Hey all,

Thanks for this thread! It's really interesting to me and has caused  
me to unlurk - there will be a chapter about this sort of thing in my  
PhD thesis. Sorry for the long post, then - skip to the "The point  
is" paragraph if you don't want to be patronised about things which  
not everyone understands about programming.

First the good news: There is actually no fundamental distinction  
between programming a computer and using it - the extremes of  
flicking electronic switches and voice recognition are just poles of  
a continuum. There are some arbitrary distinctions (the compiler wall  
is one), but basically everyone writes their own 'code' - it's just a  
question of at which points you take and lose control.

However, the type of programming where you articulate to a computer  
what *you* want it to do is relatively straightforward - you could  
drag the human icon to the store icon, and click the buy milk button.  
Or you could go to the shops and get your own milk. Slightly more  
worthwhile, and further down the continuum, is programming which  
solves problems that you couldn't have done by yourself - "hey, let's  
visit all the stores in the country and find the cheapest price of  
milk".

These qualities of what I call Speed and Slavery are not themselves  
unique to computers, but computers allow you to do things which are  
more unique. For example, "let's play some music calculated from the  
price of milk" - I call this "Synaesthesia". Sometimes changing  
representation will cause you to discover things you hadn't predicted  
you'd discover - "wow, the quiet brass band means that milk is  
cheaper in the north than in the south". This is cool, because you  
can replace milk with eggs, and listen to the music to find out new  
stuff about eggs.

But there's much more, which I lazily sweep under the carpet of  
"Structure". Structure is the abstraction of computation. At a simple  
level it's realising that you can replace milk with eggs, stores with  
hens and price with number, and as a result produce music based upon  
national egg-laying statistics without rewriting your entire program.  
At a complex level, you could implement a system that reasons about  
beliefs in farming and jazz improvisation. To be able to do this, you  
would need to be a world expert in artificial intelligence, and no- 
one would understand you.

The point is this: whatever the level of complexity that you operate  
on, there are more abstract and concrete levels which you would be  
hard-pressed to understand, let alone explain to anyone else. Do I  
understand how my email program works? Well enough to use it, but I  
couldn't tell you what it puts in my processor's memory registers at  
any time. Nor could I tell you about the childhoods of its  
programmers. For me, they are not important for the experience of  
sending and receiving email. If I viewed the email program as a work  
of art, then, who knows, perhaps these things might be important.

As curators (I'm hardly one), I think it's your job to figure out  
what's important (to you, to the artist, or to the audience,  
depending) about a piece of art and to tell people about it. To wit,  
if an artist uses a deep understanding of recursion theory in a work,  
it's just as important to be aware of that as it would if the artist  
uses a deep understanding of Hegelian philosophy. But maybe the  
'audience' doesn't care about recursion theory as much as Hegelian  
philosophy. Maybe they should (the artist definitely thinks so). If  
they were 'participants', couldn't they decide for themselves? Well,  
no. There are too many levels at work all to be understood.

For me, the point of being a performer in an artwork is that you  
don't just control, you create. And to truly create, you've got to be  
able to break boundaries. Sorry to resurrect the divide, but as a  
producer of new media art, if something doesn't work the way you want  
it to, you can change it. As a consumer, if something doesn't work  
the way you want it to, you can't change it without annoying the  
producer intensely. There is, if not a dichotomy of production,  
definitely a hierarchy: "I created your creativity (see how limited  
it is)".

So, the particpants, as sub-producers, can synthesise a certain level  
of 'curatorial' meaning amongst themselves, but there are other  
levels at work that they might just need to be told about. Perhaps  
the artist can tell them all of these things, in which case there is  
no place for a curator, except as someone who makes the gallery look  
nice. But I suspect that even the artist does not know - or does not  
realise that no-one else knows - some things about the art  
(especially if they are a) dead or b) an academic, which is nearly  
the same thing), and so there's no way they could tell the audience  
everything that's important. Here's where the knowledgable curator  
becomes vital in expanding an audience's experience of art.

There is one work that I know of which specifically addresses the  
fault lines between audience, critic, and curator. Last I heard, it  
was at the concept stage, but I might be out of date. Keir Smith's  
and Penny Hagen's (see ccs) "Socialising with Strangers", which  
incorporates audience interpretation and evaluation into its content,  
making the artwork emerge its own meaning. It makes my head hurt  
though. I like curators.

Smith, K. Hagen, P. "Informing the Everyday Interface: Exploring User- 
Content Relationships in Interactive Art," Proceedings of  
Interaction: Systems, Practice and Theory, Sydney, Australia, 2004.

I have completed my unlurking. Be not divisive!

Greg

--
Greg Turner
Creativity and Cognition Studios, Sydney
www.gregturner.org

On 3 Mar 2006, at 12:04, Andrew Bucksbarg wrote:

> I am sorry, the dynamics of power that seem to pool around  
> technology makes me a little touchy.  I was just curious to know  
> what these "computational processes" actually are.  I find it  
> interesting that notions about computing (Wiener, von Neumann) come  
> from thoughts about and the modeling of biological processes and  
> human thought, cybernetics for instance.  Isn't programming just  
> articulating to the computer what you want it to do?
>
> ...go to the store to buy milk...  if it's raining, wear a rain  
> coat, otherwise take a jacket...  wait on the corner for the light  
> to turn green, if it doesn't scratch your head until it does,  
> etc... and object oriented- go to the store to by x... etc...
>
> and like you say, this is pretty comprehensible to many.
>
> I think it is important to take a tactical approach and look at  
> what people are using newer media and technologies for, because  
> artists are using these tools, even inventing or playing off of  
> their uses- communication, distribution, personal and interpersonal  
> authorship, social computing and interaction, mobility, location,  
> participation, bricolage, etc.  So I agree that there should be an  
> appreciation, a passion even, for these things to find their way to  
> the surface in curation.
>
> I really like how Rosanne portrayed her practice as facilitator or  
> mediary, which seems to make sense in terms of negotiating the very  
> specific work of an individual with an audience or institution.  In  
> my opinion, the most interesting movements in art were  
> interdisciplinary, they grew between disciplines like music, art,  
> film, theater, etc.  I think the curator of new media must move  
> beyond institutional boundaries that lay claim to and  
> compartmentalize (or departmentalize) creative practices.  This is  
> the case with the Internet and will be the case as mobile,  
> ubiquitous devices continue to develop, requiring a departure from  
> the institution?  Are curators of new media more independent,  
> tactical and collaborative between institutions, disciplines or  
> cultural formats?
>
> I don't know if there has been discussion about this on this list,  
> but I am curious to know if others think ideologies or techniques  
> of new media are antagonistic to the curation practice?  If we  
> consider some of the mythology of new media- interactivity,  
> participation, generative content, distribution, live process and  
> the fundamental blurring of the lines of consumer-producer as  
> really challenging the notions inherent in old media.  New media  
> seems to be exhausting the fixity of the boundaries of the old  
> media dichotomy of performer/spectator or author/audience, or in  
> this case curator/audience?  Can anyone speak of work that  
> encourages or develops these fault lines?
>
> Andrew
>
>
> On Mar 2, 2006, at 12:00 PM, Simon Biggs wrote:
>
>> I wasn't trying to suggest that computational processes are  
>> mysterious or
>> have any special status. Actually I was suggesting the  
>> opposite...that they
>> are technical and conceptual elements that are comprehensible to
>> non-experts, just as painting techniques are, if you are bothered  
>> to find
>> out what they are (eg: what is involved in glazing in oils or the  
>> opposite
>> approach required in tempera). Critics, curators, artists (well,  
>> painters at
>> least) and other relevant professionals are expected to know this  
>> stuff, not
>> necessarily as expert technicians but enough that they can  
>> appreciate the
>> means of production of a work and the implications of that.
>>
>> Given this it is not a great expectation to assume the new media art
>> professionals, or at least those addressing digital media, should  
>> have an
>> equivalent appreciation of digital technologies. At the heart of  
>> that are
>> "computational processes" or, if you prefer, theories of  
>> computability.
>>
>> The reason why this seems to be an issue is that conventionally  
>> critics,
>> curators and artists are not expected to be familiar with the work of
>> scientists like Turing or von Neumann, just as they would not be  
>> expected to
>> be aware of the work of the chemists at Kodak. This opens up a  
>> whole lot of
>> issues about how much you need to know to have an appropriate  
>> appreciation
>> of something. That will depend to what purpose you are applying the
>> knowledge. I know photographers who know very little about the  
>> chemistry of
>> what they do and yet they manage to make decent photo's. I also  
>> know some
>> who have made it part of their expertise to know as much as they  
>> can about
>> this and about the history and inner workings of the technology  
>> they use. In
>> most cases it seems to me that these latter photographers are at an
>> advantage and their work usually seems to benefit from that  
>> knowledge,
>> although not always. The knowledge is never enough.
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Simon
>>
>>
>> On 02.03.06 16:05, "Andrew Bucksbarg" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> What are these mysterious "computational processes"?
>>>
>>> This reminds me of a job interview (Art dept.- new media), where I
>>> was asked, "do you write your own code?"  Later, I thought I should
>>> have asked him if he builds his own computer processors, paves his
>>> own freeways, mills his own pencils and programs in machine  
>>> language.
>>>
>>> Andrew
>>>
>>> (BTW- I don't think using the term "list lurker" is a positive  
>>> method
>>> of getting others to engage.  In fact, I think it encourages a  
>>> divide
>>> between those who have agency to speak and those who are "passive"
>>> spectators.)
>>>
>>> On Mar 2, 2006, at 3:13 AM, Simon Biggs wrote:
>>>
>>>> One of the first things curators and audiences need to take on
>>>> board with a
>>>> lot of work done in the digital media domain (of course this is
>>>> only part of
>>>> the new media domain) is that quite a bit of it is either
>>>> predicated on,
>>>> takes into consideration or technically utilises computational
>>>> processes.
>>>> Comprehending how this work is made, why and to what purpose can be
>>>> difficult if one has little understanding of computation.
>>>>
>>>> So, to the list of media tropes you initially proposed (moving
>>>> image, sound,
>>>> space) you could add computation/process. The reasoning here is
>>>> similar to
>>>> that which would argue that you cannot understand and critique
>>>> painting if
>>>> you have no knowledge of its technical, historical and procedural
>>>> characteristics. You do not critique a painting as an image. You
>>>> need to
>>>> take all these other factors into consideration as well.
>>>>
>>>> This does not mean you need to know how to program a computer (or
>>>> indeed
>>>> paint a picture) but it does imply a comprehension of the  
>>>> principals
>>>> involved.
>>>>
>>>> Best
>>>>
>>>> Simon
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 02.03.06 00:04, Beryl Graham wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Many curators of new media art come from a background in video
>>>>> art.  So=20=
>>>>>
>>>>> how do curators (and the audience, and the artists) get from an=20
>>>>> understanding of video to an understanding of the different=20
>>>>> characteristics of public art, interactive images, net art,
>>>>> robotics,=20
>>>>> activism, art/science or biotechnology? How are these different to
>>>>> the=20=
>>>>>
>>>>> characteristics of video. Video curators might be expected to have
>>>>> good=20=
>>>>>
>>>>> grasp on 'time', but what else is expected for curators of new
>>>>> media? =20=
>>>>>
>>>>> Do video curators neglect 'the audio'? And how about 'space' -
>>>>> public=20
>>>>> space that is.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Simon Biggs
>>>>
>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>> http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
>>>>
>>>> Professor of Digital Art, Sheffield Hallam University
>>>> http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cs/cri/adrc/research2/
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Simon Biggs
>>
>> [log in to unmask]
>> http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
>>
>> Professor of Digital Art, Sheffield Hallam University
>> http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cs/cri/adrc/research2/