- Net.flag
"net.flag" is a work of
internet art created in2002 by Mark Napier. Along with "Unfolding Object " by John Simon, it was commissioned by theSolomon R. Guggenheim Museum inNew York City , and was among the first works ofinternet art to enter the permanent collection of a major museum."net.flag" is an
interactive work hosted on the museum'swebsite . It contains images of all the nationalflag s in the world. Each flag is broken into its respective components, which are then categorized according to several broadly descriptive terms; users may pick and choose from a menu of these components to form a new flag, which they may then save to the site. In addition, the project features a browsable history, through which users may look over past creations which have been saved and titled."net.flag" creates a virtual
territory . A limitedlanguage of visualsymbols and the actions of thousands of visitors create an ongoing micro-drama about ownership, territory, control andpersonal identity in a post-national world.Napier has described "net.flag" as "an emblem for the Internet as a new territory," and is inspired in part by "Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong", the franchise nation depicted in
Snow Crash byNeal Stephenson . In Stephenson's world geographical borders are re-mapped intomobile ,modular elements.References
* [http://netflag.guggenheim.org/netflag net.flag on the Guggenheim website]
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