 Good evening, everyone. And good evening to Olia Lialina, who is connecting from her house in Stuttgart, Germany. I am Emanuella Mazzonis and I have assisted Francesco Bonami in creating the MiFamily platform, MiFamily Project for the Muda. Before starting, I want to thank you, Olia, for being with us tonight and for having accepted to be part of this online public program. With you tonight, we are already at our seventh appointment and we started in October and we will conclude in June. So, before we start our conversation, I would like to make a very brief introduction about Olia and her work. So Olia Lialina was born in Moscow in Russia. She graduated from the Moscow State University as a journalist and a film critic at the beginning of the 90s. Olia founded the first RealNet Art Gallery and the last RealNet Art Museum. You are now currently professor at the Merit Academy in Stuttgart where you are actually based and you started to teach as a web designer professor at the end of the 90s. Olia, you are a prominent net art figure and pioneer. You have focused your research since the beginning of the 90s on the role of the internet in the society and in the everyday life. Your career began in the world of film. You started making webpages for your film club, the Cinema Phantom and for yourself as well. In 1996, you decided to do something that was diverse that looked differently from what people could normally watch on the net, no animations, no sound, but you used all black and white. At that moment, you have produced your first online work entitled My Boyfriend Came Back from the World and that was produced in 1996. In this piece, you were already using intertitles, flickering imagery, close up shots of actors in the interactive multi-linear format of an hypertext. The user could advance the story by clicking on hyperlinked fragmentary phrases and images and which with each link, a click, the browser viewport subdivided into smaller and smaller frames. You yourself have defined this work as a narrative experiment with the brand new technology of the HTML frames. So already in this work, and again I underlined that we are talking about the 90s, it was evident how much the role of the internet in the art world was considered as an artistic medium leading to the creation of the term net language. So I would like to ask Olya if you can tell us more about this work, My Boyfriend Came Back from the World and what was your aim, the goal you wanted to reach out. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for inviting me and being a part of the exhibition and the program and for asking this question. A question that brings us now quarter of the century back. It's 25 years ago, like one day, but completely different time and different intentions and so different relations one would have with this medium that was a new medium. Yeah, and as you know, as everybody else at that moment who got internet access and got an idea that you can make a web page yourself and to make it about whomever or whatever you like, I started to do it. I started to make a web page about our film club and was really as everybody else collecting materials, scanning stuff, thinking about how my buttons, how navigation of the website should look. So all these things and of course also surfing around the web and being as a film maker, film critic at this moment, being also sort of puzzled by why people do it so loud and so bright and why things are so, you know, I would at that moment say not professional. And, yeah, so on one hand I wanted to make really my intentions were to make something what would be different from things that don't look like, or let me put like this to make something that would look more like a film, look more like a story than a web page about something. And another intention was, as you mentioned, actually to try to speak another language, of course, the intention was not so artificial, I want to develop and bring to the world and that language it was, you know, it came later all this formulations all these terms, but this recognition that there is another language that was already there, the language that you can talk, you can write, and by this you create something that in fact is not just a film that may can be more as a film. So, one thing was to, you know, intentions going into different direction one was to bring the web aesthetics closer to the film and another one in no way to make a web page about the film but to create a story, the film. And this is why also this black and white aesthetics and the frames. Yeah, for me at this moment, this will also frames like in film stock something what you can cut and edit and now you finally you suddenly sorry, see that this is another logic of a frames that the screen can be divided into them. Yeah, and you can make, you can make editing differently. And also you sort of give your viewers the chance to go through your story, your film, net film I called it at that moment in the order that I don't totally control. So I don't know who will choose what phrase what image. Yeah, so it was very exciting to try it at this moment and I was very lucky that the work attracted attention and people also were using it as an example yes you can make art online. Thank you for this explanation and I think that after this experiment in a way about a new form of language. And after different works you, you made the year after is also the beginning of the new century and then think about works as yours as a zombie and mommy midnight or gravity where you were using elements of the early web. You collected this type of elements in order to create this kind of words. And then, again, you changed a little bit the language if I can say the topic, and you have made three gifts models out of your image. You're using you who la hoop and you playing an instrument and you made this gifts models in order to suggest to the viewers to use these gifts in their own web pages. So at this time, so we are in 2006 people didn't make many web pages by their own anymore. And you suddenly discovered that many web pages have actually used your images your gifts. I would like to know what was the aim of this particular work and what did you want to achieve letting the people the viewers using your gifts. Yeah, that's a long story. And in fact, it's 10 years in between my boyfriend came back from the war and me becoming an animated give model so they're becoming a little animation that is there online to be offered myself that people please use me on your web pages if you still make web pages because I am transparent. So the background is transparent. I will look great on every background and my movements are looped so smoothly that it will be nice. Yeah, so this is how I was trying to show myself in the showroom my virtual showroom at that moment. Yeah, and this I was actually making a message about the web pages and amateur web productions of the last 10 or 12 years pain attribute to people who were producing things like this because of course I was not the first one who made the animated give that was made on purpose to be used on other pages. And so I wanted to actually to continue this tradition of free graphics and to enter collection of free graphics. Also, it was in the years preceding this I really used a lot of graphic and audio elements and also the pieces of code that were made by amateurs for their web pages. So I was feeling that I want to give back. Yeah, I also want to be part of this culture. Yeah, and then also, you know, another intention, somehow can be formulated maybe a bit in a bit pathetic way but I wanted to become immortal in digital realm. So it was already time then people started to talk a lot about memes about meme culture so this posting spreading stuff. And but for me it was not so interesting I thought that the real immortality if you are used on the pages of the people if you become part of something not just posted somewhere, but you are part of something bigger. So this was the intention. And yeah, but I couldn't know in 2005 2006 where was I used and also I saw and I felt that less and less people make their web pages as you mentioned. But then in 2011 then Google introduced their image search where you can search for similar image. I finally looked and was again happy and pleased to find myself on a lot of fitness sites on a lot of music sites on some personal pages. Sometimes I was used as a reaction gift so I really at a certain moment I found out that I succeeded as a gift model. I had a career. Kind of a immortal career we can actually say. Hopefully it's not the end. No, exactly. So now I would like to talk about your book digital folklore that has been published in 2009 and in this book in the title of the book you actually use a subtitle in a form of a question and the subtitle is do you believe in users. This sentence, it's interesting because you took it from the movie The Throne and you quoted the sentence that has been used in the movie and in 2012 the word user was eliminated from the interface design business and here I'm referring to Facebook or Twitter and you have explained how the following three words have been changed meaning that computer became technology user interface became experience users became people So in your work you are underlining the importance of ourselves as users of the net and you want to remember also our rights as users in order to protect our rights ourselves. I listened to a conference of yours in 2014 where you were underlining that in the end of the 90s there was a tendency to let the browsers disappear. And you explained very well in your website this topic and then quoting now some an explanation of yours where you're saying that there is there has always been a tendency in digital cultures to render the subject and technology invisible naturalizing the gestures and habits of the users. It is precisely in apparently obsolete styles or in abandoned internet platforms where the trace of the user's presence taking creative and unexpected decisions became visible again. The development of the invisible computer, you said, gives birth to the invisible user, a standardized user oblivious to his rights, particularly one that sums them all up. The user right to literally use the net to adopt and customize technologies in creative unexpected and unpredictable ways beyond the expectation of the regional programmers. Now I would like to ask you if you can define the word user and explain to us how important is today to be still considered as a user of the net and if it's still possible to be considered as a user. Yeah, that's again thank you for this question for not ignoring this part of my artistic life and my research at my writing so there's so much sun now. And, you know, that's, then I say user of course mean computer user. Yes. This is clear. And also, I am, I know that it's quite unpopular word. Also, yeah, there was a lot of effort made by it industries by it giants to get rid of this word, as well as what computer itself as well as the interface. Yeah, and also to address people who are using computers as people. To, you know, to not that we don't feel that we are in charge of something when we are interacting with the computers. So this is that we don't even come to the idea that something depends on us. That we are using that we forget that it is a system in front of us that was programmed and programmed by somebody and the somebody can reprogram it at any moment. Unless we also shouldn't think about the camp. We shouldn't come to the idea that the system can be maybe reprogrammed by us ourselves. So everything what has to do with control with initiative with knowing how things work. This was on purpose eliminated from the on the level of language. Yeah, because it's maybe the easiest and maybe most important thing. And you ask what the user mean, and this is actually the user is a person who brings originally in computer history. It is the person who brings the system in function. And there is also another very good explanation that was started to be erased from the vocabulary, even before computers. But in another story that what user was replaced by the what consumer, when it comes to in general to the life, even before the personal computers. And it was, you know, because the user at that time meant the person who knows how the things work. And that's again, of course, what was not something what market would want to, to you so that's why the water it was in the 60s in English language the word consumer very much replaced the the word user. Yeah, and I am. I don't want to lose. I don't want to lose the worldwide web and the browser my environment as an artist. Yeah, I also I teach students who I hope would become net net artists me who would become web designers who will create interfaces that make sense. I don't want to make what is called to the user experiences but I want them to be responsible for what they are doing innovative you know to do something what nobody else did before but actually all the time remembering that the users on another site and we everybody is a computer user at a certain moment. So to give power to these people I think that the user is a noble and computer user is a noble and powerful role. And it's would be a good to fight for it and not just to disappear in all this invisible, you know, mass that everything is invisible ubiquitous and you just talk to something with the voices yeah Alexa or mobile or something what will come next. Everything becomes so to say, natural intuitive and it's very easy to forget that there's a program systems and this is also what I as teacher as an artist, try to prevent. And those in my artworks, one can say I what I do I my audience are computer users, these are people address computer users. Right. I think to this topic about the importance of the user the importance of the program system. My last question is linked to this topic and is the question about the work we are showing in our platform self portrait that you made in 2018. This is probably one of your most recent works. We can consider it as a network installation as you underlying to me, many times when we start talking about your project. And in this particular case, you are taking a step forward. You created a self portrait with three different browsers. The work is a self portrait fragmented into three parts, each of which, which is accessible through the use of specific browsers, whose windows are reduced to occupy a third of the desktop screen with in order to create a digital triptych. So what you are most interested in is not the final results but rather the creative and experimental process of using the browsers. The process of the three browsers is not left to chance. Rather, you give precise instructions. So the first browser is in every in an everyday one. The second is tar, a browser that guarantees anonymity and secure browsing. The third beaker is a peer to peer browser. So the aim you want to achieve is to convey through a network installation how important is the dissemination of an alternative web, one that protects the user through the tools of the network itself, but is used in less than a commonplace format. So I would like to ask you more about this work. What was also your source of inspiration and of course the fact that we are presenting the work on in our platform in a different way. So we, we were obliged to change the way of presenting the work because it's in a virtual platform otherwise should have been presented as a real network installation in the museum galleries. The way it is shown, it is online. It is not really interactive at this moment. So the viewers, they are not arranging the browsers themselves, but it's absolutely great how museum handle this and you are actually running it. Yeah, so the system administrator or the museum itself is a person who made an effort and put the three browsers windows next to each other in a perfect way. And this is how lazy people who don't want to make it themselves can enjoy the work at this moment. Yeah, because I don't like to show, I don't show at all my work as video, you know, this is screencasts for me it's important that it's live. Yeah, that maybe that you can see the clock on the desktop that shows the real time. I understand that this is happening right now. Yeah, you know this is the inspiration and how the worker was made was again to address the computer users or web users, internet users at this moment. And to ask them for some action they could do not to be passive and this action as yeah please install two more browsers on your computer. Yeah, it's, it's allowed it's legal it's possible and doesn't will not make too much time. And then also open this three browser windows in the way that it will the picture of me trying to bring my hair in order will work as intended. So by this you know it's a little thing to ask but it also to show that some some things are still in your What is what you are still in charge something you can be and also me as an artist I sort of show off with my ability to work across protocols, not just across browsers but across protocols there are three different protocols so three different webs. Yeah, that are coming together. And it is, it was very nice to try it out it is work that demands attention, because rules are changing that you have browsers protocols relations have to be re established. So it's not something what I can, I just made it can leave unattended so there's, yeah, a lot of under construction forever under construction that goes on. Yeah, but this, you know, I always since 1996 I tried to make work that also shows that is really net art net means that it only works if computer is online that. So the things are on different servers and your browser can bring it all together and you can enjoy something or or not. Who knows yeah and in this case really with self portrait maybe I went a bit. One step further and it's not just different servers but really different protocols yeah was worth trying it really hope that the work will still have some more time to to live because things who knows what happens with torn. Yeah, who knows what happens with peer to peer and also actually who knows what happens with our classic worldwide web it's all not stable. Yeah, I agree. I completely agree. And thank you all that this is was a very clear explanation, especially about your way of working your way of being across protocols across webs. And I really like your sentence about the war about the fact that it works if computer is online and it's really important because in this way you can really understand the concept of the net art and unfortunately we are running a little bit out of time so I need to conclude our interesting interview and I would like just to add a few words are saying that I could actually say that you are proposing an alternative web where you are recognizing Internet as a medium for artistic expression and storytelling. And moreover, I would also say that you have always considered the net as a place that faves the active participation of each individual user as you just mentioned before, inviting the viewer to be part of your project which is perfectly corresponds to the message of our project to the semi family platform. And so now I would like to invite everyone who is watching us to not only enjoy your work on our platform but also on your website, the art.teleportasia.org, which is an amazing website where you can really learn a lot about your work, your project, your your research, I would say about the net and about the users, about the protocols, about the web. So thank you Alia very much for this amazing interview and I wish you a good evening and I hope to talk to you very soon. Thank you Alia. Thank you very much for your questions and again for being part of this wonderful exhibition. Sure. Thank you Alia. Goodbye. Goodbye.