Amy Alexander has been working in net art and software art since 1996. In the interview she tells us more about the context of her first software art projects with the boom of copy on the Internet, and about Plagiarist, her first artwork on the web. After this, she tells us how the development of her work has been including performance, up to her latest works where she is mixing software art and performance with imaginary friends. Today, she is Assistant Teacher in Visual Art at the University of California, San Diego.

Interviewed by Pau Alsina, Artnodes collaborator, at Centre d’Art Santa Mònica, on June 2004.

Question: Could you tell us about the origin of your project “plagiarist”, and in which point of its development do you consider it at the moment?
Answer (2’51”)

Question: What about your implication with software art, do you think the work you develop can be consider as software art?
Answer (1’09”)

Question: Do you think software art could be a new invention of category in order to invent new algorithms for exhibitions?
Answer (1’34”)

Question: If we can consider three different spaces, we could say: algorithms, programming languages and the result of that, the software. Do you think in those different spaces there is different meanings of what can be consider art?
Answer (1’55”)

Question: There are different types of political actions; so that, it seems in software art there are different meanings of what art could be. For example comparing the work of Casey Raes with the one Matthey Fuller does, both working on software art and also both works so different to each other. How do you feel about this difference within the same context?
Answer (2’05”)

Question: As we know you are teaching digital art at the University of California, San Diego, in your opinion, what it could be doing to improve digital art teaching? And could you tell us about your own way of bringing the students this complex discipline which comes from many different traditions?
Answer (2’05”)

Question: Are your students normally coming from Fine Arts background?
Answer (0’38”)


Related links
Amy Alexander’s first website, including all her projects to date
Amy Alexander biography
Live Internet VJ project: CyberSpaceLand
Database of artists who work with Software Art