My few cents, or pence...
I share Simon's ambivalence. In my view, the art world seems often
more concerned about fashion, money and the politics of power than
about art.
On top that, when an artist has a fair knowledge of technology, it
often happens that he or she is no longer seen as an artist but merely
as a technical person. On the other side, I think that many engineers
that created phantastic new software and built on-line tools and toys
have as much artistic credibility as artists. But since they don't
present themselves as artists, they are not taken for full, often
ignored or only appear in small print in the credits when their work
is applied by visual artists. I have been dreaming for a long time
about an exhibition that would give credit to those who have been
working in the background or were only hired to do the technical stuff
for the 'real' artists. I'm referring to people like Gideon May, Luka
Frelih and Thomax Kaulman. Talking about re-writing history...
In my personal experience, I always enjoyed the collaboration on equal
terms between artists and engineers. This was relevant in a time where
much of the technology simply wasn't available and much had to be made
from scratch. In this period new media art and net.art in particular
were not taken very seriously by most galleries and museums, but then,
we were not really bothered about this. In my recollection, it was
also about creating new spaces for art and artists, outside the formal
arts world context.
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