On Mon, 2010-02-08 at 17:45 -0800, Stephen Vincent wrote:
> Turning his color vocabulary into institutional practice was
> practically religious and put a default limit on students, or
> something against which to rebel.

Although I know what you are saying, and stress, don't want to be unfair
by putting words into your mouth, I wanted to pick up on the idea of
rebelling against an old master, which as Lacan famously said, is a
desire for a new master.

In the book I am reading on the 1995 Going for Baroque exhibition, the
artists talk about incorporating and using what has gone before, such as
the master painter, Caravaggio. They put forward this idea of using what
is productive and this includes what they were taught in art school. So
basically, this is non-Oedipal rather then the Oedipal rebellion against
the father. Nostalgia also enters into this not as something which is
reactionary, but as something that can be recouped positively as active
memory. 

I could say the same about media arts in that it is not a rebellion
against painting, as it seems is the popular misunderstanding, so oils
on canvas could well be a media arts practice. Media arts also looks at
nostalgia in this way, as recouped as productive memory.

It does seem to me that the university system in the US is setting up
new media arts as a technologically based art in opposition to and as
Oedipal rebellion against fine arts. I haven't read enough to be sure
but I get that feeling and so a question here. For me media arts is
poetry and photography; its an aesthetic more so then a technology based
practice.

This can make talking about technologies difficult since, for example,
an understanding of an apo film lens and digital lens is required, of
course.
best cj   

(although I will say I find this masters of photography and fine arts
stuff a high cringe factor)