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Dear Crumbers Here are few jet-legged observations after Banff conference. One of the ongoing subjects off-and-on the panels was questioning the terminology and naming of the 'discipline' itself: Media Art, Science and Technology / new media / New Media and so on. I guess it happened because of the nature of the historical approach stated within the title of the conference. Johannes Goebel at his presentation pointed out using of the both capital letters within German historic context when Neue Musik written like this becomes signification of an dogmatic canon. Other overall ongoing subject was: to create a new canon for 'New media art' or not. Some think that without a canon one can't get the history. Timothy Druckrey openly questioned the notion that is the 'first international conference ..' as he was part of many 'first conferences on history' over last ten or twenty years. So, seems that our field have a big identity problem with its name, origins and history. Let's get back to the naming. There was endless discussion on the 'new media' terminology at various mailing lists over last ten years or so. By the way, my impression that at least one third of the presenters at the Refresh are not part of any mailing-list culture / network, but preferring thick books for their updates. Maybe this indicate different approaches to histories and canons as well, maybe not. Andreas nicely wrote in his last mail on the term, I can't agree more. > i get the feeling that the use of the term 'new media' mostly > signifies a laziness in thinking. the term is just too broad. Interesting enough, Andreas and Gunalan Nadarajan negotiate that 'part of the deal' with organizing next Refresh in Berlin 2007 is change of its [sub] title. Congratulations! As writer and editor of 'media art' part for culturenet.hr - government -based web portal of Croatian culture [presenting as well theatre, architecture, dance, fine art, film etc] I faced necessity and absurdity to define what is media art and fulfill [commissioned!] 'sub-classification of the field'. Thematic block 'Media Art in Croatia' [2002] was first survey and attempt at defining the term Media art in Croatia in its historical context and setting up a relevant database. Content: A brief overview of media art in Croatia (since 1960s) . Institutions, events, databases . Publications [magazines, TV, books, mailing lists and on-line texts; Bibliography of the Croatian video art] . http://www.culturenet.hr/v1/english/panorama.asp?id=39 In introduction I suppose to made an 'media art for dummies' approach for general public. Following are the quotes from the intro text and long footnote on 'sub-classification of the field': ... During the transition from the industrial age to the information society - since the mid-20th century - a segment of the arts has also been related to information, especially that digitally generated and mediated. Talking about media art, one is faced with the insoluble question of terminology and categorization. The question as to what media art is is (im)possible to answer just as is the question of what art is. It is necessary to emphasize that the term itself is subject to a relatively quick redefinition in the context of a given time. Today, media art can also be termed art of new technologies or new media art. In the past thirty years the following general terms have been used: multimedia, electronic art, extended media, etc. (more about the terms and subcategorization). We will discuss here media art that is critical of the media, with the emphasis on the art practice making use of (tele)communication and electronic media from the 1960s onwards. ... Since the 1990s, media art has been viewed within the context of media culture: an open area of practice and critical theory treading the fine line between conceptual art, social and political activism, and technology. --- More on terms and the sub-classification of fields 'Although the artists of my generation who reject the notion of "media art" cannot offer a better term, they instead deal with new media and new technologies in calmer and more relaxed ways. For them, new media are a 'natural' part of the world; media constitute an integral part of their world view. The world as they know it is inconceivable without media. Media technologies are not being assigned a utopian potential anymore.' [Inke Arns, 1998]. The term ‘new media art’ will not be used here because technologies are new when they are being used by the military who, for the most part, also finances their development, but when these technologies show up in the domain of art and culture, they are no longer new. Some authors claim that in the end all visual art is media art, or mediated by technology (canvas, paint and the like) and that the examples of ‘pure’ media art can be traced back to the Middle Ages when, for example, the newest technological tools in the service of architecture and art or used by authors like Kürchner or Da Vinci, were used in the construction of medieval cathedrals. There followed an attempt at categorization of art that was multimedia and interdisciplinary by nature and linked to the development of technology. That led to a repeated change in the understanding of the term. Substantial changes for the development of the discipline have so far happened every decade but the rhythm sped up in the last few years. As illustration, we should mention the change in the set categories at the Ars Electronica festival (e.g. cancellation of digital graphics) and the withdrawal of video art from a number of media art festivals since the 1990s. - lumino-kinetic art, lasers and holography - 2-D: digital photography, computer graphics - moving pictures (experimental film, video art, computer movie, computer animation, moving pictures on the Internet) - sound art (as part of conceptual art) - electronic music, digital music, soundscape - art hardware and art software - 3-D: virtual environments and architecture (VR, 3-D modeling, VRML and so on) - stage art – technology and body, robotics, performance - text-oriented work (hyper textual literature, e-mail art, spam art, ASCII art) - communication art (mail art, fax art, TV, radio, satellites, etc; internet art: streaming media, net.art, network art, etc.) - tactical media (media hybrids, low-tech media) - media art and organic world (nature) - media art and society (activist art, network art, tactical media) - social and esthetic implications of media art (cultural theory, media theory) - new forms of media art: database art, generative art, artificial intelligence, artificial life, artificial selection, digitally generated nature, system theories, genetic algorithms, neutral networks, feedback networks, mathematical and generative modeling, rules systems, etc ... --- With kind regards Darko Fritz http://darkofritz.net