Edward A. Shanken writes and teaches about the entwinement of art, science, and technology with a focus on interdisciplinary practices involving new media. He is a researcher at the University of Amsterdam and a member of the Media Art History faculty at the Donau University in Krems, Austria. He was formerly Executive Director of the Information Science + Information Studies program at Duke University, and Professor of Art History and Media Theory at Savannah College of Art and Design. Recent and forthcoming publications include essays on art and technology in the 1960s, information aesthetics, interactivity and agency, and the cultural implications of cybernetics, robotics, and biotechnology. He edited Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology and Consciousness (University of California Press, 2003). His second book, Art and Electronic Media was published by Phaidon Press in 2009. Full CV available on my website.
BIO
The Postmedia Perspective
Part 2
At Art Basel in June 2011, I organized and chaired a panel discussion with Nicolas Bourriaud, Peter Weibel, and Michael Grey (see link to video, below.) That occasion demonstrated some challenges to bridging the gap between MCA and NMA. One simple but clear indication of this disconnect was the fact that Weibel, arguably the most powerful individual in the world of NMA and Bourriaud, arguably the most influential curator and theorist in the world of MCA, had never met before. Although Domenico and I (and many others in the NMA artworld) see significant parallels and overlaps between MCA and NMA, these worlds do not see eye-to-eye, no matter how much they may share the rhetoric of interactivity, participation, and avant-gardism.
If MCA curators like Bourriaud genuinely embraced the so-called “post-medium condition,” as he suggested at Art Basel, then the exclusionary prejudice against the explicit use of technological media in and as art would not exist. Bourriaud would not favor “indirect influences” of technology on art as he asserted. His discussions and exhibitions of contemporary art would be blind to medium, and there would be no debate. But that is not the case. Peter Weibel astutely picked up on Bourriaud’s distinction between direct/indirect influences and pointed out the hypocrisy of valuing the indirect influence of technology while ignoring the explicit use of technology as an artistic medium in its own right. Weibel accurately and provocatively labels this "media injustice." Here I'm picking on Bourriaud, but the same argument applies to the vast majority of MCA curators.
At Art Basel in June 2011, I organized and chaired a panel discussion with Nicolas Bourriaud, Peter Weibel, and Michael Grey (see link to video, below.) That occasion demonstrated some challenges to bridging the gap between MCA and NMA. One simple but clear indication of this disconnect was the fact that Weibel, arguably the most powerful individual in the world of NMA and Bourriaud, arguably the most influential curator and theorist in the world of MCA, had never met before. Although Domenico and I (and many others in the NMA artworld) see significant parallels and overlaps between MCA and NMA, these worlds do not see eye-to-eye, no matter how much they may share the rhetoric of interactivity, participation, and avant-gardism.
If MCA curators like Bourriaud genuinely embraced the so-called “post-medium condition,” as he suggested at Art Basel, then the exclusionary prejudice against the explicit use of technological media in and as art would not exist. Bourriaud would not favor “indirect influences” of technology on art as he asserted. His discussions and exhibitions of contemporary art would be blind to medium, and there would be no debate. But that is not the case. Peter Weibel astutely picked up on Bourriaud’s distinction between direct/indirect influences and pointed out the hypocrisy of valuing the indirect influence of technology while ignoring the explicit use of technology as an artistic medium in its own right. Weibel accurately and provocatively labels this "media injustice." Here I'm picking on Bourriaud, but the same argument applies to the vast majority of MCA curators.
The Postmedia Perspective
RESPONSE TO POSTMEDIA PERSPECTIVE
PART 1
There are many keen insights in this excerpt from Media, New Media, Postmedia. I hope that Domenico’s whole book will be translated into English, as this teaser demonstrates that it will make a valuable contribution to an ongoing debate that appears to be building significant steam.
Related to this debate, I’m in the process of completing a manuscript that examines the gap between what I call mainstream contemporary art (MCA) and new media art (NMA). Domenico and I have discussed this subject over the past couple years, happily discovering that our scholarship shares some key reference points, including Bourriaud and Krauss, and in our identification of parallel artworlds. Our work is sufficiently different to make the discussion interesting. And as the response to this excerpt suggests, there is clearly a diversity of opinions and perspectives and plenty of room for further scholarship. In that spirit, I’d like to offer a few reflections in reference to Domenico’s excellent work.
My goal is to forge a hybrid discourse that joins the best of both worlds, informing each other in a way that is mutually beneficial and fortuitous for art in general. While this merging of NMA and MCA is perhaps inevitable, proactively theorizing the issues and stakes involved may play an important role in informing the ways in which that merger unfolds. Indeed, as historian of photography John Tagg has noted of the reception of an earlier “new media,” the more experimental aspects of photography were not well-assimilated and that the impact of the discourses of photography and contemporary art on each other was highly asymmetrical: the latter changed very little, while the former lost its edge in the process of “fitting in.” Needless to say, many in the NMA community are wary of losing our edge in the process of assimilation…
PART 1
There are many keen insights in this excerpt from Media, New Media, Postmedia. I hope that Domenico’s whole book will be translated into English, as this teaser demonstrates that it will make a valuable contribution to an ongoing debate that appears to be building significant steam.
Related to this debate, I’m in the process of completing a manuscript that examines the gap between what I call mainstream contemporary art (MCA) and new media art (NMA). Domenico and I have discussed this subject over the past couple years, happily discovering that our scholarship shares some key reference points, including Bourriaud and Krauss, and in our identification of parallel artworlds. Our work is sufficiently different to make the discussion interesting. And as the response to this excerpt suggests, there is clearly a diversity of opinions and perspectives and plenty of room for further scholarship. In that spirit, I’d like to offer a few reflections in reference to Domenico’s excellent work.
My goal is to forge a hybrid discourse that joins the best of both worlds, informing each other in a way that is mutually beneficial and fortuitous for art in general. While this merging of NMA and MCA is perhaps inevitable, proactively theorizing the issues and stakes involved may play an important role in informing the ways in which that merger unfolds. Indeed, as historian of photography John Tagg has noted of the reception of an earlier “new media,” the more experimental aspects of photography were not well-assimilated and that the impact of the discourses of photography and contemporary art on each other was highly asymmetrical: the latter changed very little, while the former lost its edge in the process of “fitting in.” Needless to say, many in the NMA community are wary of losing our edge in the process of assimilation…
The Postmedia Perspective
I've been trying to post a response to this for over a week! The editor/server won't accept the text I cut and paste from Textedit...
Ear to the Earth 2010: Yolande Harris and Bernie Krause
Dates:
Thu Oct 28, 2010 00:00 - Thu Oct 21, 2010
As part of Ear to the Earth 2010: Water and the World, Yolande Harris will perform in a program with legendary sound artist Bernie Krause at the Greenwich House Music School, 26 Barrow Street, 8pm.
Harris' Pink Noise and Video Organ
Sailing, swimming and fishing highlight embodied and technological ways of knowing and relating to water environments, where sound forms a fundamental part of our experience. In her audio-visual work Yolande Harris addresses this otherwise alien environment, where water, wind and weather connect through the direct experience of undulating surface, breathing, equipment and navigation. Fishing for Sound creates a sea of spatial connections between phenomena underwater, in the mind, and from outer-space, weaving sounds from marine environments, psychological treatment and sonified navigation satellites. Common to each of these is a mass of background noise - of environment, memory and information - where listening is like fishing for sounds.
Krause's Spectral map of animal sounds
Every stream, ocean, lake, beach, marsh, fen, and pool on earth has its own resonance and special geophonic voice, each soundscape adding another layer to the acoustic structures that engage us as music. Krause addresses the question of how animals (and water animals) taught us to dance and sing, drawing from his book, The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World’s Wild Places, due for publication by Little Brown (Hachette) in 2011. Find out how the organizational acoustic forms that have inspired human music can be found in the biophonies of rainforests, arctic regions, oceans, lakes, and riparian habitats worldwide.
Yolande Harris
Amsterdam-based composer/sound artist Yolande Harris works with sound and image in environment and architectural space. She has presented her work internationally, at MACBA, Schirn Kunsthalle, ISEA, Sonic Acts, and Transmediale, and she has received fellowships at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Jan van Eyck Academy, and Netherlands Media Art Institute.
Bernie Krause
Since 1968, Bernie Krause has traveled the world, recording and archiving the sounds of creatures and environments large and small. He has produced 55 CDs and creates interactive environmental sound sculptures for public spaces worldwide. He is currently engaged in writing a book titled The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World’s Wild Places. Krause is also a pioneering performer on synthesizer, who introduced Beatle George Harrison to the instrument in 1968, and has many credits in popular music and film.
Harris' Pink Noise and Video Organ
Sailing, swimming and fishing highlight embodied and technological ways of knowing and relating to water environments, where sound forms a fundamental part of our experience. In her audio-visual work Yolande Harris addresses this otherwise alien environment, where water, wind and weather connect through the direct experience of undulating surface, breathing, equipment and navigation. Fishing for Sound creates a sea of spatial connections between phenomena underwater, in the mind, and from outer-space, weaving sounds from marine environments, psychological treatment and sonified navigation satellites. Common to each of these is a mass of background noise - of environment, memory and information - where listening is like fishing for sounds.
Krause's Spectral map of animal sounds
Every stream, ocean, lake, beach, marsh, fen, and pool on earth has its own resonance and special geophonic voice, each soundscape adding another layer to the acoustic structures that engage us as music. Krause addresses the question of how animals (and water animals) taught us to dance and sing, drawing from his book, The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World’s Wild Places, due for publication by Little Brown (Hachette) in 2011. Find out how the organizational acoustic forms that have inspired human music can be found in the biophonies of rainforests, arctic regions, oceans, lakes, and riparian habitats worldwide.
Yolande Harris
Amsterdam-based composer/sound artist Yolande Harris works with sound and image in environment and architectural space. She has presented her work internationally, at MACBA, Schirn Kunsthalle, ISEA, Sonic Acts, and Transmediale, and she has received fellowships at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Jan van Eyck Academy, and Netherlands Media Art Institute.
Bernie Krause
Since 1968, Bernie Krause has traveled the world, recording and archiving the sounds of creatures and environments large and small. He has produced 55 CDs and creates interactive environmental sound sculptures for public spaces worldwide. He is currently engaged in writing a book titled The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World’s Wild Places. Krause is also a pioneering performer on synthesizer, who introduced Beatle George Harrison to the instrument in 1968, and has many credits in popular music and film.
