Just a quick point - and one addressed to Joasia too on the double
review Mute ran of Curating Immateriality and Art & Its Institutions by
Jonathan Harris. The question you end on Beryl is exactly what I was
aiming at when commissioning Jonathan Harris to write this review. In
other words, I wanted him to read the approach of 'progressive
institutions' or new institutions and the general reconfiguration of art
institutions in the age of globalisation in relation to the discourses
of media theory, digital collaboration and networked aesthetics. I find
it quite interesting how institutions such as MACBA and Rooseum
apparently embrace the fruits of these media (e.g. producing their own
newspapers using DTP, extending audience participation through
interactive media, websites etc.) and yet never seem to acknowledge the
overlaps and borrowings from the art-external world of media. I'm afraid
to say that much as I enjoyed some of Harris' points, he didn't seem to
do the bridging work I'd hoped for. Once again demonstrating many
people's readiness to use the media technologies, make nokia art on the
weekend etc., but consider themselves unable to engage in formal
discussions about it. The continued operativeness of discursive borders
I guess.
Yrs,
Josie
Beryl Graham wrote:
> Dear List,
>
> I've just managed to get hold of a new book edited by Claire Bishop
> (author of several articles disagreeing with Bourriaud's 'relational
> aesthetics' on broadly political grounds, that they do not allow space
> for conflict). The book is a good resource - ranging from The Death of
> the Author via performance to the ubiquitous Hans Ulrich Obrist, and
> including an interesting “Report on a day’s proceedings at the Bureau
> for Direct Democracy // 1972.” from Joseph Beuys. However, new media
> participatory systems are referred to very briefly only twice: Once in
> the introduction to dismiss "... so-called ‘interactive’ art"; Once in
> the last chapter by Hal Foster, to comment that "... many artists and
> curators fall for the Internet rhetoric of ‘interactivity’, though the
> means applied to this end are usually far more funky and face-to-face
> than any chat room on the Web.” p. 193
>
> The pattern emerging from several books from a background in visual arts
> is that definitions of the differences between interaction,
> participation and collaboration are largely missing, that histories of
> open systems and open source are not referred to, and that above all,
> examples of new media art are simply not present: when authors compare
> non-media art participation to new media, they don't compare it to any
> participatory new media art, they compare it to unspecified non-art
> forms, such as 'chat-rooms' or Bourriaud's dismissal of "Nokia-art".
>
> Some other books have been slightly better at including a full range of
> contemporary art, for example the inclusion of Cuauhtemoc Medina's short
> chapter on “Mejor Vida Corp." in Doherty's 2004 book, or Grant Kester's
> 2004 Conversation pieces.
>
> So, my question to the List is that surely, somewhere, there must be an
> example where the brouhaha about 'relational art' addresses useful
> critical art overviews to the full range of contemporary art?
>
> Yours
>
> Beryl
>
>
> REFs:
>
> Bishop, Claire (ed.) (2006) Participation (Documents of Contemporary
> Art). Cambridge/London: MIT Press/Whitechapel.
>
> Doherty, Claire (ed.) (2004) From Studio to Situation. London: Black Dog.
>
> Kester, Grant (2004) Conversation Pieces. Berkeley: University of
> California Press.
>
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Beryl Graham, Professor of New Media Art
> School of Arts, Design, Media and Culture, University of Sunderland
> Ashburne House,
> Ryhope Road
> Sunderland
> SR2 7EE
> Tel: +44 191 515 2896 [log in to unmask]
>
> CRUMB web resource for new media art curators
> http://www.crumbweb.org
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Beryl Graham, Professor of New Media Art
> School of Arts, Design, Media and Culture, University of Sunderland
> Ashburne House,
> Ryhope Road
> Sunderland
> SR2 7EE
> Tel: +44 191 515 2896 [log in to unmask]
>
> CRUMB web resource for new media art curators
> http://www.crumbweb.org
> !DSPAM:45d1c4c4843151610688996!
>
>
>
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