<nettime> Fwd: Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts Crisis

[benjamin <benjamin@cultura3.net>]

>>On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 05:23:12PM +0200, Matze Schmidt wrote:
>>I'd like to point out at this point that institutions like  
>>Montevideo are revolutionizers of money, e.g. they payed Jaromil  
>>for working on dynebolican stuff
>>
>Resent-From: nettime@kein.org
>From: jaromil <jaromil@dyne.org>
>Date: 17 May 2009 13:05:54 BDT
>
>if it would be just the action of redistribution of wealth, then it  
>wouldn't be revolutionary at all.


The Union Nationale des ?tudiants de France, 1966 ?..

"progressive    attitude" .. what a lovely expression!

>Rama Hoetzlein wrote:
>>
>New media art should be defined from an art-philosophical  
>perspective. In this view, meaning is present in all works, to  
>varying degrees, regardless of how they might be appropriated by  
>culture. At what time in history was art not appropriated by  
>culture? None the less, people continued to create art. The process  
>of art-making is one of creating meaning, and this relation between  
>the artist and the work is not changed despite how the object is  
>ultimately appreciated, used, or abused by culture.

Isn't the word culture in this context, just a fancy hiding place for  
marketing ? This common conception of "meaning," it is integral to  
anything that it might be communicative of something; as is for  
creations and for artworks - silly to neglect such consideration -  
though not to my point. To bring contemporary art to the scales; this  
notion of representation seems to be very important, which is  
interesting in consideration of micro (or personal) politics and  
indeed the political. What does the work represent ? Does it matter ?  
Contemporary art should need a key for it's proper understanding by  
the public ?... conceptual. Still not my point exactly, but rather  
this seeming shift from generalisations more relevant to old works  
and their movements, to that of an artwork's depiction rather than  
it's representation. To the capturing or iteration in the artwork  
rather than the artists reflections or the reiteration of ideas, and  
substance.

Some creative spaces, in support of the arts quite generally, leave  
opportunities to observe interesting contrasts between the  
disciplines - become industries - for an example as such, yesterday  
ID magazine and Vogue were to begin fashion shoots in studios  
expected on both parts to have been hired by the other and in the end  
found that neither had booked the space at all.. deliberation between  
the clean cut, impecably styled photographers and staff insues whilst  
the models lope about. A rehearsal pauses and broady dramatists break  
from instensive practising of their lines for an upcoming musical and  
dancers in their sweats drag heavy limbs past a glass house  
conservatory in which two rather burly women hurridly gather chairs  
for their overflowing meeting of the therapy through drama social  
meeting, through the gallery and into the cafe where (my work is on  
exhibition =) and visiters chat about the works on show over coffee  
and cake amongst the lofty white expanse.

The centre used to be a school, which was built to "shed light" into  
an area of "poverty" - despite the lovely ancient design of hidden  
rows of cottages. Observing now such refined and celebrated  
industries of art, of culture, have forged such different paths in  
produce, practice, use of media and light on style; each equally  
successful and considerably vast in enterprise across the "developed  
nations" and entirely present through the others.

>On 17 May 2009, at 22:32, Brian Holmes wrote:
>I find that informatic art (my own off-the-cuff term, but surely  
>better than new media) is compelling precisely when it places  
>subjective expression within the most strongly coercive social  
>arena of our time, namely the digital networks.

The illusion of new media art, that it is in fact new - an exciting  
motivation perhaps, to labour upon the avant-garde. Perpetuative  
removal of it's self from it's own context: this is not media art, it  
is new media art - not at all like that old media art! But it's not  
true is it/ old media art is very much like the most recent hacks, or  
reconfigurations of other substances. The name of a movement ? It is  
bizare - imagine the painter's movement perhaps might have taken  
place upon the internal walls of a rocky mountains and here  
emphasised the importance of interdisciplinary curation. What is art ?

>On 17 May 2009, at 09:59, carlos katastrofsky wrote:
>
>when was the last big exhibition dealing solely with "painting" or  
>"sculpture" you've seen ?

Not as to when, but perhaps where. Though perhaps here we do have the  
beginnings of something. The varied "stature" of buildings, of  
funding and of status belonging to our art "schools" - though now  
here in the UK, most inclusively can be seen as capitalistic  
whorehouses, never the less might feature a video piece amongst the  
salons dedicated to a "painting course."

This net, art a striking object amongst white washed walls, spot  
lights and suspended about a polished wooden floor; tightly bundled  
and bound for transport. The visitors spontaneously able to associate  
this "artefact" with the type of artwork that they would have seen  
before in galleries, or at least to that which they can reference  
from images in the media. The closest imediate analogy for a well  
experienced visitor might perhaps be bound in some further parallel  
with references beyond the gallery. Suggesting that these works are  
worthy of study in an expanded perspective, including dominant art  
styles, because the net art is art and is received as such by a  
significant and educated segment of the visiting public, celebrated  
precisely as an instance of the way in which an art world creates  
it's artworks: by labelling them as such. The definition here is  
indeed as carlos puts it "reasonable," that there is not necessarily  
a requirement of a controversial post duchampian discourse inorder to  
prove the validity of this art.


This discussion between the neuveau lettr? across the international  
open platform, such musing towards generated out side of less new- 
media savvy networks of interaction. It's lovely that new media art  
can play a the commercial trail of a journey from Riga to London on a  
piano through a piece of paper, or could simply be a flashing message  
on a screen  in your bedroom, but does that really matter ? To assume  
that works exhist outside the eurocentric geist of western art, how  
is the net exculsive ? If one allows the net to be inculded, what is  
left of institutional values of the historically grounded art/ 
artifact interpretation ? Should such a discorse include works which  
were not intended to be art, do such works lack these same integral  
concepts ? If one might pursuade their public that the  
institutionalised theory is true, that art is what we say it is, then  
the contrary must also be true: that the less curent works of new  
media art, are also artifact.

The definition between artist and the producer of artefacts leads to  
fundamental questions over the social index responsible for the  
generation of contemporary new media art. how is this index reflected  
in the social consensus, to which the institution is predisposed ?

http://www.tanbou.com/2006/summer/KubaWomansWrapper.jpg


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