DEAD INTERNET

The title is not original and has been used for years. I will try to come up with something more snappy in due course.

Hello. I'm Ant. Welcome to my website. I don't know how you landed here, but I'm thankful that you did. For an entire decade, from late 2001 until 2011, my website was the top search result on Google for "glitch art". I'm grateful for the largely unmerited exposure to my art during those years.

These days, my art has changed, the Internet has changed, and the way we use the Internet has changed.

The present Internet is dominated by platforms such as Instantgrim, Faceache and, er, Tumblr, anyone? I tried this stuff for a while, but, being a dedicated misanthrope, didn't get on with the whole "social" aspect of things.

So, to this day, I remain cowering in my personal website bunker. But my gift to the accidental visitor is that I offer a clean, ad-free, calm website experience. This is the context in which I want my art to be presented.

But you may ask, what about the Private View? Well, to be honest, I have to be a bit transactional: If you want to see all the paintings, all I ask for is an email. There is no payment. I think that personal, non-platform website owners do need to do something to encourage repeat visits, simply because we're not appearing in an ever-scrolling feed.

I don't know how things are going to evolve. When I search for something, the top twenty websites are of such poor quality that I have to use the AI button to actually give me an answer. So the websites will get no visits, and are simply used as data fodder for the AI. But if the website owners decide to close down, what will the AI feed on? This all seems very uncertain to me.

Maybe personal websites will make a stealth resurgence, like vinyl and cassette tapes! And MiniDisc. And Betamax. And wax cylinder. Oh, I've gone too far.

I'm going nowhere.