On 14 May 2004, at 23:24, Naomi Spellman wrote:
> The point is, for artists at least, there is a very good reason right
> now
> to resist creating works that are critical without a very good reason
> to
> do so, and that is the risk that criticality for now at least all too
> easily becomes surface ornament, an easy way to equate a work with
> intelligence, hipness, or awareness. I think my allergy to this kind of
> positioning has a lot to do with the environment I am in.
I take issue with this stance. It seems you are advocating critical
disengagement as a form of radicalism, a kind of 'otaku' of wireless
networks. This would appear to place the artist in the role of earnest
supplicant, feeding quietly on the scraps from corporate culture. If
you are saying that any critique expressed through
wireless/mobile/locative media is essentially meaningless, that implies
the artists making work with these tools are complicit in the systems
they utilise, and also that they necessarily should not be concerned.
This seems somewhat technologically determinist.
> One thing locative media has going for it, it stands for now
> completely
> outside the jurisdiction of art world politics, and exploits
> existing
> or developing infrastructures and protocols. It is decentralized,
> unclassifiable, and has no intrinsic value – although reading the
> dialogue
> floating around some of these lists makes it clear that “value” is
> being
> actively constructed. But unlike contemporary art, locative media
> practitioners are in a position to do what contemporary art never
> could
> – directly employ and affect the system of control with which it is
> complicit, in a way that is grounded in the here and now unlike
> internet.
Locative media can only stand "completely outside the jurisdiction of
art world politics" if there is no art made using these media. That is
clearly not the case. Even if no art were to be made using locative
media, "art world politics" might still have something to say about the
media involved.
I can't quite believe the inflated claims you make for the technologies
you identify as locative media. Your loose usage of terms such as
"unclassifiable", "no intrinsic value", "grounded in the here and now"
is frankly spurious. You are not defining why or in which way you think
these terms apply uniquely to locative media. I suggest you will need
to supply more convincing arguments in order to make such claims. Or is
this just unquestioning ideology rather than argument?
> One more comment from drew’s essay, on utopianism in locative media
> operating as a radical element, in that it emphasizes the enabling
> capability of the medium. I agree and would add that for me, the
> optimism
> itself is radical! There is a lot to be optimistic about. In locative
> media, one does not have to design interpretations of the work – our
> public helps to shape and interpret. One is not obligated to formulate
> and uphold a genre, as mobile technologies preempt creation of an
> immersive predetermined construct. One does not pursue traditional
> venues because the world– not the museum–is the stage. One does not
> structure the interface - the interface rather is the urbanscape, or
> the
> topography. Right now, possibilities afforded by mobile technologies
> have so much to teach the artist/engineer and the public. I think this
> notion of opening ourselves up to inquiry and keeping ourselves open
> is a
> valuable and important endeavor, and that includes in how we frame and
> promote this type of work.
I'm all for a spirit of enquiry, openness and optimism in artistic
practise. However I think you fundamentally misunderstand the concept
of 'interface' as it relates to locative media, particularly in its
current incarnations. Society does not require locative media to
'interface' with the urbanscape or topography, but it does (mostly)
require portable device technology to interface with locative media (as
it has thus far been defined, at any rate).
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Chris Byrne
New Media Scotland
P.O. Box 23434, Edinburgh EH7 5SZ
Tel. +44 131 477 3774
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http://www.mediascot.org
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