[spectre] ICC and for the media art center of 21C

[sascha brossmann]

dear list/eners,

this discussion seems to get quite interesting, and there have been
raised or at least graced some issues which i think start to reach way
beyond the original context. i will try to push this still a little
bit further (mostly by loud thinking, don't be put back by some
rawness, i'll try to stay as clear and terse as possible).

on 8/27/05 5:47 PM, Eric Kluitenberg wrote:
> about outreach for something that has already established itself so
> deeply and broadly. As far as these kinds of media phenomenologies
> are concerned what we need there is analysis, reflection,
> contextualisation, rather than 'outreach'.

if 'outreach' is understood as popularisation of media technologies
(and maybe their artistic use), i agree. concerning the latter, i tend
to think that those are areas where more traditional institutions like
universities gradually jump in and take over. but for what would we
need a 'media art centre' then? *do* we actually need 'media art
centres'? as a matter of fact, i don't think so, at least not in the
sense i understand this currently. i hope, i will be able to clarify
why.

> However, the way I understood the discussion so far was that we were
> discussing the role of organisations who deal with the position of
> the arts and artistic practice in the context of such new media
> cultures.

what, if there were no 'new media cultures'? or at least: what, if it
were not 'new media' (in my understanding computers and the related
infrastructural environment -- why not speak plain language? i am so
tired of all these vague, obfuscating and *anachronistic* terms in
this field) that drive the respective culture or cultural practice?
(or, at least, not anymore.) what *are* the agents, effects, system
dynamics, the common ground of all this?

> If one would insit on the concept of art that brings with it a
> certain heritage and history, a certain professional identity, or a
> way of looking at and dealing with things.

*which* concept of art do you mean? the art market concept, the
nice-to-look-at concept, the cultural intervention concept, the
means-of-social-differentiation concept, the individual insight
seeking concept, ...? i don't want to sound picky, it is just that i
have come across so many ideas of what art actually 'is', that i think
it is necessary to clarify what is spoken of. (btw, the same applies
to 'culture'.) it might also be fertile to shift the definition from
one of identity ('x is...') to one of predicates ('x does...'), roles,
and effects of artistic practice. don't get me wrong, i don't want
this to result in a discussion about what concept of art would be
'right' or 'better' or anything like that, i just think it is helpful,
to know what idea each one refers to. (i even suggest to avoid overly
generic terms like 'art', 'culture' etc. as far as possible.)

> Art (...) would still remain different on the level of discourse,
> practice and understanding.

i tend to agree, though i am anything but sure in terms of what
exactly constitutes said differences. (would we be able to define some
common criteria suited for mapping different practices?)

> If we still see some value to this concept of "art" in the wider
> context of "media culture" (or new media culture), then we need to
> reflect that specificity.

i fear that if we continue to elaborate on '(new) media culture' we
are just hauling around a dead body. this term made some sense, when
the underlying technologies were so ephemeral that the mere act of
using them resulted in, let's say, certain socio-cultural effects. but
even then, there was never a singular 'media culture' but a rather
wide range of 'media culture_s_', which apart from using electronic
machine based means to do something had actually never much in common.
the idea of 'media culture' as something more or less homogenous has
puzzled me all along. high time to bury that paradigm, r.i.p.

> Bottom-line is that I still think there is some value to working
> with the concept of art in specific situations

would you be able to actually specify these 'specific situations'?

> and that therefore I am also interested what kind of institutional
> structure (if at all) is most adequate to discuss, analyse, present,
> mediate en develop such work.

yes, but *what* work do/should those institutional strucures actually
support?

AB>> and could it be that the way in which institutions like the ICC
AB>> or the ZKM were set up was still very much following an
AB>> 'old-style' cultural logic?

if so (imo quite possible), was the logic really 'cultural' or was it
rather technological (or even technocratic)? personally, i understand
technology to be part of culture (understanding culture, very roughly,
as the world we live in, comprising the entirety of artefacts, social
structures, etc. & opposed to 'nature'), but andreas seems to refer
to culture in the more common 'fine art, theater, books' ;-) sense.

but if the driving logic behind those institutions was in its core
technological, wouldn't it be an error to base future development on
technology (call it '(new) media' if you wish), again? wouldn't that
lead to confusing means and ends *again*? still, nearly everybody
seems to be so used to the paradigmatical fixation on 'media' that it
obstructs their clear vision.

> So here the question would be do we finally dissolve the category of
> "art" and replace it with a broader cultural logic that looks at the
> aesthetic, semiotic, social and political qualities of the kind of
> media activity that is going on, or is there still a value in
> keeping such disciplinary distinctions and profesisonal identities
> in place?

this is in my eyes an extremely interesting and equally difficult
question. i'll try to stay short: *despite* personally propably being
hybrid to the extreme in education, occupation, interests etc. and
favouring not to be urged to oblige to discipline boundaries (which
can get mentally quite painful, if you _can't_), i would like to argue
for distinctions and differentation. one reason is, that hybrid or
not, i am still able to differentiate e.g. motivation, ends/purpose,
modus operandi etc. this differentiation need not be necessarily used
to construct professional identities such as 'artist', 'scientist',
'critic', 'author', 'organizer', 'designer', 'social/political
activist', whatever. but it helps to gain better mental access to
*what* one is actually doing, *what for*, and (later!) *how* to deal
with the tasks at hand. (got much more to say here, but i'll cut it
for now) the only thing which is pretty irrelevant here is the
question of 'media'. it's in most cases not the media, that drive
people to act. know your ends and chose your means accordingly. that's
why grouping activities around specific media is actually pretty
senseless. it's in a certain way emperor bauhaus' new clothes, but one
does not need to repeat the same error. this concept has been
abolished in most areas of artistic education for good reasons.

> What then is the hierarchy of these concepts?

see above.

AB>> what would a place look like, that is a little bit slower than
AB>> the technical and cultural development, that keeps open for
AB>> change and is also open for taking in and digesting, meshing, all
AB>> the different energies that people who identify with this digital
AB>> culture, and want to share in shaping it, bring with them?

most of those qualities sound good to me, but leave out the 'digital'
in culture, it's just a common part by now, imho there is no need to
set it apart and deal with the computer-based/-run part of culture
much differently than with the rest, it's just too ubiquitous for
that. the borders run along other territories now.

the clinging to '(new/digital) media' seems in a certain way to be the
late 20th century's equivalent to 19th century's ether: nearly
everybody believes in it and thinks it is indispensable, nobody has
ever 'experienced' it actually, and in the end it's propably nothing
but a useless mind crutch which just complicates things and obstructs
insights.

> Such a place would definitely be somethig that uses a broader
> defintion of its terrain as (new) media art.

so far, i second this. but:

> (...) a lot of difference between artist, activists and free
> software scenes and cultures. They do not self-evidently connect and
> communicate to each other, even if they all share the same digital
> instrumentarium.

you forgot to mention the police, banking and industry, and aunt
sally. yes, sure, they all share the instrumentarium, but: why should
they connect? nobody does self-evidently connect when using a camera,
a telephone, a video recorder, a pen and paper, paint on canvas, a
hammer and chisel or anything else. why the heck should it be
different with that one special human extension then? again: the
question should not be *what* they use, but *what for*. it's not the
instrument that makes the music.

> A third problem is that of the nature of networked social spaces.
> They are most often not 'designed', but rather 'emerge' out of a set
> of specific social conditions, the need and desire of certain people
> to work together on shared interests.

a treat they propably share with nearly all other social spaces and
structures in this world, social structures obviously *are* emergent
at their very core. oh, make that 'social' into 'human'. [admittedly,
i am currently under the influence of an amount of literature on the
subject (holland et al) and my cognition might be biased].

and then, need, desire and interest might as well be emergent. how to
deal with *that* problem? maybe by being able to react very fast,
openness and general adaptability? an imperative to keep moving (at
least mentally and in terms of structure)? there propably *are*
possibilites to cope with those problems, but i am not sure if they
can be *controlled*. on the other hand: so what? life's not over if it
does not work. next try...

> Should the new institution thus just 'offer space' and refelect and
> analyse what is going on? What then is its legtimation for existing
> in the first place?

purposes? vision? motivation? dialogue & feedback?

how about not having an 'art/media centre' or 'socio-cultural centre'
and the like but instead a kind of 'think and practition tank', an
'incubator'?

how about having a flexible space which can adapt itself to what is
happening there? a core 'hub' with temporary 'outposts', intelligently
constructed containers, maybe? and, extremely important: it needs a
place where you can socialize -- with anybody.

btw, one of the few places i know that has had quite some if not most
of all the important qualities, is the annual 'garage' festival at
stralsund, baltic sea. i am definitely biased in this respect, but for
very good reasons. though i doubt, somehow that it would transfer well
to other institutions. part of the problem: you would have to clone
the people who run it. ;-) one of the main strengths of this place is
that it created a social setting which in many ways felt 'just right'
for nearly anybody who worked and played or exhibited there. the other
question is how a temporary space would scale to an institution which
is 365d open (need it?). [iirc carsten reads spectre as well, maybe
you would like to contribute something on this?]

> Or why not in Ramallah?

<rant> why not northern korea? why not haiti? why not belarus? why not
the harbour area of marseille? honestly, i think it would be more
attractive if such a place had *some* funding, *some* local
infrastructure, and the risk to be robbed, mugged up, raped or forced
to decease by 'martyrs' & likewise religious fascists and other
socio-political psychopaths would not be too high. why not stay a
little bit more local? not everybody shares the same missionary-style
mind frame and my personal leaning towards naive guilt ridden third
world romanticism is rather low: i don't think it helps anybody. don't
confuse calming one's consciuosness with concrete political action
where it matters. </rant> ah, there, feeling much better now... >;->

to sum up: i think that the terms '(new) media' & '(new) media
culture' are senseless anachronisms when used as a unifying quality to
gather artistic and other activities around it. but if they don't
qualify as category, a centre for that category is equally senseless.
to me it seems important that from the ashes of new media centres
other structures may arise which could help to transgress the current
boundaries of artistic production and foster new ways of
cross-disciplinary cooperation. (sorry, buzzword alarm goes off, i
have to stop.)

best,


sascha

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