Hi everyone!

Thanks to Juliette for initiating this conversation and to those who have
responded thus far. I'm excited to be part of Juliette's curatorial project
on artists' process on the Streaming Museum.

What first came to mind after reading through the thread is the keynote
lecture at the 2011 ISEA Istanbul by curator Christiane Paul. As part of
her talk, Paul gave a vivid visual chronology of the history of net art
that was quite a different experience than when reading about it. The
physical experience of viewing early projects by artists/collectives such
as jodi.org or Galloway's "Carnivore" to more recent work such as
echoarttech's "Untitled Landscape #5" for the Whitney Artport
Sunrise/Sunset commissions in a fast paced stimulating presentation
underscored the criticality of the medium at that moment in time in
relation to the artist's concept.

Sitting through Paul's presentation I realized I was having a visceral
response to what Bruce calls the evolutionary/revolutionary impact of the
technology. Being "older than Jesus," and having experienced these advances
first hand, especially with virtual environments being a "post" Second
Lifer, the presentation triggered the embodied experiences I had with these
emerging technologies over the past 15 years.

This is what I feel distinguishes the process of artists using technology
vs artists using more traditional process techniques. Of course I'm not
saying there isn't an embodied type of experience a painter has when
painting to the lusciousness and perceptual phenomena of let's say oil
paint. It's just different, and primarily due to the fact that most of
these technologies (smart devices, the cnc of our home printers) are being
used daily for purposes other than the aesthetic or social commentary.

This relates to the conceptual aspect of the artists work surveyed in
Paul's presentation. As mentioned, the timeliness of the artist using that
particular technology is critical. The work's "curatorial" dissemination
must happen almost simultaneously with its mainstreaming. We see this with
early jodi.org works as well as with more recent projects such as Marisa
Jahn's "Nanny Van" -- how her tactical media approach impacts in real time
the cell phone user behaviors of a particular demographic (the nannies).

And what happens with works that repurpose older technologies such as
Lovid? How do their live performances reengage particular sensations and
memories of the viewer's past with those technologies?

A great conversation between Hito Steyerl and Laura Poitras on their
artistic process using technology and its dissemination to the public is
explored further in a recent artforum post:
https://artforum.com/inprint/issue=201505&id=51563

Looking forward to hearing more...

Best,
Stephanie


--
Stephanie Rothenberg
Associate Professor
Department of Art, SUNY Buffalo
[log in to unmask]
–––––
www.stephanierothenberg.com

On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 2:27 PM, Xiaoying YUAN <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Hi John,
>
> Thanks for your prompt feedback!
> I appreciate your suggestion of shortening my post on our panel. I decided
> to share your advice here openly so our contributors will not make the same
> "mistake" like me!
> It's hard to pack a dozen of ideas and viewpoints into a short email here,
> indeed. I feel challenged by my posting experience on CRUMB, but meanwhile,
> this is an excellent training to shape me into an efficient writer online!
> So to follow up with your post:
> Thank you very much for sharing your daily drawing experience. It is truly
> an incredible creative process that you take on; and it's true that it's
> entirely open-ended and no more time-based, with the production of a series
> of objects that can be explored as both final exhibit and prototypes for
> new objects' making.
> Bruce has said that "it is difficult to pin down an exact definition of
> 'process-based art' because it is in the process of defining itself," and
> "the fundamental issue is the contrast between the art object and the
> aesthetic experience of this form of art."
> I'd like to challenge the difficulty now by pointing out a few
> characteristics that I consider part of the criteria for the definition on
> "contemporary process-based art": the creative process doesn't take the
> object making as the final goal, is no more time based, and the exhibiting
> space is broadened to the entire human life and society.
> I welcome your feedback on my points.
>
> Many thanks!
>
>
> Xiaoying Juliette Yuan 袁晓萦
> Media Arts Curator
> Visiting Scholar NYU Steinhardt
> Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions
> 35 West 4th Street, 10th Floor
> New York, NY 10012
> http://julietteyuan.net
>