While many galleries had work on line before them, Spatial State <http://www.spatial.co.nz> was NZ's first website dedicated to contemporary art projects for the internet. Robert Hutchinson talked about where it's been and where it's going.

What was the impetus behind Spatial State?

Looking back at the genesis of Spatial State is quite unnerving really. A lot of the ideas that informed the concepting of the project were unformed, or perhaps uninformed. Really it was some kind of idealist fantasy: "We can bring artists and technicians together and they can make amazing computer art." I had been working in the web industry for a while so was able to access considerable resources at little or no expense. This meant it was possible to undertake fairly ambitious projects that I would quite probably have avoided otherwise.

It quickly became apparent that the artists I would work with are not techno geeks. The paradigm of the web doesn't really mean that much to them, they don't spend endless hours engaged in critical debates in on-line forums, nor do their avatars cruise the multi-user dimensions virtually interacting with other artist avatars. This has meant there is a certain freshness in the works presented on Spatial State. The works engage with the medium in a grappling sense. Developing a space for themselves, engaging with web culture in a tentative manner, thus maintaining a uniqueness or at least an underlying uncomfortableness.

Overall the results have been extremely gratifying. I felt it was important to avoid the trap of the on-line gallery. I don't see the point in exhibiting digital representations of physical artworks on the web. That is the main reason I went for a Creative New Zealand grant to fund the site. What's the point in throwing thousands of dollars into a project that is nothing more than a glorified set of artists' slides. CNZ money should be going into the development of skills and opportunities in the New Zealand arts community. If the money had funded some kind of infrastructure for showing NZ art on-line I doubt a single original web work would have been created, just a salary for an artworker to push enquiries from foreign art buyers around. If a dealer went on-line with a virtual dealer gallery and full e-commerce facilities, that would be cool.

What projects have happened so far?

The first project was Before Information There Were The Machines by Terrence Handscomb. This work is a web adaptation of a computer installation that Terrence created for the Electronic Bodyscapes show at Artspace, Auckland. This work was included in Das Synthetische Mischgewebe/Contiguite, an European intermedia show. It seemed appropriate that the first work on Spatial should need an obscenity warning. In Terrence's words "[the work] questions the relationship between information technology and individual identity together with concerns about sex, violence and computers." The work immediately entered Spatial into a dialog with internet stereotypes. Pornography is the success story of the internet, and perhaps the element of the internet that people not involved with the net think of first. There's nothing like being able to tell people you're a web pornographer.

The most complex project, technically that is, was Greg Wood's Noisemill. When a user submits their name to the Noisemill CGI, it generates a musical score based on their and previous visitors names. This score then assembles a song from the 160 different samples on the hard drive. All this is done on the fly. The piece can then be downloaded and listened to. What was particuarly interesting to me about this piece was the way that ideas of interactivity and arbitariness are all mixed up. The work requires the user's name in order to write its score, but the user has no control over how their name is used. They merely input data, music is the result. The idea of interface is so important in so much new tech art. Quite a few of the projects I've been involved in have confronted that idea of interface, working against it, acknowledging the arbitary nature (for most users) of the interface they are confronted with.

Tessa Laird's Elvishnu is a great example of what can be done by an artist who has no previous experience with computer art. Elvishnu is the 10th incarnation of the Vedic god Vishnu as Elvis Aaron Presley. Elvishnu began as a painting, a painting that was bought to life on the web. Each of his 6 moving arms leads to a scene from Elvishnu's life. A general midi version of an Elvis classic plays while the reworked lyrics run by in an ornately framed window. The characters from the songs act out their mythic roles above the lyrics. The work is intensely visual, utilising bright colours in a way that flouts the ‘graphic design' aesthetic of the web.

again-n-again by Sean Kerr has had the most heated response of all the works Spatial has shown. I have been personally threatened, by e-mail, with serious harm if I didn't stop the work. again-n-again generates an enormous, repetitive e-mail "againandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagain..." and so on. Users have maliciously mail bombed innocent denizens of the web with this message. The victims blaming me often send infuriated e-mails to me insisting I stop spamming them. One of the best runs "You may well be in trouble. I have friends in low places: if it really isn't your fault, tell me so and I will stop the hideous maiming which was headed your way. Do it quickly, though, or the shit'll hit the fan."

Phtt, a collaboration between Melissa Macleod and Billy Crimson explores the spatial similarities and differences between physical and web space. Users explore a physical space (since destroyed) through a web interface. Melissa's work is intensely physical, objects are manipulated in space. In attempting to do the same in a web environment the work has addressed the manner in which the author describes the interactivity programmed into the work, the way in which web space is manipulated by code. The instructions written out for the programmer have been left on the page, meaning users can engage with the instructions or the work, or both.

Kirsty Cameron's ESPers is a quasi-spiritual site.

Daniel Malone's work has grown from a web based project into a CDRom project with a web element. This is the current project under development.

How have you selected the artists?

They suggest each other.

What kind of technical support were you able to provide?

The primary level of support is a place to host the work. You could sit in your room and write an amazing work in HTML on a crappy computer but no one would ever see it. The idea of exhibition has always fascinated me. The mechanics of showing things. With Web servers so many things can go wrong (Spatial State has gone through 4 servers now) but you are providing a 24 hour a day 7 day a week exhibition space accessible throughout the world.

In terms of direct technical support on a project basis, I, or an associate, program the works, whether this means formating text in HTML or writing CGIs in C. The process used by Spatial State follows a commercial model. The artist has a concept. The idea is worked into a usable state with the technician. The technician programs the work with the artist's input. It goes onto the site. Very simple, in theory.

Each project has different technical requirements. It is important from my point of view not to privilege the more complex, technically sophisticated works over the simpler conceptual works. HTML can be pretty amazing if used well. Of course responses vary on the viewer. Other programmers have been most impressed by Noisemill which has an extremely complex CGI generating songs on the fly, while Elvishnu has been praised by every lover of bright colours and dinky midi sound.

If an artist wants to do something, we work out how to implement it. Obviously I steer people away from things that will cost me too much money or take too much time, but really, if there is a way of doing it on the web, we'll try and do it.

So what's happening with electronic arts in New Zealand at the moment?

I have to admit I pay absolutely no attention to electronic art. The last artwork I bought was done in felt tip pens (I'm hoping to do an web work with that artist one day though.) I'm more interested in approaching people with no background in electronic art and doing projects with them. It's more work for me, and perhaps they aren't as inclined to really push the medium as far as it can go, but the ideas are just as strong, and they're being presented to an audience that may be used to ‘virtual bodies' and ‘viral complexity' but probably hasn't dealt with a carefully placed fried egg on the floor.

Future plans for Spatial?

Spatial State is now being served by my own web development company. This means it will continue to show the works that have already been commissioned and will (as time permits) commission new works over the next couple of years.

<http://www.spatial.co.nz>