Hi Jim & all, Thank you for you comments, and yes what you mention regarding it being an international concern does hold some weight. But, I do have to say my personal experience does offer a positive story to what you have discussed, which relates to our own gallery in London, HTTP. We have had an exponential growth of visitors to the space over the years, whether it is at the openings, events, or from the visitors who wish to view the work on a daily basis.
The irony here is that the visiting audiences are way ahead and more informed than the traditonal galleries are, when it comes to finding out about art, culture and what they wish to see. The audience has grown up to understand and discover themselves as part of an independent and variant, networked movement - their behaviour is creating how art is perceived now, not just us. Not always in a big way, but the main shift is linked to people around the world having access to alternative sources, to news and what is happening in the world. Art is now accessible to a larger audience in the same way, similar processes of discovery. The usual reference points remain, but how we gain information and explore art challenges the very core of what makes 'art' relevant. The reference points which were once so carefully managed, including many of the canons are no longer the same, these canons have expanded and are more complex, outside of the hermetically sealed borders of what mainstream art and its culture once relied upon. It poses major challenges in behaviour and the meaning, the reference points once used by the critic as well. Anyway - it seems to me that, one of the extra qualities of a contemporary artist is about connecting and re-inventing their own positions - either individually or collectively, in accordance to their circumstances, which has naturally become part of the context and integral nature of their art. The positive thing is that, the artist of the 'now' has control of their journey to a much larger degree, more than any other time, but what this also does at the same time is, lessen their worth as plyable material for those who prefer to have control over the creative voice of the artist - this is partly what has come about via a networked culture claiming its own relevance with the world. Perhaps, wanting our cake and eat it, has caused a spatial rift that can only be resolved by carrying on changing according to creative context at hand, and perhaps we just have to let those who build their ivory towers to tumble, and then - hopefully, (I doubt it), lessons will be reflected on. Will discuss other aspects of your poast a bit later Jim... wishing you well. marc p.s. I did write some other text which was part of the original post but cut it out... here it is... The downside on this is, that larger organisations who are not so connected with their audiences (or what's really happening out there) still have control of the media generally, and yes, still hanging onto a gate-keeping formula which can only allow those who are already known and high-profile (usually privileged) to be seen, or acknowledged via its own particular rules of engagement, this cultural hegemony is of course very powerful and well invested upon, it has been for centuries. A good example, relates the radio programming at the BBC, many of those who frequent the broadcasting channels (this includes television) are those who have already gone through the socially constructed process of being educated via certain avenues, informing them that they own a part of our culture, they are offered 'real' cultural cache and an investment in it - and everyone else are more recipients of it. This is not, by any means meant to be construded as a binary opinon here, I really do not wish this to be ture, but it does seem to be a dominant factor in society and it does declare concerns which need to be addressed in some way. And it is relevant to the conversation we are having here. So, I remember a great radio programme on radio 4 a few years back now called Kaleidoscope, which was run and (I think) presented, by Tom Sutcliffe. Even he was from the same place, as many of the other individuals who have a say on our culture, from Cambridge if I remember correctly. But at least he was open minded and curious enough to explore in a genuine way, he managed to set up a situation where the show itself actually made an effort to bring about information for the listener to feature a diverse and extremely collection of programmes that were mentally engaging, which included conversations with up and coming artists, musicians, writers, poets, film-makers etc. This allowed all kinds of individuals and groups to get through and be represented on their own terms, not always perfect but better than what replaced it. It was the predecessor to Front Row. Which mainly features those who are already known, usually high-profile people in film or arts. Eshen is perfect material for this programme, why talk to the artists when you can talk to the one who decides what artists are considered worth seeing? This mannerism, and process of assuming the top dog knows is an out-moded function which presumes (incorrectly) that those who have chosen not to be top dog, knows less - this reflects an in-built arrogance which can be easily aligned to political behaviour. Front Row, also possesses an extremely sycophantic approach which supports an uncritical dialogue with those already well known. Who usually have an infrustructure working for them, such as promoters lobbying for their own particular luvvy to be represented. It is vapid, boring and rather frustrating to listen to. Especially when one knows that there is so, so much more going on out there that is more interesting... ---------------------------------------------- the article takes the ica and, more particularly, eshun to task. but what makes the article interesting to outsiders such as myself is not what it has to say that's utterly particular to the ica or eshun, but how it tells a story that is ongoing around the world. for instance, is the solution to the problem to get somebody else running the ica, like an artist? not just to recover financially, but to bring back the 'artist run' nature of the place. or are those institutions simply doomed to the sort of empty pretensions of late capitalism, wherein there just is no place for the cultures of art as we have known them no matter how you cut it? the ica is hardly the only art institution in which the director is more important than the art or artists. even in net art, which has 0 recognition in the art world, the few gallery curators and other non-artists, ie, with positions of some 'power' to show work to 5 people, are presumed to have much more importance to net art than they actually have. and look at the shows of steve dietz. the quality of the art itself was irrelevant to him also. he was producing concept shows, not showing the quality work of individuals. the quality of the individual works in his shows was not the important thing. the important thing was that the show was curated by dietz with a concept. the actual art was often quite poor. and, boy, do i feel stupid sending a link to gompertz. the quality of the work is utterly irrelevant to him too. it isn't the quality of the work that makes art important, in his book, but the nature of the corporate and institutional promotion and valorization. in all this, although net art has almost 0 recognition in the art world or literary world, it can be an interesting and progressive force in the world because the means of production and dissemination are not so dominated and centralized. ja http://vispo.com _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
