[spectre] software art panel - transcript online

[Inke Arns]

http://www.softwareart.net

The transcript of the software art panel which took place during
transmediale.03 is finally online! It was kindly supported by the Initiatief
beeldende kunsten vzw / Digitaal Platform, Brussels.

Here's the blurb again:

"Software Art: A curatorial fiction or a new perspective?"
Presentations - Statements - Discussion

4 February 2003, 3-7 pm

A cooperation between the Media Arts Lab at Künstlerhaus Bethanien
and Transmediale.03

Panel: Amy Alexander (San Diego/USA, software and performance artist,
member of the transmediale.03 software jury), Florian Cramer (lecturer in
Comparative Literature, member of the transmediale.01 software
jury),Olga Goriunova (Moscow/Helsinki, co-founder of the software art
festivals Read_Me 1+2 and of the 'software repository' runme.org), Alex
McLean (London, programmer/artist, founder of the generative art mailing
list 'eu-gene', winner of the transmediale.02 software prize with
"forkbomb.pl"), Antoine Schmitt (Paris, artist and programmer, received a
honorary mention of transmediale.01 for his software "Vexation 1",
member of the transmediale.02 software jury)

Moderator: Inke Arns (cultural scientist and independent curator for
media art, Berlin)

2003 marks the third anniversary of the transmediale software prize
which, since its first installment, has instigated an ongoing debate about
"software art" and its legitimacy. The idea that artists may not just use
prefabricated software to produce something else, but engage with
programming and software itself in playful, inventive and critical ways, has,
one the one hand, caught on and spread over to other festivals, exhibitions
and artistic projects. On the other hand, there is no common language,
identity and network of software artists. Jury work for software art
competitions often turns out to be difficult because of little and mixed-
quality input and since much if not most artistically interesting software -
hacker code, conceptual art, algorithmic musical composition for example
- is written either outside the art system or is not being thought of as
software art by its creators.

So it appears as if the history of net art (and other process-oriented and
conceptual art forms) could repeat itself with software art: That curators
are interested in incorporating a new artistic practice more than the artists
themselves. Or, in other words: Is it essential that software becomes art?
Will it profit from the standards of a media art system that is always
greedy for the next big thing? And how and by whom is software art being
perceived...?

Check out
http://www.softwareart.net




Inke Arns
http://www.v2.nl/~arns

Upcoming:
"IRWIN: Rekapitulacija!", 25.9.-25.10.2003
http://www.v2.nl/~arns/Projects/Irwin/