Olia Lialina Best Effort Network. From the series Network Portraits

Olia Lialina is part of the informal association of pioneers of internet art, net.art, which has largely formed the artistic language of this genre. In her practice Lialina critically researches online interfaces and the internet as a space for art, studying the digital vernacular.

The title of Best Effort Network references the term that defines a type of data transfer in computer networks during which the delivery of information is not guaranteed. The internet uses this type of protocol (IP): all of the information to be transferred is split into packets, but the network has no obligation in terms of the speed and quality of delivery of these packets. They can get lost, return, be damaged or duplicate. To receive the same data from the server the users’ packet requests are put into a queue, but it is not clear which user will be first to receive the data. 

This work is a website with the address best.effort.network. Its central element is an animated image of the artist riding a carousel. If the artist suddenly disappears from the screen this means that someone else opened the site at that moment and the other person’s request to the server was prioritized. Olia appears on that user’s screen, and you see an empty carousel. In this way the process of data transfer and its unreliability becomes visible. On a small screen nearby the request queue is displayed in real time. 

The movement of the carousel, a fairground ride created for pure pleasure, mirrors the cycles of transfer and processing of data. In using this playful, simple image Lialina visualizes the process of distribution of information with particular attention to its instability and uncertainty. In this way Best Effort Network questions complex technological, social, and political relationships that are regulated by opaque public protocols. 

Open best.effort.network on your smartphone and see whether Olia appears on your screen.