Mari Laanemets and Killu Sukmit ask 10 Questions from Tiia Johannson

	In memoriam Tiia Johannson 8.9.1965 - 11.6.2002
	1. You started as a painter, then emerged as an Estonian video pioneer, and then came web art. How did these transitions come about? Did they involve certain thematic/essential changes, and if yes, what kind? This progression has certainly not been straightforward, and starting as a painter was by no means clear either. The progression has been towards constant immateriality. Where, however, is the beginning? If you consider the start of producing professional art to be the moment you get your diploma, then I do have a painter's diploma, but I haven't actually produced a single painting since my diploma work. Before studying painting, both during school and university, I was more active in photography, video, happenings, collages, installations and all sorts of art forms; besides, I first studied history. Painting is just one stage between and alongside the others; no definite transitions from one form to the other can be outlined. In 1989, as a first year student of painting, I had an opportunity to go to Helsinki to study video art. I was there for the spring semester 1990. My first computer course took place in 1985, which means that all the developments have been parallel. Still, during the last six or seven years I have stayed with web art that is, of course, largely intertwined with video or rather moving images in the internet environment. Web art also contains my entire previous art experience. I have not detected any thematic changes; all alternations have issued from changes in life.
	2. What changes have occurred in web art since you started? As the computers are now more powerful and the internet connection much speedier, the main transition has been from text (so-called ASCII-art) and audio-focused art to a more visual one.
	3. Olga Goriunova expressed the opinion (autumn last year) that web art was dead without any of the artists involved ever becoming famous. No-one seemed to build a noticeable career and the artists have quietly withdrawn from the territory. This is what Goriunova thinks, but what about you? What comes next? As far as I can remember, it was Heath Bunting who declared that 'Net Art is dead, Web Art lives on...' Other sources refer to Vuk Cosic. The Russian-language version of Shulgin is: 'Net Art mjortv, a ja ishjo njet'... This resembles a manifesto-style declaration that essentially claims that web art started and finished with the work of five people: Cosic, Bunting, Shulgin, Jodi, and Lialina. Similar 'history-writing' phenomena can be found closer to home as well... We have also had those who call themselves 'the most sought-after artists in Estonia'. Science should not recognise authorities and methods 'argumentum ad hominem', which are, true enough, and hugely popular amongst people and the press. My Self.Museum page was visited last year by more than 5000 people (?), a fact easily proved. Coming back to the manifestation, however, part of those prophets of doom have used it as an excuse for justifying their own subsequent activities within an institutionalised sphere - the good old wish to sit in the Presidium and hide underground at the same time. One comparison here would be the project carried out years ago, which contained the sentence: 'This is the last page of Internet'. Due to insufficient temporal distance, it is not possible as yet to draw any final conclusions.
	4. To specify and continue the aforementioned: Goriunova considers the main reason to be the fact that art institutions (and hence their authorities) have infiltrated into the formerly free autonomous zone. In her 1996 interview, Nelli Rohtvee was quite optimistic regarding the possibility of web art. How does it feel now, six years later? Nelli Rohtvee's and my work don't have that much in common. Nelli is socially a very sensitive artist, whereas I am much more self-centred. And I won't offer an answer for her either - you should ask Nelli herself. It would naturally be naïve to think that web art, although so far the least institutionalised, is at the same time most vulnerable, considering the problems with servers that emerge and vanish like mushrooms during rain, and the administering of web art has partly turned into a playground for art-political forces. About one third of my own work, and the majority of the earlier Estonian visual web art (1996-2000) has been destroyed. Both Nelli and I no longer have access to most of our remaining work. Many works require special servers, so a lot of them are found on Japanese or Australian servers. The most ideal solution would probably be to have one's own server, or maybe it's high time that such a small place as Estonia had its own so-called art server where someone would be able (i.e. prepared) to look after works of art. Alas, there's no reason for optimism so far.
	5. It says in one introduction: Nelli Rohtvee is trying to make simple, unpretentious pages which, from the point of view of the technology used, are very cheap: only mixed messages... Do you work intuitively or do you occasionally accept (web) art theory (if one may put it like that)? Will you describe a web artist's work process: you surf around, find a piece, load it, connect? It is possible to create a theory for each work. Practice and theory, in turn, always exist in a certain split state: And again - Nelli is Nelli, and I am me... Work processes are vastly different. I've produced a work within seconds, but another has taken weeks. There are the so-called original works, and those where all basic material has been scratched from the internet: chance, too, has its charm. Mind you, this activity is not always web art-conscious, I have put up some earlier videos that were originally just videos. The whole point of the internet, after all, is to be one huge recombination. I certainly don't theoretise when I create. The work process often depends on the computer, its power and the available programmes. I've got one 'weakness', though: I can't work when I'm not connected. To the internet, naturally. Even when I don't need the internet for hours, it must be open on the computer.
	6. What is web art for you, and what isn't? When can web art be considered 'real art pages' and when is commercialism glowing like tinsel? What is (ideal) web art anyway? Should this be sought in technological craftiness or social effect? What should we take note of in your work? Web art and web design are by no means similar areas. There can, of course, be overlapping areas between the activitiy of a web artist and a webmaster, but the aim is quite the opposite. Web art used in any other way but for artistic purposes is for me essentially applied web art where something is documented, displayed, advertised or whatever... Web design is by nature an area 'to be employed'. One should perhaps instead ponder the relationship between art and design. In compiling the relevant study programmes, which trend to follow and what exactly to specialise in should be considered. What is ideal for me is simple, clearly perceived art, both internet and other arts. Less is more. Overburdened and vague works are not to my taste. When the technological side exceeds the contents or the visual part, then something is not right, at least to me. More generally, this not only concerns web art, but also the problem of what is quality in culture, whether and to what extent it can/ought to be measured.
	7. Some of your videos can be, and have been, seen from a feminist point of view; at times they are (e.g. the black sun) even mercilessly self-centred. This kind of personal approach also seems to exist in your web art. You seem to work with your real physical experience. The web where you work, however, is something virtual? Is there a link? Real physical experience, as a rule, appears when it amplifies on a vital level and the relationship between real and virtual is in fact that field of tension that invites us to play and ponder within its vague limits and limitlessness. The more possible it is to be self-centred in art, the less need there is to be self-centred in life and society.
	8. Internet is regarded-glorified as a public forum. At the same time it is difficult to imagine anything more private than being on the net anonymously. What is the character of internet's intimacy in terms of (social) interference and engagement? How are such private-social relations dealt with in your web work? The treatment of space has pretty much been derived from the constraints or non-constraints of physical art space, and the movement is from constrained space towards liberating virtual and dematerialising space; the private/social criterion is not that important.
	9. As for web art, let's talk about cyber-feminism. You have said that you were waiting for cyber-feminism to arrive in Estonian art. Would you characterise, briefly, cyber-feminism/cyber-feminist: does this signify critical women artists or is it more complicated, and what are those pressing problems in Estonia that have a need for cyber-feminism? I did not actually mean only art, but cyber-feminism in general. The modern notion of 'distance work' has not fully materialised yet, and people still mostly operate on the office-home axis, while continuously moaning about the low birth rate. Accepting distance work and study in society would in my opinion be one of the best solutions from the point of view of uniting the environment of home and work/study primarily, but not only, for women. For me, feminism means the return from the other extreme, or from the achieved opportunities of study and career, to the primeval role of women, and the uniting of these halves. The cyber world is part of the solution, at least in my experience. Cyber-feminism in art is a wide area seen from a woman's angle, where art, technology and different ideologies meet. For me, the most unacceptable part of feminism is the welfare feminism that seems to be on the increase in Estonia.
	10. What is your opinion of the fact that web art is often difficult to access: computers are sometimes not able to deal with web art or have insufficient power. So it is all relatively technical, and one is left feeling that if you don't 'sit on the net' and are not 'online' 24 hours, then all this will stay a remote and closed sect...Moreover, even 24 hours does not seem to be enough, and it's not the main thing either. Ever more often, in recent times, artists, cyber freaks, hackers and other types of web activists leave the net to participate in social life. What about you: is it at all likely that you will one day come (back) to the streets again? My works have been tested with 200 Mhz and 64 Mb RAM computers which are worse than the average office computers; some of them require a modem with more than 56 Kb. The problem lies in not knowing how to install the gadgets that are legally accessible, cost-free, and need just a quarter of an hour to be workable. Nowadays such problems really belong in kindergarten. If you enter a dark room, but are not able to switch on the light in order to view the painting on the wall, you shouldn't blame the artist because you cannot immediately see the work of art. Besides, I have not vanished from social life, I'm busy outside art as well. It's just that our paths obviously don't cross. See http://ArtUn.ee/~tiia/netiproject/
	| Estonian Art 1/02 (11) | Published by the Estonian Institute 2002 | ISSN 1406-5711 (Online) | ISSN 1406-3549 (Printed version) | einst@einst.ee | tel: (372) 631 43 55 | fax: (372) 631 43 56 |