{"id":35,"date":"2005-03-30T20:36:17","date_gmt":"2005-03-30T18:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.constant.irisnet.be\/%7Econstant\/kris_search\/?p=35"},"modified":"2005-03-30T20:36:17","modified_gmt":"2005-03-30T18:36:17","slug":"basics-of-media-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kris.constantvzw.org\/basics-of-media-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Basics of Media Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Transmediale 05<\/a> conference there was a panel on the Basics of Media Art with Gunalan Nadarajan, Sally Jane Norman and Christiane Paul. Below you find the transcription of the statements by the pannelists.
\n
\nMedia art was, for a long time, defined by its use of new electronic and digital technology, which appeared in rapid succession in the 1990s and offered new communication and interactive possibilities. Today these technologies are, for the most part, well-developed and mainstream. Media art can therefore focus more on its societal and cultural meanings. The once tense relationship between art and media art is currently propelled more by dialogue and bridge-building.
\nThe discussion regarding the fundamentals of a media art, which no longer can solely define itself by its use of digital technology, has resulted in the abolishment of the competition categories (image, interaction, software) of the transmediale award competition. The first result is a fundamentally broader perspective of the potential of media art, and of the aesthetic possibilities of interdisciplinary approaches.<\/i>
\n(From the Transmediale 05 Catalogue)<\/p>\n

\"Afbeelding-096.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Introduction \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Mercedes Bunze \u00e2\u20ac\u201c DE.BUG Magazine<\/b><\/p>\n

Walter Benjamin said once upon a time that technological revolutions are the breaking point of the developments of art, breaking points which show the political tendencies of the time. But what are we going to do when the revolution is over? Media Art started some time ago as an art format of its own. Media Art took its seat into the world of Art and claimed to revolutionize it. In a rather old fashioned way, it claimed to be the new avant-garde. Its interactivity first seemed to integrate the observer even if later on we found out that we where only part of a multiple choice test. The Man \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Machine opposition which was another issue of Media Art is not that trilling anymore because we got used to this technology as part of our everyday live. Although we are still sure that there is something special about Media Art, its values seem to dissolve and we are very interested in this transformation. <\/p>\n

So what is Media Art today? Is it Art that uses electronic media? Is it Art about the effects that Media have in our contemporary life? Can we really save Media Art by politics? Can we save Media Art if we define it as art that engages with the societal and cultural potentials of technology? What is the relation of Media Art and Fine Arts today? Can Media Art add another spectrum to Fine Arts and what kind of spectrum is it? <\/p>\n

To discuss these complex questions, the Transmediale invited three experts which I will briefly introduce to you. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m especially happy that the Transmediale has found three experts which work in Media Art but in three very different fields. Net art and Hypertext, Robotic Art and Gaming and last but not least Interface and Performance. Christiane Paul is curator of New Media Art at the Witney Museum in New York. She is teaching in the School of Visual arts in the Computer Arts department and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s director of Intelligent Agent, an organisation and information resource dedicated to Digital Art. Gunalan Nadarajan is an Art theorist and curator based in Singapore and one of the directors of ISEA, a very known Media Arts organisation. And he teaches at the college of the arts in Singapore. Sally Jane Norman is a New Zealander and a French theorist, whose research focuses on live, art and technology. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s director of the cultural lab and interdisciplinary research facilities at Newcastle University. <\/p>\n

Christiane Paul \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Whitney Museum \u00e2\u20ac\u201c New York<\/b><\/p>\n

I would like to first of all talk about basics in the sense of the categories and taxonomies of Media Art versus New Media Art. I want to start with a disclaimer: what I do not want to do here is to define the field and to present you the ultimate definitions of what these art forms are. What I want to do is basically illustrate how confusing it actually gets and I start with the Idea of Media Art versus New Media Art. Of course, Media Art has a long history. Initially it was basically one to many distribution systems, be it radio, film, video or television. And since the 1950\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s many other technologies have been added such as satellite, laser technologies, all kinds of electrostatic production processes, and many more\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

What we are looking at with digital technologies and networked digital technologies in particular is a switch from a one to many to a many to many distribution system which I think is an important point and I will talk about that a little bit later. The terms for Electronic Art have always been extremely fluid. Digital Art was originally called Computer Arts in the 1960s, then it was Multi Media Art for a while and then it co-opted the New Media term which had been used for film and video until the end of the 20th century. So there was a weird switch from the analogue to the digital. So, when we are looking at the New Media Arts, there of course always is the question, what exactly is new about it? And one thing that everybody seems to agree on is that New Media Art is extremely bad terminology. Because it does basically nothing when it comes to defining the aesthetics of the field. There are certain characteristics that are associated with New Media Art and one could say that one basic characteristic is computability. Although you at the same find things as Bio Art, art in the form of genetic engineering, on different Media Art festivals. And very often this art uses the technology only at one point in the process. So computability alone doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really describe what is going on in the field today. Then there are certain key words off course such as interactive, process oriented, time based, dynamic, networked, real-time, telematic, participatory, collaborative, performative, non-linear, hyper textual and modular, generative, customizable\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Of course, it is not that all of these surface in one work but you have them used in various combinations. And there are many different forms, this list is by no means inclusive. For example forms such as software art which is a very blurry field, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to talk about that right now. Or mobile or locative media\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 And then you have a variety of themes addressed, be it artificial art or intelligence, the body, identity and the post human or more activist projects and again this list is not complete. Berryl Graham from CRUMB, the curatorial resource list at the University of Sunderland in the UK, has actually put up a little list of key words. I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really interesting because it basically shows you how complex this field really is. She compared for example the key words from the Rizome Art Base to Ars Electronica, Transmediale and various other books. So, this gives you an idea of the keywords, themes that are out there. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to discuss all of that in detail. You can basically find it on line, but I think it is an interesting little survey of the field.<\/p>\n

One thing I think is really important is that you simply cannot show and understand from an art historical perspective the history of New Media Art just by looking at Media Art and just looking at what previously has been done. Artworks that use radio such as dose by Max Beuhaus for example and many other pioneering works. But New Media Art has a very hybrid history and owes to many other previous art movements such as DaDa and fluxus. Both of which very often where performative, event based. They also make use of instructions, a certain amount of randomness.
\nThen, the situationists of course, the whole idea of psycho geography for example is of course an old one and comes from another art historical discourse although right now it is being used a lot within the field of locative media and mobile media. And conceptual art of course. The works by Duchamps or John Cage for example, are also highly relevant to this. <\/p>\n

So, just a basic definition on technological art simply doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work for this field and the discussions we are having today are not at all new. Gloria Sutton for example wrote a little essay on exhibiting new media which actually has been published on the Rhizome Digest, and rightly points out that what we are discussing here today also was very much discussed in the 1960\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc70s within the whole area or pre-area of conceptual art. So the questions where and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just reading from Suttons\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 list here: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What exactly is the role of the arts in a technological driven society?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Are computers consumer electronics, and is communication theory transforming art production or simply obscuring it?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What is technology\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relevance to art, if any?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Does Art operate under a technological imperative?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d What is very interesting I think is that in the 60\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and 70\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s these discussions where being held in the major art magazines, in art forums, in basically your standard art magazines. And now it is mostly on mailinglists and New Media Art festivals. So, one big question is: Why is that the case? <\/p>\n

I want to return to the idea of what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new or what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not new? I think there is one important characteristic which distinguishes this art form from the previous ones and I think modularity is one very important characteristic. If you look at the one to many broadcasting systems in the past from radio to film and television, we are looking basically at a super structure of production and distribution. But within the digital field, this whole landscape of production and distribution gets infinitely more scattered. So you have different technologies and each is responsible for different tasks such as image manipulation or 3D-moddeling or web browsing etc. And all of this offers us different entery points basically or different points of intervention into media systems. <\/p>\n

What I always like to show in this context is a diagram by Saul Albert<\/a>. It’s from the Users Guide for Adrian Ward’s software “Auto-Illustrator”<\/a>: . So what you have here are different intervention points: software producers, and software consumers. And we might look at the idea of basics as basically modules of media production systems and tools, which is one filter to apply to it. We are all familiar with the list of words I have here, we are not going to go in on this in detail. For example the whole idea of browser configuration like IOD\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s webstalker which more or less created this whole genre and reconfigured the browser. You equally have a large amount of projects that are search engine configurations which allows you to create fake websites and fake data bodies. There have been exhibitions such as the art of the engine. Mongrell for example created alternative search engines.<\/p>\n

You can also look at basics of Media Art as production tools or as technologies for representing tools. Or as tools for collaborative or activist interventions. An example of a production tool is an auto illustrator which critically engages with adobe illustrator and photoshop, which shows the specific software by critically questioning and undermining them. And then you have a lot of pieces about technologies in communities. Mongrells 9 would be an example. It basically invites people to create knowledge maps of their experiments in sets of nine images. An example of a collective or activist project is the Bureau of Inverse Technologies that has created all these types of products that might be useful in an activist context, for example the Bits Rocket which is basically this little toy rocket that enables you to do for example crowd control during demonstrations. You can count the people that are out there and you can get more accurate accounts then the media are giving you. And then there is the Critical Art Ensemble which created a lot of technologies which help you criticize genetic engineering. <\/p>\n

So this is just one way of looking at different forms of basics here. And I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to say that New Media Art is art that has all of these things. But the works here in the exhibition from Victoria Banks living room with a very modular narrative to Uterbachs works, where again you have a modular generative which questions the composition of painting. It is just one of the inherent characteristics. And what I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t talked about is art that uses digital technologies as a tool that creates photographs or a painting. But at a festival such as Transmediale you are potentially looking at photo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such as a painting or a photograph that critically engages with the effects of new technology. And I think it is actually crucial for the reintegration in the realm of fine arts to look across media. <\/p>\n

Everybody complaints today that New Media Art is very much in a gettho today, and there are so many attempts to integrate it more, and I also think we should get out of the media category. In ordre to do that on the other hand as you see just how hybrid this territory is, there are various problems connected to that and we will discuss that later so I will end it here. Thank you very much. <\/p>\n

Gunalan Nadaradjan \u00e2\u20ac\u201c LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Singapore<\/b> <\/p>\n

I have two or tree points I would like to make. I would like to start with this difficult question of what it is this New Media Art. We must understand that the field is a relatively new field in terms of attemps of trying to define it. And in some senses this defining difficulties of categorizing and the multiplication of media based, form based, material based categories and taxonomies is very characteristic of a relatively new field. And I think it is useful for us to look at and to think about whether we should be in such a hurry to make these classifications. I think I would like to suggest that it is not a bad thing to not have categories that are not set and defined. <\/p>\n

One important benefit is that you are enabled by this lack of categories to make hybrid connections and associations that the field of New Media Art or how you would like to call it actually celebrates. If one looks just within this audience where they say: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not really an artist I am coming from this field\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I started with something else and now I am doing this\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.
\nI think one of the interesting aspects of what is going on in this field is that it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fixed and I think that the benefits of connecting to other fields is a beneficial thing it should be encouraged. And I think that to have defined categories which put up borders to say: this is what constitutes Media Art and everything else is not, the us vs them idea would not be very beneficial for the field. <\/p>\n

Having said that, provocatively I also want to suggest that the field itself has got a longer history and the history itself would not be able to be explored if we are to define the field as it is right now. A conference will happen in Benth (?) in October this year on Media Art. And one of the issues of the conference is, what are the historical precedents that have contributed to some extent to the development of New Media Art. Even when we look at the initial proposals that are being done in terms of papers, we realise that we are getting papers from such varying fields and we are discovering that there are genealogies and connections and histories that go back to the thirteenth century and to the third century. Or to some obscure city or to some obscure group that is functioning in one particular city and doing interesting stuff. <\/p>\n

So the potential of developing these connections to these many different historical movements just becomes that much more complex. People have started to define the field already. Now, to give an example of that history thing. One of the works that I am doing right now is to look at the histories of Robotic arts. There have been histories of Robots that go back a rather long time. But these have not been seen as predecessors of automatisation or automata. And one of the things that I am interested in the research that I am doing on Islamic Robotics is that in the 9th century to the 13th century a whole range of interesting examples of automated devices was created in the Muslim world. And these represented interesting ways of thinking about programming. Programming movements, e.g. movements that would elicit pleasure. And a lot of the devices had interesting potential to be developed further. But out genealogies of robotic arts have placed themselves somewhere back in the 50s or 60s. Part of this has to do with the fact that we think that robotic arts hold this particular set of imperatives and this is what we think and are trying to respond to. <\/p>\n

I think that the lack of having categories predefined would help us to explore some of these historical possibilities. The relationship between a lot of national magic examples of experimentation where forgotten. These are also interesting examples of installations that had interesting elements of creating a response from the audience. Making an audience wondering about how nature operates. These are points of historical discontinuities that I have tried to show and that I think we should actually exploit. And we would probably be losing that possibility by simply saying well look this is what it is and this is what it is not, its genealogy begins in 1928 or 1930 or 1950. We would miss an opportunity. <\/p>\n

One other issue that is worth while talking about is the unproductive division that exists today between Media Art events and Media artists, and Contemporary Art events and Contemporary artists. There are very few contemporary arts festivals that are consistently showing Media Artists. And part of the problem has to do with the extent to which contemporary art understands the necessities, the aesthetics or the logistical support that is needed for Media Arts. And we are perpetuating that division by closing down our bridge already. I we should start exploring the continuities and relationships and affiliations between contemporary art movements and practices with New Media Art. E.g what are the relations between early conceptual art working with information and data to database works. How can we start at a different way of conceptualising database art works that are happening primarily in Media Arts but that are connecting up to a different history so you start to create a different kind of a dialogue. To create possibilities or a different kind of audience. I think that the unproductive division that exists between contemporary art and Media Arts needs to be addressed at some point. If this is not addressed, what is going to happen is that we are more and more marginalised in terms of that we are going to have our own events. How many biennales are actually seriously considering what is going on in Media Arts? There are very few Biennales that actually dealt with Media Arts. I think that division and that lack of understanding is just being perpetuated and continued by the fact that we are not engaged in that world and I think we should engage in that world by trying to open something up of the borders. And one way to open it up is by keeping the categories open. <\/p>\n

Sally Jane Norman \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Culture Lab \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Newcastle<\/b><\/p>\n

My statement will just be a few of basic questions. The decision to abolish categories is a challenging and a brave one. And I feel somehow an instrumental approach to this because we once did an award on Interactive Art and we had such problems with getting our head around how to define Interactive Art. So I think this debate is a really worth while one picking it back up again. And it is really interesting to see the work that has resulted from this decision. And to read the jury statement. Regarding this panels presentation statement, there are a few points that I would like to focus on and exaggerate probably. <\/p>\n

So, a first obvious point is the fact that Media Art has developed and is developing parallel to the increasingly generalised use of the technology it is using in many different fields, at home, leisure corporate and many more. Technological and digital literacy at least in the privileged parts of the world which enjoy electricity and phone networks is growing steadily. And creations that surprised 20 years ago for their combined artistic and technological innovation are less likely today although we may remain extremely sensitive to their historic value. I told you this would be a truism. <\/p>\n

Technology\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s constant and exponential development makes it I think contentious that at a given moment our levels of experience and simulation have at last blessed us with a wisdom and hindsight to leave behind the nodes and bolds of technology and technological questions. And to move on to the nobler debate of the societal and cultural meanings of Media Art. <\/p>\n

The claim that yesterdays embryonic technologies are becoming today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mainstream technologies is of course logical and reasonable. The claim however that this might lead to more laudable artistic pursuits, like a focus on culture and societal meanings is I think a catch 22 claim, if you develop the underlying logic. When today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s embryonic technologies become tomorrows mainstream they will in their turn enhance arts cultural and societal focus. Making Transmediales 05 a juvenile thing hung up on today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s technology. What will our descendants say about work 20 years from now? That artists in 2005 where too overwhelmed by the new technological possibilities to take account of the cultural and societal meanings of new media? But when they finally became mainstream we where able to redevelop this focus? <\/p>\n

Where does this reasoning begin and where does it end? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like the debate about when we began to become post-human? Which is a funny thing for a species that can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t decide whether its condition should be human or post-human. The revolution is permanent and never over and particularly in art. I think we have to make a careful distinction between the maturity we may eventually have acquired after a couple of decades of digital art, and the assertion that with that sort of maturity we can detach ourselves from certain aspects of technologies in order to embrace broader issues. This assertion has a questionable underlying premise that consists of opposing technology on the one hand and societal and cultural meaning on the other hand. <\/p>\n

I do not think that the once tense relationship between art and Media Art has miraculously eased out thanks to the experience acquired during a generation or two. And I am talking about generations as conditions of human beings as opposed for example to generations of software. And I would like to point to Erik Satie who once said that Experience is a form of paralysis. So it is not necessarily a liberating thing. I suggest that these tensions have always existed in the relation between art and new media of its day whether we are talking about pigment or materials or wathever. And I suggest that these tensions have somehow shifted as they always do and always have done. And perhaps right now they are firing the debate that rallies and opposes art and design, entertainment and aesthetics, computational procedures and conceptual art.. They are essential aspects of the creation process, it drives and distinguishes art from other sites of human activity. I also hope that we remain capable of or that we continue to attempt to identify the places where they are active at a given historic moment. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what really interests me. <\/p>\n

Today at last our experiences have moved us to more interesting reflections on societal and cultural meanings of Media Art. We are in effect indirectly undermining the societal and cultural value of earlier work. This is problematic. Even if we did manage to come up with a consensual definition of what the societal and cultural meanings of New Media Art might be. The fact that we are actually dealing with a more hybrid and historically more accurate history then we actually might think. Can arts societal and cultural meanings be a-historically defined? Like abstract attributes out of context? Are these attributes not rather tightly a meshed in the society and cultural that actually make them meaningful? If so, on what grounds can we presumptuously dismiss historically renewed work as being less meaningful then today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. And what should stop our descendants of doing the same thing some time after us. How do we deal with ideological wealth bound up in archaeological pasts? <\/p>\n

What is implied here is that the pioneers in electronic and digital arts where forced in exploring activities by trying out new tools. And that these exploratory activities where not interested in cultural and societal meanings. But I think this is a suspicious \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we are older and wiser\u00e2\u20ac\u009d stance that undermines the intentions of our forbearers. <\/p>\n

There is an underlying suggestion here then that the experimentation on new tools their affordances and their technical implications are incompatible with a focus on their cultural and societal meanings. So the story of technology being ghettoized because it is blanched from its vital makers and users. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also the old story of refusing to contextualise. Of being obliged to consider work of another time that in its respective context probably had just as much cultural and societal significance as today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s works on the Transmediale award.<\/p>\n

My real problem is the fact that these plains resuscitate and die hard double bind, that I hope one day will disappear but I suspect we are stuck with it. It is part of our human limits probably. This is the dilemma that rises when you draw up a hard and firm line between art and technology. In short between elements that are still always seen as dichotomous. And in reality the type that even not? The constant co-evolution of humans and technics is such that to my mind at least there is no such thing as artistic experimentation bereaved of social and cultural implications.<\/p>\n

Wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it the focus on explicitly engaged work, whatever that means, any more laudable then focus on generic, abstract, communication and interactive functionalities of the tools we are developing. Because these functionalities are powerful conveyors of social activities.<\/p>\n

Are we headed for a new kind of social realism? If art is a symbolic system that we humans have contrived to query the nature of the universe and our relations to that nature and to that universe then surely its most burning message now ever and always is to see and question how this nature and these relationships are changing. And as the old dichotomies mentioned earlier (the nature-techniques dichotomy) move away to more disturbingly hybrid constructs, where the definition of life itself is called into question. Surely arts essential societal and cultural role consists of a query of these new arena\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s of cultural and conceptual activity and I will maintain that the work that is being showed here does so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the Transmediale 05 conference there was a panel on the Basics of Media Art with Gunalan Nadarajan, Sally Jane Norman and Christiane Paul. Below you find the transcription of the statements by the pannelists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kris.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kris.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kris.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kris.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kris.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kris.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kris.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kris.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kris.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}