Hi Crumb List,
Sorry for my late entry, but here I am. I've scanned through what's
already been posted for the "Educating New Media Curators" discussion, so
I'll try not to be too redundant. As one of the invited participants, let
me say that (like some of the other invited guests) I consider myself in no
way a specialist on the topic of New Media Curating. I am an
interdisciplinary artist with a basis in experimental filmmaking and an
expanding involvement with digital technologies working in the Dept. of
Media Study at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York.
Ever since beginning my professional practice in the early 1990's in New
York, I have felt (and acted upon) the necessity of programming/curating as
part of my ongoing cultural activities (drawing, for instance, on models
offered by such folks as Craig Baldwin, who has for years made his own
films and run the Other Cinema screening series in San Francisco).
The artist/curator model speaks volumes to me and I believe that artists
must continue the DIY (do-it-yourself) practice of determining how their
own work as well as that of their peers gets disseminated, not necessarily
in negation of the work of non-artist curators, but in dialogue with it.
Innovative programming/curating is always in flux and it only makes sense
that along with the technologies artists use, curatorial practices are
always changing. This does not mean, however, that, for instance, the
programming of 16mm experimental films only has meaning in an outmoded
system. On the contrary, I believe that just like the sources of
inspiration for various artists' works in new media are eclectic and
contradictory, so should the scope of arts programming be in general.
One example would a nomadic series that I'm presenting in Buffalo, New York
called "Writers Making Film" which features experimental short 16mm films
by makers primarily known as writers or also known as writers. The first
screening was of three films by Hollis Frampton and the second, which
happened last Weds. (Oct 2), featured an in-person appearance by filmmaker
& poet Abigail Child (co-hosted by myself & Charles Bernstein, Head of the
Poetics program here). Both these makers' works are rich source materials
for digital poetics and other new media practices. While such events do
not replace exhibitions of new media, they help to construct the
possibility of a more complex language around/engagement with new media.
Caroline Koebel
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~cgkoebel/
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