On 16/12/10 06:12, Heidi May wrote:
>
> I wouldn't mind if you expanded on the distinction you see between
> intermedia and multimedia, and more about your thoughts on the

"Multimedia" is a phrase coined by Walt Disney in the 1950s to mean a 
mass media franchise that had branded products in different media 
(films, TV shows, theme parks, merchandise, etc.). A single idea in 
multiple forms.

We now use "multimedia" to mean almost the opposite, many forms in a 
single work. Computing machinery is now an easy way of achieving that, 
but multimedia became slide shows or stage shows with sound and special 
effects before it became "interactive" with Hypercard and Director.

I think it's useful to differentiate between artists who use different 
media for different work and artists who use different media in a single 
work. The former I'd call intermedia, the latter multimedia.

It looks like I'm clashing with a historical definition (cf Simon) with 
my use of "intermedia", so possibly "cross-media" would be better.

> relationship between Relationalism and networks.

I think that there is a network that Relational art exists within and 
that can usefully be analysed, and that Relational art relies on network 
effects, but I don't think it's the one that Relationalism claims it is.

When looking at a network to try and work out how the art relates to it 
and what that means we need to make sure we're looking at a relevant 
network.

The network of relationships that Relationalism pushes to the fore are 
those between artist and gallery audience, or artwork and audience, or 
between audience members.

But this is not the network that has produced the work or that the work 
exists within. Focussing on it obscures, if not deliberately then very 
conveniently, the network of relationships that have *actually* produced 
the work and that give it its aesthetic, social and financial value.

These are the social and economic relationships between the artists, the 
institution presenting the work, the people actually paying for the 
work, and the real audience (for whom the Relational audience is in fact 
part of the material of the work).

- Rob.
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