Re: Lev on the embarressment of digital art
As I understand it, Lev Manovich set out to define New Media Art using modernist criteria - notably the tautological gesture whereby the artwork refers to its own components, or its so-called "conditions of possibility." However, as Steve Kurtz, Molly Hankwitz and John Hopkins have pointed out, most of the artists actually using computerized media, even back in those heavily hyped days of the 1990s and the early 2000s when "New Media" was promoted as a category, were interested in communication and interaction, often around a theme or a specific situation. They wanted to put their creativity, not into the shaping of the object, but into the co-creation of the circuit or the field of interaction that the art helped link together -- even though no individual and certainly no artwork could claim to originate or control this milieu of interaction. One of media philosopher Bernard Steigler's most important insights has been that invention happens not in the subjective depths of an individual, but in the open space of a milieu - that zone or wavelength where people resonate with each other and something new emerges. The milieu is alive, it's emergent, it's multiple, it's dispersed, and it's a world still barely describable in the clumsy Western languages dominated by methodological individualism. Is it any wonder that many of these interactive works don't look so great in a museum? If they do look good, it's because they included a museum component, which was often a strategic decision toward a powerful and ubiquitous funding institution. Nonetheless, it's not a decision that underlines their most important characteristic, which is to work in the middle, between subjectivities. The art object had to look good in a museum because no one in there could be counted on to realize what the media work was really doing, what it was engaged with, where it was dissolving into co-creation. Is it any wonder, then, that many of the most innovative figures didn't bother making work for the museum? A new gaze, a new vocabulary, a new set of criteria for art were being developed somewhere else, in the milieu of interaction. Certain museums and art spaces did follow, and gradually a new gaze, a new language and new evaluative criteria have gradually taken form. What's no wonder at all, though, is the sadness of old white guys who want the world to fit into their definitions, their institutions, and their pocketbooks. Modernist criteria served these sad old white guys very well -- or very badly, depending on how you look at it. As our civilization dies, our institutions are still celebrating the values, the taste and the philosophy that are killing us. I don't have a good read of Lev Manovich because I always got bored with his books. Certainly he has a predilection for modernist vanguards that are more about infinite differentiation than sheer tautology. What I never spotted, however, was an interest in changing the root definition of what art is and what it does -- and above all, where, how, with whom and why it does what it does today. best, Brian On Sun, Sep 20, 2020 at 6:53 PM John Hopkins wrote: > On 20/Sep/20 14:12, Molly Hankwitz wrote: > > Dear Geert, Lev, nettime...ok, I take the bait...!!! > > thanks Molly, et al... > > Important point -- that the use of networked/digital communications tools > was > the core (or at least peripheral) for some 'digital' works -- most of them > forgotten -- except in their power to facilitate human encounter and > possibly > sustained connection, and thus, life-change. But then again, > communications, for > a human, always begins and ends up analog. > > Items/events/encounters/projects that jump to mind with unequal, though > demonstrated life-changing effect for participants (self being one of > those): > waterwheel; Polar Circuit; ReLab; MUUMedia; radiostadt1; RAM; the NICE > network; > nettime; Open-X; aural degustation; SiTO/OTiS; soundcamp; world listening > day; > pixelache; beauty & the East; ADA; Bed-in for peace NZ; bricolabs; > cafe9.net; > radiophrenia; digitalchaos; dkfrf; world-wide-simultaneous-dance; > what-are-we-eating; Port MIT; audioblast; ethernity; di-fusion 1&2; > expand; > gimokud; keyworx; kidsconnect; SolarCurcuit; various kunstradio projects; > locussonus; meet-to-delete; microsound; migrating art academies; mute > sounds; > net.sauna; netarts machida; netbase; nomusic; placard; ANAT; overgaden > sound > festival; PNEK; TEKs; Atelier Nord; remote-tv; RIXC; send > shareNY, et > al; aporee::maps; superfactory; techno-shamanism; telejam; anatomix; > telakka; > thebox; virtualteams; visitorstudio; ... I could go on ... > > Those folks in it (mostly) for personal gain, 'influence', and notoriety > missed > this potential for sustained human connection, and at career's end find > themselves lonely -- "friended" but w/o any real friends -- all the folks > tread-upon in the climb to 'fame' (what's a name?). > > And, Lev, really, at least you were able to
Re: Lev on the embarressment of digital art
On 20/Sep/20 14:12, Molly Hankwitz wrote: Dear Geert, Lev, nettime...ok, I take the bait...!!! thanks Molly, et al... Important point -- that the use of networked/digital communications tools was the core (or at least peripheral) for some 'digital' works -- most of them forgotten -- except in their power to facilitate human encounter and possibly sustained connection, and thus, life-change. But then again, communications, for a human, always begins and ends up analog. Items/events/encounters/projects that jump to mind with unequal, though demonstrated life-changing effect for participants (self being one of those): waterwheel; Polar Circuit; ReLab; MUUMedia; radiostadt1; RAM; the NICE network; nettime; Open-X; aural degustation; SiTO/OTiS; soundcamp; world listening day; pixelache; beauty & the East; ADA; Bed-in for peace NZ; bricolabs; cafe9.net; radiophrenia; digitalchaos; dkfrf; world-wide-simultaneous-dance; what-are-we-eating; Port MIT; audioblast; ethernity; di-fusion 1&2; expand; gimokud; keyworx; kidsconnect; SolarCurcuit; various kunstradio projects; locussonus; meet-to-delete; microsound; migrating art academies; mute sounds; net.sauna; netarts machida; netbase; nomusic; placard; ANAT; overgaden sound festival; PNEK; TEKs; Atelier Nord; remote-tv; RIXC; send shareNY, et al; aporee::maps; superfactory; techno-shamanism; telejam; anatomix; telakka; thebox; virtualteams; visitorstudio; ... I could go on ... Those folks in it (mostly) for personal gain, 'influence', and notoriety missed this potential for sustained human connection, and at career's end find themselves lonely -- "friended" but w/o any real friends -- all the folks tread-upon in the climb to 'fame' (what's a name?). And, Lev, really, at least you were able to convert whatever it was into tenure, and a robust pension, unlike most folks! Good unless the state completely fails! JH -- +++ Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD subscribe to the neoscenes blog:: http://neoscenes.net/blog/87903-subscribe-to-neoscenes +++ # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Lev on the embarressment of digital art
Art, or "art," has become so ubiquitous it is a challenge to avoid it, like pervasive mania for science in the early 20th century succeeded religion as a must have, and political ideology a compulsory requirement of sclerotic intelligentialism. CBD-Tech art, digital or 3D crafting, or murderous weaponry, or viral disease, or viral SM, or viral stupefaction of dread of deathlessness and loss of income and tenure and benefits and openings and pharma and promotion of mordant careers, on nettime, where elseware, but just one of many sinks of despair, boredom, colorectal metastasis, repugnancies of Wei Wei and Met Roofings and shrieking come fuck me supertalls quivering with grinding tuned mass dampers escaping tie-downs, vast empty SHoP penthouses decorated with cruddiest of auction-wear for subsidized real estate photos in clamorous non-English brochures online, where elseware, anyware artlessness is everyware artfullness. Grab a stimulus paycheck dear workwareless entrepreneurs. # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Addenda: Recoding Crip Tech exhibition 2020
Adding on to my optimistic rant re Lev Manovich sadness: Wanted to bring attention to this very well curated and interesting exhibition here in San Francisco by disabled artists and by artists about disability and technology. Very interesting work combining all manner of technologies to inscribe and describe the digital realities of our "crip" colleagues. The thought behind the exhibition was brilliant...I have worked with disabled, differently-abled, and seniors in San Francisco since 2014 who are utilizing technologies simply to communicate, enjoy life, and so forth. It is very demanding work when we take for granted our own sight, hearing and able-bodied typing capacities. However, inspiring was this show, and the many realities of bodies not like our own... surely, as art...something worth believing in https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/aia-reviews/recoding-criptech-hacking-disability-sara-hendren-1202678282/# ! molly # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Lev on the embarressment of digital art
Dear Geert, Lev, nettime...ok, I take the bait...!!!
On Thu, Sep 17, 2020 at 12:38 AM Geert Lovink wrote:
> URL or not but this is too good, and too important for nettimers, not to
> read and discuss. These very personal and relevant observations come from a
> public Facebook page and have been written by Lev Manovich (who is “feeling
> thoughtful” as the page indicates).
>
LOL smileanything for a good debate...
>
>
> My anti-digital art manifesto / What do we feel when we look at the
> previous generations of electronic and computer technologies? 1940s TV
> sets, 1960s mainframes, 1980s PCs, 1990s versions of Windows, or 2000s
> mobile phones? I feel "embarrassed. "Awkward." Almost "shameful." "Sad."
>
I am sorry. Are you ok? Have you been in self-isolation too long and are
going stir crazy? Why do you feel that? Those were just displays-of-yore.
Now we have slick flat screens, and small projectors, and Arduino boards,
and thin, very thin...on a diet thin, laptops.
Nam June Paik pieces are as great as ever. What was he trying to do? He
wasn't shameful! But he did not live in the LED era. It's the artist who
dies in a body which is obsolete after so long traveling around the
planet...
> And this is exactly the same feelings I have looking at 99% of digital
> art/computer art / new media art/media art created in previous decades.
>
After the newness of the 90s we may have had some lack of vision...
And I will feel the same when looking at the most cutting-edge art done
> today ("AI art," etc.) 5 years from now.
>
You could say this about paintings made in the 80s. Julian Schnabel
paintings with broken plates are maybe temper tantrums, and are maybe
embarrassing? The question is why does digital media art get the short end
of the critical stick...everyone loves to bash it!
> If consumer products have "planned obsolescence," digital art created with
> the "latest" technology has its own "built-in obsolescence." //
>
Has that all the "point" of making digital art has been about - being "the
latest tech"? I don't think so...I am going to stick up for a project I was
deeply involved in from 2013-2015, 'waterwheel.net' - maybe you know it? We
may have been avoided by purists because we didn't communicate via the DOS
interface and an autonomous server network - rather we used Facebook,
email, Google docs, Twitter, and an artists-designed performance "platform"
called The Tap, which allowed for synchronous, real-time performance and
panels through webcame. I will plug its inventors at Igneous. I will brag
about our involvement with World Water Day , 5 years before the climate
became a properly acknowledged (has it yet?) crisis.
I will also brag about the 30 curators involved, the 120 artists projects
we reviewed; the week-long Symposium in which we programmed live talks,
panels, screenings and performances around the time-zone clock...and I will
brag about the curation of Hot Water - Water and War as part of Balance &
Unblance Environmental art festival and the 300 page e-book we made out of
all of our research. This was not dead digital art...this was many artists
and curators meeting up across the world to talk about WATER...So many
great people and great ideas were exchanged and if you tuned in you might
see a fantastic performance by someone on the other side of the world.
> These feelings of sadness, disappointment, remorse, and embarrassment
> have been provoked especially this week as I am watching Ars Electronica
> programs every day. I start wondering - did I waste my whole life in the
> wrong field?
>
LOL. C'mon...Lev Manovich? Why I just had my students looking at Vertov's
film using your syntax...although they seem to have some "new" terminology
such as "collision edits" for montage...
> It is very exciting to be at the "cutting edge", but the price you pay is
> heavy.
>
No comment. Just because a work of art is done digitally does not mean it
is "cutting edge" by a long shot...imho
> After 30 years in this field, there are very few artworks I can show to my
> students without feeling embarrassed.
>
That is tragic! There are so many that are classics - and still useable,
wonderful, stimulating...(I semi-avoided Ars E this year, even though I
could go to all of it without getting in an airplane...because I spend so
much time on screens, sometimes it just all goes flat and gets boring)
> While I remember why there were so important to us at the moment they were
> made, their low-resolution visuals and broken links can't inspire students.
> //
>
True. But, not to be shown then...
> The same is often true for the "content" of digital art. It's about
> "issues," "impact of X on Y", "critique of A", "a parody of B", "community
> of C" and so on. //
>
??? I think just as much as painting, sculpture, or other media ever
were...no more, no less...
It's almost never about our real everyday life and our humanity. Feelings.
> Passions. Looking at the world. Looking inside yourself.
