[spectre] Re: the media art center of 21C

[valery grancher]

Hello,


I am following this thread since a few days, may be a few weeks ;-)
Here in France, some art center focusing on new media were closed  
like CICV or Herouville St Clair either some contemporary art center.
I think that in our global world the origin of these troubles in our  
community is not 'new media" topics.
I am thinking that we are not outside our world but inside, without  
any power except the aesthetics one as artist, or philosophical one  
as theoricians. But our world has changed, and has became paranoïd  
with the dictatorship of the security affair under terrorism pressure:
In this context, the governement, the companies and specially the  
technological companies (IT, telecom, defense ect...) prefer to  
invest their money on a huge emerging market linked to our paranoïd  
world based on security stuff.
Regarding the bizness which are not involved in this affair, they  
have to face an economical crisis brought by the gas price, the euros  
value in front of us dollars... and they cannot spend money for  
nothing, every spending shoul be a good investment.
Regarding this dynamic, I am really pessimistic about the way,  
private instutions would invest on new media art, just because 'new  
media' art is a very small part of the global art world which is  
facing this crisis. Yes some private collectors are spending o lot in  
art market, but they are investing on art objects they can sell on  
easy way:
We know regarding the last ten years, we didn't find any 'modus  
operandi' regarding art market and new media, many experiment was done:
I did some on juridical level with my agreement in 1998 when I sold a  
net art piece to cartier fundation and Berkeley art museums, or like  
some galeries did, but what is remaining from this today ? nothing,  
my pieces sold to museums are not any more on line, and the galleries  
doesn't exist anymore.
And now the museums which were focusing on these art productions are  
disapearing.....

I guess, that some artists, theoricians in our community did some  
mistakes regarding the future they were expecting: They did it by  
thinking that our world woul be based on a kind of positivism brought  
by the technologies evolution. This is the origin of our  
misunderstanding today:
Yes the  technologies has progressed, but it doesn't mean that  
'progress' concept is matching with social, economic and politic  
dynamic in our civilisation. So today, we can feel a huge regression  
regarding our world, by the fact we are jumping in a primitive and  
tribal way to manage crisis, the main archaïsm is the war context  
brought by Irak war.

And now, on one side the technologies are changing the wall street  
face (google), on the other like in K Dick novel it's bringing our  
society to the dark age of paranoïa and surveillance....

Ok how now we can have our virgin land to continue our practice?
I don't think there is any solution, except to make a "newmedia"  
ghetto, self referenced with its own code and tautological, or to  
dilute it in our world....
When I am passing through exhibition, and biennial as an artist, I  
don't feel anymore as I was before, just because this art world has  
also evolved and many artist are using the technologies as tools and  
not as form, because their main focus is to make sense regarding an  
aesthetics context. In this context the technological value is  
deleted. Only the opportunity brought by these technologies to make  
sense is kept.... 'sensationalism', 'enterntainment', 'fun' so on so  
on...

That is the main point:
In art world there is no hierarchy, no value order, just streams, I  
came from net art and now I am in this stream  and I didn't choose  
it, that's darwinism....
And art has reached like Debord said "la logique du spectacle", with  
the concept of entertainement, and 'sensationalism' and for sure  
regarding these concept, new technologies are bringing good  
opportunities to make sense...

So in this context I understand better what's going on with the  
disparition of the main new media art center. And I guess that the  
only way to survive is to deal and manage our world context and not  
to stay outside of it in our own ghetto....


Valery Grancher
http://www.nomemory.org
http://www.wifi-art.com
http://www.nomemorybazaar.com
http://www.theshiwiarsproject.org

Le 04 sept. 2005 à 10:34, Chris Byrne a écrit :


> (Spectre list was down yesterday? So this is re-sent: apologies if  
> you have already received it)
>
> A fascinating thread, and not before time. As someone who recently  
> (last year) became a statistic during the 'restructuring' of New  
> Media Scotland, this topic of 'recycling' of media arts  
> institutions / support structures seems very pertinent.
>
> I tend to agree with Eric that a structured meeting around the  
> current shifts and changes within the 'media arts' would be very  
> useful, more so if we discussed strategies for dealing with the  
> present situation. This would be particularly helpful for those of  
> us that will not be at Ars Electronica. Andreas, I know that you  
> will have many plans for Transmediale 06, could this be one of  
> them, or is it already too late?
>
> Chris
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>
>> Eric:
>>
>>
>> hi all,
>>
>> manifestoes are fun, but question is if they are productive, yes.
>> Sometimes it's good to do something just for the fun of it and see
>> about the rest, but the situation is maybe too important now. So then
>> maybe better to address it more seriously.
>>
>> I agree with Andreas about the IRL meeting:
>>
>> Andreas Broeckmann wrote:
>>
>>
>>> what i would welcome is a real-life meeting during which we can
>>> discuss the state of things - maybe in linz this weekend? i see some
>>> urgency, i'm just sceptical about our 'power to converge' at the
>>> moment.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> However, I will not be in Linz this weekend. In any case I would like
>> to see such a meeting rather at Transmediale and then properly
>> prepared. Maybe what we need is something of an update to the 1997
>> P2P New Media Culture in Europe conference, but smaller, looking at
>> the new realities.
>> Rather than lamenting or (secretly) celebrating the fall of the
>> "dinaousaurs" - not my terminology - I would see some sense in taking
>> this moment as an opportunity at near-future strategies - what works
>> and what doesn't, what kind of institutional structure do we need to
>> get to the next stage of evolution of the new media culture field,
>> and to ask if existing structures can fulfill these needs or wether
>> we really need new structures?
>>
>> To me such a meeting would make sense.
>>
>> bests,
>> eric
>>
>>
>>
>
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