Interestingly, this tradition of self-curation is not "new". You see it over
and over again in areas of artistic and creative practice where that work is
not being accomodated by the mainstream and/or dominant cultural framework.
The post-object artists of the 60's and 70's were very good at starting
artist run spaces and networks. The Dadaist's and surrealists were excellent
self-curators and publicists. Prior to the 20th Century the Impressionists
had to, for many years, self-curate. We have all been recounted the stories
of artists like Monet, Manet, etc, taking on the mainstream of their day
(the academy and its instrument, the art historical totalising "salon") and
sometimes going over the barricades but, generally, not. In the end these
early Modernists did not take over the dominant institutions of their day
but replaced them with models based on entirely different economic and
social structures, reflecting and profiting from a wider process of social
change.
The mainstream artworld we know today is the product of that earlier
collision of cultures. It has iterated several times since, each time in
response to a new challenge, whether that be abstraction (which for decades
proved an almost perfect fit, its non-specificity of representation
satisfying the needs of an evolving "Internationalism") pop art, post-object
art or post-Modernism. This facility for adaption has often been observed in
the larger instrumentality of which this "artworld" is a part; Capitalism.
Ever adaptive, it consumes difference and thrives upon it. Post-Modernist
discourse was meant to critique this and, eventually, sound the end of the
Capitalist mode. That hasn't happened.
Whether new media art, with its self-curating, self-configuring "cultures",
will change what art is and how it is consumed as effectively as the early
Modernists did is an open question. The early Modernists had to deal with a
flawed system, as it was highly centralised and heirarchical, thus brittle.
Capitalism, in contrast, is de-centred and non-heirarchical and thus highly
flexible (that is, there are centres of power and influence, but these can
be rapidly replaced by other centres when they "go down" - a bit like the
Internet).
We could ask "where is the weakness in this system?" Usually you find
weakness very close, almost indistinguishable, from where strength is to be
found (sounds like a Judo lesson). It is perhaps the hyper-networked and
globally integrated nature of contemporary Capitalism which is its weakness,
as that is also its strength. The main instrument of this is communications
technology.
If we look to history and see what the main factor was in the shift from the
pre-Modern to the Modern it was the first global war "what did it". This was
an event of unprecedented violence and destruction. Thus it would seem
likely that any change away from Capitalism/Modernism (I know it is
dangerous to conflate these things, but that is all we are left with today)
will occur in response to similarly over-powering events.
Best
Simon
On 02.10.05 00:00, Anna Munster wrote:
> This is what seems to me to be new about the use of media - not just
> new aesthetics, new technologies but new spheres. Interestingly enough,
> these seem to curate themselves!
Simon Biggs
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http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
Professor, Art and Design Research Centre
Sheffield Hallam University, UK
http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cs/cri/adrc/research2/
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