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Hi

Just to kick off my participation in the discussion here is a rather
clumsy definition of (New) Media Art I proffered to a group of
curators and others at Tate, which was part of a presentation
intended to argue for the inclusion of such work in their
collection. It was determined firstly by my wish to avoid defining
NMA solely in terms of technology and secondly by the fact that Tate
had recently employed a 'new media' curator, Gregor Muir, who had
decided to concentrate on  video, photography and film. I wanted to
indicate the existence of other kinds of new media work

At Tate I suggested that New media art , is a contentious and
misleading term, but for the purposes of the discussion I used it to
encompass work that involves concepts such as:

*    Interaction
*    Feedback
*    Process
*    Networking
*    Cybernetics
*    Systems
*    Multi/intermedia
*    Artificial Intelligence/Life

And that may (but need not) use or be constructed from the following:

*    Video & Television (though not film and photography)
*    Electronics
*    Robotics & electro-mechanical technologies
*    Telephony
*    Computers
*    Networks

Not particularly succinct, but helped to define my understanding of
the field for the discussion then. Since then I have thought about
the above in terms of an overarching concept, that of 'feedback',
meaning any art that either makes or elicits a response, whether
from its own operations, its environment, the system in whcih it is
embedded or to which it is attached, or from the user/viewer. I like
this definition because, again, it avoids thinking in terms simply
of technology. Thus a work such as Hans Haacke's Condensation Cube,
which involves nothing more complex than a perspex cube containing
some moisture that condenses and evaporates in a cycle, could be
included, because it incorporates issues of feedback, process and
other cybernetic ideas, despite the fact that it doesn't use 'media'

TTFN

Charlie