Dear list
I thought I'd post some light summer reading --
This is an interview with Larry Rinder, curator of BitStreams at the
Whitney museum. It will be included with the next round of interviews we
will post to the crumb site early this fall. Feedback welcome.
If you have suggestions for additions and changes to any part of the
crumb site, please feel free to e-mail them - we'll be slightly
redesigning and expanding it soon.
thanks,
Sarah

www.newmedia.sunderland.ac.uk/crumb

_____________

Interview with Larry Rinder, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Whitney
Museum of American Art, New York. The discussion took place on March 27,
2001 on the occasion of his exhibition BitStreams.

SC: I’m curious about the impetus to curate BitStreams and how you
brought new media production into the art institution.

LR: Well I had begun to be interested in digital technology and digital
media when I was researching for the 2000 biennial. I was one of the 6
curators working on that biennial and I was assigned to research net art
and to see what was being done and to make recommendations to the group.
That was back in 1999 and prior to that I had not really very much
knowledge at all of what was going on with digital technology. In
looking into the Internet I found that there was very substantial work
being done specifically for the net and that expanded my imagination as
to the possibilities of what was being done using digital technology in
other media.

So I started to work on an exhibition for CCAC where I was at that time
(the California College of Arts and Crafts I ran something called the
CCAC Institute, a kunsthalle-like space, in Oakland and San Francisco).
I put together there a show called Scanner. Like BitStreams it looked at
a broad range of practices, all of which involved digital technology at
some point or another. At about halfway into organising Scanner I was
hired to come to the Whitney and they said "we’ve got a floor available
a year from now, what do you want to put in it?" Usually a museum show
of this scale takes at least two years. So I started in mid-May really
working on this exhibition concertedly, and taking some of the research
I had done for Scanner and taking it further, extending the
investigation and looking more deeply into some of the issues. My
initial impetus for this show was to look specifically at how digital
technology was enabling artists to take control of the means of
production and distribution with a kind of quasi-anarchist modality. It
even had a title, it was called "Digital DIY". But for various reasons
it just seemed that there was a lot of work out there that I got very
excited about during my research that didn’t fit the DIY mould. You
asked about the challenges of an institution to present work that is
digitally inflected ? it is precisely often at the point of the DIY
ethos that institutions run into trouble. They run up against the DIY
ethos which has to do with not having institutions. So it would be a
compelling challenge and worthwhile to actually try to present to the
public because it is a phenomenon out there in the culture. But I
thought there was another story that could be told and perhaps one with
less worries in the short amount of time I had to put it together.

And so I developed a kind of a dual criteria which was that the works
ideally should be made with or expressed through digital media and that
thematically they reflect in some way or another, either very directly
or abstractly, on the conditions of life in the digital age. So both the
form and the content were somehow commensurately expressive of digital
experience. I asked Debra Singer, the associate curator here, to work
with me to select the sound component, which she did do, which comprises
half of the exhibition. Then it was just a matter of looking at lots and
lots of work and making some difficult decisions. Of course in doing an
exhibition like this you’re constrained not just by pure ideals and
ideas but also by budget and by space and by all sorts of things. And it
probably goes without saying but I’ll say it anyway, we are the Whitney
Museum of American art and so the show is American art. The show is also
only art, there is no design, unlike say 010101 at SFMoMA which
incorporates design. This show is based specifically on art.

SC: As you say it is an American show, however I’m interested in how new
media art is being produced and exhibited in different countries as
well. The show doesn’t have any big VR installations, say something
along the lines of the work of Char Davies (a Canadian). It is a very
manageable museum show with lots of work that hangs on the wall. My
question is both about the relationship between BitStreams and the show
that Christiane Paul curated, Data Dynamics, which presents more
installation-based new media art, but also the position of the
institution in terms of addressing that kind of work on a large scale.

LR: I looked at every kind of artwork. Everywhere I looked at
everything. I selected finally the works that I thought were the
strongest works of art and also met with these other contingencies I
mentioned ? having to do with money, time, and space. There were a
number of projects that I wanted to do that maybe would have veered more
in the direction of immersive environments. But for various reasons they
couldn’t be done. I had nothing against that kind of work in principle,
but given the situation it couldn’t happen. And in regards to
Christiane’s show, at the same time that I was interested in doing
BitStreams she was interested in doing a more concentrated focus on a
particular dimension of net art. This is not just a net art show but a
very focussed slice of net art. So we all thought that was a very good
complement and contrast. We had BitStreams which takes a very catholic
view—sculpture, painting, drawing, prints, photography—and then another
show which looks very closely at a narrow spectrum of one slice of
digital practice.

SC: Do you think that the public sees those two shows as the same or
separate?

LR: Some see them as the same and some see them as separate and we don’t
particularly care. They are two shows in the sense that they were
developed with different rational and have different explanatory
materials, but does everyone who comes to the museum realise they are
different things? Probably not. Do we care? No.

SC: I ask because it would seem that the reason for putting this work
into an institution is to try to create a context for it or a lineage
for it and Christiane’s show, as you say, is a very specific part of net
art and yet the larger context of net-based art practice isn’t there to
be seen. The viewer has to bring that knowledge to it or be pointed to
it. And in the case of BitStreams the new-technology-as-medium art
context is not evident either. As you were saying before, you’ve got
artists who are using digital technology not artists whose practices are
necessarily based on interactivity or other aspects of the Internet or
new media. So it’s an interesting curatorial decision in my view to
place these two shows together.

LR: It’s important to keep in mind that the Whitney presented ten net
art works in the 2000 Biennial, so one year ago the Whitney was the
place where people could see that context, and we’ve still got all of
those pieces on the Whitney.org site.

SC: How do you feel a year later about the presentation issues of those
net art pieces? Do you feel the institution has learned new ideas about
presenting this type of work in the gallery space?

LR: I feel very good about it. We gave people every option that existed
at that time, and I think it still is every option. I don’t think any
new options have been invented in the last year. People could either log
onto the dedicated terminal in the museum and have a one-on-one
experience of the work, or they could participate in the projection
room, either watch someone else scroll through or do so themselves and
see the work projected on a large scale, or they could log on at home.
All three modes were available to people. We also had one Internet-based
performance installation piece. I don’t know of any other modes of
presentation. So I think it was good that we covered all bases actually.
Different presentation formats may have worked better for some works
than for others. I gather that some visitors were frustrated at times,
particularly in the projection room, that the equipment didn’t always
seem to be working. It may have been working and they didn’t think it
was working. I mean, who knows what may have happened. It could have
been just unfamiliarity with the equipment. So in general I feel good
about it. I think that more and more artists are thinking of the net as
one dimension of an art work that has other dimensions that are physical
or site specific, like Luke Baldwin’s piece in the stairwell. Many
artists are getting away from thinking of the net as a simply
monitor-based practice.

SC: Do you think artists are doing that because of the opportunity to
show in institutions or museums?

LR: I have no idea what their secret motivations are.

SC: Well, I’m not sure it’s about guessing their secret motivations;
Benjamin Weil has said he thought that 010101 might be a solely
web-based show and that artists were suggesting to him ways to make the
works installation-based.

LR: I suspect, and my gut feeling would be, that it comes from an aim to
make the work more visceral and to bring it back to the human
environment. I’m sure it depends on the artist. Every artist has a
different motivation.

SC: I have an agenda of asking curators within institutions how they
feel about this "institutionalisation" of practices which, as you’ve
said, arose out of a DIY/anti-institutional ethos.

LR: There are as many painters and draftsman and sculptors who are
against the institution as there are net artists. I don’t think that
there is anything about net art that makes it anti-institutional.
Politics are politics.

SC: So, in your opinion, why are institutions scrambling to show it? Is
it just a question of contextualization and recognition of artistic
practice?

LR: It’s art, and museums show art. This museum does not show the work
of people who do not want to be shown here. We are not kidnapping
artists and forcing them to have exhibitions. Everyone that we show is
very excited, presumably, to be shown here because they don’t have
extra-institutional politics. There is nothing inherent in the medium
that makes it unfriendly or unworkable within the museum context.

SC: How do you go about your research? Do you go to festivals and if so,
which ones? Do you subscribe to e-mail lists?

LR: As you can see in the show the vast majority of works are actually
things. So a lot of the research was in galleries, museums, artist
studios ? very similar research to the kind of research I would do for
any contemporary art exhibition.

SC: But aren’t very few commercial galleries showing new media work?

LR: No. You can go into just about any gallery in Chelsea and ask if any
of their artists are working with digital technology and just about
every one of them will have at least one artist whose work at some level
is involved with digital technology. It has become absolutely pervasive
and omnipresent. It is everywhere. It is a question of teasing out the
works in which it is not just the manner in which they are using the
technology (for instance, to rearrange the colours or something like
that) but where there is really a deeper reflection on how digital
technology has transformed our lives or a reflection on how it has
transformed art ? where it is both the subject and the technique of the
work. I did go down some pathways which I otherwise would not have gone.
I went to ZKM, went to a digital show up in Dortmund Germany, a
festival. I spent some time at the media lab at MIT. So I was connecting
with certain sectors of cultural practice that I had been relatively
unfamiliar with previously. I do not subscribe to listservs. I want to
spend most of my time looking at art—what little time I have!—and then
making up my own mind about what it all means. I don’t spend a great
deal of time reading art magazines or other people’s opinions, because I
don’t have a lot of time. To do a show like this in 6 months I just have
to look at work.

SC: Do you find you have enough time to reflect on how new media art has
changed your work as a curator or changed the way you think about your
role as a curator? Has it altered how you think about your interaction
with a work of art?

LR: Well, I have a very open ended notion of art, so I wouldn’t say I’ve
had a radical change of approach or mentality about it. There are
precedents for interactivity and for mutability. Neither of those
qualities is unique to digital practice, and so I’ve been involved with
works in the past that had those qualities. So digital practice or net
art are just another site in the arena. I do think that on some level
the changes that are truly profound are those changes that are happening
in society and to some degree artists reflect those changes, creating a
new kind of work, kinds of works, kinds of subject matter, whether they
are working in digital technology or not. We are surrounded by these
changes. As you know one of the things BitStreams is trying to address
is what is the tone of life now, the texture of it? So that’s something
that is affecting not just my professional practice but my daily life.

SC: There have been subtle shifts in the role of a curator ? from
archiving and conserving, to being able to put a work in a space and
then a label next to it. Now you can build the label into the piece, you
can change the interface and thereby change the work of art. These are
questions that curators in museums have to address a lot more
stringently than curators working outside of the institution.

LR: Yes. I do think that from what I know of Jon Ippolito’s idea of
variable media, this is a useful way of thinking about these things. It
doesn’t just apply to digital practice, it applies to video and film and
any of these things. It seems like a practical and reasonable way to
approach this problem or these set of problems. I’m happy that I work in
an institution that is large enough that I don’t have to worry about
these sorts of things on a daily basis. We have a conservator and a
registrar and God willing, they are worrying about them on a daily or
weekly basis. They are the ones who are going to have to change the way
they think about preservation. As far as presentation is concerned, just
based on one example, 010101 in SFMoMA they had flat screen labels and I
didn’t think that worked well. It confused things. In BitStreams we
decided to have printed labels that are discrete so you don’t confuse
them with the art object and they maintain a relatively pristine frame
for the works to do what they have to do in.

SC: Can I ask you a question about Intel?

LR: Yes.

SC: Previous Whitney exhibitions have been sponsored by Intel and there
has also been a relationship with artmuseum.net to give these
exhibitions strong online components and in some cases the technology
within the show was all from Intel. In this case you have a lot of works
on screens and they are not all provided by one company. Were there
conversations with Intel about sponsoring this show or did this happen
differently?

LR: I’m not directly involved with sponsorship issues ? you’d have to
talk to development people about that.

SC: Well, I’m interested in how a curator navigates the restraints
imposed by both technology and sponsors in creating a show…

LR: We don’t do that here. There are technical restraints of course. But
we don't accept restraints based on sponsorship.

SC: Fine. I was struck, is all, when I saw the American Century
exhibition here by the number of screens.

LR: I have no idea. I didn’t work here then. If some company had wanted
to donate all the equipment, it would all be from that company. And that
would have been great advertising for them, and I hope for the next
exhibition they do! But no one did that this time around and so we
bought whatever we needed.

SC: And did the artists supply their own…

LR: In some cases.

SC: This is a very difficult problem for curators in small and regional
art galleries in terms of how to get the equipment and how much the
artist will provide.

LR: This institution draws very clear lines between donors and trustees
in its programme. It’s very important. How can you have art history, let
alone art appreciation if you’re not sure what you’re seeing is what the
artist intended?

SC: That is what is becoming increasingly blurry with technology! If the
artist doesn’t want their website projected but the institution has a
model of exhibition making that dictates.…

LR: Then we don’t show it. We’re very careful with every one of these
pieces. We consulted with the artist every step of the way down to the
last detail. For instance on a DVD there is a little light that shows
that the player is on. If we wanted to cover up that light we’d ask the
artist. Everything! The art is the art; you can’t mess with it. It’s all
you’ve got!

SC: Yes, but some of this art has mutated a great deal, and undergoes
changes based on interaction by audience members. Even Majec’s piece
Netomat ? when it was first shown at Postmasters it was shown as
software and now here he’s decided to do a two-corner projection….

LR: That’s fine. And in terms of how you deal with these things once the
artist is, God forbid dead, or won’t talk to you anymore, that’s when
you’ve got to get into this variable media thing and get the artist to
sit down and write out a list of parameters, that don’t have to do with
particular hardwares. They have to do with questions like "is this only
a projection piece or is it only a monitor piece?" They have to explain
basic fundamental things within which the institutions have to have the
ability to interpret as equipment changes.

SC: And are you having these meetings with artists and making these
notes and documenting these installations?

LR: No.

SC: No?

LR: We will, as soon as we have a minute. It’s actually supposed to
happen as soon as we acquire a work. And I think it does on a cursory
level. For new media works there needs to be a more. We need to sit down
with them and say "no really, the equipment will change and you’ve gotta
tell us 100 years from now what are the boundaries."

SC: It’s the same with documenting the installations as well.
Traditionally a museum brings in a photographer and he or she shoots
slides of the exhibition. Do you video document the show, how the works
change when people interact with them? Do you have the images scanned so
they can be available online?

LR: We’re not doing it now, as far as I’m aware of.

SC: So what happens next? In terms of the Whitney biennial will there be
net art again?

LR: Christiane Paul is going to be curating the net art component of the
biennial. She is directly responsible for everything that is online.
Works that are both online and have a physical presence is something
that we will develop jointly. But she is going to take a major role in
defining how net art is presented in the biennial. As I was saying
digital practice is so pervasive. It is everywhere in the art world so
I’m sure it will be present in the biennial. I don’t think people will
come away from this biennial saying this is the digital biennial. My
interests are wide ranging. I’m interested in quilts and ceramics and
everything else.