I am the curator of the current exhibition you are discussing. First of all, thanks for paying attention and making the effort to share your thoughts and concerns.

For me, Add-Art is a very interesting "space" to curate for precisely because it gets outside of the white cube gallery that many people do not venture into. It's what first attracted me to net art and working with the artists in the current show a decade ago. My original intent, here, was specifically, in part, to re-introduce earlier net artists' work. That said, it is a tricky situation from my pov because the work needs to make you want to make the effort to find the curatorial page - or this forum - to find out more. There's no opportunity for a "click through" exploration, which would be the most natural way to provide context, I think. Not to mention how the original, replaced ads are designed - as calls to further action. This is a structural issue.

One question, of course, is how to deal with these parameters.

I think if you look at the 8 artists selected for this show, you will see that there is a wide range of work, which is often how I curate shows or the 01SJ Biennial, which also has a large component of public art works outside the gallery (http://01sj.org). In other words, my goal is generally not to present only work that everyone likes a bit - or that no one is offended by - but to present work that someone - hopefully more than one person - really cares passionately about.

I take take kurikinton's point about wanting to expand the audience very seriously, but I'd also like to expand the audience for work that isn't necessarily "easy" as well as work that is.

Thanks for responding and your last point is well made. I am certainly pleased that user choice is being considered as a future option.

With regard to the size of the image versus the impact it might have, I think it is a function of context, which of course includes many factors tangible and otherwise, many of which while perhaps controllable in a traditional gallery environment are not controlled here.

I wish you luck in your continuing experiment.

You can see what were working towards here:
http://dev.eyebeam.org/projects/add-art/milestones
As Matt mentioned, as of right now, one thing we're working on is having Add-Art subscribe to feeds of art from various sources.

@kurikinton - I understand you saw something you didn't want to see. I think it's amazing that something like a 250x250px image might have that kind of effect. I think it's a great testament to the power of that artists work and I'm sure he'd be happy to know it had an impact and resonated with someone. You should get in touch with Graham Harwood and let him know. Info about him is here - http://add-art.org/content/net-art-10

Regarding your last statement: "contemporary art, as defined by the curators here, includes that art which is commonly considered offensive or disturbing to a significant percentage of the general public." While I understand you found it disturbing, I wouldn't agree that it was commonly considered offensive to a significant percentage of the general public. Determining such a thing gets into some very tricky areas and, while you mentioned censorship is not your intention (nor ours), determining such a thing and creating such a subjective policy certainly blazes a trail straight towards it.

We are working on a way to lose control of the art and give it back to you. Meaning, give you all a chance to host your own providers of art. That means if you think the official add-art shows suck, you can subscribe to a provider that you like. Hopefully folks that make art you like will provide feeds and all will be sweet again. Give us a bit of time, and we'll keep cracking at it.

Right now, this goal has many technical hurdles in front of it. As one of the developers, I will definitely keep at it, but we are welcoming anyone who wants to contribute over at dev.eyebeam.org.

I would just like to offer my feedback to that of the other users above with regard to the current exhibition, with the understanding that the artist and the curator technically speaking have every right to use the medium in the way they wish, and the users have every right to opt out at any time if they so desire.

However, to show my sincerest respect for the right of the artist and curator to express and promote the message they wish, I will now exercise my right to share my experience thereof and why I believe myself and others having had such an experience is counterproductive to the aims of the aforementioned, and I will take the liberty of using this forum to do so.

I wish to express my feeling that the medium of the ad blocking firefox plugin as presented is not the appropriate forum for the dissemination of the particular exhibition in question specifically for the reason that many people find it disturbing. The artwork in question, while likely possessing of certain redeeming qualities in light of the acclaim it has received, invokes in me a deep sense of unease because I happen to possess certain sensitivities, experiences and because I hold a certain world view. I know that I am not alone and, in this case, perhaps not even in the minority. However I will not bore you with attempting to explain my world view and why I might believe it is better than what I suppose might be that of the curator, were I even to believe in such absolutism (which I don't).

Rather, I suggest that the curator might have been able to predict that the particular exhibition in question would disturb some people, presented as it was in a partially voluntarily, partially coercive manner to the world at large as opposed to a relatively homogeneous community of art appreciators who might, again I suppose, have known what to expect. While the individual curator in this case might not have guessed the extent to which the displeasure would occur, and certainly I myself have no idea of that extent at this time, I further suggest that the organization which developed and maintains this plugin and chooses the curators, and who's stated goal is to spread the use of the plugin, provide exposure for young contemporary artists, and according to the logo, "Cover the Web", might have been able to make some sort of prediction regarding the reaction and made alternative choices more in line with those goals.

In other words, I suggest that given that the stated goal of this service is to increase exposure opportunities for contemporary young artists and that that goal requires that a large and growing number of individuals use the plugin, that the curators would try to curate in such a way as to further that goal and would try to avoid using the forum for artwork which might perhaps only be truly appreciated by a specific audience while conversely alienating to general public. Thus I do not suggest censorship of art to comply with a particular moral system, but rather I suggest selection of the art based on pragmatism in light of achieving the goal of increased exposure.

Again, I have no idea how many people share my reaction to the particular exhibit in question and whether or not we are in the majority. Granted, any good curator would, and should, cringe at any mention of the word "majority". But then, the particular case of this art/ad block plug in shares no real world analogy and thus must be given serious thought.

For instance, it is very unlikely that I would ever walk into an art gallery in the real world and be in any way surprised by what I found there, because an art gallery and its environment provides all manner of explanation with regard to the art before the appreciator actually confronts it.

However, with the case of this plug in, there is less opportunity to become aware of what one is about to see before one actually sees it and thus become able to choose to avoid it or not. While this leads to a pleasant surprise when the art is agreeable to the viewer, it can be a shock if it is not. This is what I mean when I say that the medium is partially coercive. In internet lingo, it is an opt in once "push" medium, which, at least in this limited sense, is in fact no different from advertising whatsoever.

My particular subjective experience in the case of this particular exhibit is as if I had turned on the TV to watch live theater but was instead presented with scenes graphic violence. While in this case I cannot blame this service for my own ignorance, I can still point out how such editorial choices are in fact counterproductive.

To reiterate, with the stated objective to increase exposure for young contemporary artists and "cover the web", it would be pertinent to make pragmatic editorial choices. If that cannot be done, then the goals should perhaps be changed. Increased exposure for contemporary artists requires that a wider base of art appreciators continue to use the service for an extended period of time, which in turn unfortunately necessitates a certain degree of editorial filtering. If that is not possible, than this plugin would be better served if it was made more clear that contemporary art, as defined by the curators here, includes that art which is commonly considered offensive or disturbing to a significant percentage of the general public. This would narrow the user base down to those who enjoy such art and avoid unnecessary confusion such as is occurring now.

Can't you just give the users the choice of what art packages will be displayed? Again, the freedom for artists to create whatever they want isn't the problem. I just don't want any weird artistic expressions to show when i'm at school or at work.

*tears off the tip of his tongue with a can-opener, slams his head against the keyboard a few times, till th l tt r forc s its way into his skull, th n picks up a pow r drill and us s it to bor a hol through th bas of ach of his t th, until h finally pass s out from th pain...*

In all seriousness, the artists are given freedom. We let them know there are a lot of users of all kinds and challenging content is not off limits.

We'll have a statement up about the work later today. You got to it early!

Now, while I'm certainly not against artwork depicting reaction to domestic abuse, and I consider self-harm to be an important topic, doesn't this run against the idea of having banners that don't distract attention from the main page?

And, as someone who fancies himself a writer, the 'appendix wound' piece is expressed very poorly, I think.

Thanks for any help.