where did all the computer art go?

hi,

i make Computer Art and have done it for over a decade now. there are list of calls like rohrpost and pourinfos, but for a long time rhizome's had the most announcements. has anyone else noticed or am i just looking in the wrong place? where did the computer art go? help! what gives?


on rhizome there used to be several calls a week for computer and web art - art that integrates computers or the web fundamentally, not simply art that used a computer somewhere in the process or art that could also be posted. nothing against video, like paint and sculpture and drawing with a quill (even by a robot) are fine, but there's no real reason this older sensorial (art you look at, listen to, smell … ) art has anything to do with the experiential or even interactive (art about your decisions and impulses, which may influence your senses tangentally) art scene (like rhizome).

They both require electricity? So does the lighting required for paintings? Calls for outdoor sculpture are generally listed separately. What logic is used to differentiate?


video art is traditional art. that's not an accusation, but it does lack hype. the packaging off the shelf is new but the medium (a series of still photos to create motion) is 100+ years old. it's not particularly clever or a newer perspective than movies.

That said, there is absolutely no bonus value in "new-ness". CA (which isn't all that new either) is hardly superior or inferior to video art. But putting them together seems to have been so misleading to these curators. Instead of web art, you see blogs. Nothing wrong with blogs either, but this is not a huge leap from a dinner party conversation (albeit usually one after folks are dead drunk). by lumping these in with CA, it just brings the perception of all 3 down.


does someone have any opinions?

we certainly don't need to hear how wonderful "new media" is. it may be wonderful, but this is not a deep insight as to A. why so many folks are quick to put video in with CA, and (maybe more importantly) B. why then does video spread like an epidemic, while CA is an endangered species? CA may even deserve it, who cares, but why do folks think this happens?


thanks,
judsoN
http://funkymomma.org

Comments

, carlos katastrofsky

hi,

maybe computer-art is slowly dissolving into the general art-biz and there's no need to specify it anymore? i don't know, but if it does i really would appreciate it. this ghetto of "computer art" kind of sucks to me. i see myself as an artist, not as a computer-artist. and, to be honest, computer-art is something i really dislike. if you e.g. visit ars electronica -which is clearly labelled as computer-art happening- all you will find are some funny, gadgety toys to play with (ok, ok, there are always a few exceptions. but you really have to look hard to find them). yes, there's technology in it, sometimes it's fun, but art? maybe i'm too bourgeois but art is something more than fun for the moment. (sorry for drifting away here…)

however, the huge amount of calls for video is a totally different thing. video is cheap to produce (you just need a computer and sometimes a camera) very easy to distribute (send a dvd or transfer files via the net) and to show (a room, a projector and some amplification for the sound is enough to present an endless amound of artworks) and it's entertaining. the perfect mixture: as artist you have the possibility to show your work somewhere in the world (which sounds good in the biography) and as organizer you can do a show for cheap.

but does computer art really get mixed up with blogs and video art? i don't think so. it's true that most curators don't have any idea what computer-art (to stay with that term) could be besides retouching photos. and if they do some of them simply don't want to use it - it's unstable, needs technical knowledge to set it up etc. etc.
and the ones who are willing to pick computer art for a show possibly (as said in the beginning) don't think that they have to state this explicitly anymore. hopefully.

best,
carlos

, Max Herman

Hi Judson,

I'm not really skilled at using computers though I am trying to gain more skills in this area. That said, I would venture a guess that the computer emphasis may have gone down (though I can't claim to know about all activity in the area) due perhaps to a) decline in novelty and b) relative difficulty of computer art.

I also think we need a new art-historical period overall, and the prevalence of video may owe something to what Carlos said about ease but also that it fits in nicely to Postmodernism and existing frameworks. Video also has a kind of web-camp cachet now which you could ascribe to easy access to streaming video. There is also a resurgence of Pop art I think, which may not focus as much on computers per se but more on their Pop ramifications. I think this might be called Avant-Pop, or was once called that, and I'm not sure if it's so much new as having a revival or as I argue in Le Cafe helping contemporary Postmodernism compensate for the lack of a new art-historical period. this could correlate to the 1890's and early 1900's use of "Decadentism" to fill the vacuum existing after Victorianism.

Regarding the computer or internet focus, I think Rhizome has broadened its mission from "new media" to something inclusive of more, i.e. "art that uses technology in significant ways," though I can't say for sure if we ever had a strict confinement to new media and computers.

But I have to acknowledge again that I don't have much skill with computers, and cannot program for example. So I could be wrong about this analysis. My sense is that there are still a lot of people doing it, but maybe just not the majority anymore? Also, people are doing things like taking computers apart and making new re-functioned machines like sculptures I think, and linking objects to web activity like Carlo Zanni's project. Is it perhaps programming-intensive art like Mark Napier's that you see as declining in prevalence? Or, do you also see work explicitly or innovatively addressing computers and computer networks in principle (i.e. as concepts or ideas) as declining too? Maybe such work never caught on in galleries or art schools and therefore is less common now in the 2nd decade of the internet.

Best regards,

Max

+++

, judsoN

howdy,

that's a totally cool thing if you (max) aren't a hard-core computer programmer. lots of valid art (obviously) wouldn't fit the CA genre. an odd side issue is why people even want to say "this is computer art!" when it really isn't. why not just be happy with "this is graphic art!" or "this is conceptual art!"? glad you chimed in. you can have opinions about sculpture too!

carlos had some good thoughts. we all probably agree that the cost is a major factor in the ubiquity of video. the gadgety thing in CA is pretty juvenile. it'd be nice if all art was just art. a lot of CA is moving toward electronic sculpture, but there is still art that runs on a CPU and displayed on your monitor. Folks often think CA means something preservable. Preservation is just ignorance + eagerness. CA is ephemeral, so if everything is of no interest tomorrow, that's the way the cookie crumbles. You've seen a lot of CA in the ArtBase here (more than anywhere by a long shot), but it isn't all CA by a stretch. i think Carlos is right, that many curators (to use the term loosely) are a bit apprehensive of this genre, especially the inconsistent ways it works (or doesn't).

max is also right that rhizome has been at the head of the pack. not always perfect, but making a much more effective effort than say prix ars. no doubt a lot of that comes from listening to a much wider range of voices (you all), rather than a few "experts" who may buy early-adaptor gizmos, but probably never actually have used anything more than email. where they aren't perfect, it's still a compromise between a few people in charge and the community. the pros and cons of democracy are arguable in politics but pretty well suited for an emerging art form.


Galleries, are social places. Mice/keyboards isolate. So we computer artists need to use camera tracking, microphones, etc. The galleries need to be patient and learn how to light audiences for camera tracking. connecting a $50 USB web cam is not that amazingly mystical. This is easy stuff, but only if we stop playing "expert" and listen to each other's needs.

it would be nice if art was just art. but the real problem, is that when you talk to these curators, they say something like "no we only accept computer art, and must be in .jpeg, .gif, .mov or a link to UTube". Folks often have little unspoken addendums. "art of any medium" usually means only linear artforms we are long familiar with. I wouldn't mind if they said "this is a screening" and then sent the call to somewhere like hi-beam (not eyebeam).


There are a few list just of video screenings, but none of just calls that accept CA without video. It's a practical issue, not an aesthetic one. If you are curating a screening for an audience to sit for 2 hours, no performing (since that needs lighting and crew), you may not want interactive work. totally fair.

From about 1995 - 2000, there weren't many open calls for CA on the web to speak of. From 2000 - 2005 they seemed to very steadily increase, and a few video calls made their way onto list of announcements for techno-art. But why in the last couple of years are there hundreds of these evenings for every one show where CA would work (audiences walk around). (Would think Carlos may have good insights here? yes, art is art, but some art is for screenings and some for exhibitions with hard drives awaiting artwork to run?)

ok, so I take it, it's not simply a matter that i am missing out on the new CA calls list. but (as i figured) those lists are all also video art screening lists. though they still aren't getting many calls on those lists for say glass blowing for neon or airbrush (both could be called "new media"). again, somebody correct me if i'm wrong though.


ps. oh Max, been reading a lot of pre-2000 books about the net. Definitely this is a new historical era. A repeat of old tech histories. silents to talkies particularly, but the invention of cars too. we are in the 2nd phase. Experiments are over. This is the part where we sit on the back burner. Then, Al Jolson will make us an overnight sensation in about 4 years.