Hi CRUMB list readers

It's Monday (and Labour Day in North America, so a holiday but the  
official marking of the back-to-school season), and for the purposes  
of those just joining up to this discussion, here is my rough and  
ready re-cap of some of the points so far.

Apologies for lousy punctuation and the subjective sound-bite-style  
editing of what continues to be a rich and varied discussion:

The discussion started with Charlie Gere quoting Michael Fried on the  
question of presentness in the work of art, making reference to ideas  
of "the perpeptual creation of itself", or inexhaustability and of  
endlessness as 'presentiment of infinite duration'. he suggested that  
time-based is determined by time of spectatorship.

Sally Jane Norman replied that she remains very un-easy with this  
distinction between "atemporal object-based" versus "temporal time- 
based" arts, something which kept coming up all week.

Josephine Bosma's question for a definition of time-based arts  
pointed to one which said that time-based arts are "art works that  
are sequenced through time, that change as we view them, and that may  
be ephemeral." She added that for her it is "not just about viewing  
time, but also very much about running time. ... If it were just  
about viewing time, every artwork would be time based."

Charlie agreed in response and asked if the potentially infinite time- 
based art work is as much of a means of denying death as an object  
(which continued a subthread in the discussion about theatre and  
death, and repetition, to put it glibly).

Johannes Birringer's insight was that "it seems it would be  
interesting to assume that in Chicago in the 80s and 90s, before the  
museum or the art world had to deal with "real time" and interactive  
art" , the time based arts were happening (taught and developed,  
curated)  in the School as compositional experiments with  
durational... forms, or microforms ... and architectural installation  
forms..."
He then brought in the question of the audience as inter-actor, and  
as contingency for the definition of the work as time-based.

Michael Connor pointed out it isn't so much a line between the object  
and non-object (i.e. video projection?) but between object and  
system, and whether that system is open or closed to interaction/ 
participation. This seems crucial for ongoing discussions about how  
to exhibit process-based art.

In the 'definition' discussion that followed the term 'event-based'  
was proffered.

Curt Cloninger indicated, based on his experience as an artist, that  
"The medium itself doesn't have to be "generative" (random seed  
software, aleatoric instructions) in order for it to create an  
"emergent" experience. A "static" object can create an emergent  
experience. Indeed, all objects (art or otherwise) are always already  
doing this."

Roger Malina brought us back to the question facing curators by  
reminding that "unfortunately there are purely structual (see network  
theory) realities that make institutions in general resistant to  
change, and the larger the institution the longer the time constants..."

Simon Biggs posited that "If museums, and the artworld they occupy,  
are going to change they will not do so out of their own actions. If  
they change it will be because of some form of irresistable alternate  
model emerging."

Neal White came back to the idea of the 'event structure' (something  
Beryl and I have been writing about in relation to curatorial models  
of exhibition/presentation of new media art), something I hope we can  
pick up on again in this discussion.

Armin Medosch reminded us again that the key difficulty in engaging  
in discussions like this (and indeed that we had in structuring this  
conference) is that it is "somehow pardoxical to stress the  
difference [between art and new media art] and then complain about  
not being understood or overlooked." He stressed the importance of  
"understanding media art ... in its historic specificity." We really  
hope we can do this throughout this discussion, and welcome your  
comments on historically context-specific curating of art.

Rosanne Altstatt picked up on this too, that our 'straw man'  
distinction of pitting video on one side and the internet on the  
other is problematic to start with. Her comment, which i loved, is  
that "a work which is social by nature (as is Internet,  
interactivity, social systems etc) can benefit greatly from a certain  
sociability in its curatorial presentation." I want to hear more  
about strategies for this.

and lastly Barbara London usefully noted from her experience that,  
"Some art takes ages to work through a museum bureaucracy. But some  
makes it in very fast" - suggesting a medium-irrelevance, perhaps?

I'm sure a dozen more posts have been written in the time I've been  
offline drawing up this recap, so let's just continue, with these  
embedded hints of the directions I'm hoping the discussion might take!

Thanks
Sarah