> fineArt forum, the
>electronic magazine i am associated with is looking at having to scale down
>its operations for a year or so because we do not have funding and
>therefore cannot pay wages.
this is sad to hear, very familar with the publication.
>as a publication we are committed to providing
>a free news and information service (artists won't and can't pay for these
>kinds of things but we can't afford to keep working for no money) ... so we
>are between the proverbial rock and a hard place ... we won't disappear
>just yet but the very real possibility is there ...
well your priorities are certainly right by attempting to keep it
free, i think the solution in these situations is to diversify,
rhizome have started renting out server space and teaching to
subsidise themselves, highly commendable directions which will have
guaranteed returns. i hope you don't disappear and manage to find
solutions to this.
>I'm quite intrigued by this thread, as at the College Art Association 2002
>in Philadelphia I announced the net art is dead as 'Your ol' Aunt Edna'.
>This is a bit of a misnomer, as this related more to the 'life' of net art'd
>to its cooptation by institutional agendas. The 'death' of net art, or its
>so-called demise, likely alludes to the inability tof the museum to
>integrate it on any appreciable scale,
yet they will try, the latest major institution i suppose being the
Tate in London - http://www.tate.org.uk/netart/
>First of all, let me say that I do not feel that net art is 'dead' in any
>sense of the word. It is definitely out there, or I wouldn't be getting so
>damned many missives from Rhizome, Turbulence, etc. It seems that I keep
>seeng more and more and more net art. Unfortunately as a curator, I find
>less and less and less of it compelling .
as an artist i too see less and less well thought out and analytical
work, this is part of it i feel, i would rather net.art guarded the
all embracing philosophy of everyone being a net.artist from a run of
the mill 'flash artist' to people who are doing ascii only work such
as the ascii art ensemble. i feel resentful both for myself and
others at attempts such as vuk cosic's pre-emptive retirement to kill
off net.art or indeed any one persons / institutions effort to
formulise net.art into something nice and tangible it can handle and
would rather i edited and censored my own viewing of the work.
>What I witnesses afterwards was a repeating patterrn of new
>technologies/techiques that created a temporary vacuum of desire, with a
>subsequent flood of hopefuls into that area. This was the case in computer
>repair, desktop publishing, paralegals, ad infinitum. Can it be said that
>net art is the victim of the desperate art throngs for recognition, seeking
>out the 'next big thing'.
it is strange that net.art could be fitted into this categorisation
but since when has art (except for really late 2Oth century) really
offered good returns with regard to money, career prospects etc so i
don't think thats quite it, i think whats happened is that art
colleges and universities in the past ten years have produced an
excess of what classically would have been designers due to the so
called need of our consummer era and as a result a lot of these
students who found themselves without a job, those not picked up by
'creatibe review' or the 'ad&d' awards and left out in the cold felt
they needed to find an edge that might get them some employment -
what do i do? i design in flash as do a plethera of others so how do
i spice this up, i say i'm a net.artist in my spare time so i've just
added an element / suggestion of intensive research and
experimentation into new techniques and ideas!
>Another aspect I see is what I call the "prosumer effect'. This comes from
>consumer computer culture overlaying itself upon other areas of culture.
>One example is that of a show I was exhibiting a large-scale print in in
>1994, with a mother and her 9-year old viewing it, with her saying "maybe
>you can do that!". Upon askign her about her comment anonymously, she said
>that their son was good with a computer, and that he could possibly do that
>due to his proficiency with it.
but i wonder!! is'nt this good? surely thats a plus that through
net.art a kid of 9 can create works which could possibly have no
distinction from those created by an artist who has been working for
many years at his 'craft' and been patronised and hung by an
institution? this certainly is'nt a simply matter and opens a whole
can of worms on originality, concept, copyright, production, art as
unique object etc to name but a few!
>As a quick aside, it seems that from a historical perspective that
>legitimacy in art practice is built on materialism, by and large, even from
>the perspective of Fluxus.
i agree to this but feel the solution is not for artists to give in
to institution presure but rather to attempt to work with them to
find solutions to dealing with this problem, technology is moving on
and art has always reflected current culture so this path is
inevitable but also managable.
>Oh, one last thing - there is the continual background noise of
>technofetishism in regard to techniques used online. there are many who
>assert that HTML-based art is dead - I mean HTML-only work, maybe some
>animated GIF's, etc. I would disagree, but the available terrain to explore
>is well worn. Such an area of net art is a great challenge.
it is well used already but so too is painting in classical art, i
personnally feel that paint based arts are dead but hold this as a
personal view point or outlook from my work, so not necessarily true
for others, i would also hasten to add that i started as a painter
so....
>but I hope that this serves as a touchstone for some lively debate.
keep it coming, i'm hoping that these will result in generating some
interesting ideas, hopefully practical ones.
appoligies for my appaling spelling, 2am and very tired!
a+
gar
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