What do the painfully oblique term “art” and the wincingly detailed phrase “human-computer interaction” have to do with one another?

Every morning I turn on my computer and log into what I consider to be one of the finest pieces of interactive art I have come across in the last several years. I spend the whole day logged in, staring at the intricacies of the design, considering the ways in which this piece of art has begun to inform and shape my thoughts on the very idea of communication and memory. So successful has it been that this one piece has generated a school of other pieces exploring similar avenues. And at the end of the day I log out of Gmail with an almost wistful reluctance to part with the clarity and moral order laid out by its design.

Now, many people would argue that Gmail in no way qualifies as art. And some days I might tend to agree. Gmail is a work of design, conceived of by a cadre of elite designers and engineers at Google, including Kevin Fox (who designed much of the user interface) and Paul Buchheit (one of the key engineers). Gmail is human-computer interaction at its best. But on other days, such as today, I will staunchly argue that Gmail is a work of art, in much the same way architecture is art or game design is art or Warhol’s silk-screens are art. They are the product of individuals who envision the world in a particular way and conceive a tool to help us see and share that vision. Unfortunately, the art world only considers more prototypical art pieces when considering net art and so misses out on some of the more effective work produced on the Internet.

I’ll explain. But first let’s take a little detour through the more traditional world of “real” art.

The best thing about the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Biennial (its bi-annual survey of the art world) is not the art on display, but the hand-wringing. Every two years publications from ArtForum to the New York Times trot out the same cranky missives asking, “Will the Whitney get it right this time?” Can the curators possibly reflect the mercurial state of the art world, a world predicated on its proud inability to be defined, while also bringing to a wider audience art of lasting import? The inevitable answer delivered every two years is of course: you’d have to be delusional on par with Don Quixote to even try.

But then the world would be a much duller place without the joy of chasing windmills.

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