Dear List,
So, as outlined in my last post, the Laboral opening was a real treat
in being able to see a variety of curatorial approaches to new media,
with plenty of space for variety. I'll however talk briefly about one
show in particular first, because I'd love to know what List members
think.
The FEEDBACK exhibition showed over 40 artworks including "reactive" (a
term that I've been using recently as more accurate than
'interactive'). There were four subsections, which interestingly group
the works either by 'behaviour' or by media.
CIBERNETICS / OPEN SYSTEMS. INSTRUCTION-BASED / ALGORITHMIC
TELEMATICS / GLOBAL CONNECTIONS
KINETICS / OPTICS
TV / CINEMATICS
The greatest impact of the show was simply to be able to see historical
works alongside more recent works, and to see new media alongside non
new media. Hence Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing #305 (1977) is included in
INSTRUCTION-BASED / ALGORITHMIC because they start off as instructions
written in natural language that are then executed at the specific
exhibition site.
There were also some interesting exhibition tactics for older
technological pieces which no longer function - thus Edward
Inhatowicz's SAM (SOUND-ACTIVATED MOBILE) (1968) was shown as an
object, but along with some video documentation of it in action, the
video acting almost as an animating 'wall label' for the work.
So, what might art historians think of this? Are there four different
histories attached to the four subsections, or more? Would art
historiean agree with the parallels? What does the list think?
Yours,
Beryl
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Beryl Graham, Professor of New Media Art
School of Arts, Design, Media and Culture, University of Sunderland
Ashburne House,
Ryhope Road
Sunderland
SR2 7EE
Tel: +44 191 515 2896 [log in to unmask]
CRUMB web resource for new media art curators
http://www.crumbweb.org
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