Artist Rafael Rozendaal Sells Web Art Through Domains

While websites remain relatively accessible, getting your hands on a particular domain name (like a coveted piece of art) can sometimes be problematic. Artist Rafael Rozendaal, who makes websites as artworks and sells the domain name to guarantee exclusivity to the piece, believes domains are the only scarce things on the internet.

His various websites vary on the scopes of interactivity and sound, some showing moving patterns affected by the mouse’s positioning, as in From The Dark Past, while others seem to unfold in front of you regardless of your clicking and hovering like in Love Game Set. They are also almost invariably single-page websites that only offer one experience, which is how we can imagine collectors showcasing their piece, by exhibiting on a mounted computer screen in his or her home.

Visually the work of Rozendaal is interesting, but it’s not especially picturesque or complicated—some of the works could be confused as animations. What’s really fascinating is that Rozendaal is trying to expose his artworks as objects of speculation, much like contemporary art pieces exhibited in an art gallery, but his chosen “gallery” is much more accessible. Though the pieces are exhibited freely on the internet, the solution is relatively simple to Rozendaal: “The content of each work is public. Its possession is exclusive.”

We observed, especially during the burst of the dot-com bubble in the 90s, the rush to buy domains—some generic and others more specific—that were not necessarily purchased to host any kind of content right away, but instead bought specifically in order to capitalize on the interest of other companies or individuals potentially wanting to acquire them in the future. The art world seemed to mirror this boom, as we observed the phenomenon of the instantaneous rise of multi-million dollar works made by contemporary artists like Damien Hirst that rose exponentially in value as they toured through auction houses like Sotheby’s and Britain’s Saatchi Gallery.

By placing the name of the work and its location in a domain that is for sale, Rafael Rozendaal directs this speculative potential as the focus of a discussion about what can be understood as art today, on and off the web. We also have to admire his savviness. What could be just a single-page artwork today, could be a viable way to make money if the domain was an essential asset to a company or individual’s business—web artists, take note.

To learn more about his process of buying and selling art through domain names, read a contract drafted by Rozendaal and his team.

Images above are stills from the artworks From The Dark Past and Vaiavanti.