[spectre] re: take over

Tue, 25 Sep 2001 09:14:05 +0200

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Discussions with colleagues here in Norway the last couple of days suggest
that there are quite a lot of us working in eduction and in media arts
organisations who are interested in tackling this issue. Obviously it's been
said before and discussed at many meetings where we've all expressed good
intentions about exchanging materials, texts, lecture scripts etc, and usually
not a lot has happened. We're all busy and it takes time to do these things.
However, it seems to me that the time is right to try to co-ordinate
discussion and dissemination of materials that deal with an appropriate
theoretical apparatus and an aesthetics of digital media, in a form that can
be accessible and useful to students, artists, media activists etc - rather
than for "professional theorists". Not tat there is anything wrong with the
latter, just that my experience tells me that there is a lack of theoretical
material that is addressed to "hands on" people,  whether they be students or
practising artists.

> hello,
>
> An interesting discussion about locating "techno art*, which could develop
> into a substantial thread. I am working on a lecture / essay right now
> which has a close relation to the topics brought up by jeremy and lorenzo.
> It will take some time to finish that text so I want to respond briefly
> here...
>
> Jeremy wrote:
>
> >But the penetration of or integration into existing
> >institutions/languages of digital practices, theories and discussdions
> >is certainly a "hot" issue.  To take my own institution as an example:
> >the programme of theory our students are being offered is very much
> >framed by an early nineties mindset and as far as I can see it takes no
> >account of the growth of digital culture during the past decade. It is
> >still a more or less academic account of the evolution of modernism
> >towards post modernism.  I'm interested in disrupting that particular
> >stream by inserting discussions about what is happening now - hopefully
> >with a modicum of historical reflection to avoid being caught up in an
> >obsession with novelty.
>
> My experience is quite similar. After long years of teaching in art/design
> education which is very much practice oriented, I am now teaching a course
> Culture and New Media at the University of Amsterdam. I have tried to weave
> together some broader considerations about the history of culture and
> technology with the discussion and projects we have all been closely
> involved with, i.e. who are on the spectre, nettime, xchange and formerly
> syndicate lists.
>
> In the academic climate the shadow of post-modernism has still not been
> erased with new search lights. Cultural relativism pervades the discourses
> and is unable to address what is going on in the streets and on the net. We
> can see that artists are more ready to respond to new conditions, but no
> substantial theoretical reflection to analyse and contextualise these
> developments has been offered. It is time to start such a discourse in the
> ranks of the academia, and I think *they* (we?) are now ready for it.
>
> >> the processes of integrations between the "separated area" of techno
> >art and Contemporary art are they
> >> not changing the situation?
> >
> >One would hope that something is changing. Technological art is of
> >course becoming more common within existing contemporary art
> >institutions, but it is depressingly still very often the case that it
> >is (technically) badly presented and quite often it is, innocently or
> >deliberately, misinterpreted by curators who want to incorporate new
> >practices into the ongoing discourse of an officially sanctioned art
> >history. Careers still need to be built and promoted. Canons still need
> >to be formulated.  But we can hope that the networks of collaboration
> >and communication that have evolved in recent years will have their
> >impact in changing ( or at least modifying ) the
> >socio-economic-political structures that continue to dominate the art
> >world.
>
> All this is true, but also a product of confining artistic practice solely
> to the realm of the arts itself. I think the really confusing situation is
> that the old ideal of abolishing the seperation of art and life, has been
> realised in a paradoxical way outside of the realm of art itself, in the
> wider context of media culture. And I can see certain operations of artists
> consciously exploiting these new conditions.
> What are those *new conditions*, and are they new?
> (obvious question)
> I think Castells has sketched it to some extent with his notion of *the
> culture of real virtuality*, but we should not equate this condition to
> Buardillard's precession of the simulacra and its inherently lethargic
> position (implosion of the real = inability to act). Rather I see a new
> terrain opening up where symbolic action in a paradoxical way has become
> immediately real, where there is a confluence of the act and the symbolic
> representation because the act is the representation and the representation
> is the act.
>
> On the level of cultural analysis / discourse we might need some new terms
> to discuss it properly, something else than the traditional notions of
> sign, representation, narrative.
>
> This obviously needs to be explained and argued in detail, but that is
> exactly what I am working on right now. When finished I will post the text,
> and if you think it is all rubbish you can roast it then!
> ;-)
>
> So, I'll also be interested to read more about this.
>
> best wishes,
> eric
>
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