webwork 5
YAST,
by v.n.a.t.r.c.? (France), 2003
v.n.a.t.r.c.? - [i.e.: v.ous n.'a.vez t.oujours r.ien c.ompris ?] (which v.n.a.t.r.c.? translates by: "h.y.s.n.u.y.?", "h.ave y.ou s.till n.othing u.nderstood y.et ?", meaning: "haven't you understood a thing yet?") - gives us YAST (Yet Another Sizing Tool), presented as "Web art software that creates random interfaces on the fly - images, texts, URLs, forms, checkboxes, all the htmlized tools of the web, displayed on the fly in a constantly renewed and always random layout, risky (Python scripts in a Zope framework, one of the key ingredients in this recipe), always new, from x seconds to x seconds: you never see the same thing: information is handled candidly, without intention - a delight of perplex propaganda!"1
"On the fly" suits the work perfectly.
Playful, anarchic, critical, YAST has a scattered, madcap aesthetic, with loud colours and an eclectic, constantly moving collage that changes every two seconds: images of all types and origins - photos, graphic elements, animations, drawings, cartoons, texts, quotes, personal messages, banners, links to other sites, and so on, that do nothing but pass, cross paths, overlap, from left to right, top to bottom, then quickly give way to something else. Further accentuating the roughness of the work, nothing is ever framed, organized, or arranged, images and texts scroll by willy-nilly, and the page they're displayed on - so briefly! - stretches beyond the screen, in height and width, like it's nobody's business. Even the "gaze fullscreen" option proffered at the top of the page hardly makes a difference.
Visitors can also participate themselves, and feed YAST's bulimia with additional input, suggestions, images, texts, or other sites, endowing it with a topsy-turvy aesthetic in pure libertarian tradition. Randomness, then, is given the ultimate test in YAST: that of insignificance, as well as of the possible shock and ensuing illumination that can sometimes result, if only for a moment, from the juxtaposition of certain images with certain texts. Why not?
v.n.a.t.r.c.? members describe themselves as Dada artists, pre-Pataphysicians, etc:
"The v.n.a.t.r.c.? collective has sought, and seeks still
to prompt reflection on the part of the viewer through
non-degrading scenography, cumbersome however although
inexpensive, efficient, fearsome (as it is the carrier of unassailable rhetoric),
it aims at visible targets like the Museum, the Church, the School, the Street, the Web.
Quickly emerging from this collective of variable dimensions is a certain number of
pre-Pataphysical conceptions that gradually agglomerate into a collection of texts;
federated by a single ambition - to change art!"2
Less a "work" than an "action," YAST falls, by its aesthetic and its effects, into the same bag as v.n.a.t.r.c.?'s other "clandestine actions":
"the outcome of discussions on the means of action possible within the framework of a puerile, ironic & inoffensive aesthetic code.
* their principle: no degradation of the chosen targets, expressions of urban humour, whether grotesque or simply ugly," with the "stated goal" of:
* properly hitting their target.
* observing the reactions of targeted institutions.
* developing a conception of art specific to v.n.a.t.r.c.?
* addressing an improvised audience."3
All in all, YAST is graffiti in perpetual motion - "a delight of perplex propaganda" -, displayed, "on the fly," on the walls of this public space we call the Web.
Notes
1 : b-l-u-e-s-c-r-e-e-n.net/misc/p2p/vnatrc/p2pFr.html 
2 : bio.vnatrc.net/
3 : bio.vnatrc.net/.
Anne-Marie Boisvert
(Translated from French by Ron Ross)
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