Netart is one of the newest species of contemporary art; of course, netart only originated through the internet, and in turn, the internet is netart’s primary medium. By the use of the internet, the Russian artist, Olia Lialina, created what some might call a masterpiece, the My Boyfriend Came Back From The War or simply the MBCBFTW.
My Boyfriend Came Back From The War is a piece of artwork that is featured as a link on a
webpage. By clicking the link, you are embellished in a black and white webpage featuring an image of a man and a woman sitting with backs turned against each other in the lower left corner and an image of a window in the far upper right corner. Yet there is more than meets the eye. The image of the two people can be clicked on; this changes the webpage and shifts the artwork in place so one can also see a picture of a woman’s face. You can click on the lady’s face causing the webpage to alter again; however, there are words that go along with the pictures this time. With each change you can piece together a story.
The story behind the MBCBFTW piece is not all transparent at first, but it gradually becomes more and more transparent. Given the title all I knew initially was that the woman’s boyfriend came back from a war. However, the boyfriend was traumatized from the war and returned as a different man. The girlfriend said she would try to help him change again and forget all the bad in the war. In attempts to help she tried to distract him from the war and ask him about miscellaneous things such as if he saw tigers when he was wherever he was fighting. The girlfriend could not build up a good conversation and the conversation died. After a long period of silence, the girlfriend unexpectedly told the boyfriend that she was having affairs with her neighbors. Despite the initial anger, he could not completely resent her and he forgave her. She explained that no one understood her like he did and she missed him. Then suddenly after asking about how she looked in a dress, he asked her to marry him and they do get married in one week’s time (and both of them were happy).
In totality, I think this art signifies that it is better to forgive and forget than be bitter and vindictive.
Originally, I thought that MBCBFTW was a bunch of nonsense and if this work is considered to be good netart, then all netart in general must be horrendous. However, after studying this piece for quite some time, I started to value this work. For one instance, how could a normal painting on a plaque tell such a large story as the MBCBFT did? I also enjoyed being able to control which piece of the story I revealed next and furthermore, there are multiple versions of the MBCBFTW which I have easy access to. So all in all, contemporary art is “good”.
