Jan Robert Leegte (Dutch, b. 1973) has been making art on and about the internet since the 1990s, using websites, software, sculpture and prints to give physical form to everyday digital elements like scrollbars, cursors and JPEG compression. He was one of the first Dutch artists to make work for the internet, and since 2002 has translated that online practice into offline sculptures, prints and projections shown in gallery spaces.
Leegte first studied architecture at Delft University of Technology before switching to fine art and interaction design at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. Uploading his first HTML experiment by FTP in 1997 was a turning point. He realized the browser could work like a public, round-the-clock sculptural space, and began calling his web pieces net installations. At art school he was shaped by Bruce Nauman and Dan Graham. Once he began working online he found early net artists including JODI, Mouchette, Olia Lialina and Alexei Shulgin. As he puts it, “I don't use software to make art, I make art about software”.
