Hello, everyone.
 
A couple weeks ago, someone asked for a critical reflection upon the
Re:fresh conference, and after talking to Sarah about my hesitancy in
taking a critical stance, she felt that my approach was balanced enough
to engage with the subject.  The problem with being a critical thinker
is that whereas pure advocates wish to foreground the positive and
minimize the negative, criticism (in my mind, and from Krishnamurti)
seeks a balanced and detached assessment of all known viewpoints.
 
I was there to cover it for Intelligent Agent (at which time we are now
finally working out the details of an issue covering the remaining
articles not in the book).  While my assessment will be relatively
short, I would like to refer to Christiane's review of the event, which
was very well done, although I am, again, a little more critical of the
event.   Keep in mind that, although I am critical and complementary to
the event, I am also complicit in that I plan to publish some of the
material that was presented.  This is to say that I an part of the
system that I criticize and do not hide that fact.  
 
In general, I found the conference a direct institutional application of
Foucaultian intellectual power and legitimation.  In few places have I
seen such a systematic organization of agendas to construct,
disseminate, establish, and legitimate a discursive thread within global
art historical traditions.  While I find that this probably needs to be
done in order to create cohesive narratives in some areas, I was deeply
conflicted that while many were promoting colonial criticism,
multiculturalism and diversity on one hand, the whole event was, by its
very nature, a structure whose main goal was the establishment of
hegemonic academic traditions in media art history.   
 
This, in my opinion, shows the frission between the traditional and New
Media orders; between Cambridge Press and Wikipedia, between October and
the Blogosphere.  While I am not a cultural anarchist (I have some
streaks of old-boy hegemon in myself as well), I also feel that the
social contract promised by net.discourse, and New Media culture (the
force driving BNMI, as well as the conference itself) was somehow
compromised by this event. However, I also think that this is very
useful to make this visible as well, so that more balance between the
academic hegemony and the intellectual grass-roots can be suggested for
the next conference.  
 
The other issue that I want to make most clear has to do with a question
asked me by Roger Molina this year at ISEA. He asked me what the biggest
issue in New Media and academia, Art/Sci, etc was today.  My reply is
that intellectualism worldwide is in crisis, and that the highest ranks
of thinkers, politician, and society have a profound disconnect with
what Postman called "Public Scholarship".  That is, while the best
scholars seem to be creating work of increasing density (and some,
acuity), they are becoming increasingly divorced from the public, and
therefore, we wonder why there are anti-intellectual feelings within
Western culture, in Europe, Australia and North America?  Was it Panrose
or Feynmann who said that no concept is so complex that the gist of it
cannot be communicated to a college freshman?   The gulf between high
and mass cultures are widening at increasing paces, and both may suffer
without the like desire for increased understanding.
 
Therefore, I feel the following:  I believe that in places like Refresh,
it is necessary to highlight senior, mid-career, junior, even student
and independent work equally to match the vision of the culture that
spawned it.  Secondly, I also feel that it is incumbent upon people like
the Graus, Naranjans, Molinas, Weibels, Shaws, Diamonds, Kacs, Ascotts,
Scotts, and so on to take time to engage with the rank and file public
to create desire in mass culture for the topics for which they feel so
passionately.  
 
However, I also feel that this may not be a popular stance, but if
technological culture is to flourish, and if we are to flourish as a
species, the intelligentsia cannot immure themselves within their
institutions while mass culture walks away into the dark Poe-esque
stratified masque of mindless entertainment, capital domination, and
increasing ignorance and poverty in the underserved.
 
This may seem like an extremely exaggerated indictment, but my strident
tone is merely a sharp but respectful challenge to consider the culture
which we as technologists have created, and the unfulfilled promise that
remains (and may never be fulfilled, but I wish to challenge us to do as
much as we can). 
 
However, I return to my brief reflection on Refresh!, and respectfully
apologize for my invective.
 
Therefore, given Christiane Paul's more detailed description of the
event, I would like to offer my bullet points of Refresh!.
 
Overall, most of the content in the main area was what I would expect
for featured panels at an ISEA conference, and featured almost all of
the same faces that would appear at one as well.  Generally high
quality, with all the leading names in the field - check. There were
voices who spoke about the topics that they have since the 1990's in
nearly the same way (I feel I could have called up a taped lecture from
these speakers), and there were some very bright spots, like the
Cubitt/Kahn/Sanborn panel on video (Sanborn on Hollis Frampton), sound
(Kahn), and Projection/representation (Cubitt).  Another main stage high
point was the bell curve-shaped discourse between Christiane Paul, Peter
Weibel, and Jon Ippolito that took the moderate, establishment, and
radical viewpoints in regards to collection and curation.  
 
Probably one of the most criticized events behind the scenes was the
evening's keynote lecture by Arnheim Fellow SARAT MAHARAJ, which went
for nearly 2-1/2 hours and was so discursively opaque that few got the
gist of the lecture, by the end of it, even wanted to.   At least I was
heartened that the spirit of Hans Christian Andersen had not faded from
the cultural zeitgeist.  I met him afterward, and was a lovely person,
but I feel that his lecture did not have the desired effect, for which I
was saddened.
 
However, I feel that the provocation/interest that I had in the material
seemed inversely proportional to the size of the room.  For example, as
opposed to the rather conservative academic discursive approaches and
tired colonial/multicultural theoretical models popular in the 90's and
the 'stars' continually placing their agendas in the Q&A sessions in the
main stage, the side room was far more lively.  Clas Pias' "Zombies of
the Revolution" was a stroke of genius, Simon Penny is always a joy to
listen to, Jeremy Turner, et al's piece on Western Front and Slow Scan
TV actually made me a convert and caused me to resurrect the technology
in my work (a tremendous feat, IMO), Tribe's talk on Open Source, and
Fred Turner's work in 60's cybernetic art were also highly engaging.  
 
And honestly, where I had some of the most stimulating conversation was
in the Poster Session, with a marvelous panoply of approaches and
topics, including literary takes from Frost and Matuck, Gulan's Istanbul
Web Biennial, Nappi's imaging research - I wanted to stay for about
three more hours.


Of course, Sara Cook and Steve Dietz did a great job with "The Medium
Formerly Called New Media", which was a fine retrospective of BNMI
projects, especially Naimark's "See Banff", which I was thrilled to see.
I think (although unlike Christiane, I did not get the t-shirt [I think
they were out of my size by the time]), like most concepts, the
contextualization of the works set the show apart, and I have to
congratulate them for this.  In my mind, it further asked the question,
"New Media is here.  Now what?", which at this venue is exactly the
question that needed to be posed.
 
Therefore, while I feel that Refresh! is, short of the Walker Art
Center's "Sins of Change" event in 1998, one of the most important
summits to happen in media art discourse, I also feel that it missed
opportunities for giving voice to those on all levels who built that
culture, both the history makers and the history constructors, as well
as the architects of future history as well.  It is my hope that this
year's event in Berlin will serve to address some of those concerns and
fulfill some of the hopes of the emergent New Media culture that has
been emerging for the last 25 years.
 
Thank you for your time.
 
 
Patrick Lichty
- Interactive Arts & Media
  Columbia College, Chicago
- Editor-In-Chief
  Intelligent Agent Magazine
http://www.intelligentagent.com
225 288 5813
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"It is better to die on your feet 
than to live on your knees."