Kalx.com

The website kalx.com is overrun by a bizarre sense of secrecy. The artist goes only by the name of Kalx, or by a series of aliases which have changed often since its inception in 1997- or 1999, depending on when you ask. The work is a descendant of the most visually-oriented net.art from the early days: think Redsmoke or Superbad.com. Kalx.com interprets the world wide web as a barrage of abstract images, bright colors vying for attention, and a very meaningless level of pure visual pleasure from the most unlikely of sources. It’s an assemblage of vector graphics, map outlines, news photographs, pornography, advertising and video games. The site is the art project- there are no “pieces,” just a mosaic dedicated to fulfilling the urge to blindly click and recieve data in response. This is the sort of site that can only exist on the web, because it is the web. This artist follows a lot of other artists I’ve looked at in this project, in that he also makes audio work. But he’s also inspired it. A companion cd, “Music for Kalx.com” was created by electronic sound artist Jos Smolders.