Portrait of a Web Server

At the exhibition from October 20, 2017 to August 5, 2018

We see the source code of »Apache«, an open source web server program, which can run on multiple operating systems, cascading down the screen at an illegible speed.

»Apache« played a key role in the initial growth of the Internet, and remains to this day the most widely used web server software. Its source code is a collection of instructions for programmers written in the C programming language. As in this case, source code is a non-executable file; there are often several steps between the original source code typed by a human and an executable program.

The work evokes the objectives of the Art & Language group (founded c. 1967 in Great Britain); namely, a shift from nonlinguistic forms to text-based art forms. A similar shift can be observed here: a pre-photographic portrait was supposed to reveal social status, whereas avant-garde portraits tend to reveal the personality of the depicted. In the case of »Portrait of a Web Server« the latter applies; the very soul of »Apache« runs down the screen, albeit in an elusive and inaccessible manner.

In this piece of net art, code has not just taken over the centuries-old genre of painting, it has attained the status of an influential medium.