DOES NOT CONCERN CORNELIA SOLLFRANK ALONE:
DIALOG AS A CONDITION OF AESTHETIC PRODUCTION
Rahel Puffert
[Inside the book, p. 104]
In the case of female extension (1997), an intimate knowledge of a certain net art practice enabled Sollfrank to start with the hubris of the institutional power of defining and to assist the effectiveness of net art's generally underestimated potential. With the artificial multiplication of her authorship produced by way of programming, she proved her skillful dealings with the Internet as a medium. This trick was the logical consequence resulting from the necessity of participational requirements as well as their institutional conditions while simultaneously abandoning the ethics and self-image of the artistic approach she invoked. The pretended insider knowledge of the institutional experts had their share in the invention of the tactical face insofar as it was stultified even further.
However, it is remarkable that Sollfrank nevertheless inserted her name in the place of the fictitious authors precisely to achieve an enlightening effect. She was authorized to do so particularly because she played into the hands of a field of players who were less interested in the individually found form itself than in the value a found form can have in collective or communicative processes. Not for nothing Sollfrank stressed that she could not have had realized female extension without the practical assistance and empowerment of numerous co-producers. And it was only possible for Cornelia Sollfrank to shed light on the rules of this action's game because she did put her name to it. This was the only way for the other voluntary or involuntary participants to have benefited from it in terms of gained insights.
The entire course of the competition finally became manifest in a series of press releases. In doing so, the press itself assume the rather uncommon part of contributing to the documentation of an artistic process. In addition, the disavowing failure of the experts became comprehensible to a public whose education in matters of judging art is usually dispensed with.
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