Net Art

Jackpot - 1997

Author’s short bio - Maciej Wisniewski 

‘‘Maciej Wisniewski is an internationally respected digital artist, programmer and pioneer in network computing, whose work focuses on the underlying social impact of technology and networks. He graduated from the University of Stockholm in Sweden with a Ph.D. in General Linguistics and Computational Linguistics.’’ In 1999, Wisniewski created Netomat, which was a network based art project. It introduced a more open, free-form and flexible alternative to traditional page-based HTML browsers and search engines. Later in January 2001, with 3 partners he launched netomat, Inc.
‘‘Prior to launching netomat, Maciej worked as an Advanced Programmer at IBM.com where he was responsible for developing IBM.com’s XML strategy and has developed numerous advanced web prototype applications. Prior to joining IBM, Maciej had been responsible for the creation of many high profile digital art projects which featured the synthesis of powerful, cutting-edge technology, forward thinking ideas and engrossing presentations.’’

Source: http://www.netomat.net/content/maciej-wisniewski-full-bio

What is Jackpot
‘‘"Jackpot" is an Internet 'slotmachine' that downloads three randomly selected web sites and displays them in the browser's window along with their top level domain names. You win by matching any of the top level domains. The winner can then visit a live web site and submit a URL of choice.’’

Source: http://www.adaweb.com/context/jackpot/

What I find particular about this project, and which made me want to share it is the fact that Wisniewski was able to virtually recreate a slot machine’s system and way of functioning, with having a different purpose than any regular slot machine used for gambling. Another aspect about this project that i find interesting is how the audience contributes to the net art; by winning, they can contribute by adding submitting a web site, which, from what I understood,will be used added to the Jackpot data.

Thanks to this feature, you get informed of different existing web sites that you may have never heard of and wouldn't have heard of if it wasn't for Jackpot. Ultimately, what we get from it is the knowledge of the enormity and variety of the web. It makes us become more aware of the fact that there is a large/uncountable amount of web sites that can be visited and how the web is "ever-growing" (growing and growing) and evolving.