This video montage brings a single tear to my eye

This youtube video is the moving-image equivalent to the book History of the Internet: A Chronology, 1843-present I just read. The present, in this book, was 1999. So full of hope.

I always recently finished Internet Art by Rachel Greene, from the World of Art series. Having never read much about the history of net.art (and its subsequent name iterations), it provided a good basis and some context to my interests in work that currently resides on (and around) line. The book came out in 2006...right around the introduction (and the proliferation) of Youtube. It's unbelievable how much has changed in Internet art in this short amount of time. Youtube (with all its confessional videos, mash-ups, remixes, screenings, etc), Street View of google maps, Skype with video...all these things have made a huge impact on net-based art. Much of the work that interests me uses Youtube and other user-generated content that is easily available and simple to use. I can only imagine that at one point, Rachel Greene had to just give up, and put a close to the book, knowing that the next day, something new would be popping up on our computers.

1984