Hi Shardcore and all,

I’ve noticed many critical responses whether discussing with friends, associates, or reading material about it online.

I have copied and pasted some comments below from the ‘Hack The Art World’, site.

“I can't say I was all that bothered by the daft "DevArt" neologism. Nor Google's unsubtle rewrite of digital art history. It was badly researched, short-sighted, and a touch imperialistic, yes, but ultimately it only made them look stupid, not anyone else.

I was, however, a little creeped out by the DevArt competition. Their open call to the community. To me it just appeared to be a cynical corporate attempt to hoover up a load of grassroots enthusiasm and creativity and take ownership of it, for the benefit of no-one except a multinational's competitive advantage.

Google's "opportunity" was, if we are to believe their blurb, intended to "inspire" the artists of tomorrow. The opportunity was to compete for a single commission, using tools Google wished to promote, and to surrender all rights to any submitted work - whether commissioned or not.

This may well reflect the harsh realities of the commercial world, but if the aim was to inspire, this was a terrible way to go about it. IMHO, one inspires by giving a sense of possibility, not limits. By giving a sense of freedom, not constraint. By giving the experience of achievement, not disappointment. The DevArt "opportunity" was not a chance for the world to hear your voice, it was an invitation to queue for the XFactor auditions. It was a doorstep on which to dump your best ideas in the hope a rich benefactor might take one in and give it a home.” Matt Pearson.

——————

“Just wanted to lend my support to this, which I think is a creative response to the DR show. I was immediately galled by Google's arrogance when they put the statement out. My initial reaction quickly evolved into complete dismissal. Incursions into cultural discourse by clumsy corporate actors are probably best ignored. The term itself is a laughable articulation.

Having said that, I think the art community should be suspicious about a 'sponsor' as powerful as this making moves into the art sector. The GOOG have a track record of challenging, even dismantling (aka 'disrupting') cultural institutions - just ask the world's libraries. So I guess there are serious undertones here.” Anil Bawa-Cavia.

——————

“When I wrote about the exhibition for the Guardian (a preview piece - the show hadn't opened yet) I wanted to be careful not to disparage the work of those involved, but instead to highlight my discomfort with Google's involvement (given some of the responses, I may have been too subtle about this...). I also wanted to separate my personal feelings about Google from my feelings about what institutions should be supporting in artistic practice, and what I felt was a failure not by Google (who do what big corps do) and not by the artists (who need to make work and get by), but by the Barbican for allowing this to happen in their name.

This I feel is the main problem: massive corporations are going to massively incorporate, artists are going to make work, and sometimes they are going to do it in difficult, questioning circumstances. Institutions should exist to facilitate work but not direct it. Far more ethically dubious partnerships (Bloomberg, BP) are common in the art world, but they don't dictate the form of the work, or try to write art history. It's at this point that the Barbican should have stepped in and reined Google in a bit: they're a sponsor, not a curator.

My fear is that this failure of nerve on the part of the Barbican (and I hope it was that, and not sheer ignorance) is part of a wider failure of nerve on the part of institutions dealing with technology and tech/art, giving up curatorial confidence and simply handing it over to entities with their own agenda who they feel know more about this area. It's a worrying precedent.” James Bridle.

To read the rest of these comments and more about ‘Hack The Art World’ — visit here http://hacktheartworld.com/discus.html#comment-1495932506

And, here is the front end for http://hacktheartworld.com/


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*waves*

i'm in this, along with a few others, it's been organised by Jan Vantomme. It's 
getting a surprising amount of press (WSJ, New Scientist, Wired etc) which is 
good.

Having just been to DigitalRevolution this week, I can say we need to be making 
more noise than ever - it's a show full of 'interactive entertainment' 
masquerading as art. Some of it's good, but there's a hell of a lot that feels 
like  'tech demos'



On 1 Aug 2014, at 09:48, marc garrett wrote:

Artists virtually gatecrash Google's DevArt Barbican exhibit

By Katie Collins.

A collective of coders and artists who go by the name Hack the Artworld have 
gatecrashed the Google-sponsored DevArt exhibition currently taking place at 
the Barbican in London.

The artists have uploaded their own digital artworks to a website and have 
placed location markers within the DevArt exhibition itself -- digitally 
fencing it off, so that only visitors to the Barbican can access the artworks 
on their smartphones or tablets.

The DevArt exhibition is meant to be an exploration of art that has been made 
with code, but it has not chimed well with everyone involved in the digital 
arts community, many of whom have been displeased by various elements of 
Google's efforts. On the Hack the Artworld website the artists have published 
an open letter addressed to Larry Page and Sergey Brin laying out their 
objections in full.

Wired - http://bit.ly/1mDOZw1


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A living - breathing - thriving networked neighbourhood -
proud of free culture - claiming it with others ;)

Other reviews,articles,interviews
http://www.furtherfield.org/reviews.php

Furtherfield – online arts community, platforms for creating, viewing,
discussing and learning about experimental practices at the
intersections of art, technology and social change.
http://www.furtherfield.org

Furtherfield Gallery – Finsbury Park (London).
http://www.furtherfield.org/gallery

Netbehaviour - Networked Artists List Community.
http://www.netbehaviour.org

http://identi.ca/furtherfield
http://twitter.com/furtherfield

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