Hi Chris & all,
I think yourself & Chris have put forward some fair and eluminating
points regarding Mark Tribe's book. I was involved in quite a heated
discussion a little while back regarding the 'New media art ' book on
Rhizome, and it is reassuring that some other people do have critical
and legitimate questions about its cultural and historical context as
well as myself.
I will not go into the fine details of what was discussed (phew-everyone
says), but if anyone is interested in viewing some collected texts that
were discussed at that time, I have saved a copy of it all on the
furtherfield blog - http://blog.furtherfield.org/?q=node/14
wishing everyone well.
marc
> I haven't seen the book, but no doubt it is coming to an art bookshop
> near me soon.
>
> Vuk is characteristically polite, charming and yet offers a precise
> critique of the book's premise. New media art as a category is beset
> with many issues, some of which have quite rightly been exhaustively
> discussed on this list over the years.
>
> I don't intend a point by point rebuttal - it would be unfair on a
> book I haven't read and ultimately unrewarding. In short, new media
> art cannot realistically be described as an avant-garde movement as
> the term has commonly been understood in art history or media theory.
> Net.art, according to Mark's own criteria of "self-definition" and "a
> common set of artistic strategies and concerns", could be claimed as
> an avant-garde. However the remaining criteria form a rather shaky
> foundation for the thesis: applying these, one might equally state
> that printmaking, artists' books, or sculpture are avant-garde
> "movements". The focus on a single decade starting in 1994 is
> somewhat strange, historicising a term which clearly still has some
> currency.
>
> Doubtless there is some interesting work featured, which probably
> deserves attention. As a contribution to widening the discussion,
> this book can be welcomed. However, as Vuk has succinctly pointed
> out, the title of the book is problematic and inaccurate. I would add
> that the thesis, in as far as it is outlined by Mark in the
> interview, is problematic and inaccurate too. It's all rather too
> neatly tied into an over-simplification of a term which encompasses a
> wide range of different practices and approaches. As a marketing hook
> for a publication which is widely distributed, translated and
> presumably read, the tag 'avant-garde' has the right blend of
> contentiousness and radical credibility to prove an effective sales
> booster. That doesn't mean we should necessarily use the tag 'avant-
> garde' to describe new media art.
>
> Chris
>
>
> On 2 Nov 2006, at 08:42, Vuk Ćosić wrote:
>
>> Simple statements about interview and reply:
>>
>> - Net.artists refused New Media label because it was inaccurate and
>> taken.
>> Also, we wanted one that would not come from outside (from
>> Apollinaire or
>> such).
>> The book title prevents Taschen from publishing a volume about our
>> precursors (that we knew too little about).
>>
>> - Avant-garde was how I perceived my duty as net.artist but this was
>> my own
>> take.
>> From talks with jodi, heath and alexei I *knew* they pretty much
>> felt the
>> same but our work didn't necessarily reflect that.
>> You had to read the interviews and posts like this to get an idea.
>> The book dominantly shows aesthetics and fairly little context (in
>> my view,
>> ok).
>>
>> - Several NYC galleries are now selling works displayed in the
>> Taschen book.
>>
>> This means that it's good to be in it.
>> It does not mean that the book promotes all of new media with curators,
>> collectors or other non-specialists.
>>
>> - I liked the book very much.
>> It is following me wherever I go: there was a Spanish edition in
>> Barcelona
>> in July, a German in Vienna two weeks ago and an Italian one
>> yesterday in
>> Venice. This is good and I see that there's also a French and a
>> Hungarian
>> edition.
>> This book should be slapped together with the ones by Julian and by
>> Rachel.
>>
>> Thanks Mark and Reena (hi Reena, we never met)
>>
>> with respect
>> Vuk
>>
>>
>> On 10/30/06, roger malina <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>> From: roger malina <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Date: Oct 30, 2006 6:04 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] The Last Avant-garde. Interview with
>>> Mark
>>> Tribe & Reena Jana
>>> To: dom/ <[log in to unmask]>
>>>
>>> a response to the interview with Tribe/Jana
>>>
>>> I am actually quite comfortable with the distinction
>>> in emphasis between the computer artists and new media
>>> artists as described below by Tribe, as far as their different
>>> positioning with respect to media culture ( and indeed their
>>> relationship to the internet bubble)
>>>
>>> although as he says there
>>> are artists that follow on smoothly between the boundaries=
>>> but i am not at all convinced of the claim that almost all new media
>>> artists "almost always takes a
>>> critical position in relation to media culture and media
>>> technologies"=
>>> i see a great deal of new media art thats quite happily poetical and
>>> uncritical
>>> ( eg Listening Post ?)
>>>
>>> I havent read their book yet, but I am also struck by the fact that
>>> much of the current work in locative media, serious games, and
>>> other art/
>>> tech that grows out of other technologies=eg bio art= are really not
>>> in continuity with New Media art approaches
>>>
>>> the call for papers for "re:place' "the conference on the histories
>>> of new media arts, sciences and technologies" just came out and the
>>> term "new media" already seems
>>> anachronistic in its use of new media as a global term rather than
>>> a specific period/ or mouvement if you buy Tribe/Jana's argument
>>>
>>> roger malina
>>>
>>> """""
>>> Although Computer art and New Media art, to the
>>> extent that they can be distinguished from each other, shared a
>>> similar
>>> set of enabling technologies, and many old-school Computer artists
>>> from
>>> the Siggraph/Leonardo/ISEA scene joined the New Media art bandwagon in
>>> the '90s, the two are crucially and fundamentally different in their
>>> relationship to media culture. Of course I'm generalizing broadly
>>> here,
>>> and there are lots of exceptions, but most Computer art was not as
>>> concerned with media culture as it was with information
>>> technologies and
>>> their cultural applications, whereas New Media art almost always
>>> takes a
>>> critical position in relation to media culture and media
>>> technologies.end
>>> """"
>>>
>>> On 10/30/06, dom/ < [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > *THE LAST AVANT-GARDE*
>>> >
>>> > Rough version of an interview with Mark Tribe & Reena Jana,
>>> authors of
>>> > NEW MEDIA ART (Taschen, Köln 2006). A shorter version has been
>>> published
>>> > in "Flash Art Italia", Issue 260, October – November 2006, p. 73.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>
>
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