In January 2019, the New Museum’s affiliate Rhizome celebrated the launch of The Art Happens Here: Net Art Anthology, a richly illustrated volume retelling the history of net art from the 1980s to the present through thematic essays, interviews, and museum-quality screenshots. The book features a spread for each of the one hundred works that had been restored and were presented as part of “Net Art Anthology”, an online exhibition that began in 2016 at anthology.rhizome.org.

Hosted by editors Michael Connor, Aria Dean, and Dragan Espenschied, and coinciding with the opening of the group exhibition “The Art Happens Here: Net Art’s Archival Poetics,” which was on view in the New Museum’s Lobby Gallery through May 26, 2019. The event featured a lively series of presentations, readings, and performances, including Olia Lialina’s performance Once again I’m sorry, and remember to keep Keeping The Backstreet Pride Alive! (2019), a recital of censored terms from the Chinese internet circa 2008 by Miao Ying, and a demo of the software Heritage Gold (1997) by Graham Harwood. The event concluded a rare live appearance by artist Alexei Shulgin’s “cyberpunk rock band” 386 DX—a beige, worn-looking computer that “plays” rock hits by Nirvana and the Sex Pistols on a 40 MHz chip.