This has often been a problem with media art. The problem is dissemination
of the ideas around the practice.
As we discussed at 'Momentum', one of the lessons from the history of
video/television art is that presenting work in a gallery tends to lead to
certain practices and forms gaining dominance over others because they
'work' within the architecture of the white cube. Large scale video
projection tends to win out over small scale monitors, for example. Apart
from the architecture of the gallery, the main determining factors appear
to be collectors, marketing and 'getting the punters in'. To take two
artists from the late 1960's/early 1970's: Bill Viola's 'universal values',
mysticism and painterly cinematography are simpler for gallerists and
general audiences to digest than David Hall's materialist dialectics,
critical interventions and complex installations.
Okay, I'm talking about video art here, but new media and networked
practices fall prey to the same pressures. Like entrepreneurs in any branch
of showbiz, gallerists/curators are looking to back the next star and
accrue value to their work. Socially aware criticism does not necessarily
help them in that task, even though it may be vitally important in
informing us about certain modes of practice. Therefore perhaps it is not
in certain institutions' interests to take account of such material, even
though they may be aware of it.
Having said that, ghettoes can define themselves too. The 'hermetic'
discourse you speak of can take place, it's true. I suppose if there are
curators that want to change this situation, they can.
Chris
>
>yes, but....
>
>i think the argument was that writing *within* media art circles *has*
>started to develop a sophisticated vocabulary, but mainstream writing (like
>the artnet/village voice article that sarah posted) appears blissfully
>unaware of these critical developments ("this work is like painting. its
>pretty").
>
>and maybe this is because the vocabularies that have developed around media
>arts practise are too (to use patrick's phrase) societal for the
>mainstream, who prefer to locate art wholly within its own, hermetic context.
>
>its not that nobody is writing about media art, but that as it goes
>'overground' (like at the whitney and SFMOMA) mainstream critics are
>treating it as a diverting novelty, but ultimately dismissing it to the
>ghettoes that public and live art practises currently reside in...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>-----------------------------------
>Matt Locke
>Artistic Director
>The Media Centre, Huddersfield
>www.test.org.uk
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Chris Byrne [log in to unmask]
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New Media Scotland Tel. +44 141 564 3010
P.O. Box 25065, Glasgow G1 5YP Fax. +44 141 564 3011
Scotland, UK http://www.mediascot.org
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