On 21 Sep 2020, at 7:11 am, Brian Holmes
<bhcontinentaldr...@gmail.com> wrote:
As I understand it, Lev Manovich set out to define New Media Art
using modernist criteria - notably the tautological gesture whereby
the artwork refers to its own components, or its so-called
"conditions of possibility."
However, as Steve Kurtz, Molly Hankwitz and John Hopkins have
pointed out, most of the artists actually using computerized media,
even back in those heavily hyped days of the 1990s and the early
2000s when "New Media" was promoted as a category, were interested
in communication and interaction, often around a theme or a specific
situation. They wanted to put their creativity, not into the shaping
of the object, but into the co-creation of the circuit or the field
of interaction that the art helped link together -- even though no
individual and certainly no artwork could claim to originate or
control this milieu of interaction.
One of media philosopher Bernard Steigler's most important insights
has been that invention happens not in the subjective depths of an
individual, but in the open space of a milieu - that zone or
wavelength where people resonate with each other and something new
emerges. The milieu is alive, it's emergent, it's multiple, it's
dispersed, and it's a world still barely describable in the clumsy
Western languages dominated by methodological individualism.
Is it any wonder that many of these interactive works don't look so
great in a museum? If they do look good, it's because they included
a museum component, which was often a strategic decision toward a
powerful and ubiquitous funding institution. Nonetheless, it's not a
decision that underlines their most important characteristic, which
is to work in the middle, between subjectivities. The art object had
to look good in a museum because no one in there could be counted on
to realize what the media work was really doing, what it was engaged
with, where it was dissolving into co-creation.
Is it any wonder, then, that many of the most innovative figures
didn't bother making work for the museum? A new gaze, a new
vocabulary, a new set of criteria for art were being developed
somewhere else, in the milieu of interaction. Certain museums and
art spaces did follow, and gradually a new gaze, a new language and
new evaluative criteria have gradually taken form.
What's no wonder at all, though, is the sadness of old white guys
who want the world to fit into their definitions, their
institutions, and their pocketbooks. Modernist criteria served these
sad old white guys very well -- or very badly, depending on how you
look at it. As our civilization dies, our institutions are still
celebrating the values, the taste and the philosophy that are
killing us.
I don't have a good read of Lev Manovich because I always got bored
with his books. Certainly he has a predilection for modernist
vanguards that are more about infinite differentiation than sheer
tautology. What I never spotted, however, was an interest in
changing the root definition of what art is and what it does -- and
above all, where, how, with whom and why it does what it does today.
best, Brian
On Sun, Sep 20, 2020 at 6:53 PM John Hopkins
<jhopk...@neoscenes.net> wrote:
On 20/Sep/20 14:12, Molly Hankwitz wrote:
Dear Geert, Lev, nettime...ok, I take the bait...!!!
thanks Molly, et al...
Important point -- that the use of networked/digital
communications tools was
the core (or at least peripheral) for some 'digital' works -- most
of them
forgotten -- except in their power to facilitate human encounter
and possibly
sustained connection, and thus, life-change. But then again,
communications, for
a human, always begins and ends up analog.
Items/events/encounters/projects that jump to mind with unequal,
though
demonstrated life-changing effect for participants (self being one
of those):
waterwheel; Polar Circuit; ReLab; MUUMedia; radiostadt1; RAM; the
NICE network;
nettime; Open-X; aural degustation; SiTO/OTiS; soundcamp; world
listening day;
pixelache; beauty & the East; ADA; Bed-in for peace NZ; bricolabs;
cafe9.net [1];
radiophrenia; digitalchaos; dkfrf; world-wide-simultaneous-dance;
what-are-we-eating; Port MIT; audioblast; ethernity; di-fusion
1&2; expand;
gimokud; keyworx; kidsconnect; SolarCurcuit; various kunstradio
projects;
locussonus; meet-to-delete; microsound; migrating art academies;
mute sounds;
net.sauna; netarts machida; netbase; nomusic; placard; ANAT;
overgaden sound
festival; PNEK; TEKs; Atelier Nord; remote-tv; RIXC; send&receive;
shareNY, et
al; aporee::maps; superfactory; techno-shamanism; telejam;
anatomix; telakka;
thebox; virtualteams; visitorstudio; ... I could go on ...
Those folks in it (mostly) for personal gain, 'influence', and
notoriety missed
this potential for sustained human connection, and at career's end
find
themselves lonely -- "friended" but w/o any real friends -- all
the folks
tread-upon in the climb to 'fame' (what's a name?).
And, Lev, really, at least you were able to convert whatever it
was into tenure,
and a robust pension, unlike most folks! Good unless the state
completely fails!
JH
--
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
subscribe to the neoscenes blog::
http://neoscenes.net/blog/87903-subscribe-to-neoscenes
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
# archive: http://www.nettime.org [2] contact: nett...@kein.org
# @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
# @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: