Media Art Histories pt. 5,926,368

There is an interesting divide here, one that keeps new media artists awake at night.
Rokeby's VNS is a remarkable demonstration of an artist using existing technologies, piecemeal and extending it to create a tool, or even better a paradigm for expression.
Interactive Art owes a great deal to VNS. But as a Toronto native I always eye it as being a logical extension of Michael Hayden's Yorkdale Subway stop. Pixels or Neon tubes, the interaction is the artists plan.
But is the content, the meat of the matter, interesting or even important.
The spiritual and aesthetic antithesis of VNS is Slanderous dot Org (http://www.slanderous.org).
The technology isn't original and neither is the method of delivery.
Like a poor cousin who sleeps on the street, slanderous comes out of the gutter, grabbing the tech it needs to make content that is outrageous but engaging to an audience craving for content.
Why do Grau's examples lose our interest after a few pages of reading.
I know he's very smart, and he makes sense too. But I'm bored by the ideas, and the content looks aimless and apolitical.
Can Rokeby's ghost do more than live in the machine? Can it at least make an attempt at haunting?
This divide will keep us swinging back and forth for years.
Eric

Hi Eric,

I think there is a larger political context (of which we are all probably
all too aware) that has put a bit of a damper on some things.

I compare the current times to the early days of the First Cold War. (I
think we're now in the early years of the Second Cold War.) Back then,
people were polarized, afraid, and nuclear holocaust seemed possible–the
end of the world so to speak.

There was an interesting group of writers and intellectuals called The New
York Intellectuals, socialists or at least left-leaning, who agonized over
whether to condemn Stalin's USSR and favor a US which still harbored Jim
Crow and many other imperfections. They came to what I think was the
correct solution, that Stalin was far the worser.

Everyone, artists included, is currently wrangling through an identical
struggle. This struggle concerns them most as it pertains to art and ideas,
intellectual stuff. Moynihan called part of the struggle as the painful
contemplation of "being willing to defend an imperfect democracy." The
Democrats are also wrangling through it, as one can see in the case of
Hillary Clinton (who incidentally replaced Moynihan in the Senate).

This reality of a new "world war" is one among several that I think
necessitate Networkism, and this is why I'm allocating all of my artistic
time to developing Networkism. Yet such a project covers every sphere of
intellect, and is not yet near completed. Like Romanticism, Modernism, the
Renaissance etc. it will take many decades and many people to really take
form, and likely will evolve over a century or more.

There is also real virtue in being moderate and thoughtful. Think of the
many additional ills that chronic inflammation itself can cause beyond the
original irritant. I.e., there is no benefit in creating "fitna" or
unnecessary antagonism toward Postmodernism when developing Networkism.
Such fitna only spoils opportunities for good outcomes.

This is of course not to say that Networkism ought not to be worked on,
implemented, developed, articulated, and expressed by those interested in or
inclined toward doing so. Similarly, thoughtful and moderate activity makes
sense even if Networkism is not one's cup of tea–work on whatever other
art-historical period-fabric one prefers, or even just within new iterations
of Postmodernism if that is your preference.

My feeling however (for what it's worth) is that Pomo was the period of the
later and ending phase of the First Cold War. Things are so different under
the Second Cold War that it can justifiably be called a new art-historical
period, and can be done so with responsible moderation and a good conscience
if you work at it. :)

Best regards,

Max Herman
The Genius 2000 Network
G2KVFE online at YouTube
www.geocities.com/genius-2000

+++


>From: Eric Dymond <[email protected]>
>Reply-To: Eric Dymond <[email protected]>
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Media Art Histories pt. 5,926,368
>Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 23:20:13 -0400
>
>There is an interesting divide here, one that keeps new media artists awake
>at night.
>Rokeby's VNS is a remarkable demonstration of an artist using existing
>technologies, piecemeal and extending it to create a tool, or even better a
>paradigm for expression.
>Interactive Art owes a great deal to VNS. But as a Toronto native I always
>eye it as being a logical extension of Michael Hayden's Yorkdale Subway
>stop. Pixels or Neon tubes, the interaction is the artists plan.
>But is the content, the meat of the matter, interesting or even important.
>The spiritual and aesthetic antithesis of VNS is Slanderous dot Org
>(http://www.slanderous.org).
>The technology isn't original and neither is the method of delivery.
>Like a poor cousin who sleeps on the street, slanderous comes out of the
>gutter, grabbing the tech it needs to make content that is outrageous but
>engaging to an audience craving for content.
>Why do Grau's examples lose our interest after a few pages of reading.
>I know he's very smart, and he makes sense too. But I'm bored by the ideas,
>and the content looks aimless and apolitical.
>Can Rokeby's ghost do more than live in the machine? Can it at least make
>an attempt at haunting?
>This divide will keep us swinging back and forth for years.
>Eric
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