The Place, 1994

Exploring the boundary between tool and myth, instrument and concept, the place is inhabited by random memories, dream-addicted mercenaries, and secondhand scraps of excitement. In artist-writer-educator Joseph Squier's site there are no objects, spaces, or bodies -- its beauty is seductive but elusive, governed only by assembly, disassembly, investment, and exchange. the place includes the elegiac and evocative Life with Father and the hip and mysterious Urban Diary. Launched in September 1994, the site was called "a Web classic" by the New York Times' Cybertimes and was featured in the Boston Cyberarts Festival. It was named a Top 100 Web Site by PC Magazine. Squier is associate professor and head of the Media Narratives Studio at the School of Art & Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Squier's site joins the Walker's Digital Art Study Collection this month. Begun in fall 1998, the collection presents seminal net-based digital artworks in a critical context. It currently includes the archives of äda'web, Art Dirt, Franklin Furnace, and Beyond Interface. The collection illuminates both the relevance of net art and the relationship between net artists and the work they create.