Animation by General Howe
When you compare organic viral art like the works of KATSU, INSA, John Fekner, General Howe or Evan Roth to works by early internet artists like Heath Bunting, Nathan Castle or Jody Zellen, it quickly becomes clear that not all internet art is public just because it is publicly accessible in theory. The divide between viral art and regular internet art is more than just good art versus bad art. There is brilliant internet art out there that isn’t viral art. Early internet art may have been responding to the internet in general, but works essentially lived in isolation on lonely websites. Organic viral art spreads through the internet and often lives on the social web. It’s also more than just a divide between digital art made by street artists or graffiti writers and digital art made by people with no such background, as the next few sections show.