Neha Patil (Editor)

My Boyfriend Came Back from the War

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Artist
  
Olia Lialina

Period
  
net.art

People also search for
  
Zombie and Mummy

Created
  
1996–1996

Media
  
World Wide Web

My Boyfriend Came Back from the War catalogrhizomeorgimages990Ca133jpg

My boyfriend came back from the war


My Boyfriend Came Back From the War is a browser-based internet artwork created in 1996 by Russian artist Olia Lialina.

Contents

My Boyfriend Came Back from the War Source Code Best Of My Boyfriend Came Back From The War

My boyfriend came back from the war remix live edit


The Work

My Boyfriend Came Back from the War Last Real Net Art Museum

My Boyfriend Came Back From the War is an example of interactive hypertext storytelling. The work consists of nested frames with black and white web pages and (sometimes animated) grainy GIF images. When clicking hyperlinks in the work, the frame splits into smaller frames and the user reveals a nonlinear story about a couple that is reunited after a nameless military conflict. The lovers find it difficult to reconnect; the woman confesses that she has had an affair with a neighbour while the returned soldier proposes marriage. The story unfolds to the point where the screen has become a mosaic of empty black frames.

My Boyfriend Came Back from the War MU Twintig Jaar Op Het Web My Boyfriend Came Back From The War

Olia Lialina calls the work a netfilm, because of its similarity with cinematic narrative. The grainy black-and-white images and intertitles refer to early silent movies. Of its filmic qualities, curator Michael Connor wrote of the work, "the work adapts cinematic montage to the web ... separate frames are joined together by HTML code and the browser itself and experienced in both space and in time, employing what Lev Manovich has characterized as spatial and temporal montage."

Remixes

My Boyfriend Came Back from the War HeK My Boyfriend Came Back From The War online since 1996

Starting in 1998, My Boyfriend Came Back From the War was remixed and adapted by a number of artists. Some examples of these adaptations include JODI's Wolfenstein mod and Marton Fernezelyi's video adaptation.

Reception and Exhibitions

My Boyfriend Came Back from the War Speaking in Net Language My Boyfriend Came Back from the War Rhizome

My Boyfriend Came Back From the War is recognized a seminal internet artwork; art critic Josephine Bosma has called it "one of the most influential net art pieces of the mid nineties." It is included in various college syllabi, including the University of Maryland, Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and the University of California at Santa Cruz.

My Boyfriend Came Back from the War My boyfriend came back from the war YouTube

On the occasion of the work's 20th anniversary in 2016, Haus der elektronischen Künste Basel gave My Boyfriend Came Back From the War a solo presentation, within historical equipment and alongside remixes of the work. A fully illustrated mongraph edited by Sabine Himmelsbach, curator of HeK Basel, accompanied the exhibition. The exhibition also toured to MU Artspace, Eindhoven.

In December 2016, Rhizome selected the work for its Net Art Anthology online exhibition, comprising 100 net art works that define the form.

References

My Boyfriend Came Back from the War Wikipedia