Howdy payton-ga,
Glad you got out of the cult in one piece, and thanks
for accepting my Answer.
Wired.com's take on hell.com.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,19908,00.html
"03:00 AM May. 28, 1999 PT
It's the story of a match made in hell -- that is, on Hell.com.
A private, parallel Web accessible only to its 80 or so invited
members (which include avant-garde Web design forces such as
absurd.org and jodi), Hell.com has been presenting abstract public
'events' since January.
"'This is not the Web as you know it,' says Kenneth Aronson, founder
of the diabolical project. "Although what you see is not dissimilar
to art, 'experience' is really the only term that can quantify what
Hell.com really is.'"
Rhizome.org, a "competitor" of hell.com. The following text is
viewable ay no cost on Fridays only. Otherwise you have to sign
up for a free membership to view it.
http://rhizome.org/print.rhiz?1441
An article titled "ART.HACKTIVISM" 0100101110101101.ORG (by luther
blissett) and posted on the subsol web site, which is quoted on the
above link.
http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors/01orgtext.html
"www.Hell.com was born in 1995 as a conceptual art piece, an
anti-web that sold and promoted nothing and was not accessible
to the public: a sheer b(l)ack hole on the web. For almost
three years, Hell.com, a site with no content, never listed
in any directory nor linked anywhere, averaged a million hits
per month from people typing the name in search engines. Then
it became a container for net.art sites and art galleries
which you could access only if you were invited, and whose
list of members was kept secret; something they themselves
called 'a private parallel web.' The idea behind Hell.com
was to create a launching pad for cyber-artists-extremely
elitist and with badly hidden venal ambitions ..."
A message board with a few links into hell.com related sites.
http://pub137.ezboard.com/fboatrockersfrm9.showMessage?topicID=2.topic
- http://www.6168.org/
- http://www.snarg.net/
An article on the San José State University web site titled
"net.art Year in Review: State of net.art 99" By alex galloway.
http://switch.sjsu.edu/web/v5n3/D-1.html
"Also to blame, yet for very different reasons, is Hell.com,
that elite net.art training ground that is off limits to web
surfers. Hell.com has rarefied net.art by selecting its kings
and queens, by creating an artistic pantheon."
Google's directory listing for hell.com.
http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Digital/Net_Art/Galleries/
"A well-known net.art gallery, soon to introduce the pay-per-view
net.art event."
An archived message about hell.com.
http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9906/msg00164.html
Links to over a dozen of of hell.com related sites.
http://www.nuits-savoureuses.net/1999/netart/graphik/
- http://www.absurd.org/
- http://www.xs4all.nl/~real/
- http://www.d2b.org/
Absolute One, an interesting "art" site with a series on postings
on hell.com, etc.
http://absoluteone.ljudmila.org/cv_en.php
"A copy is made of Hell.com, the most popular Net art museum.
The mirror site is published in an anti-copyright version without
password protection. After only two hours 0100101110101101.ORG
eceives the first threat of legal proceedings for copyright
violations from the creators of Hell.com. However, the mirror
site remains."
Martin Sunnerdahl's article entitled "Art Terrorist with the Right
to Crash Browsers."
http://www.sunnerdahl.org/m/texts/vvv41e.html
"One of the entrances to the parallel web is hell.com. Eclectic,
provoking, obstinate and inhospitable, it towers like one of the
last outposts against digital mediocricy. Do have a look, but I
certainly don't guarantee you'll like what you see!"
The University of Western Ontario's "The Gazette" review of hell.com.
http://www.gazette.uwo.ca/1999/December/3/Arts_and_Entertainment4.htm
"Spearheading the charge to re-energize the web is an enigmatic site
found at www.hell.com. This decidedly uncommercial internet art museum
with the deceivingly barren aesthetic was founded by a small group of
creative renegades. Out of a disgust with the commercialization of the
web, these artistic vanguards got together and conceived the highly
ambiguous and mysterious HELL.com."
Eyestorm, an online art gallery's article on online art sites.
http://www.eyestorm.com/feature/ED2n_article.asp?article_id=149
"Visit Auriea Harvey & Michael Samyn's work Genesis; you are led
through a pre-determined sequence of events telling the same love
story every time you visit. You are always going to hear the same
orchestral loop and palette of sound effects. You will always be
clicking your way through the same gothic sensibility portrayed
through looped and one-shot animations of stone doors slamming
shut, or a couple of butterflies finding each other above the
flames of hell.com."
A repost of a Rhizome.org article about hell.com and others.
http://www.kaigisho.ne.jp/literacy/midic/data/n/n318.htm
0100101110101101.org, a European art group that "took on" hell.com.
http://www.0100101110101101.org/
My take, and somewhat summarizing the above articles, etc. is
that hell.com is part of what people call the "underground"
internet, that is, web sites that are not generally spidered
(by design) by the search engines and are "private" to some
sense of the word.
hell.com is an "art" site (or anti-art, depending on whom is
describing it) that has limited access, and attempts to bring
alternative content to those that have access.
The content has changed several times, and I have received
email invitations to some of the "events" they have presented
in the past.
Currently, it appears that hell.com has been "reborn" at:
http://www.no-such.com
If you need any clarification, feel free to ask.
Search Strategy:
Personal experience and Google search on: hell.com
://www.google.com/search?q=%22hell.com%22
Looking Forward, denco-ga - Google Answers Researcher |
