<nettime> RE: RHIZOME_RAW: GENERATION FLASH (2 / 3)

["Christopher Fahey [askrom]" <askROM@graphpaper.com>]

> [1] Tirana Biennale 01 Internet section
> (www.electronicorphanage.com/biennale) was organized 
> by Miltos Manetas / Electronic Orphanage. The exhibition 
> consisted from a few dozen projects by Web designers 
> and artists, many of whom work in Flash or Schockwave. 
> Manetas comissioned me, Peter Lunenfeld, and Norman 
> Klein to write the analysis of the show. This text is my 
> contribution; many ideas in it developed out of the 
> conversations the three of us had about the works in the 
> show. 

Were you given a chance to interview any of the artists? Will that be in
Part 3?


> (Tirana Biennale 01 did include one artist from China who 
> contributed a beatiful animation of martial arts fighters. But 
> we never found who he was. All we knew about him was his 
> email address: zhu_zhq@sohu.com. Maybe he did not even
> live in China.)

If you/they never found out who he was, how can you say he "contributed"
anything? 

Anyway, I think your GENERATION FLASH analysis is pretty damn good so far.
The sudden appearance of so many Flash artists with such similar
aesthetics (what you call "lightness" - thin lines, greyscales, graceful
mathmatical curves, 45 degree angles) is certainly worthy of comment. This
"Flash aesthetic" can even be seen on TV, for example in those beautiful
British Petroleum ads.

The seemingly endless backlash against Flash can, in many ways, be traced
to a simple dislike for the "Flash aesthetic" or the predominance of that
aesthetic. I, for one, hope that now that a leading art thinker has
analysed and defined the "Flash aesthetic" in great detail, maybe now we
can put that aesthetic aside and explore the millions of other things
Flash can be and do and look like. Even Josh Davis has, in many respects,
put that aesthetic out to pasture, as seen in his rather baroque new
"synthetic sinewy" works.

-Cf

[christopher eli fahey]
art: http://www.graphpaper.com
sci: http://www.askrom.com
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com





#  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: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net