Dear Crumbers

Here are few jet-legged observations after Banff conference.

One of the ongoing subjects off-and-on the panels was questioning the 
terminology and naming of the 'discipline' itself: Media Art, Science 
and Technology / new media / New Media and so on. I guess it happened 
because of the nature of the historical approach stated within the 
title of the conference. Johannes Goebel at his presentation pointed 
out using of the both capital letters within German historic context 
when Neue Musik written like this becomes signification of an dogmatic 
canon. Other overall ongoing subject was: to create a new canon for 
'New media art' or not. Some think that without a canon one can't get 
the history.

Timothy Druckrey openly questioned the notion that is the 'first 
international conference ..' as he was part of many 'first conferences 
on history' over last ten or twenty years.

So, seems that our field have a big identity problem with its name, 
origins and history.

Let's get back to the naming. There was endless discussion on the 'new 
media' terminology at various mailing lists over last ten years or so. 
By the way, my impression that at least one third of the presenters at 
the Refresh are not part of any mailing-list culture / network, but 
preferring thick books for their updates. Maybe this indicate different 
approaches to histories and canons as well, maybe not.

Andreas nicely wrote in his last mail on the term, I can't agree more.

> i get the feeling that the use of the term 'new media' mostly 
> signifies a laziness in thinking. the term is just too broad.

Interesting enough, Andreas and Gunalan Nadarajan negotiate that 'part 
of the deal' with organizing next Refresh in Berlin 2007 is change of 
its [sub] title. Congratulations!

As writer and editor of  'media art' part for culturenet.hr - 
government -based web portal of Croatian culture [presenting as well 
theatre, architecture, dance, fine art, film etc] I faced necessity and 
absurdity to define what is media art and fulfill [commissioned!] 
'sub-classification of the field'.  Thematic block 'Media Art in 
Croatia' [2002] was first survey and attempt at defining the term Media 
art in Croatia in its historical context and setting up a relevant 
database. Content: A brief overview of media art in Croatia (since 
1960s) . Institutions, events, databases . Publications [magazines, TV, 
books, mailing lists and on-line texts; Bibliography of the Croatian 
video art] .

http://www.culturenet.hr/v1/english/panorama.asp?id=39

In introduction I suppose to made an 'media art for dummies' approach 
for general public. Following are the quotes from the intro text and 
long footnote on 'sub-classification of the field':

... During the transition from the industrial age to the information 
society - since the mid-20th century - a segment of the arts has also 
been related to information, especially that digitally generated and 
mediated. Talking about media art, one is faced with the insoluble 
question of terminology and categorization. The question as to what 
media art is is (im)possible to answer just as is the question of what 
art is. It is necessary to emphasize that the term itself is subject to 
a relatively quick redefinition in the context of a given time. Today, 
media art can also be termed art of new technologies or new media art. 
In the past thirty years the following general terms have been used: 
multimedia, electronic art, extended media, etc. (more about the terms 
and subcategorization).

We will discuss here media art that is critical of the media, with the 
emphasis on the art practice making use of (tele)communication and 
electronic media from the 1960s onwards. ... Since the 1990s, media art 
has been viewed within the context of media culture: an open area of 
practice and critical theory treading the fine line between conceptual 
art, social and political activism, and technology.

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More on terms and the sub-classification of fields

'Although the artists of my generation who reject the notion of "media 
art" cannot offer a better term, they instead deal with new media and 
new technologies in calmer and more relaxed ways. For them, new media 
are a 'natural' part of the world; media constitute an integral part of 
their world view. The world as they know it is inconceivable without 
media. Media technologies are not being assigned a utopian potential 
anymore.'
[Inke Arns, 1998].

The term ‘new media art’ will not be used here because technologies are 
new when they are being used by the military who, for the most part, 
also finances their development, but when these technologies show up in 
the domain of art and culture, they are no longer new.

Some authors claim that in the end all visual art is media art, or 
mediated by technology (canvas, paint and the like) and that the 
examples of ‘pure’ media art can be traced back to the Middle Ages 
when, for example, the newest technological tools in the service of 
architecture and art or used by authors like Kürchner or Da Vinci, were 
used in the construction of medieval cathedrals.

There followed an attempt at categorization of art that was multimedia 
and interdisciplinary by nature and linked to the development of 
technology. That led to a repeated change in the understanding of the 
term. Substantial changes for the development of the discipline have so 
far happened every decade but the rhythm sped up in the last few years. 
As illustration, we should mention the change in the set categories at 
the Ars Electronica festival (e.g. cancellation of digital graphics) 
and the withdrawal of video art from a number of media art festivals 
since the 1990s.

- lumino-kinetic art, lasers and holography
- 2-D: digital photography, computer graphics
- moving pictures (experimental film, video art, computer movie, 
computer animation, moving pictures on the Internet)
- sound art (as part of conceptual art)
- electronic music, digital music, soundscape
- art hardware and art software
- 3-D: virtual environments and architecture (VR, 3-D modeling, VRML 
and so on)
- stage art – technology and body, robotics, performance
- text-oriented work (hyper textual literature, e-mail art, spam art, 
ASCII art)
- communication art (mail art, fax art, TV, radio, satellites, etc; 
internet art: streaming media, net.art, network art, etc.)
- tactical media (media hybrids, low-tech media)
- media art and organic world (nature)
- media art and society (activist art, network art, tactical media)
- social and esthetic implications of media art (cultural theory, media 
theory)

- new forms of media art: database art, generative art, artificial 
intelligence, artificial life, artificial selection, digitally 
generated nature, system theories, genetic algorithms, neutral 
networks, feedback networks, mathematical and generative modeling, 
rules systems, etc  ...

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With kind regards

Darko Fritz

http://darkofritz.net