<nettime> dont-call-it-a-come.bak

[jonCates <jcates@artic.edu>]

# begin dont-call-it-a-come.bak
# below is a log file of my responses to the recent ARS CODE thread(s):
# 00. Subject: Re: <nettime> Dont Call it Art: Ars Electronica 2003: 
Call it Telic
# 01. Subject: <nettime> your question (ARS ELECTRONICA etc...)
# 02.  Subject: Re: <nettime> Don't Call it Art: Ars Electronica 2003
# jonCates

# 00.

from  Fri, 19 Sep 2003 14:13:22 -0400
"MANETAS" <m@manetas.com> wrote:

>we disliked the academic bugs who populate the artworld

do you mean academic listening devices?

>3. "Computers" do their own art. (Googlism.com etc). They will not 
>exhibit it to places such as Ars
>Electronica or the Venice Biennial.
>The thing is to discover when and how it happens and get involved.

they might. conceivably, they might be interested in such venues as 
easily as disinterested. i personally wouldnt want to be recorded as 
saying sumThin so declarative or assumptive about their preference. 
singular human identities are troubling enough as organisms that 
display [contradictory/floating/malleable] [tendencies/preferences] 
without drawing the ire of any [mechanical/computational] identities 
or networks.

>4. Telic is everywhere: it's becoming a food coupon card in an 
>International Art Prison where everybody
>has to be somehow creative if not he will be executed.

the prisoners are all male? on what charges are they being held? 
under the ([military/academic/industrial/entertainment]) rule of 
United States ppl from across the world are currently being held as 
without their rights + considered guilty until proven innocent. is 
this a similar situation?

>5. Neen is a fragile thing: something like the "7th spirit" from the 
>movie Final Fantasy.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is wonderful + Final Fantasy is 
fabulous transmedia but it is too bad that Sony never went through 
w/the PS2 playable scenes in the DVD, but they [did/do] offer the 
Final Fantasy Shuffler instead which although engaging is a slim 
substitute.

# 01.

from Sat, 20 Sep 2003 17:31:01 +0200
"Lorenzo Taiuti" <md3169@mclink.it> wrote:

>I was expecting someone to start a discussion or defining analisis 
>about Ars Electronica.

i was unable to attend ARS but had been very interested in the 
positioning of CODE as the basis of the [event(s)/activity(ies)]

>I found Cramer talk at AE interesting.

i found the pdf very [indepth/suggestive]
http://www.aec.at/en/archiv_files/20031/FE_2003_Cramer_en.pdf

esp in rltn to the mystery-making-socialConstruction-of-blackBoxes + 
the fluidity of transcoded [forms/formats/applications] which are 
very relevant in rltn to genre-formation.

-> side_note: is the pdf identical to the presentation given?

>Things he says have been said frequently on the "visual side" of the 
>new media. I wonder if the problem
>arising now it is not only the level of the works in AE. But rather 
>the broadening of divisions between
>fields that were together for a long time. Like activism and visual 
>arts, comunication and hackerism
>etc... It happened before in the seventies (video and art & activism 
>& comunication etc...) and maybe
>it's happening again. It may not be bad and it could bring a new 
>focus on what are directions in
>different fields.

this is an important connection + one that we (criticalartware 
[http://www.criticalartware.net]) are attempting to [develop/discuss]

in our interview w/Kate Horsfield (Video Data Bank 
[http://www.vdb.org]) the following exchange occurred:

//begin interview excerpt

criticalartware: What precedents were set by the Video Art movement?

Kate Horsfield: Video had a promise connected to it, it was a promise 
of looking at the world through a different perspective that was 
absolutely anti-television. It was where people could discuss complex 
issues of identity and race and economics or experiment with radical 
visual forms, like Woody and Steina have. The radicality was at the 
center of it, weather it was political radicality or creating 
something extreme in terms of this visualization. In the 80's video 
tried to behave nicely so that it could be more popular, particularly 
among television viewers. That was a stepping stone into wanting an 
acceptability, where even video artists were trying to get rid of 
this radical history. There has always been this struggle.

//end interview excerpt

outside of the edit of the interview which we released Kate mentions 
the haziness of the definition of "Video Art" during the early 
moments of genre-formation when activities were included that 
transgressed these [constructed/legitimated] borders that art worlds 
necessitate. during that time these distinctions were of little 
interest to many practicing what would be come classified as "Video 
Art".

-> side_note: its also important to note that these distinctions are 
less meaningful in the face of necessities such as access to 
[emerging/shared] [nfo/systems/resources/tools].

# 02.

from Mon, 22 Sep 2003 23:25:41 +0200 (CEST)
august <august@alien.mur.at> wrote:

>Strangely enough the push is coming more from curators and writers 
>(most of which have no or little
>programming experience) rather than from the practicing artists.  I 
>don't know if this has classically been
>the case with say dada, futurism, conceptualism or even modernism.
>But, Judd was writing his own critiques, wasn't he?

while i understand yr interest in separating these categories of 
[curator/writer/artist] i experience + am familiar w/constant 
fluidity between these [concepts/constructs]. if you are interested 
in positioning the art-categorization of art-as-software, as coming 
from outside of the practice of making art, how do you reconcile that 
position w/yr recognition of the softening or [borders/distinctions] 
which would demarcate [theory/practice]?

from my experience + perspective as a developer of criticalartware, i 
can say that myself + the other developers of the 
[application/platform] are ppl who identify themselves as 
[artists/programmers/participants in the formation of discourses]. we 
also consider criticalartware to be a [historical/artistic] 
[project/work] in + of itself. the ppl who we are interviewing, from 
the early Video Art moment + from current artware praxis, also 
identify themselves in such a manner as to [cross/destabilize] 
boundaries between artistic [identities/approaches]. this is a rather 
banal observation (on my part) as it seems widely understood, but 
this situation directly contrasts the kind of oppositional thinking 
thats evident in yr post.
of the interviews already posted, you will find examples of these 
hybridized [identities/approaches] in each interview. for example, 
Sherry Miller Hocking (Experimental Television Center 
[http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org/]) describes how the situation 
has (@ many times) necessitated that ppl engage in these roles of 
[making/distributing/archiving/historicizing/educating/critiquing]. 
In particular, she addresses these issues in rltn to 2 events that 
the Experimental Television Center was involved in [+/or] responsible 
for organizing:

"Information Works and Activities" from 1976
http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org/history/search/search.php3?id=518&base=events

+

"Ars Electronica: Eigenwelt der Apparate - Welt Pioneers of 
Electronica Art" from 1992
http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org/history/search/search.php3?id=692&base=events


>'New Media' was once called intermedia or integrated media, wasn't 
>it? Besides that, Sol Lewitt was >making software art long ago, nay?

yes, indeed.

>Under good lighting, the newish push towards 'software art' is not 
>really about making a category, which >at first seems extremely 
>precise and limiting despite the numerous sub-categories, but 
>finding new
>criteria for reflexion on current artistic research.  So with much 
>respect to those writing and organizing
>festivals around this topic, to call it 'software art' is IMHO 
>generating a narrowing rhetoric which is
>equally insignificant to artists and software makers who are quite 
>_naturally_ doing >both.

i think this is raises the issue of new-ness, historicizing + our 
need to complicate the "new" as a  [concept/construct]. it seems by 
"new" you mean to include the history of Conceptualism's engagement 
w/software-as-art + code-based works, i.e. Lewitt. criticalartware 
seeks to include the history of Video Art also, esp in regard to its 
formative early [moments/stage] in this same rltnshp. of course, 
Video Art has become distinct in art-historical terms from 
Conceptualism, but during the early moments, these distinctions were 
very soft + permeable w/[artists/programmers/writers/curators] 
engaged in across the borders that were created as [part/parcel] of 
genre-formations.

# end dont-call-it-a-come.bak
-- 
# jonCates
# coreDeveloper
# http://www.criticalartware.net
# joncates@criticalartware.net




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