Let the lurkers jump in before the respondents even have a chance...

I want to reflect on the relationship between 
commerce and art and commerce and theory implied 
by Myron Turner's comments and stated outright by 
Patrick Lichty. In the end I'll make a plea for 
sensual pleasure and direct experience that may 
let my optimism shine through the blatant lacunae 
in my theory. Whether that will shed light on the 
issues I can't say.

Myron cites the "life-jackets of texts" that 
surround the work. I offer as anecdotal evidence 
of this phenomenon any number of youthful 
sample-artists/VJs/DJs who are savvy enough to 
adopt the lingo of theoretical discourse to 
describe, a posteriori, the premises of their 
work. With these subtle codes they can navigate 
not only the club scene, but the gallery scene, 
the conference scene, and the parties that glue 
them all together. Patrick seems to suggest that 
Murakami, in a far more sophisticated and 
conscious way, is floating anime kitsch into the 
halls of high art (helium helps). He also 
mentions Mr. Andy Warhol, that "enchanting 
vampire-magician" (said Carolee Schneemann).

Parallels can be drawn between Pop and current 
appropriation/sampling art. Pop had less of a 
theoretical burden (frankly, it was more fun), 
but it did carry some baggage--from the carryalls 
tethered to M. Duchamp's bravura gestures to 
ponderous portmanteaus of commodity fetishism. 
Pop could be construed as blasting consumerism or 
skewering high art, though it rarely did both at 
the same time. By and large, the  Americans 
skewered and the British blasted--perhaps James 
Rosenquist's "F-111" manages both. Whatever the 
readings beneath the surface, in Pop there was a 
blatant, noisy energy to the imagery which, I 
contend, foregrounded the experience and let the 
theory seep in later.

Without indulging in pointless nostalgia, I would 
like to express a desire for a process of 
presenting art that does not require it be 
heralded by the appropriate theoretical codes, 
that opens us to experience first and 
explanations afterward. Like Alice, I would 
rather eat than be introduced to my food, 
especially when one rules out the other.

I am primarily a practicing artist. To whatever 
modest extent I am a curator, it's out of regard 
for the processes that bring art to people's 
attention. Writing theory is a matter of 
self-defense. I am well acquainted with arguments 
over the impossibility of unmediated perception, 
etcetera. I don't plan to fall into that trap. 
Rather, it appears to me that the frames within 
which we interpret new media art have been mostly 
connected to film rather than to music. We 
privilege media that bear semantic content over 
those that hook into the nervous system more 
directly.

In a recent conversation, a pioneer of computer art who was just back from
Ars Electronica expressed the glum evaluation 
that "art doesn't mean the same thing to these 
people that it does to me." I took him to mean 
that a sense of the marvelous seemed to be 
lacking in much of the work he had seen. We could 
argue about the viability of art as utopian 
vision, but I could see his point. Marvels must 
arrive before exegeses.

But that is really the lesser point I want to 
make--and I guess I am nostalgic for marvels, 
that I make it first. Maybe if I went clubbing, 
I'd be more sanguine--down there where the beat 
precedes the theory, all is luxe, calme et 
volupté.

The other point is this: in putting the taxonomic 
carte before the living horse, we've inverted 
praxis. It's one thing to provide the museum-goer 
with discreet little placards, and another to 
propose that the placard must antedate the work. 
Weaving Carolee Schneemann's work back into this 
conversation, I can point to at least one artist 
with a wealth of theoretical knowledge who 
nevertheless says she starts with a compelling 
image--not a compelling theory.

So much work is presented as a satisfying 
exemplum of one theory or another, that I believe 
artists are not just tempted but economically 
compelled to select a theory first and then 
produce work to fit it. It's called "surfing just 
ahead of the curve," and gallerists looking for 
the next hot thing admire it to hell. The 
theoretical placard is not just an afterthought, 
but the very emblem of value. God bless the child 
who has his own.

Lest I paint myself as a total curmudgeon, let me 
exit with a flash of optimism--and possibly even 
stick to the subject at hand. To paraphrase Geert 
Lovink, "Hybridity is not a choice, but the 
condition of survival." New media continually 
breeds hybrids. Resistant versions of the truth 
work in the interstices, wedge themselves into 
the cracks in the media wall. Fissures open in 
institutions and small pleasures erupt when least 
expected.

As networks become more densely intertwingled, 
perhaps what emerges is not a new consciousness 
bootstrapping itself into existence 
(technoshamanism), but new forms of social 
organization. Out of resistant media practices, 
we can develop new ways of making decisions about 
our lives. If we skip the hype and mysticism 
about world-wide networks, we may even have cause 
for optimism. Resistance to arbitrary power 
requires occasional bouts of it.

Some new media practices may fall into the realm 
of engineering and design, but others will point 
to states of mind for which we are struggling to 
find words, for which our theory is necessarily 
inadequate. As an artist, I find those the most 
interesting ones. I look for not for works about 
experience but works that constitute experience. 
Paradoxically, those are the ones that really 
make me think.

Because there are gaps between institutional 
practices and art making, between design and 
commerce, between experience and explanation, we 
are in a period when no one school holds 
dominion. If I complain about hypertheorized art, 
it's so I won't get started on the myriad defects 
of hyperdecorative art that fills other venues. 
But this is good! There seems to be some room to 
slip a root in.

-- Paul

>November Theme of the Month: Commerce or Art?
>
>Curators may be familiar with the ways in which new media art often
>slips between the artform departments of museums, and art funding
>bodies. Can it also, however, slip down the gap between art and design,
>or between commerce and art?
>
>When is a commercial digital film production become an experimental
>artwork worthy of arts funding?  Do these works fit in the visual arts
>or in club culture?  What does web site design have to do with VJing,
>apart from the digital technology involved?  Is animation forever
>haunted by the corporate spinning logo?


--
Paul Hertz <[log in to unmask]> 
|(*,+,#,=)(#,=,*,+)(=,#,+,*)(+,*,=,#)|
      Co-Director, Center for Art and Technology, Northwestern University
                   <http://www.cat.northwestern.edu/>