{{Short description|British artist (born 1966)}} {{Use British English|date=September 2013}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2024}} {{Infobox person | name = Heath Bunting | image = Heath Bunting 2011.jpg | image_size = 200px | caption = Heath Bunting at Transmediale, Berlin, 4 February 2011 | birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1966}} | birth_place = | birth_name = | citizenship = | occupation = Artist | years_active = 1980s-present | style = Conceptual art, net.art, culture jamming, tactical media | website = http://irational.org }}
'''Heath Bunting''' (born 1966) is a British contemporary artist. Based in Bristol, he is a co-founder of the website ''irational.org'',<ref>{{Cite web|date=2017-04-12|title=Between the Net and the Street {{!}} Rhizome|url=https://rhizome.org/editorial/2017/apr/10/between-the-net-and-the-street/|access-date=2020-09-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170412200646/https://rhizome.org/editorial/2017/apr/10/between-the-net-and-the-street/ |archive-date=12 April 2017 }}</ref> and was one of the early practitioners in the 1990s of Net.art.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/1999/jul/29/onlinesupplement10|title= Fine art of browsing |author=Sean Dodson|work=The Guardian|location=London|date=29 July 1999}}</ref> Bunting's work is based on creating open and democratic systems by modifying communications technologies and social systems.<ref name="mediaartnet">[http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/artist/bunting/biography/ Media Art Net – Bunting, Heath: Biography] Mediakunstnetz.de. (2010)</ref> His work often explores the porosity of borders, both in physical space and online.<ref>[http://www.irational.org/heath/borderxing/ BorderXing Guide] Irational.org. (2001).</ref> In 1997, his online work ''Visitors Guide to London''<ref>[https://nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9708/msg00098.html <nettime> Interview with Heath Bunting] Nettime. (1998). Tilman Baumgaertel.</ref><ref>[http://hdelacruzstevens.blogspot.ch/2009/10/visitors-guide-to-london-by-heath.html Intro to Web-Based Art: Visitor's Guide to London by Heath Bunting] Hdelacruzstevens.blogspot.com. (2009).</ref> was included in the 10th documenta<ref>[http://www.documenta12.de/archiv/dx/english/frm_city.htm documenta X – Exhibition of contemporary art] Documenta12.de. (2009).</ref> curated by Swiss curator Simon Lamunière.<ref>{{cite book | editor-last =Joly | editor-first =Françoise | editor2-last =Barth | editor2-first =Cornelia | editor3-last =Buness | editor3-first =Jutta | editor4-last =Holmes | editor4-first =Brian | editor4-link = Brian Holmes |title = documenta X short guide |publisher = Cantz Verlag |year = 1997 |isbn = 3-89322-938-8}}</ref> An activist, he created a dummy site for the ''European Lab for Network Collision'' (CERN).<ref>[http://www.irational.org/cern/ European Lab for Network Collision] Irational.org. (1995).</ref>
==Biography== Born in 1966, Bunting became active in the contemporary art world in the 1980s. In 1994, he planned to open the first cybercafe in London with Ivan Pope, however they were beaten to it by Cyberia.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/1994/sep/08/internet|title=Instant cafe – Technology – The Guardian|author=Tony Dennis|work=The Guardian|location=London|date=8 September 1994}}</ref> In 1996, he co-founded the website ''irational.org'' with Daniel García Andújar, Rachel Baker, and Minerva Cuevas. It was on the site where Bunting first displayed his internet art works as part of the Net.art project.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2001/sep/21/21stcenturyarts.art1|title=The 21st-century artform |author=Elisabeth Mahoney |work=The Guardian|location=London|date=21 September 2001}}</ref>
==Work==
===''Own, Be Owned, or Remain Invisible''===
Created in 1998, ''_readme.html''<ref>[http://www.irational.org/heath/_readme.html Own, Be Owned or Remain Invisible] Irational.org. (1998).</ref> is a work of net.art: a simple web page with a white background and light grey text taken from an article about Heath Bunting. A vast majority of the words are hypertext, but not all. As coded for by simple HTML attributes, hyperlinked words turn from grey to black once visited.
In ''Own, Be Owned or Remain Invisible'', Bunting makes use of appropriation.<ref name="greene">Greene, Rachel (2004). Internet Art. Thames & Hudson. {{ISBN|978-0-500-20376-7}}.</ref> The work utilises an article about Heath Bunting written by James Flint of ''The Daily Telegraph''. Instead of presenting the article in its traditional form, Bunting links nearly every word to [insert word].com and alters the color-scheme of the document as per his white-on-white period.<ref name="bookchin">[http://art.teleportacia.org/exhibition/miniatures/about_heath.html N.Bookchin about heath bunting], Teleportacia.org. (2003). Natalie Bookchin.</ref> Some of the linked domain may have been owned in the past twelve years, but are no longer owned any more, thereby touching on the transience of Internet ownership.<ref name="olia">[https://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0711/msg00048.html <nettime> Goodbye Classic?], Nettime. (2007). Olia Lialina.</ref> Bunting's work also shows the range of banal or absurd domain names that companies have purchased.<ref name="mediaartnet" /> Not all words in the article are hyperlinked, however. Through these unclaimed words he spells out how the article touches on his own identity.<ref name="dietz">[http://www.walkerart.org/archive/0/B8739D27E26E7AD0616F.htm beyond.interface.bunting] Walkerart.org {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110610043219/http://www.walkerart.org/archive/0/B8739D27E26E7AD0616F.htm |date=10 June 2011 }}, Steve Dietz.</ref>
===''King's Cross Phone-In''===
On Friday, 5 August 1994, Bunting orchestrated a scheme that involved many people calling public phones in and in the surrounding area of London King's Cross railway station.<ref>[http://irational.org/cybercafe/xrel.html Cybercafe Net Art Projects – Kings X Press Release] Irational.org. (1994).</ref> On his then-website Cybercafe.org, founded in 1992, Bunting posted the phone numbers to all of the public phones and encouraged his followers to do one of the following: call in a pattern, call at a certain time, call and speak to a stranger, or show up and pick up the telephone.<ref>[http://tiger.towson.edu/users/nbosle1/bunting.html Heath Bunting and King's Cross Phone In] Towson University {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927181707/http://tiger.towson.edu/users/nbosle1/bunting.html | date=27 September 2011}}, N Bosle.</ref> Bunting used his website as an informative source to let his readers know how to partake in his project.
When 5 August arrived, Bunting went to King's Cross to pick up telephone calls. Many people called in and he witnessed as casual passers-by engaged in conversations with strangers who were perhaps halfway across the world. The project brought people together, if only for a few brief moments, to create a network through the communication medium of telephones. In Digital Humanities, a class by Professor Michael Shanks at Stanford University, the project is described: "the train station was transformed into an art platform and the unsuspecting commuters and workers in the area became the audience."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20130927221322/http://foresight.stanford.edu:3455/DigitalHumanities/229 Digital Humanities: Heath Bunting’s ''King’s Cross Phone In''] Stanford University Michael Shanks. (2008).</ref> This is an early example of a flash mob and instigating action through a then-passive medium. Bunting's work has been compared to the work of Allan Kaprow, one of the pioneers in performance art.<ref name="greene" />
===''Pirate Listening Station''===
Between 1999 and 2009, Bunting hosted the ''Pirate Listening Station''<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20040829092330/http://scanner.irational.org/ London Pirate Listening Station] Scanner.irational.org. (2004).</ref> which allowed visitors to the site to tune and listen in to London pirate radio stations. It is an early example of an online listening station.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.zerodeux.fr/en/essays-en/the-polyphonic-history-of-net-art-an-eternal-network-%EF%BB%BF|title= The Polyphonic History of Net Art, An Eternal Network? |author= Aude Launay|work=Zerodeux|access-date=2 September 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/mobile-movements|title=Mobile Movements – Mute|work=Mute Magazine|author=Rachel Baker|date=10 July 2001}}</ref>
===''BorderXing''===
Commissioned by the Tate Gallery and the Luxembourg-based Fondation Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Mudam) in 2002, ''BorderXing'' details ways to cross international borders throughout Europe without legal documentation. It provides video, photography, maps, and necessary materials on the project website. It demonstrate how to succeed without being located by dogs, and when not to run to avoid being shot. There is even a supplemental botanical guide so you can avoid poisonous plants.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://archive.newmuseum.org/index.php/Detail/Occurrence/Show/occurrence_id/419 |title=Rules of Crime: Kayle Brandon & Heath Bunting |last=Phillips |first=Lisa |work=New Museum |date=2004 |access-date=27 February 2017}}</ref> Bunting reveals that restriction of movement set in place by governments and bureaucracies. The project shows not only the restriction of physical borders, but the concept that the internet is not a borderless space. Bunting limits access to the project. You must be at a designated location to access the site or apply to be an authorized client.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www2.tate.org.uk/intermediaart/borderxing.shtm |title= Intermedia Art: BorderXing Guide – Tate |work=Tate Gallery|date=2002|access-date=27 February 2017}}</ref>
===''The Status Project''===
Commenced in 2004, ''The Status Project'' taps into the themes of identity, hierarchy, and power.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.furtherfield.org/heath-bunting-the-status-project-the-netopticon/|title=Furtherfield|author=Marc Garrett|date=23 April 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://wsimag.com/art/30446-heath-bunting|title=Heath Bunting – Wall Street International Magazine|work=Wall Street International Magazine|date=18 September 2017}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==Further reading== * {{cite book | editor-last =Ackers | editor-first =Susanne | editor2-last =Arns | editor2-first =Inke | editor2-link = Inke Arns | editor3-last =Hunger | editor3-first =Francis | editor4-last =Lillemose | editor4-first =Jacob |title = The Hartware Guide to Irational.org |publisher = Revolver Books |year = 2007 |location= Frankfurt/Main |isbn = 978-3-86588-299-8}} * {{cite book |last = Baumgärtel |first = Tilman |title = net.art – Materialien zur Netzkunst |publisher = Verlag für Moderne Kunst Nürnberg |year = 1999 |location= Nürnberg |language= German |edition=2nd |pages=114–119 |isbn = 3-933096-17-0}} * {{cite book |last = Greene |first = Rachel |title = Internet Art |publisher = Thames & Hudson |year = 2004 |isbn = 978-0-500-20376-7 |url = https://archive.org/details/internetart00gree }}
==External links== * [http://irational.org irational.org Website]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bunting, Heath}} Category:British new media artists Category:Net.artists Category:Public art Category:Artists from Bristol Category:1966 births Category:Living people