Within art college contexts time based arts usually referred to all those
artforms that were not drawing, painting, printing or sculpture. Thus it
included video, film, performance, hypermedia, digital media, durational
objects (eg: Spiral Jetty), animation, interactive art, much of
installation, etc. Few time based arts departments exist any longer. During
the 1990šs the divisions between artforms generally blurred to the point
that they were no longer useful and more often than not created problems,
both practical (eg: painting students wanting to access video kit were not
allowed to as it belonged to a different department) and conceptual (what
about hyrbid practices?). Many colleges, especially smaller ones, got rid of
all departmental distinctions and instituted general visual arts programmes.
Of course this is still rather limiting (eg: what about electronic
literature?).
Best
Simon
Simon Biggs
Research Professor
edinburgh college of art
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From: Josephine Bosma <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Josephine Bosma <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 14:09:07 +0200
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] September 2009: update and "Real-Time:
Showing Art in the Age of New Media"
Charlie Gere wrote:
>
> Thus perhaps being 'time-based' is not a question of movement of
> time or duration within the work itself, but of the time of
> spectatorship. This would also seem to relate nicely to Sally
> Jane's examples from actual theatre. I think this makes net art,
> software art and other new media arts time-based for what its worth
This is the only clear definition I found online that comes close to
how I always interpreted the term:
time based art : art works that are sequenced through time, that
change as we view them, and that may be ephemeral (e.g. video,
kinetic sculpture, performance works).
http://arts.unitec.ac.nz/engageinarts/visarts/glossary.php
I was just wondering if it is correct, how it is generally used. It
is one of those terms that, like for instance unstable art, seems
created for very specific, often electronic art. Even if performance
works also fit in there, it would be wrong to limit a description of
the experience of time based art to that of theatre for example.
The difference between art objects and time based art would be for
me, that the latter asks for a very specific time experience of the
artwork. It is an almost parallel development of the 'being' or
'becoming' of the artwork and the experience of the audience
(Spectator seems to limited, and the audience can also be
participants or collaborators). This means that it is not just about
viewing time, but also very much about running time. In that respect
it also reminds of life and death. If it were just about viewing
time, every artwork would be time based.
What I find very interesting is the psychological difference between
the experience of a static art object, and that of a time based
artwork. I too wonder if the general preference for art objects and
for collections of art objects is simply based on a very deep,
instinctive fear of death. I think we should challenge this basic
fear in the arts as much as in life itself, in order to fully
understand what art really is.
warmest greetings from Amsterdam,
J
*
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