beer delivery

why? can somebody explain the reasoning here. why are these things lumped together so
casually?


video and web art are about as related as aria and telephone. yes, you can sing opera over
the phone. but so what? who ever does? why would you? video is to web as beer is to
truck. it's one delivery method. common but hardly fundamental in any way. many folks
own cell phones that show the time, and you may even look at yours all the time to check.
but you'd never think to buy a cell phone, never to talk on it, only as a watch.


a video turing test:
a DVD player, camcorder, VHS, and a computer can all be hooked up to the same video
switcher. (a browser window can easily be editted in, if that seems necessary to somebody.)
if an audience watching the screen couldn't otherwise tell the difference where the source is
coming from, how could it possibly matter!? why say it's internet related at all?


most of the venues for web art, love getting video. it isn't particularly web or computer or
interactive related, but somehow these people see some fundamental relationship.
sometimes video screenings are even eager take web work, but baffled when you say there
isn't anything like a running time. they can't see how that's possible, something with no
begining/end.

on the flip side, one certainly can upload video, use it in multimedia or even interactivity. but
you can also upload meatloaf recipes. sure, we could probably push the issue that a
meatloaf recipe can be ART. but honestly, why is video - web art getting a tidal wave of
favoritism over meatloaf recipe - web art? video isn't at all intrinsically more interesting,
impressive or informative.


hey video's fine, but it hangs around web stuff way too much. it's being a leech. video has
a perfectly good home, why can't it just stay there.


(sorry if this is a re-post. my server says it was sent, but never got it and can't find it at
rhizome? though i doubt they screen, surely a techno glitch.)



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POI Box 1086
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http://plasmastudii.org

Comments

, Eric Dymond

well I don't think there is a "pure" web art anymore. Online video is as relevant as flash, javascript games and java based AI interaction.
if it can be networked then it is.
"it's all for fun you know,
share a little joke with the world"
Eric

, Plasma Studii

i liked your quote.

why would "purity" be a goal though? correct me where i'm wrong but i only see a "it is
because it is" argument? (neither new-ness nor relevance in question. more like context and
significance.)



(seems like the whole web art scene needs a lot more than a quick gloss over, there are too
many common sense inconsistencies here, reinforced by popular fears and fantasies. just
because we can't build this stuff at home, doesn't mean all of these techno tools are related.
people are making decisions based on observations while covering up their eyes. there's
nothing scary going on. it's like they just understood tv, and say to everything now "oh, i get
it, it's like tv.")



On Aug 2, 2005, at 12:42 AM, Eric Dymond wrote:

well I don't think there is a "pure" web art anymore. Online video is as relevant as flash,
javascript games and java based AI interaction.
if it can be networked then it is.
"it's all for fun you know,
share a little joke with the world"
Eric
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, Jim Andrews

> well I don't think there is a "pure" web art anymore. Online
> video is as relevant as flash, javascript games and java based AI
> interaction.
> if it can be networked then it is.
> "it's all for fun you know,
> share a little joke with the world"
> Eric

Using the Web simply as a distribution channel for pre-digital media is
something that happens with print, video, recorded sound, etc.

Whether it is 'web art' or not turns out to be somewhat less interesting a
question than whether it is interesting at all and, if so, how.

Something can have elements of web art and elements of shovelware.

Doron Golan's online videos are this way–as are just about anyone's videos
on the net. But no one cares, in the case of Doron's work, that they are
part shovelware because the videos are so good, and this is true independent
of whether they are seen on the Web or not.

Though I suppose that Doron's intelligent engineering and design of them for
the Web so that they stream well and aren't inappropriately artifacted and
are a goodly size and so on allows perception of the quality of the
immaterial material of them better. He has made every effort to present the
work seriously on the Web. And the look and approach is distinctive not only
technically but otherwise.

So here we have a case of video succeeding not simply as art on the Web but
surely also as Web art.

Not to say you see this very often.

But what I want to point out is there is a sort of continuum between
shovelware and webart, rather than two clearly demarcated zones. And there
are many variables. How heavily does the work rely on pre-digital media like
print, video, recorded sound, etc? To the exclusion of programming, network
processes, etc? Are there aspects of the work that can't be reproduced in
other media? How much does the social context of it amid the email lists and
so on influence the work? Would the work be better as a book or an offline
critter of some other sort? Does the work have some burning connection to
the Net?

If it doesn't burn, the rest is chatter.

Also, I think there's lots of poetential to take cinema in all sorts of
unanticipated directions on the net. It needs new directions. Not for the
sake of novelty. But because cliches do not burn. Art within an established
form eventually can only go through the motions and perpetuate the status
quo. A late bardo. Yeah ok, I'm wrong, there will be good sonnetts forever.
Truly. New stuff. But a form has its formal range, nonetheless.

ja
http://vispo.com