Lovely!

Simon Biggs

[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]
Skype: simonbiggsuk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/

edinburgh college of art
http://www.eca.ac.uk/

Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments
http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/

Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice
http://www.elmcip.net/



From: Domenico Quaranta <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Domenico Quaranta <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 18:37:14 +0100
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] new media at the BBC

Hi crumbers,

I just posted this on Will Gompertz blog...

I had some funny time reading this article and all the reactions it
produced, on this blog and around the Web (check out, among other
things, Lauren Cornell's contribution on Rhizome -
http://rhizome.org/editorial/3282
  ­ and the CRUMB thread onhttp://www.crumbweb.org/). Personally, as
an art critic strongly interested in Net Art, I don't think that Mr.
Will Gompertz just needs some links to "hot" web projects, neither
informations of any kind. He doesn't write "I can't find any net-based
art", but "I can't find any net-based art of note". As the following
statement suggests, Mr. Gompertz knows very well what Net Art is:
"Duchamp and the Dadaists would have had hours of artistic amusement
creating spoof websites, unintelligible Wiki entries and general
questioning of the status quo." Well, at least 50% of the best Net Art
is "spoof websites, unintelligible Wiki entries and general
questioning of the status quo."

So, if I see a problem here, it isn't a problem of ignorance, but of
critical judgement. What we have here is a mid-career art critic - one
who wrote for the Times and the Guardian and who ran Tate Online
before joining the BBC as arts editor - who claims that, among the
many net art projects he came in touch with along his brilliant
career, he didn't find anything that can be described as "a
significant artwork". This may mean either that Net Art, along the
last 15 years, didn't produced anything noteworthy or that Net Art,
after roughly 15 years of existence, still challenges the evaluation
criteria and critical tools available for a mid-career, traditionally
trained contemporary art critic.

Both the options above can be right of course. My little experience in
the field makes me believe in the last one. It may help us to
understand why, among other things, important art critics not strictly
connected with the art market (and thus potentially interested in
critical practices), such as Hal Foster or Rosalind Krauss, were never
able to get it. And I think that, if we'll be able to focus the
discussion on these topics - how Net Art challenges traditional
criticism? do we really need "other criteria" in order to understand
it and its positioning in the contemporary art field? - Mr. Gompertz's
remarks will turn out to be really useful.

My bests,
Domenico

---

Domenico Quaranta

web. http://domenicoquaranta.com/
email. [log in to unmask]
mob. +39 340 2392478
skype. dom_40


Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201