Correction to an earlier post, which read:Should galleries not post documentation so people will get off their lazy butts and come to see actual work? Cory Arcangel also addresses this matter in a transcription of a recent talk he gave, but from the reverse vantage point--he describes work he's seen on the Internet to people sitting in "real space" without a computer as an audiovisual aid. A friend noted that I am *completely* wrong about this--Arcangel's text reads like a transcription but is actually anecdotal, semi-stream of consciousness writing about the internet, to be read on the internet, but where links are perversely not used. My friend found this annoyingly unhelpful but I defended it, as someone who has spent six years worrying about whether hyperlinks were broken and/or up to date--after a while you just want to say, "ah--google it yourself." It's possible I may still not be getting this text so any theories are welcome.
Update: I closed this thread but reopened it for some additional commentary that came via email.
Update 2: And then closed it again due to spam.
this isn't a theory, but the first paragraph of arc's text left me completely disinterested to read further.
My friend was troubled that there was not a more convincing rationale for the lack of links.
I don't really care about that, I think it's OK to be lazy and arbitrary sometimes.
This bugged me a bit: "I do not distinguish between art and non art. ..... We are past that moment so lets all please get over it. (The internet even makes this easier for us because everything is presented on an equal plane. A youtube movie of a dog skateboarding, has no visual or contextual difference from an artwork by some fancy artist)."
Sure, online video hosting flattens everything out and erases all the original categorical distinctions and makes everything equally horribly pixelated. What is more interesting are (possibly doomed) efforts to salvage some kind of art aura in this completely level environment.
An example was Guthrie Lonergan's curation of MySpace intros, which put found object brackets around some compelling (or compellingly depressing) homemade videos. It worked on his blog (or as a YouTube user list) but lost steam once it moved to the institutional setting of Rhizome.org.
I preferred the idea of him in an empty gallery (lectern, folding chairs, audience) talking about what he remembers seeing and liking. If he doesn't remember it, then maybe it wasn't worth mentioning- that's just great!
This "project" seems to be very similar to The History of Art (according to the Internet). I had assumed they were worked on at the same time.
That's how I envisioned it--lectern, folding chairs, audience, etc.
I think you're on to something Tom when you say that not distinguishing between non art and art isn't necessarily that interesting. It's essentially turning the philosophy behind art making into the art itself - and that often leads to boring results.
In this case I don't mind the lack of links in the text because the result is more verbiage from the artist. I usually want to know more about why someone is tagging a youtube video than delicious allows, and this form requires it. That said it took me forever to read the doc because the formatting doesn't facilitate reading it. I'm not sure I find that aspect of the piece all that interesting.
Hey--it's dirt style. I don't mind the zine aspect. And yeah, talking, or talking in print about why you posted a damn YouTube, is always welcome.
That said--the commenters at YouTube are plenty verbose--jeezus. Everyone and their grandpa has an opinion.
Yeah, I have a love hate relationship with dirt style.
The whole not distinguishing or identifying something as art- I was confused as to whether he was referring to his choices, "webstuff", or simply everything.
It sounds like a typical art school comment, or should I say a non art school comment.
Sure, but only if you divorce it from his work. I really don't think that comment is fair.
I think it's reasonable for the comment to be considered a part of his work.
I shouldn't be taking lines out of context because the overall point is worth considering. It's the essence of net art 2.0 and everyone's dealing with defining it to some extent.
The best part of the Arcangel-Mugaas art history lesson were the jokes that undermined the earnestness of that process, such as the Smithson/Holt video where the two artists did not exactly look their best, the travesty of Kruger, or finding a TV evangelist named Tony Smith sermonizing about the death of Steve Irwin.
If Arcangel didn't care about "art" on some level he never would have made a list of links based on famous art world names. I personally don't like that YBA-esque continuing fixation with the canon as content, though (as I will repeat ad infinitum).
The irony of Moma Gina is just too rich,... Warhol's comment that John's makes good lunches!....ahhhhh.. my sides.
It is a shame that it couldn't have been presented in some way other than a list of youtube links, perhaps he was considering that when he wrote the above text. Canon as content seems old hat to me(certainly older than I am), but here at least the method with which the canon is related and the limitations inherent in that are shown to undermine said establishment. The cultural revolution that is youtube! (tongue only slightly in cheek)
on the is it or isn't it- I've had trouble when proposing shows, and it is an annoying position to be in. I think it takes cojones to set the question aside as irrelevant and just stroll out with what you think is interesting. It might not be a lightening rod, but it must be liberating to simply shrug off defending your opinion. And get away with it even!
Thanks, and on that note I'm closing this thread.
And I reopened it to include this follow up comment by p.d., whose net was down and emailed it later:
i read that first paragraph as:
"blah blah art blah blah just get over it! bada bing bada boom!"
*hi-five* *grab crotch* etc.
what is someone supposed to get from that? it kinda sets up the rest of the text as 'here's an art piece made for people with no critical faculties whatsoever'.
away from cor and on a larger scale, t.m. is right that the fun bits are trying to figure out what can be salvaged. "critical discourse" [or whatever you want to call it] about the computer as a medium...and this includes computer networks and games and "new media" etc...is way way behind and needs all the help it can get. there is no canonical text for this stuff - do you actually know anyone who thinks manovich really hits the nail on the head? to ignore/take advantage of it by throwing it off with a calculated faux-naivete, which seems to be something of a style among new york [or maybe american?] artists of my age, is really boring. i'd rather read vice magazine.
--p.d.
I just received in the mail a rather weighty book about "net art" and other computer-based art by a museum curator and "gatekeeper" in the field. (No plugs till I finish assessing it, which mostly consists of flipping through it trying to decide where to start.) It focuses on what some are calling Net Art 1.0 and is heavy on the MIT Media Lab side of the practice. It was published in 2006 and contains almost nothing of what has been supported on this blog over the last six years (the exceptions being jodi and olia who do get a small chapter under the heading "html hijinx"). No reason it should, since much of what gets written about here is "amateur," "art world art" or "non art", but Net Art 2.0, "defaults," or whatever, ought to have its "book." Right now that "text" is a dynamic and interlinked community of blog writing, delicious links, flickr, MySpace etc waiting to be compiled, or not.
I did recently contribute "all my blog posts on JODI" to an academic paper about them compiled by a grad student from her writings and other things she found on blogs. She described it as a collage of blog writing. "So I figure I got that going for me" to quote Bill Murray as the groundskeeper in Caddyshack.
Carl Spackler.
Thank you, Dalai Lama.
whoa, net art 2.0 book already? you sure 'bout that?
(and..a book about net art where jodi is sectioned into one small chapter? wha??)
tom you're contributions to our interlinked community of etc. is great and is why i read this blog. but my comment doesn't apply to you much since you're not my age :P
I didn't take it that you were applying it to me, although I don't think age is any bar to high fiving and crotch grabbing.
I was responding more to your comment about Manovich (not) hitting it on the head.
right, im teasing you, but i also think you see the importance of a historical contextualization of this stuff, whereas my age-group peers throw it off. that's, like, the point of a lot of stuff on this blog. maybe it's because you have the brains to do it and they don't, i'm not sure, but i like it...i like references beyond "oh check out this crazy pixelated computer animation from the 60s. it's really awesome".
besides, you only say that about hi-fives cos you're 23 years old, imagine what it feels like when you're 29 like me. one more year and im not to be trusted.
Acting all loose an' shit and gradually letting the audience in on how smart you are is a viable rhetorical strategy. It certainly works for Cory in a live audience setting--I've seen him win over many groups of hostile bastards this way.
I'm actually in the camp that thinks the text works, too. I like the "toughen up" line in the first para after he has just confessed to not bothering to post links. This made me want to read on.
[Previous comment rewritten/reposted.]
that might be true but its not really what im talking at this point in the thread. norman white, frieder nake, manfred mohr...the list is huge actually, all these old school dudes and dudettes went out of their way to write stuff. beyond self-promoting emails and blog posts and cool links i dont see that happening much these days, especially with [my] under 30 crowd. and i think we need it now as much, if not more, than when computers were "new".
Urk, closing thread again due to spam.
|
Correction to an earlier post, which read:A friend noted that I am *completely* wrong about this--Arcangel's text reads like a transcription but is actually anecdotal, semi-stream of consciousness writing about the internet, to be read on the internet, but where links are perversely not used. My friend found this annoyingly unhelpful but I defended it, as someone who has spent six years worrying about whether hyperlinks were broken and/or up to date--after a while you just want to say, "ah--google it yourself." It's possible I may still not be getting this text so any theories are welcome.
Update: I closed this thread but reopened it for some additional commentary that came via email.
Update 2: And then closed it again due to spam.
- tom moody 4-03-2007 9:19 pm
this isn't a theory, but the first paragraph of arc's text left me completely disinterested to read further.
- p.d. (guest) 4-03-2007 10:06 pm
My friend was troubled that there was not a more convincing rationale for the lack of links.
I don't really care about that, I think it's OK to be lazy and arbitrary sometimes.
This bugged me a bit: "I do not distinguish between art and non art. ..... We are past that moment so lets all please get over it. (The internet even makes this easier for us because everything is presented on an equal plane. A youtube movie of a dog skateboarding, has no visual or contextual difference from an artwork by some fancy artist)."
Sure, online video hosting flattens everything out and erases all the original categorical distinctions and makes everything equally horribly pixelated. What is more interesting are (possibly doomed) efforts to salvage some kind of art aura in this completely level environment.
An example was Guthrie Lonergan's curation of MySpace intros, which put found object brackets around some compelling (or compellingly depressing) homemade videos. It worked on his blog (or as a YouTube user list) but lost steam once it moved to the institutional setting of Rhizome.org.
- tom moody 4-03-2007 11:29 pm
I preferred the idea of him in an empty gallery (lectern, folding chairs, audience) talking about what he remembers seeing and liking. If he doesn't remember it, then maybe it wasn't worth mentioning- that's just great!
This "project" seems to be very similar to The History of Art (according to the Internet). I had assumed they were worked on at the same time.
- Robert Huffmann (guest) 4-04-2007 12:11 am
That's how I envisioned it--lectern, folding chairs, audience, etc.
- tom moody 4-04-2007 1:26 am
I think you're on to something Tom when you say that not distinguishing between non art and art isn't necessarily that interesting. It's essentially turning the philosophy behind art making into the art itself - and that often leads to boring results.
In this case I don't mind the lack of links in the text because the result is more verbiage from the artist. I usually want to know more about why someone is tagging a youtube video than delicious allows, and this form requires it. That said it took me forever to read the doc because the formatting doesn't facilitate reading it. I'm not sure I find that aspect of the piece all that interesting.
- Paddy Johnson 4-04-2007 1:40 am
Hey--it's dirt style. I don't mind the zine aspect. And yeah, talking, or talking in print about why you posted a damn YouTube, is always welcome.
That said--the commenters at YouTube are plenty verbose--jeezus. Everyone and their grandpa has an opinion.
- tom moody 4-04-2007 2:13 am
Yeah, I have a love hate relationship with dirt style.
- Paddy Johnson 4-04-2007 3:00 am
The whole not distinguishing or identifying something as art- I was confused as to whether he was referring to his choices, "webstuff", or simply everything.
- Robert Huffmann (guest) 4-04-2007 6:00 am
It sounds like a typical art school comment, or should I say a non art school comment.
- anonymous (guest) 4-04-2007 7:39 am
Sure, but only if you divorce it from his work. I really don't think that comment is fair.
- Paddy Johnson 4-04-2007 8:07 am
I think it's reasonable for the comment to be considered a part of his work.
- anonymous (guest) 4-04-2007 8:23 am
I shouldn't be taking lines out of context because the overall point is worth considering. It's the essence of net art 2.0 and everyone's dealing with defining it to some extent.
The best part of the Arcangel-Mugaas art history lesson were the jokes that undermined the earnestness of that process, such as the Smithson/Holt video where the two artists did not exactly look their best, the travesty of Kruger, or finding a TV evangelist named Tony Smith sermonizing about the death of Steve Irwin.
If Arcangel didn't care about "art" on some level he never would have made a list of links based on famous art world names. I personally don't like that YBA-esque continuing fixation with the canon as content, though (as I will repeat ad infinitum).
- tom moody 4-04-2007 8:32 am
The irony of Moma Gina is just too rich,... Warhol's comment that John's makes good lunches!....ahhhhh.. my sides.
It is a shame that it couldn't have been presented in some way other than a list of youtube links, perhaps he was considering that when he wrote the above text. Canon as content seems old hat to me(certainly older than I am), but here at least the method with which the canon is related and the limitations inherent in that are shown to undermine said establishment. The cultural revolution that is youtube! (tongue only slightly in cheek)
on the is it or isn't it- I've had trouble when proposing shows, and it is an annoying position to be in. I think it takes cojones to set the question aside as irrelevant and just stroll out with what you think is interesting. It might not be a lightening rod, but it must be liberating to simply shrug off defending your opinion. And get away with it even!
- Robert Huffmann (guest) 4-04-2007 9:46 am
Thanks, and on that note I'm closing this thread.
- tom moody 4-04-2007 11:23 am
And I reopened it to include this follow up comment by p.d., whose net was down and emailed it later:
i read that first paragraph as:
"blah blah art blah blah just get over it! bada bing bada boom!"
*hi-five* *grab crotch* etc.
what is someone supposed to get from that? it kinda sets up the rest of the text as 'here's an art piece made for people with no critical faculties whatsoever'.
away from cor and on a larger scale, t.m. is right that the fun bits are trying to figure out what can be salvaged. "critical discourse" [or whatever you want to call it] about the computer as a medium...and this includes computer networks and games and "new media" etc...is way way behind and needs all the help it can get. there is no canonical text for this stuff - do you actually know anyone who thinks manovich really hits the nail on the head? to ignore/take advantage of it by throwing it off with a calculated faux-naivete, which seems to be something of a style among new york [or maybe american?] artists of my age, is really boring. i'd rather read vice magazine.
--p.d.
- tom moody 4-04-2007 8:52 pm
I just received in the mail a rather weighty book about "net art" and other computer-based art by a museum curator and "gatekeeper" in the field. (No plugs till I finish assessing it, which mostly consists of flipping through it trying to decide where to start.) It focuses on what some are calling Net Art 1.0 and is heavy on the MIT Media Lab side of the practice. It was published in 2006 and contains almost nothing of what has been supported on this blog over the last six years (the exceptions being jodi and olia who do get a small chapter under the heading "html hijinx"). No reason it should, since much of what gets written about here is "amateur," "art world art" or "non art", but Net Art 2.0, "defaults," or whatever, ought to have its "book." Right now that "text" is a dynamic and interlinked community of blog writing, delicious links, flickr, MySpace etc waiting to be compiled, or not.
I did recently contribute "all my blog posts on JODI" to an academic paper about them compiled by a grad student from her writings and other things she found on blogs. She described it as a collage of blog writing. "So I figure I got that going for me" to quote Bill Murray as the groundskeeper in Caddyshack.
- tom moody 4-05-2007 4:47 pm
Carl Spackler.
- bill 4-05-2007 5:21 pm
Thank you, Dalai Lama.
- tom moody 4-05-2007 5:27 pm
whoa, net art 2.0 book already? you sure 'bout that?
(and..a book about net art where jodi is sectioned into one small chapter? wha??)
- guthrie (guest) 4-08-2007 5:08 am
tom you're contributions to our interlinked community of etc. is great and is why i read this blog. but my comment doesn't apply to you much since you're not my age :P
- p.d. (guest) 4-08-2007 8:45 pm
I didn't take it that you were applying it to me, although I don't think age is any bar to high fiving and crotch grabbing.
I was responding more to your comment about Manovich (not) hitting it on the head.
- tom moody 4-08-2007 9:11 pm
right, im teasing you, but i also think you see the importance of a historical contextualization of this stuff, whereas my age-group peers throw it off. that's, like, the point of a lot of stuff on this blog. maybe it's because you have the brains to do it and they don't, i'm not sure, but i like it...i like references beyond "oh check out this crazy pixelated computer animation from the 60s. it's really awesome".
besides, you only say that about hi-fives cos you're 23 years old, imagine what it feels like when you're 29 like me. one more year and im not to be trusted.
- p.d. (guest) 4-08-2007 9:43 pm
Acting all loose an' shit and gradually letting the audience in on how smart you are is a viable rhetorical strategy. It certainly works for Cory in a live audience setting--I've seen him win over many groups of hostile bastards this way.
I'm actually in the camp that thinks the text works, too. I like the "toughen up" line in the first para after he has just confessed to not bothering to post links. This made me want to read on.
- tom moody 4-08-2007 11:18 pm
[Previous comment rewritten/reposted.]
- tom moody 4-09-2007 12:10 am
that might be true but its not really what im talking at this point in the thread. norman white, frieder nake, manfred mohr...the list is huge actually, all these old school dudes and dudettes went out of their way to write stuff. beyond self-promoting emails and blog posts and cool links i dont see that happening much these days, especially with [my] under 30 crowd. and i think we need it now as much, if not more, than when computers were "new".
- p.d. (guest) 4-10-2007 3:47 am
Urk, closing thread again due to spam.
- tom moody 4-16-2007 4:22 am