netartdothu (beta)

Internet art and Internet culture in Hungary in the 1990s and 2000s. A research project by Flóra Barkóczi

NOOTROPIC/WEB group, 1994

The Nootropic Web Group was founded in February 1995 by a collective of students from the Department of Psychology at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest and the Intermedia Department of the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, with the goal of exploring the emergent digital world and its potential for communication, creativity, and cultural transformation. This innovative group came together at a time when the Internet was just beginning to be understood as a dynamic global space, offering new opportunities for interaction, self-expression, and artistic creation. Their statement captures their fascination with the rapidly evolving technology and their sense of responsibility to take advantage of it, embracing a world where individuals could share their ideas, experiences, and creations with a global community. The Nootropic Web Group recognized the networked environment as an unprecedented opportunity for collective action, where participants could contribute to a growing digital culture and preserve personal fragments of their lives for future generations. Viewing the Internet as a modern “archeology,” they saw it as a repository where individuals could leave traces of their thoughts, gestures, and digital expressions, akin to how ancient artifacts are uncovered by archaeologists. With an ethos focused on collaboration, exploration, and creativity, the group aimed to better understand the capabilities of the Internet, both from a technical and psychological perspective, and to investigate how visual artists could navigate and shape this new medium. The members — József ádám, Zoltán Ágó, Tamás Bernáth, Éva Emese Kiss, Zoltán Koczogh, András Medvegy, Zsuzsa Mirnics, Endre Horányi, Szilvia Seres, Zoltán Szegedy-Maszak, Balázs Tomasz, János Tölgyesi, and Gábor Tálasi — sought to explore the intersections between psychology, art, and technology in the context of the rapidly evolving network. They envisioned a digital world where everyone had an equal opportunity to share and shape content, and where creativity could flourish regardless of background or expertise.