Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 7: Net Era (1990s)

1997

Documenta Done by the net art pioneer Vuk Ćosić

Artwork

A Netscape screen capture of Vuk Cosic's Documenta Done, showing the copied documenta X homepage republished at ljudmila.org/~vuk/dx/, with the original documenta X credits intact.
A Netscape screen capture of Vuk Cosic's Documenta Done, showing the copied documenta X homepage republished at ljudmila.org/~vuk/dx/, with the original documenta X credits intact. Vuk Cosic, Documenta Done, 1997. Rhizome, Net Art Anthology.

Documenta Done by the net art pioneer Vuk Ćosić subverts institutional control over net art’s circulation, epitomizing the artist’s role as a digital pirate. Born from the controversial decision to sell the documenta X website as a CD-ROM, Ćosić's work of art was an interpreted at the time as an act of artistic piracy. The work involved copying, republishing and circulating the site, framing it as a major international art theft. Serving both as critique and archival intervention, Documenta Done underscores the challenges institutions face in preserving digital culture’s social memory. Despite its provocative origins, the project has evolved into a vital artifact of the net.art period, continuing to provoke discourse on the intersection of art, technology, and institutional power.

Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.

Sources

People

Vuk Ćosić

Movements

net art

Filed under

Ideas
appropriation, archiving, institutional critique, institutions, memory, net art, piracy, preservation
Technologies
CD-ROM
People
Vuk Ćosić
Works
Documenta Done
Exhibitions
documenta X

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