around through the medium and this makes them look at it in a different way." ~ C. Andrews, Wesleyan University, October 1996
"Like an online kunsthalle, äda 'web unites interactive made-for-the-Web pieces with ongoing dialogs about art and technology... it duplicates the kind of cool sleek feel conveyed by important contemporary art spaces." ~ The Web Magazine October/November 1996
"...let me croon for just a moment about Vertical Blanking Interval, which is, I dare say, the most interactive and effective art project..." ~ Christian David Housh, Wesleyan University, December 1996
"äda 'web has introduced its latest Web art project, simply titled LOVE. Using Frames and Livescript (both downloadable from the site and supported by Netscape 2.0 and higher), LOVE presents a webbed maze of seven stories, each containing seven pages, told through images and words. [...] Maximize your view pane and rev up your video subsystem (to a resolution of 1,024 by 768, if you've got it), but above all remember... as in real life, LOVE sometimes stops when you don't expect it to." ~ Wired 5.01 January 1997
"Challenging, interactive, made-for-the-Web pieces, plus ongoing dialogs about art and technology with top artists and thinkers working in conceptual and electronic art. äda 'web offers mutating digital art projects, arty magazines, and avant-garde museum-shop mail order, set off by color-soaked designs, crisp photos, and artfully blurry headlines. You know the cool, sleek, thought-provoking feel of an important contemporary art space? This is the Web's closest equivalent."
~ The Web Magazine January 1997
"Following its project 'Virgin/Sucker,' Belgium's Group Z has recently
published 'Love', a Web installation hosted by the avant-garde äda 'web."
~ Net Clock Gallery January 1997
"Julia Scher's 'Security Land', commissioned by äda 'web, addresses the issue of public vs. private on the Net, and how Web surfers are often scrutinized by computers and their operators without knowing it. 'Ms.Scher's work is dealing with the issues relevant to a security-savvy and security-hungry environment,' says Mr. Weil."
~ Wall Street Journal March 1997
"SFMOMA asked three Web sites to make donations to the museum's permanent collection [including] three pieces from äda web, a curated art site in New York that asks artists to prepare new works for the Web."
~ New York Times March 1997
"Loaded 5X by Doug Aitken and Dean Kuipers; äda 'web.
Granted, this is more conceptual art than fiction, but I found it interesting and thought that you might, too. The piece consists, for the most part, of captioned images. Its text is surreal and paradoxical (if not simply nonsensical). I'll make no attempt at interpretation. To navigate Loaded 5X, click on the opening text. An image will appear. Click on different figures in the image, to pick up different
threads of the 'story.' Good luck!"
~ Web Fiction Review April 1997
"This is such a cool site. They have successfully completed a functional, nonlinear web design. Please check this one out. The HTML works are just groovy!"
~ paulie.com Top Ten Archives April 1997
"At this site, you'll find mutating, animated digital art projects, haute magazines, and an avant-garde museum shop, all set off by a Pantone-soaked design with crisp photos and artfully blurry headlines. The chat areas are heady and
critical, and they feature some major artists and thinkers working in conceptual and electronic art."
~ The Web Magazine May 1997
"A artista Jenny Holzer, nascida em Ohio, Estados Unidos, em 1950, sempre gostou de usar espaios pôblicos para expor suas obras. Agora ela lania livro e um site na Internet com obras interativas. Utilizando sempre cartazes, sinais luminosos e posteres, o objetivo principal da artista provocar o pôblico lidando com temas feministas e humanitarios." ~ as ultimas September 1997
"Stir-Fry is a flavorful new Web project documenting a
museum curator's month-long voyage through the cultural capitals of China in a search for previously undiscovered
new-media art. Through nearly two dozen diary-like postings that began Sept. 2, Barbara London, associate curator of the film and video department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, has relayed her encounters with the Chinese creative community, seasoning the travelogue with audio interviews and video clips recorded along the way."
~ Cybertimes October 1997
"More than a first glimpse of this new breed of indie artists, [Stir Fry] is a radical Web-exposé on the process of curation."
~ Wired October 1997
"...New York has always been a hotbed for creators - writers, artists, musicians, and choreographers [...] events in town this week helped to emphasize that relationship [...] äda 'web's presentation at the ThunderGulch series at 55 Broad Street, which included the showing of digital projects on the huge video wall, and the announcement of Stir-Fry, a virtual art scouting trip to China co-sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art."
~ @NY October 1997
"An internet project by Lawrence Weiner is bound to be fascinating [...] This exhibition featured an ongoing web site called 'Homeport' [...] based on the interactive rooms and architectural environments of internet 'palace' technology, but with a real twist [...]"
~ Art Monthly October 1997
"A fascinating exploration of contemporary art."
~ WebScout November 1997
"Challenging, interactive, made-for-the-Web pieces, plus ongoing dialogs about art and technology with top artists and thinkers working in conceptual and electronic art. äda 'web offers mutating digital art projects, arty magazines, and avant-garde museum-shop mail order, set off by color-soaked
designs, crisp photos, and artfully blurry headlines. You know the cool, sleek, thought-provoking feel of
an important contemporary art space? This is the Web's closest equivalent."
~ The Webby Awards Nominees - Art/Design
"Excellent group effort."
~ Wildhack August 1997
"My position is that we are dealing with representation (and interpretation; it does not, I assume, escape the viewer that
[Stir-Fry] is Barbara London's representation of new Chinese media art as opposed to an unmediated documentation of
some reality out there), a medium, an intended audience and -- of course -- an art context (äda 'web), so why not?"
~ Rozalinda Borcila, Virtual Space Debate November 1997
"Let me not forget the unreadable screen, that's a hoot. [Vertical Blanking Interval] is an exercise in fascination,
curiosity, play -- frustration, uneasiness and confusion. I'm sitting there, bombarded by lots of juicy, catchy meaningless visuals, and I'm not even safe in
my solitude any more -- I must be mindful, like Londoners say, of the gap."
~ Rozalinda Borcila Virtual Space Debate November 1997
"äda.web zeigt eigene Projekte und Gastausstellungen einer Vielzahl von Künstlern. Hier eine Auswahl zu treffen und Empfehlungen zu geben, wäre recht unfair, da zwangsläufig etliche Projekte unerwähnt bleiben müssen Hinweisen möchten wir jedoch auf die ganz neue - ja was ist es? -sagen wir: Vorführung 'Vertical blanking interval' (ein Klick auf den Fernseher in der Mitte der Startseite führt dort hin). Im Stile einer Video-Installation mit vielen Monitoren (realisiert mit 12 frames und Grafiken, die sich kontinuierlich verändern) beschäftigt sich dieses Spektakel mit Verheißungen und Lockungen des Internet ("Submit!", "Order now!"), mit realen und virtuellen Welten. Eine phantastisch inszenierte, ästhetisch überragende Ausstellung. Aber wie schon gesagt: Auch die übrigen Projekte und Präsentationen haben es in sich."
~ KULTUR ONLINE: TOPSITE January 1997
"[äda 'web] provides a graphical environment that is almost ethereal in its presence and has a wonderful sense of complexity that does not overwhelm you."
~ New York Times February 1997
"Jenny Holzer's Kickstand, which will retail for US$22 when it's shipped next week, stays faithful to the style of her previous work. Nine meta-proclamations spill across the screen. The phrases - like 'Spit all over someone with a
mouthful of milk if you want to find out something about his personality fast" and 'The beginning of the war will be
secret' - move in random patterns, dragging a luminous trail [...] 'What makes Kickstand interesting is that it's a commercial product', says Andrea Scott, spokeswoman for online gallery ädaweb. ädaweb, which produced a Web-based Holzer exhibit last year, designed its own screensaver for World Aids Awareness Day last December, but it was free. 'I believe that there is a market for this work,' Scott adds."
~ Wired News April 1997
"äda'web includes artistic projects that were created specifically for the web. Don't let the first page scare you away just click on the center button to get started. In the happier days section you can write or read a story to go with various images. Also look at jackpot. It is an Internet 'slotmachine' that downloads three web sites. You win by matching any of the top level domains. This site is a great place to explore."
~ Denver Post Online May 1997
"NYC artist Jenny Holzer was born 1950 in Gallipolis, Ohio. Her work consists of "truisms" posted on
billboards, carved into granite or flashed on LED signs. Please Change Beliefs is an early example of
interactive web art, allowing users the chance of constructing their own memes for replication,
co-option and ultimately, disintegration. Holzer's site is located at äda 'web, a digital foundry
established to allow artists and other cultural producers the chance to experiment with the web as a new
form of dissemination of ideas. äda 'web also hosts projects by artists whose primary medium
is the web, hence establishing an interface of dialog between different types of art practices."
~ Meme Me September 1997"Keith Tyson's work is first produced as descriptions based on interpretations he makes from instructions
given to him by the "art machine", an instrument he engineered a few years ago. Replicators, his first
project for the net, modifies this process: starting with a sculptural object made by the artist and
described by a third party, Replicators allows the internet participant to take the role of interpretor,
and build a sculptual object from the current set of instructions available online. The object
is then described by a third party. Each new description that is submitted to the web site will replace
the former one, thereby creating a chain of objects which form a global sculptural work understood by
artist as a collaboration with the participants. Replicators is also hosted by äda 'web".
~ Meme Me September 1997
"...broad efforts to redefine the range of art."
~ @NY September 1997
"Stir Fry is a marketing device, but its recognition of the Web as an exhibition space in itself
represents an important step forward. 'We give people an opportunity to venture into the art scene in a different way than
going to a museum,' said Benjamin Weil, curator of äda 'web, a Silicon Alley Web company that focuses on art and the
museum's partner in the project. 'You have a chance to experience the curatorial process as it unfolds.' MOMA and ada'web have also collaborated on three previous projects, but Stir Fry is the largest endeavor yet and the one that ventures furthest into the realm of a stand-alone exhibition."
~ Village Voice November 1997
"BROWSER, BUFFER, AND BITSLAG - Kunstgeschichte im Internet."
~ Kunsthistorisches Institut Heidelberg Sommersemester 1997"äda 'web is a fascinating journey into contemporary art. It may tell you something that Jenny Holzer was the first featured artist on äda 'web, since her word art lends itself easily and aptly to computer media. This site is a deftly woven trail of multimedia zones that take the user through complex combinations of words, pictures, and stories. If you want a shortcut into the individual artists' projects, hit the Context button for a site-specific search engine. But then, that's probably cheating. It's much more fun to hit points on imagemaps and experience a Cagean orgy of chance and indeterminacy, as pages reload themselves with different figures each time."
~ excite 1997
"äda 'web makes my phosphors burn." ~ Jim Clarage Boston MA
"Deconstructivism has galvanized more than a generation of thinkers. And the Web is one place where they meet. That Jenny Holzer's work should translate so elegantly to the Web becomes, in this context, an (un)necessary proof of the artists Post-Modern ethic."
~ Graphis Web Design Now December 1997
"One of the most prestigious net.art sites. This site, with its unmistakable design, has presented pieces that are already considered classics. Jenny Holzer, Muntadas, Jodi, Aitken, and other artists make this site one that is not to be missed. The success of this site resides in its being a space able to bring together a selection of net.art chosen with real criteria, and its constant support of artistic development in this medium."
~ ARCO electrónico February 1998