CLARIFICATION ON MY NOTES - NYT/Boxer

June 30, 2005

Type: discussion

I want to clarify that I meant that Boxer's notes were cursory, not
Marisa Olson's. Marisa's spot on.

Patrick Lichty
Editor-In-Chief
Intelligent Agent Magazine
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"It is better to die on your feet
than to live on your knees."

—–Original Message—–
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of patrick lichty
Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2005 10:01 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: NYT review of ArtBase 101

All of the conversation here has been very interesting, and I have a
certain ambivalence regarding the writings of Susan Boxer. I agree for
the most part with Marisa Ollon in that Boxer's analyses (if we can call
them that) are cursory, lack a certain literacy in the field, and are
indicative of the casual viewer.

Now, let me say why I have an ambivalence about this. On one hand,
let's consider that this is the NYT and not the Toledo Blade (which, by
the way, has a wonderfully acute editor who writes some beautiful
cultural critiques). The contemporary idea of the neoconservative
delegitimization/dismissal of expertise which ranges from the Bush
statement that the "C" students can look forward to being President and
the fundamentalist Christian assertion that it is better to have a big
heart than a big head smacks of a Harrison Bergeron-esque privileging of
the mediocre. Forgive me if I conflate terms on my prior statement, but
I think that it comes down to a contemporary anti-meritocratic bent.
Boxer epitomizes this, in that she appears to represent the
man-on-the-street, "I Don't know much about this, but I know what I
like" rationale in this article and the one on the Boston CyberArts
festival.

On the other hand, Boxer illustrates one of New Media art's cardinal
sins - its cultural myopia and aesthetic specificity. Although the mark
of significant art is its experimental spirit, truly great art 'grabs'
you. And, one of the problems that I have seen with New Media is that
it has exhibited a cultural arrogance that demands that the audience
must almost do research in order to know the context of a work.

These works mirror my contention regarding much of 80's Contemporary
Art; in that it resembled a bad joke about postmodernism that required
the viewer to read countless volumes of Foucault, Barthes, and Lyotard,
only to find that the punch line was rather abject in itself. The joke
is one that is on all parties involved.

However, as I state two poles of the argument, I see a number of quantum
points in the continuum between these points. One is that I see that
New Media that does not transcend its medium may remain marginalized,
with those crossover works which can speak to the Contemporary Art
culture punching through the membrane and going into the museums.
Another might be that there could be niche cultures (such as Contagious
Media) that will serve as a public conduit for other works, and others
may be mass media hacks which address the populace. The contemporary
art world is a milieu is one that gives the New Media artist the
challenge of engaging, subverting, or even hacking in order to address
the Susan Boxers of the world, if one truly cares about them at all.

But I think that from a personal perspective, New Media practitioners
should care, if the genre (sic) wants to engage the larger art milieu.

However, I see Boxer's last two reads of New Media works problematic to
be sure. But then, with her rather cursory treatment of the subject, she
also brings up an opinion of art in general that one should probably
consider. Although I personally differ with some of Susan Boxer's reads
of technological art, she does represent the viewpoint of many
gallery-goers that I have experienced, and is a viewpoint that one
should consider.

But if I had my druthers, I'd put Mirapaul over there in a heartbeat.

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