Hell.com

Last updated
HELL.COM
OwnerNA MEDIA
Created byKenneth Aronson

Hell.com is an internet domain which has achieved a degree of notoriety due to its name, and an intentionally mysterious website that existed there from August 1995 to 2009 created by the first registrant of the domain, artist Kenneth Aronson. [1] [2] The domain was sold by Aronson in 2009. [3] [4]

Contents

Hell.com under Aronson ownership

Several versions of the Hell.com website were created during Aronson's ownership of the domain. All the designs in the areas generally available to the public were simple and sparse, but employed mysterious text, purposefully difficult navigation and javascript tricks to create an intriguing experience that suggested something deeper, and which appealed to curious visitors, hackers, and others.

The site was described as "a very private and somewhat mysterious place for Net-artists to hang out and create Web-art [or Net-art, as it was called in the late 1990s], without being directly visible to the grand public." [5]

A more jaundiced view was that Aronson had simply chanced upon an available domain, and decided to use it for Web art that provoked curiosity, entertained, and "messed with the visitors' heads." [6]

A commercial art gallery that represented Aronson stated: "Hell.com stood as an iconic example of the potential for avant-garde expression in the digital realm. It is remembered as a piece of internet history that symbolized an era of online creativity and mystery." [7]

There was certainly much speculation over the site's purpose, which was further fuelled by Aronson's public statements. In an interview with the New York Times in 1998 he suggested Hell.com was "a vast creative project that exists in a secret online location, a private digital environment assembled over the past year by 50 new media artists who continue to collaborate on its chaotic shape and ever-changing content. "The concept was to create the Web as I'd like it to be, something that's fascinating, exciting, dangerous, interesting...a parallel Web" [8]

A sub-domain of Hell.com, bat.hell.com stated:

HELL.COM is a private parallel network of acknowledged visionaries with diverse skillsets working from 20 nations. Described as the 'bleeding edge of the web' by the BBC, the project has been pushing the boundaries of the internet to discover new levels of human communication.

— BAT.hell.com text, HELL [9]

It was surmised that Hell.com's members, at least partially, were creative designers specialising in creating sites like Hell.com which were abstract, dark, intractable, and mysterious. At least four projects ran on Hell.com: (e.g. "surface" and "HL2"), where members anonymously collaborated in their creation. The end-results were non-informative webpages like Hell.com's for people's viewing pleasure (HL2 apparently took 90 minutes to explore). However these creative projects seemed to be only one facet of the larger Hell.com group.

Aronson also sold @hell.com email addresses through the site.

Layouts

In 1994-1995 - Hell.com only displayed a warning that you were not invited and to go away.

In 1996 - Hell.com displayed a blank black page with a single small red link in the center called 'that'. In the original design, the index page featured a random aphorism in place of the logo. The aphorism took a visitor to a page that consisted of three links:

Subdomain Bat. Hell.com

BAT was described as the "creative thinktank" of Hell.com. It claimed to excel in "simple effective solutions", "alternative perspectives" and "extreme ideas". [14] As well, under the title "INVISIBLE", BAT stated that it worked "confidentially as a mercenary resource", apparently for "leading advertising, communications, and technology companies." [15]

Final.org

On Aronson's Portfolio's "cultural" page, a link to the site has been made under the link to Hell.com, being labeled as "overview."

In May 2006, the layout of Hell.com's index page had similarities to Final.org's. They both take on the same structure of word layouts and both share a white background. Moreover, the logo-file of Hell.com is hosted at final.org, which can be seen if one uses the 'view source' option of one's browser.

Art Events

Hell.com hosted four art events under Aronson:

"Globalhalo" hosted part of this project and used similar flash animations as background. It also revealed the story about the small community of regular guest that was once formed in final.org.

Site alterations

The site's standard set of pages occasionally become inaccessible to be replaced with a different (usually one-paged) frontend. For instance:

0100101110101101.org's version

Sometime in 1997, the website 0100101110101101.org acquired the webpage code of Hell.com during the first 48 hours of one of its events and created a similar one as "a digital monument to the principles upon which the Internet runs," and an anticopyright. [22] "'The belief that information must be free,'" explained at the time (by) Renato, (a) 0100101110101101.ORG spokesman, 'is a tribute to the way in which a very good computer or a valid program works: binary numbers move in accordance with the most logic, direct and necessary way to do their complex function. What is a computer if not something that benefits by the free flow of information? Copyright is boring.' [23]

About two hours later, after the acquired code was made into a separate site, an e-mail from Hell.com was sent to 0100101110101101.org in response as well as accusing them of stealing work of Hell.com's members:

cute…

please immediately remove this material from your server

you are in violation of international copyright laws which are clearly posted in the copyright information contained in our source code.

also of note,

it appears as though you have violated the copyrights of quite a few of our members individually:::::::::::::::

http://www.0100101110101101.ORG
on behalf of these individuals we request that you also remove

these materials from your server as well [24]

In reaction to the questions "So what was the idea behind taking this site?" and "To access a formerly closed system, that was open only to a self-proclaimed elite, and make it accessible to everybody?" 0100101110101101.org answered that "the feeling that Hell.com was exactly the opposite of what we think that the web could and should be, but this is not really our own idea." [25]

In an interview, Aronson stated that "'Anyone can spin this any way they want, but in the final analysis, it is just simple theft. It's a publicity stunt to create awareness for a bunch of people who have no apparent talents.'" [26]

Despite the fact that "HELL.COM has … threatened legal proceedings for copyright violations", the event is still readily available and 0100101110101101.org has not removed the pages from their site. [27]

Sale of Hell.com's domain name

In April 2000 Aronson attempted to sell Hell.com in an auction with an eight million dollar reserve bid, [28] but decided against it.

In an interview with Domenico Quarenta of the magazine Cluster, Aronson stated that having the most visible address is "negative for us, but has a large value… which could be exchanged for resources to help further the goals of the project." Then, to explain the first sale, he announced that he "held off announcing the sale … During this time the dot com crash happened and what was worth 8(eight) million became saleable at only a couple of million… so i decided to wait until the market recovered." [29]

Then, on October 27, 2006, it was reported in the Wall Street Journal that the Hell.com domain name would be sold that day in a live auction by the domain company Moniker. A one million dollar reserve bid was placed and Kenneth Aronson announced that the proceeds would be used to benefit the hell.com community. However, CNNMoney announced that Hell.com was not bought by any of the bidders even though Aronson said that, "'Branding experts said the name is recognized more than Coca-Cola.'" [30]

Hell.com was sold in November 2009 to domain investor Rick Latona. The following year he put to auction several times, with reserves of up to US$1.5 million. [31]

As of August 2015, Hell.com has been replaced with a "placeholder" website and a drop down bar saying the site is available for rent or purchase. [32]

In 2023, the site triggers a connection to www.mybible.com

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References

  1. ↑ "Rhizome".
  2. ↑ "kenneth aronson - public art".
  3. ↑ "Adult Domain Auction Starts With Some Of The Best Adult Domains On The Planet". 23 September 2010.
  4. ↑ "Rick Latona » T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Main Event Inventory Published and Open for Bidding". Archived from the original on 2011-08-18. Retrieved 2011-06-22.
  5. ↑ "Hell.com". SweetCucumber.com. Retrieved 2007-01-18.
  6. ↑ "Find The Best Channels To Watch Online - wTVPC".
  7. ↑
  8. ↑ "Artists Open Door to Private Underworld". The New York Times.
  9. ↑ "HELL.COM". bat.hell.com. Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  10. ↑
  11. ↑
  12. ↑ "HELL.COM BUYBACK". 14 December 2001. Archived from the original on 14 December 2001.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  13. ↑ "HELL.COM BUYBACK". 25 October 2004. Archived from the original on 25 October 2004.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  14. ↑ "BAT". bat.hell.com. Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  15. ↑ "INVISIBLE". bat.hell.com. Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  16. ↑ "Zuper! Portfolio". Zuper!. Retrieved 2007-01-05.
  17. ↑ "s u r f a c e". FINAL.ORG. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-01-05.
  18. ↑ "PRESS RELEASE". Entropy8Zuper!. Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  19. ↑ "skinonskinonskin at postmasters". Entropy8Zuper!. Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  20. ↑ "e8z! – skinonskinonskin". Entropy8Zuper!. Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  21. ↑ "Artists Network Database". 8081. Archived from the original on 2007-05-29. Retrieved 2007-06-06.
  22. ↑ "ART.HACKTIVISM 0100101110101101.ORG". Luther Blissett. Retrieved 2007-01-15.
  23. ↑ "Copy-paste (net.)art". we-make-money-not-art.com/. Archived from the original on 2008-11-21. Retrieved 2007-01-04.
  24. ↑ "Hell.com reaction". Internet Archive. Archived from the original on 2012-02-11. Retrieved 2012-05-21.
  25. ↑ Baumgärtel, Tilman (1999-09-12). "Keine Künstler, nur Betrachter (translated from German)". Heise Zeitschriften Verlag. Retrieved 2007-01-18.
  26. ↑ Mirapaul, Matthew (1999-07-08). "An Attack on the Commercialization of Web Art". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-01-16.
  27. ↑ "ANTI–1999 0100101110101101.ORG".
  28. ↑ "Hell doesn't sell". The Sydney Morning Herald. Reuters. 2006-10-28. Retrieved 2007-01-16.
  29. ↑ Quaranta, Domenico. "A SEASON IN HELL". Cluster. Archived from the original on 2006-11-30. Retrieved 2007-01-16.
  30. ↑ Lamothe, Keisha (2006-10-27). "Web domain Hell.com hath no takers". Cable News Network LP, LLLP. Retrieved 2007-01-16.
  31. ↑
  32. ↑ "Hell.com". Archived from the original on 2006-05-14. Retrieved 2006-05-14.

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