Dear list,
Thanks Sarah for a theme that seems to engage a lot of people and I feel it
is definitively a topic in the air.
I am working as curator at Mejan Labs (www.mejanlabs.se) and in the spring
we arranged a seminar on new media and art together with the Royal
University College of Fine Arts in Stockholm on new media and art, the Verge
seminar at the Modern Museum this spring (www.kkh.se/newmedia). I guess some
of you heard of it.
However, at the seminar Benjamin Weil took the chance to discussing new
media and preserving and the example of some of Paik's works. What would
happen to them when the TV-sets of Paik's installations had to be exchanged?
And even a more important question what would happen to them when a younger
generation, brought up with flat screens, would look at the Paik's
installations laughing "that were these days when he tellies were that
big"...
Bruce Sterling summarized the seminar in an article in the June issue of
Modern Painters(!) well worth reading, taking the Sabrina Raaf exhibition at
Mejan Labs as an example.
It reminds me of the Culture 2001 seminar in Copenhagen to which I was
invited as a key note speaker (together with Howard Rheingold) where I
suggested we should delete all web and net art files since I felt it was the
production that I enjoyed and the preservation only meant costs and money I
would never see. At the time I was curator of the nonTVTVstation in Sweden
and I suggested at the seminar that I would go home deleting all the files.
I didn't (stupid me) and today I have them all on tape in my attic. No one
have been asking for them and I guess it will take another twenty years
before anyone got interesting in the tapes, when they will try to make
research on streaming etc. And then they will be almost impossibly to
play...
I am not sentimental at all. Definitively I wouldn't spend a penny on
preservation if I had the choice to spend it on production. If some of my
old productions disappears I am fine with it.
I have been working within museums for more than ten years and I have
understood that sooner or later we will come into more practical and
economical discussions what will be reasonable to preserve of our heritage,
which institutions will be worth to keep etc. Collection costs a lot of
money and we should ask what is worth to preserve. Preservation and museums
is an idea of the 19th century very much and this means that late 19th
century and later is the most preserved ages. But does it mean that our age
are the most important of the humanity?
As I stated, I am not sentimental at all, still if there is any interest in
preserving any project, might it be commissions, I am fine with it as long
it isn't my money. For the institutions still trying to collect things I
would like to say: -Take a look at your collections - what story do they
tell? And what story would you like to tell? Maybe documentation is better
that preservation.
New media and public commissions is a topic for a seminar planned early 2007
arranged by Interactive Institute (where I am working part time) and also an
exhibition produced by Electrohype and Llars Midboe in Sweden in December.
Anyone interested, please mail me.
Yours,
Björn Norberg
Curator at Mejan Labs in Stockholm
-----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
Från: Curating digital art - www.crumbweb.org
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] För Sarah Cook
Skickat: den 10 juli 2006 22:46
Till: [log in to unmask]
Ämne: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] july/august 06 theme: permanence and public art
Dear list.
First of all, apologies for the delay caused by national holidays, the
World Cup, computer crashes, house moves and the like! Welcome to the
summer season and the belated launch of our discussion theme:
permanence and public art.
In his article "Public Art and Interactive Publics" (2003,
http://www.yproductions.com/writing/archives/000730.html), Steve Dietz
writes:
"The content of interactive work may be ever-new, but inevitably its
form will be obsolescent almost from the day it is installed."
Which leads us to ask, just how permanent is permanent when it comes to
public art installations which use new media technologies?
This summer's ISEA festival (less than a month away!) has a strand of
exhibitions concerning the Interactive City as well as an Interactive
Cafe, which suggests that "we are on the cusp of a world where
information processing and biotechnology has changed many, if not all,
objects around us. How does this change our everyday spaces and
everyday experiences?" While the works on view at ISEA will only be up
temporarily, one can assume that curators will be visiting and thinking
about commissioning similarly interactive projects for their cities and
public spaces, potentially on a permanent basis. Steve's questions of
three years ago are still of going concern:
"How can host organizations be made to understand and accept
maintenance as normal? Light bulbs? Of course they need to be replaced
on a regular cycle. Computers? Why aren't they "permanent"? ...
Eventually we will know that a computer in a reasonably protected
environment can last x years, an LCD screen needs to be replaced every
y months., and we'll plan accordingly. It's programming that is a
particularly gnarly issue. Leaving aside the problem of buggy code,
what happens when the information architecture changes? Who is
responsible for making the necessary adaptations?"
So this month we're looking for your thoughts on making public art
experiences lasting, and your experience in being commissioned or
commissioning work, and how it has affected your practice, your sense
of public spaces and your idea of permanence in art.
This month's respondents include:
Sheldon Brown is Director of the Center for Research in Computing and
the Arts (CRCA) at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD)
where he is a Professor of Visual Arts and the head of New Media Arts
for the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information
Technologies (Cal-(IT)2). His work examines the relationships between
mediated and physical experiences. This work often exists across a
range of public realms. As an artist, he is concerned about overlapping
and reconfiguring private and public spaces; how new forms of mediation
are proliferating co-existing public realms whose geographies and
social organizations become ever more diverse.
Matt, Susan and Rob Gorbet enhance people's experience of public spaces
through the creative application of technology. With innovative
physical interactions, their design practice and public artworks add
surprise and delight to spaces like retail stores, hotels, airports and
museums. Their interactive marquee 'P2P: Power to the People' will be
shown at ZeroOne San Jose in August. Rob is an artist and professor of
electrical engineering at the University of Waterloo, and a Director of
the Contemporary Art Forum, Kitchener and Area (CAFKA). Matt and Susan
are cofounders of Gorbet Design, Inc. and are also currently working
with the City of San Jose and SJC as the 'Airport Art Activation Team'
(along with partner Banny Banerjee) for the new San Jose airport
buildings. They are creating an infrastructure to support a rotating
program of Art & Technology in the airport. More at
http://www.gorbetdesign.com and
http://www.gorbetbanerjee.com/artactivation.
Jon Thomson & Alison Craighead are artists based in London who have
recently completed a permanent commission for a Sainsbury's grocery
store window in South East London (Decorative Newsfeeds /
http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/decnewsffh.html). They will also
be showing two installations at ISEA 2006; Unprepared Piano
(http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/pianof.html) and a new work
called, 'Light from Tomorrow' (http://www.lightfromtomorrow.com). Jon
is a lecturer at the Slade School of Fine Art and Alison is a senior
researcher at University of Westminster.
Ben Rubin (who will join the discussion in August) is a media artist
based in New York City, and his permanent project for the ADOBE
building in San Jose will be on view at ISEA. Ben's exhibitions include
shows at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the MIT List Visual Arts
Center, and the Skirball Center in Los Angeles (in a show organized by
the Getty Museum). He has been a frequent collaborator with artists and
perfomers including Laurie Anderson, Diller+Scofidio (on Jump Cuts,
which also took place in San Jose), Ann Hamilton, Arto Lindsay, Steve
Reich, and Beryl Korot. Rubin's Listening Post (2002, with statistician
Mark Hansen) won the 2004 Golden Nica Prize from Ars Electronica. Ben
received a B.A. from Brown University in 1987 and an M.S. in visual
studies from the MIT Media Lab in 1989. He teaches at the Yale School
of Art, where he was appointed critic in graphic design in 2004.
Barbara Goldstein is the director of public art in San Jose and also
was the public art director in Seattle for the Library and many other
projects.
and hopefully others still to be confirmed!
Please chime in with your experiences and your thoughts.
Sarah
----
Sarah Cook
School of Arts, Design, Media and Culture, University of Sunderland
CRUMB web resource for new media art curators
http://www.crumbweb.org
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