The discussion is very wide ranging, which is fascinating, but I find myself
conflating issues.
Power and responsibility.
I too agree with Josie that a core issue around taxonomies is power and who
benefits. And I agree with Charlie's "plea" that it is also an issue of
responsibility. These get so intertwined that sometimes it's impossible to
see them as not necessarily mutually exclusive. Perhaps both are possible.
For me, the posts by Johannes highlight one way that I see them as
different.
Ornithology is [not] for the birds
Johannes' excellent quote of the early article on taxonomies of computer
music reminded me exactly why I often groan when the issue comes up. It's so
boring and such a lot of hair splitting. (This is not a comment on the
article per se.) Johannes also pointed out -- or at least hinted -- that on
the curatorial / art practice side of things, these taxonomies are at best
barriers that have little to do with what's happening.
Even though it's possible to understand archival practice, curatorial
practice, and artistic practice as having very different goals, they clearly
affect each other, and it is impossible to just draw boxes around them.
Taxonomic Cartography
On the other hand, if we think of taxonomies as data sets for mapping
projects, I personally am inspired by all of the critical cartography work
going on from Brian Holmes's talk at the Language of Networks conference at
Ars
(http://www.aec.at/en/festival/programm/project_2004.asp?iProjectID=12609)
to Mute's efforts (http://themutemap.3d.openmute.org/modules/news/) to
Saul's essay on critical cartography
(http://www.furthertxt.org/saulalbert.html) to any number of other projects.
I take these critical cartography projects as having a number of goals. One
is to understand the relationships of power (e.g. They Rule, Bureau
d'Etudes). Another is to create unexpected connections by corrupting or
crossing, in a sense, various taxonomies. This is what Sawad Brooks and Beth
Styker's DissemiNET does at the linguistic level, for instance. And another
goal, of course, is a kind of radical empowerment (as much as I hate that
term) of a grass roots-based, emergent, contingent and flexible
cartography/taxonomy.
I believe passionately in recovering and maintaining the possibility of
various histories, but in all likelihood this will not occur through
creating some agreed upon taxonomy or "meaning" for "new media." It will
occur through creating some kind of platform that does the opposite of
fixing meaning and allows for personal, communal, and opposing points of
view to be argued and emerge, while overall having some sense of authority
because of relative comprehensiveness (even - or especially(?) - if
distributed).
I have not put this nearly as nuanced or as knowledgeably as others on this
list can and have, but pace Ivan's call for getting down to it and looking
at specific taxonomies, which I can sympathize with, I think the issue is
the container/infrastructure for these taxonomies and how we can create
counter cartographies of the relations between and among them that aren't
controlled only by those with certain kinds of power.
s
On 9/6/04 11:04 AM, "Charlie Gere" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> The point I suppose I am trying to make is that to describe the question
> of taxonomy as an issue of power runs the risk of ignoring the fact that
> it is also a question of responsibility
On 9/7/04 3:15 AM, "petegomes" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> "Intermedia refers to the simultaneous use of various media to
> create a total environmental experience for the audience. Meaning is
> communicated not by coding ideas into abstract literary language,
> but by creating emotionally real experience through the use of audio
> visual technology. Originally conceived in the realm of art rather than
> in science or engineering, the principles on which intermedia is
> based are grounded in the fields of psychology, information theory,
> and communication engineering."
On 9/6/04 11:11 AM, "Josephine Berry Slater" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> By which I mean, wouldn't it
> simply make the whole (contested) area of artistic practice more
> easily packageable and assimilable within the codes of museology?
> Transmediale may be problematising this very process by throwing open
> the selection of prize categories to the public, but only then to
> recapture this 'radically' democratic moment within the hierarchical
> system of selection, promotion, official recognition, award -
> something that once again cuts out the truly
> collective/anonymous/networked/feedbacked nature of creativity and
> production. Isn't this just another instance of institutional
> hypocrisy? Better to think how to use taxonomies to destabilise
> (however momentarily) institutions and their entropic power (maybe
> Duchamp's fountain was - briefly - such an instance?).
On 9/6/04 11:04 AM, "Charlie Gere" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> As I am sure all recipients of posts from this list will
> be well aware, there is a long history of what we might now call 'new
> media art' going back at least to the 60s. It is also increasingly
> obvious the degree to which, in Britain, after a period of much
> excitement and development, this kind of practice was almost completely
> ignored by mainstream galleries, museums, history of art departments for
> many years. This could be seen perhaps as the result of a kind of
> wager, a bet that this stuff didn't matter, wouldn't matter in or for
> the future, because it would not matter historically.
On 9/6/04 9:37 AM, "patrick lichty" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> This conversation is getting really meaty.
>
> Let's consider one thing.
> Sooner or later, _someone_ is going to create a classification that will
> stick in the history books, regardless of how distasteful that might
> sound. It might take 5 years, 20, or 100, but it will happen, and
> eventually we will all be quite dead, and unable to object.
On 9/6/04 9:19 AM, "Ivan Pope" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I guess if we are discussing taxonomies we should discuss the taxonomy of
> our field and not get bogged down in the 'is new media a good term for this,
> is there a better term'.
> The problem with taxonomies is that they require some groundwork and then
> that that groundwork be generally accepted, and then that there be some way
> of categorising entries into that taxonomy. Do we really want to go down
> that formal route?
On 9/6/04 8:05 AM, "kanarinka" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> According to Hanson it is not that the digital is a specific medium which
> constitutes new media (This is falling into media essentialism - a
> modernist trap - New media is not defined by computation or bits and bytes
> or cutting and pasting).
>
> It is rather that the advent of the digital has created a situation where
> all attempts at media essentialism (sculpture is this, painting is that) are
> impossible. Where we used to take the given properties of a medium as a
> specific, guiding frame of reference (photography has certain affordances,
> painting has certain affordances) the malleability of all things in the
> digital age produces a situation in which the ___body itself____ is the only
> frame of reference. The body becomes the primary selector, processor,
> navigator, frame.
On 9/6/04 7:28 AM, "Josephine Berry Slater" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Classification is always a form of power!
>
> Let's think about this instead.
>
> It seems astonishing that this isn't being addressed in the many
> attemtps to capture the media(um)/genre/ism.
>
> Does it benefit the people on this list to fix its taxonomical character?
>
> I would venture that it does.
>
>
> Josie
--
Steve Dietz
Director, ISEA2006 Symposium | ZeroOne San Jose International Festival
Curatorial Fellow Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre
stevedietz[at]yproductions[dot]com
|
