Hi Everyone,
I've been following this thread with great interest as many of these themes
have surfaced (re-surfaced) in discussions in and around node london.
I think Kate has made some very good points about the material processes
around new media production and how they might operate in an extended sense
as "models" for other kinds of practice, i.e. social, economic and
curatorial etc.
At the node london "creative software event" last week at the Dana centre we
showed a project that visualises weather cyclones and had to defend it,
because the underlying coding didn't implement a full scale simulation of
electrostatic weather formations.
It disappointed me because it shifted attention away from the discussion of
social relations that the work was attempting to excavate, to issues around
the engineering of such work.
I'm personally opposed to the kind of code fetishism proposed by Florian
Cramer for example, as it represents an extreme reductive tendency by which
media art disappears up its own fundament. However that being said, I also
agree that formal
explorations of new media(ums) do produce interesting bodies of knowledge
that may not be explicitly social or political in
meaning, but perhaps are so implicitly, as they operate to extend
technologies beyond instrumental usage. How this exploration
builds outwards to penetrate , weave through and connect social and
material processes is, I suggest the way forward here.
best wishes
Tom Corby
Hi Myron,
I found your comments really interesting, thank you.
I do agree very much with your point 'that the material conditions of a work
of art--which includes its technologies--are an important part of its
meaning'. I think that perhaps I have a subtle, but different take on your
points regarding 'formal explorations being significant in themselves'.
I'm not suggesting that we need 'explicit subjective or social or political
meanings',
I'm suggesting that code, databases, protocols, are not neutral. The tools
and the medium of new media art are not neutral. I'm not just talking
about proprietorial software, but suggesting that there is an already
existing logic that is manifest in the smallest line of code to the most
extravagent system. If, as you suggest 'often formal explorations can be
significant enough in themselves', I would argue that this 'logic' and its
far-reaching dominance- should be considered alongside other formal
elements.
I'm particularly interested in making work that acknowledges this logic, and
at the same time attempts to understand and articulate supplementary logics
that value very different sets of relations.
kindest regards
Kate
Myron-----Original Message-----
From: Curating digital art - www.newmedia.sunderland.ac.uk/crumb/ on behalf
of Myron Turner
Sent: Tue 3/28/2006 8:19 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc:
Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] a comment on artistic and curatorial
practice
Hi,
Unfortunately, I can't take credit for the quote which Kate attributes
to me--it's from an essay by Manovich. As I said in my post, I do
sympathize with its view. However, I am enough of a formalist to
believe that the material conditions of a work of art--which includes
its technologies--are an important part of its meaning.
You find a work in the sand you say, "ah, how beautiful. I wonder
whether the ancient artist carved it himself or just gave his carvers
the blue-print." It's a question we can't answer, and that answer is
part of the work's lost meaning. We know that pre-modern Japanese
prints were communal efforts, and it's only forcing on them a Romantic
view of individual genius to identify them solely with the artist who
designed the print, because many of the elements we admire may reflect
the skill of carver and printer.
But I think we should take this further. Often formal explorations can
be significant enough in themselves, as in the case of Jodi--we don't
need explicit subjective or social or political meanings, although the
formal conditions may have such implications. Manovich makes a good
point, but we also have to consider that net art is part of a
technological culture that, while no longer new, is so characterized by
change and new-ness that curators have to remain open to formal
explorations. I'd be unhappy to see a kind of drawing back from the
exciting adventure that, at least for me, the Internet has been and
continues to be.
Myron
Kate Southworth wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'd like to respond to a number of points that have been raised
> regarding the rise of the artist-curator, the artist in relation to the
> programmer, and the challenge of 'data art'.
>
> Robert Labossiere's suggests that one of the reasons 'why
> programmers might be priviledged over artists [...] is [...] nostalgia for
> the idea of a connection between artist and medium ...pushing pixels
> the way artists used to push paint'.
>
> I think this is a really interesting point. And perhaps its not only a
> nostalgia for a connection between artist and medium, but nostalgia
> for notions of creativity that promote the myth of individual (usually)
> male genius.
>
> Jon Thomson suggested in response to the another part of Robert's
> post that perhaps
>
>>> 'the rise of the Artist-Curator is in part a consequence of (in this
>>> instance) [Robert's] suggestion >that, "'the programmer,' compared
>>> to 'the artist,' is a kind of anti >hero.." and that artists, "perform
>>> more
>>> and more like designers and project managers."
>>>
>
> So, if artists are 'performing more like designers and project
> managers, and programmers are fulfilling our dreams of what it
> means to be creative, where is our understanding of 'art' in all this?
>
> Are 'artists' producing 'artworks' any more? Are curators curating
> artworks anymore? Does it matter anymore?
>
> To me, it matters enormously - but what I value in (some)'artwork' isn't
> really its use of technology, or demonstration of programming
> prowess (interesting as these undoubtedly are). What I value in
> (some)'artwork' is its potential to inspire intimate connections of raw
> humanness between people: its potential to exist in spaces and time
> supplementary to the dominant logic.
>
> I think that the rise of the Artist-Curator is , in part, an attempt to
> craft
> such spaces, frameworks, communities or networks.
>
> Myron Turner's suggests that:
>
>
>> For me, the real challenge of data art is not about how to map
>> some abstract and impersonal data into something meaningful and
>> beautiful--economists, graphic designers, and scientists are already
>> doing this quite well. The more interesting and at the end maybe
>> more important challenge is how to represent the personal
>> subjective experience of a person living in a data society".
>>
>
>
--
_____________________
Myron Turner
http://www.room535.org
http://www.room535.org/woodblocks
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