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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