BOOK: Internet_Art From the Birth of the Web to the Rise of NFTs, Phaidon Publications

Since 1989, the birth year of the World Wide Web, the art world has been grappling with the rise of net culture. The book “Internet_Art: From the Birth of the Web to the Rise of NFTs” by Phaidon Publications surveys the groundbreaking artists who have engaged with the net culture over the past three decades and explores the impact of the Internet on art production and consumption, taking readers on a journey from the first browser-based art to the recent explosion of NFT art.  The publication traces key artists and innovators from the emergence of browser-based art to the beginnings of NFTs, making it a history for the present and the future. Featured in the book are works by renowned artists such as Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Nam June Paik, Heather Phillipson, and Wu Tsang, covering a variety of media. This unprecedented survey of artists and innovators from 1989 to the present is interwoven with the personal narrative of one of the leaders of the digital world, Dr. Omar Kholeif. Weaving the history of the Internet with his own personal recollections, Kholeif takes readers on a behind-the-scenes journey of an art world grappling with the rise of the online world: from the boardrooms of museums, artists’ studios, and biennials around the globe to cyberspace, the metaverse, and beyond.-Dimitris Lempesis