Only some pieces discussed here as "internet art" fit the definition of "Net Art" as diagrammed by the artistic duo known as MTAA, and the related verbal definition sometimes associated with the net.art group:


For both MTAA and net.art, "Net Art" use the internet (or, at least, a network) endemically within its creation: that is, the art "happens" somewhere within the network, and a Net Art-work cannot simply use a network as a distribution mechanism.  But I would suggest that these definitions of "Net Art" are better understood as an endorsement of certain stylistic characteristics, to describe and generate a collection of works, rather than as an ontological description of what internet art is.  MTAA's definition has spurred many wonderful works of net art, including by themselves, and provides a useful critical matrix within which to consider many pieces.  However, to say that works created in this style are the only "net art" works is to dismiss an enormous body of other works that utilize networks - even if only as a means of distribution - and which most people would describe, pre-theoretically, as net art.

Nonetheless, the other extreme threatens.  The texts to Shakespeare's plays are artworks, and they are available via the internet.  However, the texts as texts alone are certainly not internet artworks.  So, for the time being, I am using the term "internet art" to describe art works somewhere in between:

The internet may be integral to the creation of an artwork as per MTAA's and net.art's definitions.  But the absence of such integrity does not preclude a work from being internet art.

I await a better definition.

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Compare T. Whid of MTAA's comments about Rhizome.org and the NewMuseum's June 6, 2008 "Net Aesthetics 2.0" panel; also compare Noël Carroll's writing on "Medium Specificity," for example the "Questioning Media" section of Theorizing the Moving Image, and consider the section "Defining Cinema - Medium Specificity, Ontology, and the Artworld," in this interview.