>>> Is curating mobile media like catching in still photography the
>>> moment
>>> the horse's feet leave the air?
Well, that's an interesting question, isn't it? Assuming that there's a
horse in motion, and that it can somehow be captured?
In contrast with my (re)distributions show and the upcoming mo/Pho show
(mobile Photography), the approaches are quite different.
As a frameing gensture to talking about curating locative media, I'll
admit that it is challenging and represents something that challenges
site (even beyond the screen, which can be as non-gallery as it gets) as
well as objectification, materialism, and so on. So what I have found
is that I had to embrace a certain amount of fluidity in my
siginification between the representation of the work and the potential
od experiencing the work itself, from a developmental, experiential, etc
perspective. With locative media, as well as many other new media, I
have personally decided to take the chance of formalist concerns
possibly slipping, reconfiguring, or totally evaporating. If your media
and platform are in motion, why not your signifiers?
In fact, for the redist show, (http://www.voyd.com/ia) my active
curation period spanned over seven months. This was due to the fact
that so many artists working with PDAs and mobiles were in the
development stages, so I allowed anything from people coming on 4-5
months after the beginning/opening of the show and the 'closing' of what
I called the 'active cycle' of the show.
What I likened it to was my metaphor that I was taught that allowed me
to grasp the idea of the event, and that's the idea of throwing
half-congrealed gelatine against the wall and documenting its trace. Of
course, it's in motion, and if you try to nail it in place, it's obvious
that it's a problematic process. However, when you're done, you will
have a trace (trail of gelatine) and a series of nails (records of
events) that construct an epistemic arc, and perhaps this is my model,
more or less.
I think that for platforms and media that are constantly in motion, it's
next to impossible to 'capture' them, to use the original Muybridge
example. I'm not sure how to extend the metaphor to the next step;
perhaps this is so in that things will have developed that the horse
will have morphed into a bluebird dancing a jig? However, you have a
series of context-specific images of the thing as a horse running, and I
think that's of use.
My metaphors are quite incomplete, but it's safe to say that although
the subject is always in motion, the record is still of use, whether it
constitutes a discursive site, trace, space or continuum.
Patrick Lichty
Editor-In-Chief
Intelligent Agent Magazine
http://www.intelligentagent.com
355 Seyburn Dr.
Baton Rouge, LA 70808
"It is better to die on your feet
than to live on your knees."
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