Post-Internet describes art and visual culture produced in a condition where the internet is ubiquitous and assumed rather than novel. The “post” prefix refers not to a period after the internet but to a state in which networked digital culture permeates all aspects of creative production. The movement’s concerns with surveillance, platform-mediated identity, and algorithmic visibility have informed broader discussions about how digital infrastructure shapes public discourse and political engagement in the United States.
Origins
Coining the Term (2006–2010) Artist Marisa Olson used the phrase “art after the internet” around 2006 at a panel organized by Rhizome at Electronic Arts Intermix, describing her practice of making art following time spent exploring the web. Her distinction was that “Internet Art is on the Internet; Post Internet art is after the internet.”
From December 2009 to September 2010, writer Gene McHugh ran a WordPress blog titled “Post Internet,” funded by a Creative Capital / Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers grant, exploring the implications of the internet’s ubiquity for art. The blog was published in print by Link Editions in 2011 and later restored by Rhizome as part of the Net Art Anthology.
In 2010, artist Artie Vierkant published “The Image Object Post-Internet,” an essay arguing that post-internet objects are developed with concern for both their materiality and their methods of presentation and dissemination across networks. The essay became widely cited in discussions of digital-era art practice.
Key Characteristics
Unlike 1990s net art, which existed primarily online and positioned itself as critical of institutions, post-internet art moved fluidly between screen and gallery. Physical objects—sculptures, prints, installations—carried the logic of digital circulation. The photograph or documentation of an artwork often reached more viewers than the object itself.
Artist and critic Hito Steyerl articulated the concept of the “poor image”—compressed, reproduced, degraded files that circulate freely, prioritizing accessibility over pristine quality. This framework was widely adopted in discussions of how images move through networks and take on new contexts through reproduction.
Notable Artists and Works
- Hito Steyerl: “How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File” (2013), a satirical video about disappearing from algorithmic surveillance; “Factory of the Sun” (2015), an installation about data labor.
- Artie Vierkant: “Image Objects” series (2011–ongoing), digital files rendered as prints on Dibond and cut into three-dimensional sculptures, existing simultaneously as digital files and physical objects.
- Amalia Ulman: “Excellences & Perfections” (2014), a scripted four-month Instagram performance enacting constructed female identities to examine the presentation of femininity on social media. Later exhibited at Tate Modern.
- Petra Cortright: Software-based digital paintings layering webcam footage and digital effects, printed on silk or canvas.
- DIS Collective: Founded DIS Magazine and created DISimages (2013), inviting artists to produce stock photography that departed from commercial conventions. Curated the 9th Berlin Biennale in 2016.
- Brad Troemel: Co-created The Jogging, a Tumblr blog posting photoshopped compositions of found imagery as artworks.
Platform Connections
Tumblr served as a primary distribution channel for early post-internet art. The Jogging and similar projects used Tumblr’s image-sharing format to circulate work directly, bypassing traditional gallery systems. Instagram became an exhibition venue in itself, exemplified by Ulman’s “Excellences & Perfections.” Are.na functioned as a collaborative tool for collecting and organizing visual references, serving as a more intentional alternative to algorithmic social media feeds.
Institutional Recognition
Major exhibitions included “Art Post-Internet” at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing (2014), which was included in ARTnews’s retrospective coverage of notable exhibitions of the 2010s; “Ocean of Images” at MoMA (2015); the New Museum Triennial “Surround Audience” (2015); and “I Was Raised on the Internet” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2018).
Political and Cultural Themes
Post-internet art addressed themes with direct implications for American political discourse, including surveillance, platform-mediated identity construction, and digital labor. Steyerl’s work examined omnipresent digital monitoring and the politics of visibility, topics that intersected with growing public debate in the United States over government and corporate surveillance following the 2013 Snowden disclosures. Ulman’s Instagram performance examined how social media platforms shape the construction and performance of identity, reflecting broader questions about authenticity and manipulation on platforms that also serve as major channels for political communication. Works by artists who commissioned pieces through crowdsourced labor platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk drew attention to invisible forms of digital labor and the gig economy. The movement’s interrogation of how networked platforms mediate perception and construct narratives contributed visual and conceptual vocabulary to discussions about misinformation, algorithmic curation, and the political consequences of image circulation online.
Evolution
By the late 2010s, the concerns that post-internet art had articulated—network awareness, image circulation, digital-physical hybridity—became so widespread in contemporary art that the label grew less useful as a distinct category. The condition it described, making art in awareness of ubiquitous digital networks, became the default rather than a distinguishing feature. Its ideas about poor images, dual sites of exhibition, and identity performance remain present in contemporary practice.