ANDREJ TISMA'S WRITINGS ON ART:

WEB.ART'S NATURE
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There is no doubt that web.art (Internet art) is a new kind of art that has some characteristics never seen before, in such a pure
form, in the history of arts.
Interactivity is one of those characteristics that makes the viewer to become the creator of the artwork, of its final form.
The hyper dimension is the second characteristics of the web.art, that means that the work of web.art is infinite in space and time.
The third characteristic is immateriality. The web.art work doesn't exist in the real space, only as a digital code on the disc.
By its characteristics the international mail-art movement from the 60s and networking from 80s can be seen in some aspects as
the forerunners of today's web.art.

THE MAIL-ART PHENOMENON

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Mail-art is not an artistic style, neither a technique, nor some precisely defined way of creation. The only thing that is common to
all mail-artists of the world (their number goes to 10,000) is that their art is realized through mail, that is to say that their
communication goes through PTT (Post Telegraph and Telephone) channels, which is still the best way of linking people in the
widest geographic plan. The essence of Mail Art is an EXCHANGE and RELATIONSHIP between artists; COMMUNICATION
itself has become the main factor of the art work's poetics, replacing its aesthetical and craft values.

ASPECTS OF MAIL-ART
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The appearance of mail-art in the history of art is to be viewed primarily in connection with the world boom in communication
systems (telephone, radio, more rapid surface, sea, and air mail traffic, and starting with the 60s, television, satellites, computers,
lasers), which was reflected in terms of artistic creativity.
Mail-art is an artistic conglomerate, or a conglomerate of media in which picture, text, sound and gesture are employed on equal
terms. The form of message, the method of execution, and the aesthetic categories are not of primary importance in this kind of
creativity. The act of communication itself, i. e. the artist's behavior, is the creation.

STAMP ART
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The quickest and most easily diffusible art is that of the stamp. In a mere instant, a work of art comes into being, and by repeated
application of the stamp, first to an inksoaked pad and then to a sheet of paper, an unlimited number of works come into being.
The injection of artistic and poetic meaning into this powerful bureaucratic weapon, is not only a purposeful (creative) form of
subversion, but a new, more humane use of this age-old means of communication. The stamp thus becomes an expression of its
creator's personality and individuality, instead of reflecting impersonal bureaucracy.

TOWARD THE NEW ART

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From the very first years of this century there appeared a trend in art which transferred the creative act's center of gravity from
the aesthetic level to the ethical. The most striking example of this is to be found in the works of Marcel Duchamp, a Dadaist
whose ready-mades permitted the artist to decide, by virtue of his attitude and decisions as the artist, what is and what is not
artistic. The artist's attitude became the creative act itself. Thus Duchamp abolished the work of art as an artifact, moving it into
the sphere of the personality of the creative artist himself.

ART AND SPIRITUALITY

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Since the artistic inspiration, which is the base of every art work, has a spiritual nature, the ideal form of art is the direct
transmission of the inspiration or enlightenment into the spectator. By a mental resonance the spectator is led to a state of
fascination, the same as the artist, and he experiences the same passion of unity with the source and essence of existence - what is
by definition the origin of art.

ENCOUNTER ART
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Encounter art is one of those forms of artistic activity which leads to direct exchange of inspiration among spiritually awakened
beings: either among artists themselves or through direct contact between artist and audience.

(SPI)RITUAL PERFORMANCE
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In (spi)ritual the stress is on internal transformation of the artist and the audience. In a way it is working with human psyche as
artistic material.

ART AND RELIGION - POSSIBLE SYNTHESIS

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Religion and art will join in on the same task again - bringing back spirit to everyday life, establishing a bond with the meaning
of existence and restoring of a natural, innocent human being.

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NOVI SAD, GALERIJE, UMETNICI (in Serbian)
Svojim necenzurisanim razmisljanjima o likovnoj sceni Novog Sada, koja objavljuje u stampanoj mesecnoj kulturnoj reviji
"Sad Novi Sad", Andrej Tisma, jedan od vodecih svetskih network umetnika i teoreticara, skrenuo je paznju na jedan drugi i
drugaciji pogled na likovni zivot Novog Sada. Smatrajuci ove tekstove vaznim za razvoj i podizanje kvaliteta novosadske
likovne scene "Artmagazin" je, uz dozvolu autora, uvrstio sve pomenute tekstove kao deo svog sadraja. (Iz uvodnika
"Artmagazina")

http://members.tripod.com/~aaart/writings.htm