Urban Framework

The relationship between communication and art on the internet is the subject of this paper. It draws upon the web-site Urban Framework, by the multimedia artist Carol-Ann Braun.
Urban Framework functions at two different levels. First, it is not only about image-making, but also about interacting with texts and images. Urban Framework articulates its content, much like a hypertext. Here the artist both exhibits her work and explicitly structures ways of looking at it. This first level of mediation fits into a second, larger level, created by the collective medium of internet. Web artists also design a place in which to share the experience of looking. Urban Framework is structured around this inherent multiplicity, and provides viewers with the means to communicate. Such work draws on the inter-subjective and communicative dimension of the aesthetic experience described by Jauss (1979) and Habermas (1987). The question here is the development of art in a medium which provides not only a technical framework, but also a means of broadcasting the work and of structuring social intercourse. In this context – bringing together a multiplicity of views and imaginary worlds – the fundamental issue is that of articulating or inter-relating people (communication) and objects (hypertext).