Boxer Match

Patrick, couldn't agree more. I think your observation that this
signals a new more "mature" era for media arts is astute and I also
agree that dealers and the art world in general are taking a more
integrated approach…which I take you to mean that they are no longer
isolating it as 'New Media art" and instead presenting it as simply
contemporary work that happens to utilize techne in all its wonderous
iterations. Its like Media art has graduated from college and now
it must find its way on its own terms.

respects,

matthew



On Wednesday, May 04, 2005, at 11:27AM, Patrick Lichty <[email protected]> wrote:

>Hello, all.
>
>I love this thread, and I love Boxer's article. Mainly because her article
>shows that in many cases that art which once stood on the merits of its
>techne alone last decade aren't allowed to now. That's the pitfall of the
>increasing acceptance/cooptation of the larger art world. The New Media
>culture has been known for a real culture of supportiveness and kindness,
>and I don't think that should change; it's a refreshing place to live.
>However, the larger art world is beginning to frame New Media in its
>parameters, and for whatever reason, there's a lot of New Media that is not
>meeting the standards/tastes ot the "high art" world.
>
>This is not so much a definitive statement as an observation. A number of
>gallerists that once championed the digital are now taking an integrated
>approach, and in the five years since the Whitney Bi 2000, where internet
>art was introduced to the New York scene, a lot of the lustre has left.
>
>I'm not being so critical of the works that Boxer is a bit too harsh on, but
>there is a lot of New Media that just doesn't hack it, for reasons of
>obsessions with techne, the selling of technophilia, cultural myopia, etc.
>There are niche levels of engagement, for sure, but those artists have to be
>ready to operate in the niche. However, New Media is entering a next
>iteration, and as such, is going to change in regards to is placement within
>society, its function, etc. We as artists, curators, critics, etc. need to
>address the changes that are placed upon us as we have been agents of change
>upon our milieu - it's quid pro quo, and I think that we're starting to get
>the pro quo. I just see a lot of work that has gotten attention that
>doesn't stack up, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say that in those
>cases the criticism isn't deserved. This is actually welcome, as it signals
>the coming of New Media's age of majority.
>
>Just my thoughts on the subject.
>
>
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Hi Patrick,

Very well said.

Jason

> I just see a lot of work that has gotten attention that
> doesn't stack up, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say that in those
> cases the criticism isn't deserved. This is actually welcome, as
> it signals
> the coming of New Media's age of majority.

Our greatest strengths and deepest weaknesses are tragically/comically
entwined.

One of the great strengths of new media work is that if it's new, people
aren't quite sure what to make of it. It's outside of the easy categories.
Or parts of it are.

Fresh experience is possible here. Fresh apprehension.

But, additionally, people are going to have a hard time speaking about it
and 'assessing' it.

So there will be much confusion, in that regard.

Strong difficult work will be met mostly with incomprehension. Though there
will be some who get it. It might age slightly better.

Relatively easy, simple, strong work will be well received. At least
initially.

Related to but not the same as popularity of flash vs director.

authors/audience.

short term/longer term.

ja
http://vispo.com

I just see a lot of work that has gotten attention that
doesn't stack up, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say that in those
cases the criticism isn't deserved. This is actually welcome, as it signals
the coming of New Media's age of majority.

Strong difficult work will be met mostly with incomprehension. Though there
will be some who get it. It might age slightly better.

Relatively easy, simple, strong work will be well received. At least
initially.

Related to but not the same as popularity of flash vs director.

Patrick had an extremely good point, post of the year, but am not
sure the reply is really true. moving slightly away from just this
isolated instance, it's not that people favor good work that is
conceptually easier to grasp and gradually move to good that is more
complex. it is often the case (and particularly in computer/tech)
that quality never plays a role in what "wins", while lucky marketing
moves often have an extreme effect.

there was a time when java came on the scene and it was all the hype
like flash. as was java always employed more advanced programming
ideas than lingo, it's actually A LOT more complicated in practice to
use flash than director (particularly without scripting). flash is,
by far, more "difficult" to get, un-intuitive.

but like windows, the fact that it was immediately available (at an
affordable price) at the outset to a lot of demand with no
experience/criteria, gave it the essential first foothold. now
windows/pcs are the same if not higher priced than macs, but in the
next step, it's a world-wide monopoly that keeps them rolling. both
cases are clearly not successes because they are good products, much
easier to grasp. though by chance, something like photoshop, a great
design, can just as easily become the industry standard. (come to
think of it, can anyone think of a software title that grew in
popularity gradually, 5+ years?)

the percentage of interactive work people accept, really has hardly
anything to do (at this point) with it being better or worse. some
is good, some bad. but hopefully, (as Patrick was insinuating) we
are moving from arbitrary successes to people judging instead with
their aesthetics and/or developing more confidence in their desire
for software/hardware that works well. at the moment we're still in
transition.


Likewise, hopefully, this macromedia/adobe thing will mean flash
eventually losing popularity. the fade of the "flash-look" web
design (even if director goes with it). and hopefully, microsoft
will eventually just be nostalgia.

Sort of an aside, but related…

One thing that has always bothered me about many net artists (and many contemporary artists in general) is their adherence to the illogical converse of the assumption, "to be great is to be misunderstood." First off, that assumption in its original form doesn't even mean much since, "to exist at all is to be misunderstood," great, crappy, or mediocre. Anyway, it's certainly not true that "to be misunderstood is to be great." In most cases, to be misunderstood is simply that – to be misunderstood. There are far more medoicre and (dare i say) bad artists claiming that their anti-aesthetics and convoluted/scatalogical cultural critiques are great because no one understands them, than there are "good" artists misunderstood because their work is too challenging.

This Sonic Youth lyric is requisite for any contemporary art critic:
"I can understand it / but I don't recommend it."

It seems that Boxer at least "gets" how to use the art based on her accurate description of how the art works (or doesn't work). She may even "get" the interactive medium (although as Steve Dietz argues in the excerpt Ryan posted, she fails to get the interactive medium in the context of late 20th century art). Or maybe she even gets the context, and just plain doesn't like aspects of both interactive art and late 20th century art. In which case, what can you say?

In all fairness, I've run into my share of people who just plain don't get net art. My new dentist asked me the other day, "what do you teach?" I explained something along my usual lines of, "I teach people how to use computers to make art and graphic design." His reply was fairly standard: "Oh, computers. Boy, they really have changed everything." From this response, I imagine he thinks I teach people how to use MS Office. On the other hand, I'm confident that if he took my net art class for a semester, he would understand net art.

My read is that Boxer gets it more or less; she just doesn't dig it (and has a dramatic penchant for overgeneralization). We can use our art history texts, cyberpunk novels, and Perl technical manuals as amulets against the "misunderstanding" of "lesser" minds, or we can chew on what's valid in their critiques and leave the rest.

peace,
curt


_


Jim Andrews wrote:

> Our greatest strengths and deepest weaknesses are tragically/comically
> entwined.
>
> One of the great strengths of new media work is that if it's new,
> people
> aren't quite sure what to make of it. It's outside of the easy
> categories.
> Or parts of it are.
>
> Fresh experience is possible here. Fresh apprehension.
>
> But, additionally, people are going to have a hard time speaking about
> it
> and 'assessing' it.
>
> So there will be much confusion, in that regard.
>
> Strong difficult work will be met mostly with incomprehension. Though
> there
> will be some who get it. It might age slightly better.
>
> Relatively easy, simple, strong work will be well received. At least
> initially.
>
> Related to but not the same as popularity of flash vs director.
>
> authors/audience.
>
> short term/longer term.
>
> ja
> http://vispo.com
>
>

On May 6, 2005, at 11:00 AM, curt cloninger wrote:

> There are far more medoicre and (dare i say) bad artists claiming
> that their anti-aesthetics and convoluted/scatalogical cultural
> critiques are great because no one understands them, than there are
> "good" artists misunderstood because their work is too challenging.
>
> she just doesn't dig it (and has a dramatic penchant for
> overgeneralization).

;)

> We can use our art history texts, cyberpunk novels, and Perl technical
> manuals as amulets against the "misunderstanding" of "lesser" minds,
> or we can chew on what's valid in their critiques and leave the rest.

we can also do the same for art (or cultural critiques) that we don't
like, no? why the willingness to give the critic in this case the
benefit of the doubt and not the artists, curt?
what artists are complaining that no one understands their "cultural
critiques"? most artists i know that are interested in "critiques" of
that kind are very engaged in didactics and learning effective
communication techniques. they may not understand why someone doesn't
agree with what they say, but who doesn't have those thoughts
frequently.

ryan griffis wrote:

> why the willingness to give the critic in this case the
> benefit of the doubt and not the artists, curt?

Hi Ryan,

I don't think it's a diametrically opposed situation where either the critic is right or the artists are right. I haven't seen the works themselves; I just read the article. I'm guessing if I visited the festival I would get more out of the works personally than she. But that doesn't invalidate her response. If she had posted that opinion to a blog, nobody would care. It's that it was in the Times that got everyone so spooked. Mr. Mirapaul has left the building.

peace,
curt

> It's that it
> was in the Times that got everyone so spooked. Mr. Mirapaul has
> left the building.

Ha. Ya, he was pretty good, wasn't he. Anyone know what he's doing these
days?

ja
http://vispo.com

RE: RHIZOME_RAW: Boxer Match

I just see a lot of work that has gotten attention that
doesn't stack up, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say that in those
cases the criticism isn't deserved. This is actually welcome, as it
signals
the coming of New Media's age of majority.


Strong difficult work will be met mostly with incomprehension. Though
there
will be some who get it. It might age slightly better.


Relatively easy, simple, strong work will be well received. At least
initially.


Related to but not the same as popularity of flash vs director.


Patrick had an extremely good point, post of the year, but am not sure the
reply is really true. moving slightly away from just this isolated
instance, it's not that people favor good work that is conceptually easier
to grasp and gradually move to good that is more complex. it is often the
case (and particularly in computer/tech) that quality never plays a role in
what "wins", while lucky marketing moves often have an extreme effect.

in business *and* art, you mean?

business moves on and the alternatives disappear, for the most part, or
hobble on in crippled form, because the marshalling of huge resources is
required, and that's 'once or twice in a lifetime'. whereas artists continue
to produce their work against all odds until they die. popular or not. so
the alternative continues to exist.

ginsberg studied marketing. ezra pound was quite the po publicist
concerning, say, imagism. of course his publicizing kind of blew up later on
concerning fascism (he was tried for treason after wwii for broadcasts from
europe during wwii that favored italian fascism). and now we see 'schools'
of art, ie, packs of artists.

there was a time when java came on the scene and it was all the hype like
flash. as was java always employed more advanced programming ideas than
lingo,

such as? java is object-oriented. director is 'object-centered' like
visual basic. java is fully code-centered. director has the timeline which
can be subverted to make the work code-centered. but director's architecture
has limitations due to the timeline that it will never get over (like max
1000 sprites simultaneously). there are all sorts of things i'd rather do
with flash than director or java. there are more things i'd rather do with
director than flash or java (because i like code-centered but multimedia RAD
for the net). if i were developing a big product i wouldn't go with flash or
director. but for mid-sized projects director is good. the scale is
important. director is only a prototyper concerning full-blown
products/applications. but it's wonderful for art projects that don't
require industrial strength dynamic sprite creation you generally need in a
product. java has found a niche in server-side business, mostly ecommerce at
this point, because of its cross platform nature. but there are a few, a
very few, very good artists who use java well in their art.

it's actually A LOT more complicated in practice to use flash than
director (particularly without scripting). flash is, by far, more
"difficult" to get, un-intuitive.

harder to use flash without scripting than director with scripting? or did
you mean it's harder to use flash without scripting than director without
scripting? you can do more in flash without scripting than you can in
director without scripting. that's partly why flash is more popular than
director. and that's also why flash without scripting is more complex than
director without scripting.


but like windows, the fact that it was immediately available (at an
affordable price) at the outset to a lot of demand with no
experience/criteria, gave it the essential first foothold. now windows/pcs
are the same if not higher priced than macs,

macs still are higher priced.

but in the next step, it's a world-wide monopoly that keeps them rolling.
both cases are clearly not successes because they are good products, much
easier to grasp. though by chance, something like photoshop, a great
design, can just as easily become the industry standard. (come to think of
it, can anyone think of a software title that grew in popularity gradually,
5+ years?)


the percentage of interactive work people accept, really has hardly
anything to do (at this point) with it being better or worse. some is good,
some bad. but hopefully, (as Patrick was insinuating) we are moving from
arbitrary successes to people judging instead with their aesthetics and/or
developing more confidence in their desire for software/hardware that works
well. at the moment we're still in transition.
but it seems like you have developed your post as an argument against this
idea, primarily, ie, marketing and so on as the factors more determinative
than anything else.

what gets popularized or critically elevated or whatever, that all seems
like it's always going to be a fog of interests without much artistic
significance. that the work can continue to be available for those who
'need' it is one of the lovely possibilities of the net.

terry eagleton, the literary critic, once said that literature is a record
of barbarism. in that what survives are the documents of the victors or that
which approves the world views emanating therefrom.

Likewise, hopefully, this macromedia/adobe thing will mean flash
eventually losing popularity. the fade of the "flash-look" web design (even
if director goes with it). and hopefully, microsoft will eventually just be
nostalgia.

bust to dits.

ja
http://vispo.com

RE: RHIZOME_RAW: Boxer Matcha few comments -

all good art is interactive

most day to day techology (ie computer, car, telephone, etc) is interactive

most things are interactive if we choose to interact with them

technology seems interest us only when new

good art is interesting long after it is new

Zev

Zev Robinson
www.artafterscience.com
www.zrdesign.co.uk

Well put.

Pall

Zev Robinson wrote:
> RE: RHIZOME_RAW: Boxer Matcha few comments -
>
> all good art is interactive
>
> most day to day techology (ie computer, car, telephone, etc) is interactive
>
> most things are interactive if we choose to interact with them
>
> technology seems interest us only when new
>
> good art is interesting long after it is new
>
> Zev
>
> Zev Robinson
> www.artafterscience.com
> www.zrdesign.co.uk
>
>
>
>
>

–
_______________________________
Pall Thayer
artist/teacher
http://www.this.is/pallit
http://pallit.lhi.is/panse

Lorna
http://www.this.is/lorna
_______________________________

a few comments -

all good art is interactive

most day to day techology (ie computer, car, telephone, etc) is interactive

most things are interactive if we choose to interact with them

technology seems interest us only when new

good art is interesting long after it is new

Zev

Zev Robinson
<http://www.artafterscience.com>www.artafterscience.com
<http://www.zrdesign.co.uk>www.zrdesign.co.uk


sorry, i should clarify. not that i think this is inaccurate, maybe
just more helpful in the short term than long. it's useful to
distinguish levels of interactivity. though many who subscribe to
the way the word is used in the above, are blind to it.


1. at the lowest level, a still image or a single "voice", as in a
patch concocted on an old FM synthesizer.

2. "linear" or "time based". as in video, music or even a book, with
a rigidly composed beginning/middle/end that do not themselves change.

2b. hyperlinks. moving from place to place within linear media.
like a jog wheel, that allows you to move within a linear piece.
like a train track as opposed to a taxi, which may take one of
several routes, depending on what comes up.

3. there's the illusion of interactivity, where you can do things
like change the size of the window in your browser. but these
changes only effect your view, not the thing itself.

4. real interactivity, where your input doesn't just move you to
another "room", but something like rearranges the furniture. drawing
a line on a page is interactive, substituting pages is not.

5. ultimately, something like a CGI script where your input effects
not only what is presented to you, but also to others.

5b. in "emergent systems" your answer may even alter the question
itself, a feedback loop, making it possible for a self-organizing
system. (the classic example is how a thermostat adjusts when it's
too hot or too cold)


transformations occurring in the audience though are a very different
issue. not invalid, just nothing to do with "interactivity".
–

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