Xcultis a private undertaking, and co-producer of art events on the Net. Xcult is independent of all terrestrial (cultural) institutions.
Xcult is an e-zine, shopping mall and research laboratory. In our virtual studios, artists bring their web-projects to realisation directly on the server, be it from Basel, Burgdorf and Zürich, from the Hague and Helsinki, from Bangalore, San Francisco or Tokyo.
Xcult nurtures an anti-design to main-stream graphics on the web. This site is content with pages generated through simple and complex programming, depending on the situation, and is happy to leave the reproduction of photgraphed works of art and the psychedelic sci-fi aesthetics of so-called Computer Art to other sites. Xcult has an intellectual and aesthetic slant, and remains choosy.
Xcult is a virtual subject modelled through authors who work on their individual projects in the Xcult-ateliers, and the editorial team of Xcult, which publishes these ateliers and animates the culture-forum Xcult. We ask ourselves: What concepts, content and formal solutions go with advanced www-communication?
Xcult owes as well as offers to the participating artists and writers a large public. The maintenance costs are high: somewhere in the depths of the Xc-program, work goes on endlessly, everyday. Xcult supports the artists through free server space, work, knowhow, editorial services and public presentations. And Xcult also launches projects of its own. Without the participating artists, Xcult would be nothing. That, then, is the deal.
Group projects:
Since 1995, Xcult has been regularly organising group projects in which artists, writers and theoreticians work together on a theme. The Internet provides the methodical and formal pre-requisite for this: the participants in the game work from their own computers, react to the contributions from others, and put up their contributions to the projects on the server.
(Information on Xcult-group-projects 1995-2005)
Projects / Ateliers
For some of the artists, Xcult provides the concept realisation, the programming and the site-design. In the case of net projects, actual co-operation is involved. We come up with atelier or studio pages, whenever we find sufficient interest and time. We accept payment only when the collaboration involves cultural institutions.
Texts
Art criticism from daily newspapers or monthly periodicals and catalogue texts are often missed out easily and forgotten quickly. Hence, we have created a compilation of texts at Xcult, written by interesting art historians/critics. Here we use narrow- and micro-casting, i.e., this is an offer made for subject experts.
(most of the texts are available only in german)
Links: On the links-page, we have taken pains (though not very systematically) to put together an exclusive selection of Swiss and international cultural-sites. Art and media theoreticians like Giaco Schiesser, Barbara Basting, Samuel Herzog and Reinhard Storz also offer annotated NetArt-Links as well.
Xcult as cultural server:
Projects:
After discussions, the artists put up their own net-projects on the Xcult server. Both within and
outside the purview of our work with Xcult, such as participation in committees, at Viper and through lectures, we try to give an impetus to and support for work on net-projects.
Ateliers
We have clearly defined criteria for putting up Atelier-pages. The cumulative cataloging of scanned reprodcutions is not of much interest to us. The pre-requisite is an artistic engagement with visual media and concepts, suited for reproduction on a computer (this exlcudes, therefore, photographs of wrought iron sculptures.) The integration of sound, animation, download-elements and accomplished hyperlink solutions into the pages is highly desirable , and not mere conversions of ideas for printed catalogues. (Here a quote from our concept in 1997: "If it is true that the net offers the cheapest solution for catalgues of works, then, what admixture of background information, presentation of the works and hyperlink-dramaturgy should a thoroughly witty, playful yet intelligent as well as functional online-catalogue be able to offer? We devote the chapter on ateliers to this question.)
history:
Xcult is a project by Reinhard Storz. First networking under the label of THEswissTHING in spring 1995.
Collaboration with Barbara Strebel. Founding of "L@den für Kunst und digitale Medien"
in fall 1995 (with Barbara Strebel, Markus Buser and Enrique Fontanilles).
Mailbox-projects: Dampfkesselprojekt Bern, (with SfG Basel and B.Strebel,
6.95); Open forum of "Schnittstelle Netzhaut", (10.95); communication project of SfG Basel, University of Brighton and Fachhochschule für Design Köln (with Catherine Lutz-Walthard
and Giaco Schiesser 3.96);
first www-projects: "ShareWare Transplantate" (rest. 1995);
"Schnittstelle Netzhaut" (coop. rest/Daniel Hauser,
Basel/Biel 1995/96);
Edition mmm / mini multi media, (since 5.1996);
Akkumulator / Filiale (Basel 7.96).
Since march 1997 networking under the label Xcult.ch.
Address
http://www.xcult.org (www.xcult.ch)
email: rstorz@xcult.ch
Reinhard Storz
Oetlingerstrasse 18
CH-4057 Basel
T/F: ++41/(0)61/693 29 37
