[mtp-teoria] echo from lovink's lecture

[dusan]

> hi,
>
> thanks for your report, Dusan, I've read the essay you had linked and
> find it intriguing in many points
> above all, it has affirmed and clarified some of my views of the
> subject, however sometimes I cannot stand Lovink's scepticism, which
> he developed into method sui generis (which reminds me of Virilio) and
> which imho makes some of his statements unnecessarily biased
>
> I, myself, think it is Lovink's 2nd scenario, which is being realized
> nowadays most visibly
> I identify such course of events as a somewhat hybridising of
> artworld-traffic (how does this refer to the ubiquitous media
> convergence?) regarding both art production and it's (media)
> reflection
>
> I see a bunch of young artists standing on a threshold of artworld
> they're entering and they are not deciding which side they'll choose,
> they are just making art regardless of some pre-chosen medium instead,
> they do canvas, animations, interactive installations, sculptures,
> they choose medium that fits their purpose best and muse about this
> contemporary artworld schizophreny only in a means of potential
> support and reached audience (not that I am underestimating these
> factors)

also there is very low institutional awareness, about politics
of galleries, funding institutions, key players and art mafiozos :)
how the decisions are taken and why. economic factors, power issues
and who benefits from this all at the end. difference between 'media art'
and 'contemporary art' have been most visible from this point.
it comes back to the very question of 'how to put bread on our table'
for artists.
thus the "contemporary art" does not only mean "today's art"
as is sometimes still understood, but is a world of its own.
it is true that since everybody strongly depends on one or the other
source of funding (academy and state in EU, corporate money and private
funds in the US), it is an 'offline' and private topic.
art students are not led into this thinking about this side of art
and thus have weaken position. it should not be about advising where
to make big money with art, but about supporting art students (and
their friends too) to ask what is going on in the art system socially.


dusan



>
> I see art magazines and blogs reflecting upon contemporary art and
> resigning to categorise or to choose one side or another, they are
> rather mediating the art in general and thus possibly winding off a
> spiral of such approach, which might be eventually understood as
> anticipating one day
>
> this leads me to conclusion that it is this giant leap to new media
> culture paradigm (I am writing my MA thesis about :), which makes new
> media art look like adrift branch of art, a mongrel, and I am more and
> more convinced that the only and truthful barrier are the
> institutions, which are - as the art history teaches us - doomed to
> adaptation (not mentioning that even this is already going on, take
> for example net art commisions of such galleries as Whitney Museum or
> Tate)
>
> afterall, I guess it was Maxwell who said that theories of young
> scientits will replace the old ones not because they are right, but
> because the old scientists will die
>
> --
> Palo Fabus
> palofabus.net
>
> On 4/10/07, dusan <dusan at idealnypartner.sk> wrote:
>>
>>
>> halo,
>>
>> few days ago i visited geert lovink's lecture in brussels' argos centre.
>> lecture was built on a dead end of new media art and on the article
>> he wrote for fibreculture some time ago. short reporting coming next.
>>
>> basically lovink chose few paragraphs from the article, read and
>> commented
>> these. 2005's version of the article is here:
>> http://laudanum.net/geert/files/1129753681/
>> speech was rather abstract, since he avoided giving examples because
>> then
>> the arguments could be easily turned around by contra-examples, making
>> critique impossible. i assume half of the 50 people present knew lovink
>> for decades and for others who are familiar with the media art sectarian
>> context it was still understandable.
>>
>> besides other things what i found interesting was his definition of new
>> media art as "form searching for the forms" and the four strategies of
>> "how to get out of media art misery" he closed the speech with:
>>
>>
>> 1. new media art will consciously transform itself into an autonomous
>> discipline by avoiding the collaboration with other disciplines
>> (sociology,
>> art history, linguistics, science, etc), since by the multidisciplinary
>> approach it undermines itself and this way it only supports other
>> disciplines and will never create own field with everything the academic
>> discipline includes.
>>
>> 2. new media art will "transcend" itself and will merge into
>> contemporary
>> art. this is the case of video art festivals that first needed to
>> "disappear" in order to allow "reappearance" of video art these years.
>>
>> 3. leave art context altogether and go with science - "art and science
>> discourse" or other non-art fields, ie. young artists switching to
>> webdesign, IT, stock market, living from social support or as refugees
>> at science. approach "i'm a poor artist, maybe i have ideas, please
>> adopt me".
>>
>> 4. rename new media art with creativity -> "creative industries",
>> another short-term government policy cycle. CI is widely taken as not
>> existing and being only a hype in heads of bureaucrats, but still there
>> is a lot of economic models at CI that answers the question "how to
>> make money". so this strategy would lead either into private sector
>> or teaching at art school.
>>
>>
>> to mention few comments from audience:
>>
>> A: problem of location - looks like it is only about US, NL, AUS and
>> western EU.
>> GL: this is example of falsification of argument by 1 example (all
>> arguments are refutable).
>>
>> A: isn't it a crisis of critics, and not of practice?
>> GL: art needs critique, there are very very few (young) critics,
>> other fields are usually more appealing for them.
>>
>> A: 2-way communication between artists and funders is not possible?
>> GL: not good negotiating position for artists, they're not even on map
>> for big institutions.
>>
>>
>> ..in a hurry now, more later.
>>
>> dusan
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> mtp-teoria mailing list
>> mtp-teoria at 13m3.sk
>> http://13m3.sk/mailman/listinfo/mtp-teoria
>>
> _______________________________________________
> mtp-teoria mailing list
> mtp-teoria at 13m3.sk
> http://13m3.sk/mailman/listinfo/mtp-teoria
>