Art Critic Misses Big Picture

Since others were discussing the NYT review of the cyberarts festival,
i thought i'd post Steve Dietz's response from his blog. he rightly
criticizes the author not for a lack of knowledge about interactive art
per se, but contemporary art in general.
http://www.yproductions.com/WebWalkAbout/archives/000701.html

Art Critic Misses the Big Picture
It's not that Sarah Boxer is clueless. I don't believe that someone
has to "get" interactive art to write about it. Maybe some of the
artwork she skewers in her April 26 New York Times review of the Boston
Cyberarts Festival, Art That Puts You in the Picture, Like It Or Not,
is as "irritating" as she claims it is. What should concern her
readers, and even more so her editors, is her apparent lack of
perspective about contemporary art. Let us count the ways.


Boxer: Problem No. 1: potty-mouthed machines. "PS," by Gretchen
Skogerson and Garth Zeglin at the Stata Center, is an oval mirror with
a sign that bids you "lean in close." You do. A voice says, "I like to
masturbate in public." Ack. Did anyone else hear that?
Can anyone say Seedbed?

For his notorious and influential performance at Sonabend Gallery in
1972, Vito Acconci lay beneath the floorboards of a constructed ramp
masturbating while his fantasies about the visitors above him were
broadcast over loudspeakers. Ack.


Boxer: Problem No. 2: too much ritual, too little time. "1-Bit Love,"
by Noah Vawter, is a musical altar, a totem covered in foil and exuding
a synthetic rhythm (a one-bit wave form). The pillar has red velvet
knobs. People are supposed to lay hands on it and turn the knobs to
modulate the sound. No one wants to be the first to paw the idol. And
once you do, it's not clear what effect you are having. [emphasis
added]
Compare: Nam June Paik, Participation TV, 1963 - 1966
[Participation TV I] concerns a purely acoustic-oriented type of , with
an integrated microphone. The later version serves a television showing
in the middle of its screen a colored bundle of lines which explosively
spread out to form bizarre-looking line formations the moment someone
speaks into the microphone or produces any other type of sound.
Depending on the sound's inherent quality or volume, the signals are
intensified by a sound-frequency amplifier to produce an endless
variety of line formations which never seem to repeat themselves or be
in any way predictable. [emphasis added] (via Media Art Net)
Boxer: [P]roblem No. 3: ungraciousness. Machines make no bones about
their own flaws, but are unbending about yours.
Let's just stick to photography (another machine art). Gary Winogrand.
Diane Arbus. Lee Friedlander. Tina Barney. Lisette Modell. Shelby Lee
Adams. Susan Meiselas (Carnival Strippers). Bill Owens. Walker Evans.
Bruce Gilden. Nan Goldin, Richard Avedon (The American West). Stop me,
please.
Boxer: [P]roblem No. 4: moral superiority. Consider "Applause," by Jeff
Lieberman, Josh Lifton, David Merrill and Hayes Raffle. You stoop to
enter a curtained booth. (Already you're in the weak position.) There's
a movie screen divided into three parts, and in front of each is a
microphone. Clap vigorously into one of the microphones and the movie
screen in front of it comes to life, playing its movie. Stop clapping
and the action grinds to a halt.

Now, wouldn't it be great if you could get all three screens going at
once? You can! Just run from mike to mike, clapping in front of all
three. Now they're all going! Uh-oh. It's Hitler giving a speech. And
there you are clapping like crazy, you idiot.
Compare: Paul McCarthy, Documents(1995-1999). "Selections of 8 x 10
photographs with images of Disneyland and other American pop items and
images from Nazi Germany, mounted and framed." (via) You should hear
the docents trying to explain that one without making the public feel
like idiots.

My point is not that the work at the Cyberarts Festival necessarily
compares favorably with these iconic works of contemporary art, but
Boxer's reasoning is lazy at best. And yet it is so commmonplace in the
mainstream press as to be almost not worth mentioning, except that this
hasn't always been true at the Times. To give Boxer credit, she does
not fixate on the cost, collectability, or technology of the works, but
neither does she provide even the most minimal sense of context, except
her own apparent discomfort at being in the picture. This despite
almost a half century of contemporary art that does just that from
Michelangelo Pistoletto to Bruce Nauman to Dan Graham to Andrea Fraser
to Janet Cardiff to …

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.