<chapter>
<title>Critique Art Politics</title>
<desc>...</desc>
<mails>
<mail>
<nbr>0.0</nbr>
<subject>&lt;nettime&gt; 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover</subject>
<from>Brian Holmes</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:57:08 +0200</date>
<content>50 Ways To Leave Your Lover,
Or, let's find a completely new art criticism

For most of the twentieth century, art was judged with respect to the 
previously existing state of the medium. What mattered was the kind of 
rupture it made, the unexpected formal or semiotic elements that it 
brought into play, the way it displaced the conventions of the genre or 
the tradition. The prize at the end of the evaluative process was a 
different sense of what art could be, a new realm of possibility for the 
aesthetic. Let's take it as axiomatic that all that has changed, 
definitively.

The backdrop against which art stands out now is a particular state of 
society. What an installation, a performance, a concept or a mediated 
representation can do with its formal, affective and semiotic means is 
to mark out a possible or effective shift with respect to the laws, the 
customs, the measures, the mores, the technical and organizational 
devices that define how we must behave and how we can relate to each 
other at a given time and in a given place. What you look for in art is 
a different way to live, a fresh chance at coexistence. Anything less is 
just the seduction of novelty - the hedonism of insignificance.

If that's the case (if the axiom really holds), then a number of 
fascinating questions arise - for the artist, of course, but also for 
the critic. Where the critic is concerned, one good question is this: 
How do you address yourself to artists or publics or potential peers 
across the dividing lines that separate entire societies? How do you 
evaluate what counts as a positive or at least a promising change in the 
existing balance of a foreign culture?

I'm sure you immediately see how difficult this is. Already in the past, 
it was hard enough to say that a particular aesthetic tradition and a 
particular state of the medium defined the leading edge, the point at 
which a rupture became interesting. Yet still there were times when all 
the painters seemed to flock to Rome, then later to Paris, then later to 
New York City; and so through the sheer aggregation of techniques and 
styles, the fiction of a leading edge could be maintained, at least by 
some. But in the face of a simultaneous splintering and decline of what 
used to be called "the West," and a correlative rise of some of "the 
Rest," who could seriously say that certain local, national or regional 
laws, customs, measures, mores and technical or organizational devices 
are really the most interesting ones to transgress or even break into 
pieces, in hopes of a better way of being? Or to be even cruder about 
it, and closer to the actual state of things: Who can seriously claim 
that the Euro-American forms of society are the benchmark against which 
change must be measured - even if those societies are still the most 
opulent and most developed and most heavily armed with all the nastiest 
of technological weapons?

Let's face it, the task of a transnational critique for the new arts of 
living within, against and beyond the existing states of the world's 
societies is daunting to say the least. However, I think all is not lost 
in this domain, for three connected reasons. The first is that over the 
last, say, fifty years, and particularly over the last fifteen, we have 
seen the still very superficial but nonetheless real emergence of 
something like a world society. To put it another way, there is now some 
kind of connective tissue (call it the transnational economy, the 
transportation system and global English) that does bind our 
possibilities of life together, though without in any way reducing them 
to being identical. The second is that the vast proliferation of readily 
accessible archives (libraries, web pages, video banks, record 
collections, museums) offers at least some chance to rapidly sample all 
sorts of information and impressions about what kind of shape a 
particular society is in, and even what kinds of steps are being made to 
try and change it. And third, given the above and maybe a good 
translator too, what you can do is actually try to stage a dialogue with 
the people you are meeting, and hope that some of them respond, give you 
pointers, correct your mistakes, calm down your unconscious arrogance 
and add their own reflections and aesthetic productions into the mix - 
not only to obtain a better and more useful critique of their society, 
but also of yours. Which last, I might add, is something essential and 
desperately needed, particularly if you are a European or an American.

The above is a theoretical program, but also just a reflection on some 
experiences as a critic and activist out in the wide world. The most 
recent of these experiences was particularly interesting: I was invited 
to participate in and to evaluate a project of artistic remembrance and 
envisioning, focused on the American military bases that are now (maybe) 
in the process of closing and moving out of the South Korean city of 
Dongducheon, and indeed of a range of sites around the DMZ, even as a 
new megabase is prepared further to the south in a place called 
Pyeongtaek. This was an incredible chance to get a first-hand look at 
what I think is the scourge of American and Western democracy, namely 
what Chalmers Johnson calls the "empire of bases." (And I happen to 
think that the first-hand look, however fleeting and superficial, is of 
tremendous importance whenever you really want to learn anything). As it 
turned out though, this was also an incredible chance to start getting 
to know a unique spot on the earth, South Korea, which for the worst of 
reasons has been particularly close to the U.S. over the last six 
decades, despite the fact that many many Koreans would really rather 
close that never-ending chapter called the Cold War on the Korean Peninsula.

The trip was too short, but still amazing, and it got me to do some new 
things in criticism (maybe dubious ones), like using a pop song for 
starters rather than a quote from Foucault, and approaching street 
demonstrations via Korean feminists rather than Toni Negri. In the end I 
had to conclude that the old French saying, "Celui qui aime a toujours 
raison" (those who love something are always right), is in fact wrong, 
since we humans are capable of awful loves, and not only in aesthetics. 
That said, we're also uniquely capable of starting all over again, as 
y'all probably know in your intimate experience. And so let's ask the 
question: What would tomorrow look like without 750+ American military 
bases scattered across the earth? With a little help from some new 
friends, I tried to go further with that line of inquiry, as you can see 
right here:

http://sunsetproject.wordpress.com

And now the dialogue is open for whoever has inspiration.

best, Brian</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>0.1</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover</subject>
<from>Michael H Goldhaber</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:32:17 -0700</date>
<content>Brian,

I read your whole piece with interest, but I disagree with its two of  
its stated or inherent premises.

First, art does not have to justify itself by offering a different way  
to live or to coexist. To put it most simply art justifies life; it is  
why we are here, or it can be.

Second, while a visit to South Korea or any other host to our hundreds  
of bases can show what empire is like and what it does to its targets,  
to find the sources of the outlook that backs these bases, we  have to  
look at American political life. A simple economic justification in  
terms of empire would be hard to demonstrate: China and India, which  
never had American bases, are far more important to us economically  
than countries that do have them. Likewise, Vietnam, which succeeded  
in throwing out our bases seems to be on a trajectory not terribly  
different from S. Korea or China. Nor is "cultural imperialism"  
strongly correlated with where the bases are. "Pirated" videos and  
music spread our culture far more effectively than does military  
occupation. Indian and Chinese immigrants with degrees in medicine,  
science or engineering increasingly fill occupational niches that  
Americans  do not enter in enough strength, for whatever reason.

So what does cause continued imperialism? For one thing, America's  
inward looking. Our politics is mostly localist and parochial, and yet  
politicians end up making decisions to sustain foreign involvements on  
the basis of little knowledge. It is always safer to view the outside  
world as menacing rather than benign. It is always safer to refer to  
the US as the greatest country and to assume that the world needs our  
armies and weapons rather than not.A pointless patriotism helps hold  
this disparate country together, much as India is partially held  
together by such means. And, as in the case of the British empire,  
what keeps ours going is mostly habit ? a bad habit, but hard to  
change ? perhaps addiction would be the better word.

If the US is so inward looking, doesn't reporting such as yours from  
South Korea help create balance? Very little, I suspect. The internal  
"patriotic" reading would only be that some Koreans are "ingrates,"  
who "don't know what's good for them," which implies they need our  
protection despite themselves. While "ingratitude" might be taken as a  
reason to leave, in practice it only seems to reinvigorate the myth of  
the necessity of staying, much as the American causalities so far in  
Iraq become, for the right at least, a reason not to leave. The  
possible difference there, as it was in Vietnam, and even in the  
Korean war, is really the threat of future casualties, but if these  
can be diminished, so will the pressure to pull out.

This imperialism can only be changed, I think, if it either becomes  
unaffordable or if a really different US self-conception can take  
hold, for instance of our being simply one country that ought to be  
striving to live cooperatively with the rest of the world. I think we  
should take heart that the Iraq war has proved so unpopular despite no  
draft and despite the US death toll being far below Vietnam levels. I  
think a new "Iraq syndrome" will sharply reduce the tendencies towards  
such active military adventures for another generation. But  
dismantling the existing network of bases is another story. To give up  
the addiction to military spending and the idea that the military  
offers a good career for certain young people will be less rather than  
more easy if the US monetary economy keeps declining. The only hope I  
see is the rise of an utterly new sense of who we are. That , of  
course, will be intensely resisted.

Best,
Michael</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>0.2</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover</subject>
<from>Brian Holmes</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:18:35 +0200</date>
<content>Hello Michael -

And first of all, thanks for your reading! Always interesting to hear 
your views.

&gt; First, art does not have to justify itself by offering a different way 
&gt; to live or to coexist. To put it most simply art justifies life; it is 
&gt; why we are here, or it can be.

Well, art is also famously what people disagree about, which is OK by 
me. I offered a distinctly political definition of art, one which does 
not simplify or deny all the subtle potentials of form and metaphor and 
reference that I do appreciate, but instead suggests that all those 
qualities come into strongest relief and offer the greatest resonance in 
ourselves when they stand out against the background of a society and, 
rather than justifying life as it is, open up possibilities of becoming 
different. A definition which seems relevant to much good art these 
days, and could be interesting to disagree about too!

&gt; So what does cause continued imperialism? For one thing, America's 
&gt; inward looking. Our politics is mostly localist and parochial, and yet 
&gt; politicians end up making decisions to sustain foreign involvements on 
&gt; the basis of little knowledge. It is always safer to view the outside 
&gt; world as menacing rather than benign. It is always safer to refer to the 
&gt; US as the greatest country and to assume that the world needs our armies 
&gt; and weapons rather than not.A pointless patriotism helps hold this 
&gt; disparate country together, much as India is partially held together by 
&gt; such means. And, as in the case of the British empire, what keeps ours 
&gt; going is mostly habit &#8212; a bad habit, but hard to change &#8212; perhaps 
&gt; addiction would be the better word.

This seems to me a little naive, Michael, if you can excuse me saying 
so. I think that "their" empire (I would never call it "ours") is upheld 
not just by our localist politics (of course that lets it go 
unchallenged, you are right) but above all because it is in the interest 
of certain people to uphold it. I do not believe that America went to 
Iraq out of parochialism or ignorance, but because the party of war, oil 
and engineering saw immense profits in setting up shop there. Similarly, 
I think that the army, air force and navy all stay in South Korea 
because the maintenance of that Cold War standoff helps justify, not 
just U.S. presence in that particular country, but on outposts all over 
the world. Arms production, engineering contracts and the maintenance of 
high-paying officer jobs associated with rank, privilege and amazing 
technology to play with are some of the benefits of prolonging Cold War 
conditions, which is why the Pentagon set about looking for a "near 
peer" right after 1989, and finally decided to accept a "long war 
against terrorism" instead.

Beyond the direct military establishment, the free trade and free 
capital flows from which the United States has prospered so 
disproportionately since WWII are linked in the minds and strategies of 
the corporate and political elites to the regulatory presence of a 
world-spanning army, which has also been the reason that our huge debts 
have been shouldered by other countries such as Japan, since 
manufacturing exports declined in the 1970s. One of the most bald 
statements of this kind of "free trade guaranteed by the military" 
doctrine can be found in Thomas Barnett's recent books; but when you 
look closer at the intellectuals staffing the State Department over the 
last 60 years, the same doctrine is everywhere, from Kennan and Acheson 
on forward. That this is an addiction - to power, to profit, to oil, to 
big projects and machines - is something I would agree with.

&gt; If the US is so inward looking, doesn't reporting such as yours from 
&gt; South Korea help create balance? Very little, I suspect. The internal 
&gt; "patriotic" reading would only be that some Koreans are "ingrates," who 
&gt; "don't know what's good for them," which implies they need our 
&gt; protection despite themselves.

Along these lines, even a cursory scan of the Internet will dredge up 
exactly those kinds of opinions from the largest group of Americans 
having anything to do with the two Koreas, namly, ex- and current 
servicemen. It is much as you say. And I definitely agree that finding 
ways of convincing these kinds of people is a real problem. Even Mark 
Gillem, the author of America Town and himself part of the air force, 
does not read as very convincing from the viewpoint that one finds on 
these Internet sites about Korea.

&gt; This imperialism can only be changed, I think, if it either becomes 
&gt; unaffordable or if a really different US self-conception can take hold, 
&gt; for instance of our being simply one country that ought to be striving 
&gt; to live cooperatively with the rest of the world. I think we should take 
&gt; heart that the Iraq war has proved so unpopular despite no draft and 
&gt; despite the US death toll being far below Vietnam levels. I think a new 
&gt; "Iraq syndrome" will sharply reduce the tendencies towards such active 
&gt; military adventures for another generation.

Yes, I think you are right and I also think it is interesting to add to 
that feeling of rejection. The low American profile after Vietnam was a 
good thing imho.

&gt; But dismantling the existing 
&gt; network of bases is another story. To give up the addiction to military 
&gt; spending and the idea that the military offers a good career for certain 
&gt; young people will be less rather than more easy if the US monetary 
&gt; economy keeps declining. The only hope I see is the rise of an utterly 
&gt; new sense of who we are. That , of course, will be intensely resisted.

Yes, I think that's where art can become so interesting as a force of 
change! If all of us want it to, anyway. There again is another reason 
that I chose the definition of art that I initially put forth.

Thanks again, Michael, for your perspectives.

best, BH</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>0.3</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover</subject>
<from>Michael H Goldhaber</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:02:51 -0700</date>
<content>Brian,

Rather than being naive, I think I was engaging in a kind of  
shorthand, leaving out intermediate reasons.  Of course there is  
military-industrial complex which tries to perpetuate itself, but it  
is successful only because others at times believe its clumsy  
arguments. Also, oil companies may indeed profit from invasions such  
as of Iraq, but mostly because the threat of war helps increase the  
price of oil, which would probably have gone up anyway. The threat of  
instability in Nigeria, say, without any US intervention, increases  
the price as well. So the military costs incurred by invading Iraq,  
say, are unnecessary on that score. Even if the oil interests believed  
otherwise, they would not have been able to invade Iraq if the public  
were not convinced that reasons entirely unconnected with oil were at  
stake. As for the argument that America's place in  the world economy  
depends on our  having bases and a round-the -world military presence,  
I think the examples I gave of the value to us of India and China show  
that view is itself naive. Finally, countries like German and the  
Netherlands demonstrate that having an imperial presence is quite  
unnecessary for economic success.

It could well be argued that US military expenditures drag down the US  
economy, as Seymour Melman used to argue, calling the result "Pentagon  
Capitalism." The counter-argument to that:military Keynesianism (mK)   
as a necessary economic stimulant to keep capitalism going internally.  
As I argued against Melman in the 80's, government spending on  
anything other than the military tends to  compete with "private  
enterprise, " which is why we have military expenditures rather than  
say single-payer health care (which would drive insurance companies  
out of business). We could spend the money on , say, going to Mars,  
but it is too clear to too many people that we don't need to do that,  
while "defending our way of life" is, as I noted, harder to argue  
against. While "national security" provides some rationale for  
confining military expenditures to non-out-sourced industries and so  
does to some degree prop up the internal economy, there is now too  
much "leakage," so that mK now is not particularly effective. Even at  
its bloated levels, it is also probably too small to be of substantial  
effect, certainly not what is needed when the US monetary economy  
turns down. The world today cannot afford the level of destruction  
commensurate with WWII that would do a similar economic job today. (At  
least I hope that is off the table.) So today, Melman would probably  
be right. American imperialism is an irrational (and naive) addiction  
that only helps the most narrowly defined interests. Still, tapering  
off will not be easy. Some will suffer directly, and they will shout  
much louder than the much larger group of those who would benefit  
mildly and mostly indirectly.

Best,
Michael</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>0.4</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover</subject>
<from>Ed Phillips</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:50:43 -0700</date>
<content>&gt; Of course there is  military-industrial complex which tries to perpetuate
&gt; itself, but it  is successful only because others at times believe its
&gt; clumsy arguments.


There is indeed, Michael. Thanks for dialog-ing here about this about
this matter of...

If we are to seize the means of production of truth itself in
cyberneticscapes, it actually behooves, I think to ask not only what clumsy
arguments are believed, but rather why the sales job for a bizarre complex
that is directed at more and more excessive, spectacular, even arbitrary
displays of power that will never be used is so successful. Here the image
comes to mind of jet fighters that rotate on a dime. Something so insanely
exhorbitant in expenditure, flaming, flaring off, exploding in test after
test.

I ask myself what it serves to reassure in a body politic that is
profoundly insecure.

We promise "security", and a nice comfortable home, and an aggregate 10%
return on your capital.

Here our comrade Sloterdijk-Diogenes is really helpful: Quaro Homines

As some kind of internet-cyberscape squatters I take us to be looking for
the human agency in all this madness and circumstance. The question, the
discussion now has a kind of squatter's right to lift up a lamp in the
midday to enquire into how our personal political economy has actually
siezed the means of the production of truth, the means by which a discourse
listens to itself, the way "govermentality" understands itself in a kind of
pidgin kynical nettime argot.

To keith hart, a kind of storimasta, that entering into dialogue is going
to look different than it is to you or Brian or I.

Brian keeps making some very fundamental points that I do not see mentioned
enough, and he is thinking "with" them:

1. Is to think in terms of geocapital and the nation states and Empire(s)
   as a complex interweaving, a totality.

Here the agents of capital and the agents of nation states act in the mode
of "on behalf of", in a kind of Empire that even as it exploits every new
market, to excesses of gain and destructive creation, has to understand
itself, to justify itself. 

Too much discourse is too focused on a "naive" nation state, too much the
kid blown away by the display, by the spycraft, the operations, by the
show, when the apologists openly discuss and attempt to liberalize, to
understand the very global order that they cannot quite map themselves even
as they hold the levers of power.

Some of these agents view themselves as charged with maintaining regular
prices and steady growth, to ensuring that world markets and economies are
following along on their business cycling just fine act as they say. They
fail spectacularly at times, and the prices reset.

We are in a completely unprecedented world that has seen and is seeing huge
shifts. Many of the institutions of the previous era of geoeconomics are
registering a profound shift. The dramatic rise of the central banks with
their portfolio rounding little offshoot sovereign wealth funds. The
presence of China felt everywhere.

The crisis in financialization is a child of surplus and a puncturing of
cultural inflation (of a set of easy-debt inspired valuations) at the same
time.

Brian asked Keith about the "looters". My minds-eye flashed with a
headline: Dutch Pensioneers Accused of Looting.

Dutch pension fund (wrlds third largest) Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP, in a
press release in which they mentioned their intent to move some of the 40%
of their portfolio that was invested in debt instruments (still bow tie
pension fund respectable banking investment) revealed that the reason the
only lost 5% this last half year is that well they had 13% in those evil
commodities and I think 9% in hedge funds, the kids with the naked shorts
in the global pool.

In the politics of global finance, the hedge funds are specialized,
politically incorrect exploiters of new markets in financialization.  There
is something of a homologue to the excessive expenditure on the security
state in the fact that the hedge fund niche emerged from portfolio security
and risk management. What begins as a a way to hedge up or secure
something, gets up on a monkeys paw and takes revenge on its creators,
cronos eats his own children. Structured investment vehicles, originally
mandated to hedge bank portfolios bring them down. The very same
broker-dealers are shorted down by their own trading arms. 

The agile security state gets bogged down in a quagmire of its own making
in afghanistan-pakistan-iraq-iran. What begins as Rummy's lite force
removal of despotry becomes the greatest sign up and organization of
feudal-peasant jihadis against global security state capital and the place
where the security state discovers its own powerlessness. The power is
eating itself in gruesome Goya fashion and here I cannot remove the image
of Kronos slurping in the ripped carcass of one of his children from my
eyes.

In a game of endless deferral that is represented so perfectly by that
still most stable investment in big central bank treasuries, debt rises as
the perfect embodiment, even with its exessive self destroying aspects.
Witness the gobbling up of treasuries by China and the petrodollar states
in the last few months. Only a small percentage of their surplus goes to
commando capital investment, a small but no less important percentage.

And China piles up its own debt to its very bios.

This is most likely no end point, but a way stage in which the prosthetic
net kritik is called short, as stunned as the tourists were and are who
both walked around the world trade center towers stunned by their sheer
verticality and then even more stunned by their absence.

The amero-european housing bubble is a crisis in the ideology of "Home
Beautiful" and comfortable estrangement as our old friend
Diogenes-Sloterdijk might say. Stunning in rise and fall.

"You are blocking my Sun light" says the kritik to the Emperor.....</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>0.5</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover</subject>
<from>Brian Holmes</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:54:57 +0200</date>
<content>
Ed Phillips asked:

&gt;  why the sales job for a bizarre complex
&gt; that is directed at more and more excessive, spectacular, even arbitrary
&gt; displays of power that will never be used is so successful. Here the image
&gt; comes to mind of jet fighters that rotate on a dime. Something so insanely
&gt; exhorbitant in expenditure, flaming, flaring off, exploding in test after
&gt; test.

I was wondering about exactly this today, as I read in the New York 
Times about four air force generals seeking $16 million in public monies 
to build two-room designer-appointed "comfort capsules" for their 
personal transport through the imperial skies. But then my curiosity 
only mounted higher as my eye moved further down the page, where I read 
about the Bush administration plans to use $230 million of 
"counter-terrorism" money to upgrade Pakistan's F-16s. "The officials... 
said the timing was driven by deadlines of the American contractor, 
Lockheed Martin." No further comment about those deadlines then ensued...

&gt; Brian keeps making some very fundamental points that I do not see mentioned
&gt; enough, and he is thinking "with" them:
&gt; 
&gt; 1. Is to think in terms of geocapital and the nation states and Empire(s)
&gt;    as a complex interweaving, a totality.

Thanks for noticing that, Ed. One of the real interesting things that 
became concrete for me in South Korea (though I already understood it 
theoretically) was the way that Fordist and military-industrial 
development has been driven, in both countries, by the deliberate 
maintenance of red-alert status at the 38th parallel. Far-off sites of 
conflict that Americans only see in the movies serve as pretexts for the 
development of the most sophisticated weapons imaginable (never forget 
that the US military budget is now as big as the rest of the world's 
combined). Meanwhile on the soil of that far-off site something 
different has been happening: build-up of heavy industry under 
dictatorial discipline until from 1960 to 1988, then rapid 
neoliberalization peaking with the 1997 Asian crisis to throw the 
country open to outside capital looking to feed on educated labor. The 
complex interweaving produces very different political and cultural 
outlooks as part of one internally differentiated system. Yet I would 
agree with Keith that this does not make "totality," not even the 
totality of something called kapitalism. The imperial interweave is a 
system of power, it's dominant, it imposes its militarist will in 
staggeringly violent and absurd ways, yet there is so much else to life 
under the sun and the stars and the electric streetlamps. No less 
important than the act of looking into the eye of power is the act of 
looking away.

best, BH</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>0.6</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover</subject>
<from>Ed Phillips</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:28:43 -0700</date>
<content>&gt; complex interweaving produces very different political and cultural 
&gt; outlooks as part of one internally differentiated system. Yet I would 
&gt; agree with Keith that this does not make "totality," not even the 
&gt; totality of something called kapitalism. The imperial interweave is a 
&gt; system of power, it's dominant, it imposes its militarist will in 
&gt; staggeringly violent and absurd ways, yet there is so much else to life 
&gt; under the sun and the stars and the electric streetlamps. No less 
&gt; important than the act of looking into the eye of power is the act of 
&gt; looking away.


Yes. Exactly, Brian. One system, human made, human struggled over which is
something that I think that our squatting here on nettime is about. 

Another way to look at power is at its insecurity, it's vulnerability. Not
only is it not total in a deterministic sense, our sense of determinism
being the index of a collective passivity, it is profoundly insecure and in
need of constant reassurance.

Empire has always been so. When I first saw Velasquez's portrait of that
grandly dominant despot, Felipe el Segundo, I could see as clearly as I see
the profound weakness and insecurity and even pathos of our "fearless"
pygmy leaders, felipe's profound insecurity before the gaze and the brush
of the artist, of the other. 

The insecurity before the gaze of those who wield the means of the
production of representation or vorstellung. The despot feels that profound
insecurity because he has a first person seated view of the hallucinations,
of the hallucinated reinvestment in old dead fig leafs, old dead emblems
and magical insignia of a power that never was. The very form that power
takes is of a reinvestment in what one hopes must have been a reassuring
hallucination at some previous time by some prior regime of power.

Power, and here I mean very particular people acting as agents of power,
hallucinates and reinvests in outmoded hallucinations first and then
samples and tests and adapts as best it can it's very clumsy and unwieldy
hallucinations and representations.

Prosthetic power is even more insecure as it adapts itself also to the
technical apparatus and machine ontology that is coming into being even as
the multitude is coming into being.</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>0.7</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover</subject>
<from>Ed Phillips</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:38:51 -0700</date>
<content>&gt; Empire has always been so. When I first saw Velasquez's portrait of that
&gt; grandly dominant despot, Felipe el Segundo, I could see as clearly as I see
&gt; the profound weakness and insecurity and even pathos of our "fearless"
&gt; pygmy leaders, felipe's profound insecurity before the gaze and the brush
&gt; of the artist, of the other. 

It's funny how as I typed that up, I replaced, in a kind of slip, Felipe el
cuarto with el segundo, his dead ancestor, in comparison to which el cuarto
came off as some kind of dandyish pygmy, even as Bush II is to his father.
The state as Empire grows in power as it decays in form and representation.
Velazquez's realism is a kind of leading, testing edge of a regime deeply
committed to hallucination and counter-reformation. It needs the labyrinth
of a tentative, delayed realism to keep alive the obscenity of its
hallucination.  Velazquez plays with and represents that labyrinth of
representation in which the ghostly sovereign appears in a glass darkly.

 &lt;...&gt;</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>0.8</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover</subject>
<from>Eric Kluitenberg</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Sun, 27 Jul 2008 15:34:22 +0200</date>
<content>Thank you Brian for a challenging and stimulating set of ideas and
suggestions!

Also for your report from Korea.

A minor contribution here on two points you are making, some comments more
than a criticism.

On Jul 22, 2008, at 23:57, Brian Holmes wrote:

&gt; For most of the twentieth century, art was judged with respect to the
&gt; previously existing state of the medium. What mattered was the kind of
&gt; rupture it made, the unexpected formal or semiotic elements that it
&gt; brought into play, the way it displaced the conventions of the genre or
&gt; the tradition. The prize at the end of the evaluative process was a
&gt; different sense of what art could be, a new realm of possibility for the
&gt; aesthetic. Let's take it as axiomatic that all that has changed,
&gt; definitively.

As I have come to understand this is that rupture is part of process of
negation, a negative dialectics as some have called it (Adorno / Lyotard),
in the case of the visual arts a 'negative dialectics of the image'. Now
the point of negation is not the replacement of one mode of the visual by
another, alternative one. Much rather the object of negation is to 'break'
the image, to show its disfunctionality, to expose that every image hides
more than it reveals.

This negation then opens up an experiential void, a non-space and a
non-time (Lyotard has discussed at length how Kant had already described
this as a "UnForm" (non-form) in his analytic of the sublime). In critical
aesthetics this idea has been expanded and transformed further: In the
experiential void opened up by the negation of the visual no imagination
or life is possible. It is the very threat of the end of life as such. To
put the threat to life at bay new modes of the visual are (immediately)
put in place. Perhaps our brains are hard-wired to do this. But in this
moment of negation, the breaking of the image, of the visual, an infinity
is opened up, an infinity of possible modes of the visual, an infinite
range of alternatives, one of which has to be (temporarily) adopted.

The real point of the negation and this negative dialectics as it was
emblematically embodied by the bold quest of the avant-gardes, was not to
find a somehow "better" alternative for that which was negated
(perspective, unity of space, unity of time, surface, support, material,
medium, etc etc...) but much rather to reveal the infinity of
possibilities, the infinite space of alternatives.

Now what has changed and where I would follow you in most of your analysis
is that the context in which art, criticism, and critical cultural
production operate, has diversified to the point where multiplicity has
replaced revolt.

The second important change is that I think that the kind of practices
that were previously labelled as avant-garde have long been supplanted and
taken over by actors in non-art contexts, stimulated and accelerated by
the expansion of the digitised media infrastructures. The negation of
symbolic structures now plays out and articulates itself in a much wider
social and political domain, which makes your next remarks al the more
prescient:

&gt; The backdrop against which art stands out now is a particular state of
&gt; society. What an installation, a performance, a concept or a mediated
&gt; representation can do with its formal, affective and semiotic means is to
&gt; mark out a possible or effective shift with respect to the laws, the
&gt; customs, the measures, the mores, the technical and organizational
&gt; devices that define how we must behave and how we can relate to each
&gt; other at a given time and in a given place. What you look for in art is
&gt; a different way to live, a fresh chance at coexistence. Anything less is
&gt; just the seduction of novelty - the hedonism of insignificance.
&gt;
&gt; If that's the case (if the axiom really holds), then a number of
&gt; fascinating questions arise - for the artist, of course, but also for the
&gt; critic. Where the critic is concerned, one good question is this: How do
&gt; you address yourself to artists or publics or potential peers across the
&gt; dividing lines that separate entire societies? How do you evaluate what
&gt; counts as a positive or at least a promising change in the existing
&gt; balance of a foreign culture?

Adopting the formula outlined above I would say that the negation of
dominant modes of symbolisation serves not just to point out and develop
alternatives, but first of all to show that an infinite range of
alternatives exists in which every possible mode of symbolisation (image,
sound, text) hides more than it reveals (about actual social realities on
the ground).

This is where I see the real significance of such 'symbol-hacking'
practices, which can of course never stand on their own. They becomes a
force for change when there is a local application and the material means
to bring them further - but then we get into the discussion of strategies
and tactics. Here I wanted first to comment on the theoretical proposition
you made. How this then works for activists, artists, critics in oractice
is the next step.

----------

The second comment relates to the use of the concept of Empire. I wonder
if the concept of Empire is really productive here to address your
question of finding "a different way to live, a fresh chance at
coexistence", which I read as a call for pluralism and multiplicity.
Empire, however, suggest the rise of a hegemonic and more or less unitary
form of social and economic/political organisation (along with its
military extensions). Of course in Negri and Hardt's vision there are many
internal struggles and conflicting actors within the body of Empire, but
still they seem guided by a similar organisational logic and set of
(hegemonic) objectives.

If, however, I look somewhat naively at geopolitical developments around
me, I see much more of a fractallisation of Empire at the moment, i.e. the
emergence of a multitude of self-similar, but self-contained empires.
Importantly, these factal-empires also contest and counter-act each other
to the point where their objectives and strategies become so
heterogeneous that I wonder how productive the rather monolithic concept
of Empire still is to analyse, let alone do something useful with this
heterogeneity.

Much rather I would opt for an approach focused on a simultaneous
localisation and multiplication of alternatives to such hegemonic forces
and leave the concept of Empire behind.

---------

Finally, on the reduction of American bases and how this plays out locally,
in the case of your report in S-Korea, highly fascinating!

In such a localised address to a shift in 'hegemonic domination', I see
the most productive approach to a new form of social and cultural
critique. It will be very difficult to build that critique convincingly,
given the lingual, cultural, material, economic and social rifts that
separate the various actors that would need to be included in this, and
also given the reliance on a global pigeon-English that many of us are
struggling with..., but still this could be truly productive.

A problem that worries me on a more day to day basis and that follows
directly from your account of the reduction and shifts of foreign US
military basis is the question of the demilitarisation of society, and the
technology and research sector in particular. It seems to me that there is
a continuing legacy of the cold war era in which the military / industrial
complex attempts to hold its ground, not just in the US, but also in the
Russian Federation and many of the post-Soviet and other 'Western' powers,
in terms of contracts, jobs, positions, production-infrastructures,
international market-shares, entrenched financial positions. I.e. this is
now a completely post-ideological space of political action.

Especially the domain of technological research and development has become
so deeply militarised (fuelled even further by the 'war on terror'
discourse) that it becomes difficult to imagine how to get rid of this
condition. A reliable inside source told me years ago that even a
relatively 'civil'-looking institution such as the MIT Media-Lab was at
the time supported for more than 65 percent by military funding, carrying
out projects that are conducted in utter secrecy, about which we can
safely assume that they exist, but about which we cannot get any reliable
information as to what they are and what they aim for. Stuff that you will
never see on their public web pages. No doubt this percentage has only
grown since, and it is presumably even worse in many other technological
R&amp;D centres.

How do "we" as cultural producers, critics, artists, deal with such
realities if we are so prominently working in and with the products of
this technological domain? How to bring this back to the civil domain?

Some 'help' might be expected from the apparent economic demise of the US,
making it increasingly difficult to provide for the upkeep for the world's
largest army (hence the reduction and re-alignment of foreign US military
bases). In effect, the upkeep is currently mostly financed by China. This
is, however, certainly not a problem of the US alone, and it plays out
very differently in different contexts. The shared problem faced is how to
turn this trend around (without a complete collapse), how to civilise the
technological domain?

This is one area where the search for alternatives seems highly urgent,
and it will require more than a process of mere 'negation' - A process of
negation of dominant symbolic modes of hegemonic domination only serves to
show that an infinity of other worlds is possible, I would say.

Well anyway, just some thought on a damp Sunday afternoon (it's hot and
wet in Amsterdam).

bests,
Eric</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>0.9</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover</subject>
<from>Brian Holmes</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:54:26 +0200</date>
<content>Concerning the concept of artistic rupture, Eric Kluitenberg wrote:

&gt; As I have come to understand this... rupture is part of process of
&gt; negation, a negative dialectics as some have called it (Adorno / Lyotard),
&gt; in the case of the visual arts a 'negative dialectics of the image'. Now
&gt; the point of negation is not the replacement of one mode of the visual by
&gt; another, alternative one. Much rather the object of negation is to 'break'
&gt; the image, to show its disfunctionality, to expose that every image hides
&gt; more than it reveals.
...
&gt; The real point of the negation and this negative dialectics as it was
&gt; emblematically embodied by the bold quest of the avant-gardes, was not to
&gt; find a somehow "better" alternative for that which was negated
&gt; (perspective, unity of space, unity of time, surface, support, material,
&gt; medium, etc etc...) but much rather to reveal the infinity of
&gt; possibilities, the infinite space of alternatives.
&gt; 
&gt; Now what has changed and where I would follow you in most of your analysis
&gt; is that the context in which art, criticism, and critical cultural
&gt; production operate, has diversified to the point where multiplicity has
&gt; replaced revolt.

This way of thinking, developed from Adorno to Lyotard among many 
others, is one of the more powerful and compelling stories that can be 
told about the vanguard "overcoming of art," and my thanks to Eric for 
bringing in this precise theoretical level of conversation. When I said, 
"let's take it as axiomatic that all that has changed," I was indeed 
thinking of the end of any transcendence of artistic representation, and 
therefore of any reason or art to go on referring to art alone, to its 
sequential evolutions and/or ruptures. Of course, the idea that there is 
one single story of the avant-gardes in the 20th century is itself 
totally dubious, but I think that many of the stories which have been 
elaborated lead to the point art serves as some sort of ever-changing 
mediation between an active multiplicity and an existing context of 
social reality. How that kind of mediation works is, I think, the 
subject for a micropolitical aesthetics - but I'd like to touch on that 
in a later reply to Snafu's excellent post on productivism. As Eric says 
hee,

 &gt; How this then works for activists, artists, critics in practice
&gt; is the next step.

Concerning the "existing context of social reality" which forms the 
backdrop to any next step, that is definitely where geopolitical 
thinking becomes an issue. How to name the context? Is there any 
overarching structure? If so, how to avoid supporting it with one's own 
conceptual activity?

&gt; The second comment relates to the use of the concept of Empire. I wonder
&gt; if the concept of Empire is really productive here to address your
&gt; question of finding "a different way to live, a fresh chance at
&gt; coexistence", which I read as a call for pluralism and multiplicity.
&gt; Empire, however, suggest the rise of a hegemonic and more or less unitary
&gt; form of social and economic/political organisation (along with its
&gt; military extensions). Of course in Negri and Hardt's vision there are many
&gt; internal struggles and conflicting actors within the body of Empire, but
&gt; still they seem guided by a similar organisational logic and set of
&gt; (hegemonic) objectives.

Well, what I am talking about is first of all best approached as 
classical imperialism, not Empire in Hardt and Negri's sense of a 
centerless, networked imperium -- because what we have seen in the past 
five years, with the Iraq war, is clearly an attempt to project a 
specifically American sovereignty onto a resource-rich country. Beyond 
the war, I think the case for American hegemony is very strong and tends 
to be understated, if only because people on the left would 
understandably like to see other alternatives. However, lucidity is also 
important. The acts of the Bush administration have forced me, as a 
responsible citizen, to look at the consequences of US military bases 
all over the world, military domination of space, financial domination 
through the continuing status of the dollar as international reserve 
currency, techoscientific domination through the fruits of military R&amp;D 
spending, cultural domination through global English and the benchmark 
status of American universities, etc. etc. All of this is, to be sure, 
in decline, and that is probably why it has gotten so ugly in recent 
years. But decline can go on for a long time... and in the meantime, 
unfortunately, this whole construct of military-industrial imperialism 
continues to furnish the basic definitions of what is good in life, 
including the canonical measures of economic growth and prosperity 
inherited from the Fordist/Cold War era, which still hold sway among all 
the official bodies and orient, for the worst, the development of the EU 
in particular (not to mention China). The really obscene victory of US 
hegemony is making everyone desire and love this bloated form of 
overdevelopment.

Now, I definitely do not have a one-dimensional view of all this, 
because the geopoliical study that I have carried on within the 
Continental Drift project definitely suggests that regional 
bloc-formation and the increasing sovereignty of countries that already 
have a continental scale (China, India, Russia) is the wave of the 
future. I see two likely scenarios over the next 20 years. Either 
continued American decline will allow other major actors to literally 
"buy in" to the American hegemony, eventually achieving a true 
intra-imperial distribution of power and consequent tempering of the US 
capacity to go lashing out with its military when the other major 
players do not agree -- and then we will really reach the state that 
Hardt and Negri described in Empire. Or, the existence of any worldwide 
hegemony will gradually fade, and much greater power will accrue to the 
continental ensembles, giving rise to some kind of truly multi-polar 
world. In the best of cases this could lead to the "fractalization" you 
suggest, with interesting roles for multiple kinds of plurality in the 
system (not that there isn't plurality already, but this would be 
quantitatively and qualitatively different, more heterogeneous). Or, in 
the worst of cases, we could easily get rivalries between blocs, 
resource wars, etc.

The obvious thing that keeps these scenarios at a distance is the 
gigantic disproportion between the US military and all the rest. But it 
may be that popular resistance of all kinds will finally prove that to 
be an "ineffective disproportion" -- finally answering Madeleine 
Albright's famous question by showing that having such a great army 
really is useless, and thus opening up the possibility, at least, of 
more positive scenarios. This is the geopolitical reason why I am 
antimilitarist. The other reason is unreflected and immediate: I don' 
think men with guns is the way to solve any problem.

&gt; Much rather I would opt for an approach focused on a simultaneous
&gt; localisation and multiplication of alternatives to such hegemonic forces
&gt; and leave the concept of Empire behind.

It can be a very good philosophical approach and also the right one, I 
think, to base alternative strategies on (including aesthetic 
strategies). However the trick is keeping reality enough in mind that 
you can actually hope to change it, i.e. leave the military-industrial 
pimp behind and find some better lover.

&gt; ---------
&gt; 
&gt; Finally, on the reduction of American bases and how this plays out locally,
&gt; in the case of your report in S-Korea, highly fascinating!
&gt; 
&gt; In such a localised address to a shift in 'hegemonic domination', I see
&gt; the most productive approach to a new form of social and cultural
&gt; critique. It will be very difficult to build that critique convincingly,
&gt; given the lingual, cultural, material, economic and social rifts that
&gt; separate the various actors that would need to be included in this, and
&gt; also given the reliance on a global pigeon-English that many of us are
&gt; struggling with..., but still this could be truly productive.

Yes, to the extent that we have a world society, we do need a cultural 
critique that can work through global divides, with all the quite 
fascinating and, I think, rewarding difficulties that you mention. In my 
opinion, this kind of dialogical exchange is one of the ways to leave 
behind the imperial tendency to oppressive hegemony, but without falling 
back into essentialism and identity-thinking.

&gt; A problem that worries me on a more day to day basis and that follows
&gt; directly from your account of the reduction and shifts of foreign US
&gt; military basis is the question of the demilitarisation of society, and the
&gt; technology and research sector in particular. It seems to me that there is
&gt; a continuing legacy of the cold war era in which the military / industrial
&gt; complex attempts to hold its ground, not just in the US, but also in the
&gt; Russian Federation and many of the post-Soviet and other 'Western' powers,
&gt; in terms of contracts, jobs, positions, production-infrastructures,
&gt; international market-shares, entrenched financial positions. I.e. this is
&gt; now a completely post-ideological space of political action.

You are so right. The vampires are keeping the cold warbody "alive" so 
that they can maintain the dead-end mode of production that has been put 
in place since, or rather by, the Second World War.

&gt; Especially the domain of technological research and development has become
&gt; so deeply militarised (fuelled even further by the 'war on terror'
&gt; discourse) that it becomes difficult to imagine how to get rid of this
&gt; condition. A reliable inside source told me years ago that even a
&gt; relatively 'civil'-looking institution such as the MIT Media-Lab was at
&gt; the time supported for more than 65 percent by military funding, carrying
&gt; out projects that are conducted in utter secrecy, about which we can
&gt; safely assume that they exist, but about which we cannot get any reliable
&gt; information as to what they are and what they aim for. Stuff that you will
&gt; never see on their public web pages. No doubt this percentage has only
&gt; grown since, and it is presumably even worse in many other technological
&gt; R&amp;D centres.
 &gt;
&gt; How do "we" as cultural producers, critics, artists, deal with such
&gt; realities if we are so prominently working in and with the products of
&gt; this technological domain? How to bring this back to the civil domain?

I think this remains the key question. In my reading, for instance, A 
Thousand Plateaus is entirely about this question, it's about subverting 
and derailing the warmachine of the state, mostly from within, through 
the undermining of what they call "royal science." It is true that one 
always works largely on the state's domain (that's the very definition 
of hegemony, it sets the terrain for everyone). So the question you 
raise is really the central problem, culturally as well as politically.

&gt; Some 'help' might be expected from the apparent economic demise of the US,
&gt; making it increasingly difficult to provide for the upkeep for the world's
&gt; largest army (hence the reduction and re-alignment of foreign US military
&gt; bases). In effect, the upkeep is currently mostly financed by China.

Actually, Japanese capital remains tremendously important as well... 
Along with Middle Eastern and European money, the genius of empires has 
always been to get others paying tribute. Basically because they want 
the protection of -- or are frankly afraid of -- the empire's military. 
However, this seems to be headed for a change. A collapse of the dollar, 
a real run on the dollar, would signify a radical change. We will see... 
I am not betting on it as I think that everyone is afraid of such a 
violent turnabout. I think the strategy of the other world powers is to 
hollow the US out from the inside, and then just wait and see what can 
be done about the hard core of the military, wait and see whether it 
will really decline along with the middle class and the old bridges and 
levees and so on. The strategy of the US, as Brzezinski said flat out in 
The Grand Chessboard, is to hold on to hegemony as long as possible.

&gt; This
&gt; is, however, certainly not a problem of the US alone, and it plays out
&gt; very differently in different contexts. The shared problem faced is how to
&gt; turn this trend around (without a complete collapse), how to civilise the
&gt; technological domain?

Thanks, Eric, it is great to see that we can finally ask a big question 
again. All that tactical shyness was kinda buggin' me...

&gt; This is one area where the search for alternatives seems highly urgent,
&gt; and it will require more than a process of mere 'negation' - A process of
&gt; negation of dominant symbolic modes of hegemonic domination only serves to
&gt; show that an infinity of other worlds is possible, I would say.

Indeed, the continued return to avant-garde negation is pointless. I 
think it is intimately bound up with the tautological self-reference of 
art to itself alone, which is strangely persistent, mainly because it 
was institutionalized as the definition of modern art (another zombie 
category as Ulrich Beck puts it). My off-the-cuff manifesto was meant to 
say that self-reference and radical negation ought to be things of the 
past for art - stages which have truly been overcome - so I heartily 
agree with the above!

&gt; Well anyway, just some thought on a damp Sunday afternoon (it's hot and
&gt; wet in Amsterdam).

Hmm, can we hope for more such reflective weather in the future? It's 
pretty hot in Paris but it only rains at night!

&gt; bests,
&gt; Eric

my best to all as well, Brian</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>0.10</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover</subject>
<from>Michael Gurstein</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Sun, 27 Jul 2008 08:04:56 -0700</date>
<content>I happened to be in Seoul at what was I guess, roughly the same time as
Brian and had some parallel thoughts on developments there that might be of
interest... (I was attending, as a Civil Society representative, an OECD
Ministerial meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy...

(This is taken from a somewhat longer trip report...

 
2. Canada and the OECD Ministerial
Canada hosted the first event in this series in Ottawa in 1998 and much was
made at various points particularly in the beginning about the Seoul event
being somehow linked to the Ottawa event. Unfortunately for Canada the
comparison between Canada in the Internet economy in 1998 and in 2008 is
something of an embarrassment. Where in 1998 Canada was an active innovator
in a wide range of areas concerning the Internet Economy and (not
incidentally) Society, in 2008 it was clear that Canada had either been more
or less stagnant in the interim period (and thus slipping behind its
international competitors in whatever tables concerning the Internet Economy
one might wish to focus on). 

Where other countries notably in this instance Korea but also the EU had
chosen to provide significant support for infrastructure development and
R&amp;D, Canada had (currently governed by Neo-Liberal ideologues) pretty much
withdrawn from any public involvement in these areas. And where Canada in
1998 had had a very progressive/inclusive national policy approach to
extending participation (and the related benefits of the Internet--Economy
and Society) to all, this had by 2008 disappeared from the public agenda.

The benefits of a public policy approach to broad Internet inclusion are
manifestly obvious in Korea where some 90 per cent of the populations is
Internet connected almost all, with very fast broadband connectivity. This
has proven to be a tremendous spur to various aspects of the Internet
economy including the ever-receding grail of innovation but also to overall
appropriation of the Internet into all aspects of both commercial life and
daily life. Canada by losing sight of the social goals of the extension of
Internet access and use has seemingly as a consequence allowed itself to
drift backwards in those areas.

Michael Gurstein</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.0</nbr>
<subject>&lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>Geert Lovink</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Mon, 11 May 2009 21:29:14 +0200</date>
<content>
On the event of the Montevideo/Netherlands Media Art Institute 30th  
anniversary, departing curator Susanne Jaschko put together a one day  
symposium entitled Positions in Flux. R&#233;gine Debatty at We Make Money  
Not Art blogged about it. Unfortunately, I was only able to attend the  
morning session. The event on May 8 2009 took place in Trouw  
Amsterdam, the followup of Club 11. From what I heard, Positions at  
Flux had a critical take towards the common media art discourse and  
asked relevant questions. It was a relief to see that the attention  
was, for once, not focused on history, preservation and conservation.  
Cultural heritage has already taken over way too much attention space&#8211; 
in part because this is one of the few areas where there is still  
plenty of funding. Sigh. Just for one day, no celebration of &#8220;medium  
religion&#8221; or &#8220;art meets science&#8221;. Director Heiner Holtappels opened by  
noticing that new media art is not easily accepted by fine art.  
Traditional art has become eclecticism. According to Heiner, all art  
is technology based. The subject of the symposium was a visible break  
with the video art heritage that Montevideo has been known for.  
Politics topics, a courageous step? &#8220;Is there a future for us?&#8221; is a  
question not many institutions dare to ask. In the Dutch daily De  
Volkskrant of that day, ex-Montevideo curator Bart Rutten (now  
Stedelijk Museum) took up the role of expressing the ambivalent  
feelings of the Dutch art establishment towards the new but no longer  
young art form. Whereas he praised Montevideo&#8217;s work, he himself had  
moved on. &#8220;You can ask yourself if Montevideo should continue to show  
only media art works. In this way they preserve their specialism. It  
was my main reason to leave.&#8221;

In Zero Comments I mapped the current challenges for new media arts.  
While society at large is inundated with (new) media, the art branch  
that deals with the digital moved itself in a ghetto. While this  
analysis still holds up, many in the sector openly admitted the  
shortcomings and are now putting in place strategies to escape the  
dead end street. Technology has lost its original fascination, while  
spreading even faster in society. Is this a reason enough to abandon  
the field? While experimentation with electronics and the digital  
might have lost its aura and the spirit of curiosity has somewhat  
fained, the field of new media arts at large is still growing, despite  
institutional setbacks here and there. What most participants shared  
was the feeling that, despite the intimidating institutional violence  
of the large players, museums will die or become a zoo if they do not  
deal with the Digital. Some say new media arts lacks the timeliness  
and the depth. Whereas ICA London closed its media lab, Laboral in the  
North of Spain, which opened in 2007, is now a large exhibition space,  
devoted to media art. Chairman Chris Keulemans emphasized that new  
media arts was always at it best when it criticized the media itself,  
with its codes and nodes. Each of the three presentations in the  
morning session gave a different answer to the question how relevant  
political work could be produced.

The Iraqi-American artist Wafaa Bilal is known from his installation  
Domestic Tension, in which the artist lived in a gallery space for a  
month, pointed at by paint ball gun operated by web users. Shoot an  
Iraqi had 80 million visitors and, according to Bilal, was a &#8220;strange  
mix of aesthetic pain and pleasure.&#8221; What made the work so popular was  
the power of viral connections, in particular through chatrooms and  
video he put online. What happened here was a confrontation between  
conflict zone and comfort zone, disengagement and engagement, virtual  
versus physical platform &#8212; both in the case of the artwork and war in  
Iraq itself. Bilal concluded that the body has its own language that  
is not in sync with the electronic reality. Bilal made a distinction  
between interactive works, in which the end-states is already  
determined, and dynamic pieces that are open ended. A lot of the old  
school new media art is interactive. Increased user participated was  
illustrated in Bilal&#8217;s story of the &#8216;virtual human shield&#8217;, a group of  
people that gathered to protect the artist from being shot at. Dog or  
Iraqi was a month long online debate who gets waterboarded: a dog or  
an Iraqi? Bilal also briefly discussed his modded version of a 2003 US  
shooting game that he renamed into Virtual Jihadi. Instead of killing  
Sadam the user can now hunt GW Bush. This and other projects were  
documented in Wafaa Bilal, Shoot an Iraqi (City Light Books, San  
Francisco, 2008).

Former Etoy Hans Bernard of Uebermorgen.com didn&#8217;t show projects but  
read a text concerning the role of &#8220;European techno fine art avant  
garde.&#8221; I am great fan of Uebermorgen. It&#8217;s in fact becoming  
impossible to list all their interventions and hacks. Uebermorgen is  
all about &#8220;surreal outcomes&#8221;, not bound by any medium. &#8220;The  
transformation from digital to physical is important. The work is not  
pop art, it is rock art. We are not activists, we are actionists.&#8221; For  
a while seeking large audiences was a thrill, but that&#8217;s no longer the  
main motivation. There is a new strategy for each new project. Bernard  
did his best to prove that Uebermorgen&#8217;s intentions were neither  
political nor ideological. The aim should be Art, not Politics.  
Communication is the 9-5 job, but that not the passion. Bernard&#8217;s  
insistence on the non-political status didn&#8217;t convince. Uebermorgen&#8217;s  
claim, not to have any political agenda, refers to an ancient, rigid  
definition that was already problematic in the late seventies when I  
studied political science. Maybe in Austria politics is still  
associated with corrupt parties and fat, ugly politicians but  
elsewhere in the world people use a much broader definition of &#8220;the  
political&#8221;. His insistence on artistic freedom is amiable but the idea  
that once art becomes political it turns into politics and seizes to  
be art, simply doesn&#8217;t hold. His separation between the private  
opinion of the artist as a citizen and the Artist as a public figure  
is problematic for the same reasons. Bernard&#8217;s insistence  that  
&#8220;perception and production need to separated&#8221; sounds good&#8211;but we all  
know that visual arts no longer operates outside &#8220;perception  
management.&#8221; Autonomy, at least in the Dutch context, is the official  
state religion. We all anticipate aesthetic impact, even if we reject  
the categories of the day and undermine the dominant visual logic.  
Hans, there are no commissars anymore that control the ateliers. If  
there is any censor it&#8217;s probably the Politically Correct Self. So, if  
we state, &#8220;in production we need to be free,&#8221; there is no one who will  
stop us &#8212; but ourselves.

Knowbotic Research, teaching and working in Zurich, was the third  
presenter. Their translocal distributed temporary works avoid&#8211;and seek&#8211; 
the Political in yet another manner. Christian Huebler showcased the  
Blackbenz Race project between Prishtina and Zurich, a city marketing  
proposal that was refused because of its negative image of the proper  
Swiss finance capital. The broader idea was to play with the Kosovo- 
Albanian-Swiss people that hover in-between places. Code words are  
fog, smoke, blurred spaces and multiple identities. The self-built  
stealth boat project has a similar intention. The micro audiences  
become actors here. Activism doesn&#8217;t need more exposure and  
transparency. Art doesn&#8217;t need moral outcry. The celebrity industry  
took over this role. Art questions and creates new spaces for  
reflection. What&#8217;s required are slow spaces. All three projects showed  
that new media art &#8220;doesn&#8217;t need to be a monade, merely celebrating  
itself.&#8221; (Huebler) This is the age of entering other contexts, times  
and spaces&#8211;assisted by production houses that have in-house knowledge  
about the specificity, and the Eigenartigkeit, of digital technologies.</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.1</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>jo van der spek</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Wed, 13 May 2009 17:27:22 +0200</date>
<content>&lt;citaat van="Geert Lovink"&gt;

&gt;Activism doesn't need more exposure and transparency.

I agree, the obsession with media by activists is killing activism and
(re)producing mirrors of narcism, aka transparency....

&gt;Art doesn't need moral outcry.

It does not NEED it, but some kinda passion is imho an important
generator. This passion can be questioned, exposed or reflected on. That
is why I agree with you that

&gt; Art questions and creates new spaces for reflection.

&gt; What's required are slow spaces.
Yes, but why not also new confrontations, new dynamics, tactics, etc?
And indeed, why not reflect on morality as well?

Jo van der Spek
m2m.streamtime.org</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.2</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>Florian Cramer</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Thu, 14 May 2009 22:28:59 +0200</date>
<content>
On Monday, May 11 2009, 21:29 (+0200), Geert Lovink wrote:

&gt; While society at large is inundated with (new) media, the art branch  
&gt; that deals with the digital moved itself in a ghetto. 

This is too true, and that branch has to reinvent itself from scratch
or it will collapse very soon (if it isn't already collapsing). But it
goes for the entire "new media" field, including academic new media
studies which have used up their credit within the humanities. It's
already happening in arts education where famous media art schools
have been rolled back or integrated into Fine Art courses.

It's not even a question of too narrow technological focus, but one
of perceived artistic quality. Historically, "media art" has been
a tactical alliance between radical artists from Nam June Paik to
ubermorgen.com and high tech academic research lab art that has no
whatsoever contemporary art credits. From the late 60s to today, one
hand washed the other - the former brought the artistic credibility,
the latter the money and infrastructure. Festivals like STRP or ars
electronica perfectly illustrate it. However, the research lab art,
particularly in the form of "interactive installations", has always
dominated the field in sheer mass, quantity and visibility. A visitor
who would visit an arbitrary new media festival with an interest
in contemporary art would see, first and most of all, preposterous
machine parks. Or, in friendlier terms, it's the kind of art that
rather belonged, as an educational or aesthetic gimmick, into a museum
of technology than into a contemporary art discourse.

However, I find it hard to get past a certain attachment to the
"media art" ghetto because it tends to combine the very worst (even
painfully, unspeakably stupid and monstrously worst) with - IMO - the
very best to be found in contemporary art. Ubermorgen are an excellent
example, needless to drop further names here. And I'm afraid that
abandoning that ghetto, although it's theoretically the right thing to
do, will in the end result in even greater collateral damage.

Since the 1990s, the so-called Fine Arts do provide no really
desirable environment either, likely they're even worse. It is telling
enough that the term "Fine Art" suddenly has become a universally
accepted standard while, not a long time ago, any self-respecting
contemporary artist would have fiercely rejected if not opposed it. In
the past ten years of reading contemporary art magazines or visiting
art biennales and Documentas, I've been flabbergasted by the lack
of vision and radicalism in this field. It has morphed, somewhat
comparable to New (composed) Music after the 1960s, into an academic
discourse ruled by a neo-bourgeois jet set of hipster curators posing
as cultural theorists on the basis of a not-even-half-baked knowledge
and recycling of postmodern philosophy and cultural studies. The
system consists of artists who have been academically trained to
produce works - along with non-understood theory lingo - that fit the
required curatorial buzz. Along with this development, the paradigm of
the white cube and art works as good-looking exhibition objects has
become stronger than ever before and rules out any art practice not
fitting this format. All the while, the system thrives on the delusion
that it still represents visual art as a whole although, unlike, for
example, in film where 'highbrow' and 'lowbrow' still coexist, its
popular forms like comic books, tattoos, fantasy figurines, t-shirt
illustrations, wildlife paintings... have long been excluded from its
system.

I dare to claim that under "saner" conditions, no Documenta and
no Biennale curator would get around artists like ubermorgen or
the Yes Men, just like no Documenta curator got around Beuys in
the 1970s and 80s. Instead, we get artists like Mike Kelley all
over the art world in whose work I'm either not getting something
or indeed seeing the Emperor's new clothes. ("Review" babble like
http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/tomorrow_never_comes1/ affirms the
suspicion that the art world has no clue either.)


&gt; Director Heiner Holtappels opened by noticing that new media art    
&gt; is not easily accepted by fine art. Traditional art has become      
&gt; eclecticism. According to Heiner, all art is technology based.      

This is true, yet contemporary art has mostly given up on reflecting
its media. [I can almost hear an iPhone-wearing curator saying that
reflecting one's media is outmoded modernism.] It's most obvious in
the way video installations have become its mainstream format, in the
form of video loops shown in booths inside exhibition spaces. Video
is just taken as a documentary TV or wannabe-cinematic format, as if
radical video art from Paik to Infermental had never happened. (It
seems as if most contemporary artists actually don't know it anymore
which is comparable to painters no longer knowing about abstract
painting.) One should perhaps advise Montevideo just not to leave its
video art roots behind.

-F
 

-- 
blog:     http://en.pleintekst.nl
homepage: http://cramer.pleintekst.nl:70
          gopher://cramer.pleintekst.nl</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.3</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>Matze Schmidt</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Fri, 15 May 2009 17:23:12 +0200</date>
<content>
Thursday, May 14, 2009, 10:28:59 PM, one wrote:
&gt; On Monday, May 11 2009, 21:29 (+0200), Geert Lovink wrote:

&gt;&gt; While society at large is inundated with (new) media, the art      
&gt;&gt; branch that deals with the digital moved itself in a ghetto.       

&gt; This is too true, and that branch has to reinvent itself from
&gt; scratch or it will collapse very soon (if it isn't already
&gt; collapsing).

Mh, so let it be killing itself, the Reinvent Yourself-Discourse is a
line from the Pet Shop Boys from the 90s and says nothing than "Nobody
knows the trouble I've seen" in a 'modern' reinvented (sic!) way. But
I cannot see the trouble of this hard front line between a Paik and
a Ubermorgen. For example the "1001 Songs of eBay" of uebermorgen is
just a funny funny project I can implement over the weekend dealing
with online politics sex. And this confused and disoriented waiting
for the new-old avantgarde like "Let's do many Paiks" is boring and
does not have anything to do with the real world in which electronics
are the basis of the doings. What was really radical in a Paik?
Fucking the Porta Pack with Alternative TV-Ideas or the TV-Sets with a
magnet? Were the neo-dada fluxus guys radical anyway or just radical?

&gt; as if radical video art from Paik to Infermental had never happened.
&gt; (It seems as if most contemporary artists actually don't know it
&gt; anymore which is comparable to painters no longer knowing about
&gt; abstract painting.) One should perhaps advise Montevideo just not to
&gt; leave its video art roots behind.

I'd like to point out at this point that institutions like Montevideo
are revolutionizers of money, e.g. they payed Jaromil for working
on dynebolican stuff and by this means they are able to rescue the
middle-class fantasies of a free arty market of software on the basis
of electronics, a market without too much money and with lower prices,
with all effects of an open source software"z" driven by the mediate
support of the state.

But while talking to them some years ago the Montevideo people turned
out to be very naive in political questions. They have no idea about
economy and no idea of what is going on out of their field. That's
okay, as long as they incorporate all folklore and avantgarde at the
sam time, because it is their mandate and mission.

Matze Schmidt</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.4</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>jaromil</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Sun, 17 May 2009 14:05:54 +0200</date>
<content>
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


re all,

first of all  thanks Matze for your consideration  of my activity, but
let me  warn you are  overestimating the benefits of  my collaboration
with Montevideo / Time Based  Arts ...  which is now called Nederlands
Instituut voor Mediakunst  (NIMK, BTW): it takes more  to be "rescuing
the middle-class fantasies  of a free arty market  of software" as you
say, if  we speak of a national  institute that started in  a squat in
Amsterdam 30 years  ago and has seen a  constant flow of contributions
by various people  through all these years, most  of them really worth
considering.

On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 05:23:12PM +0200, Matze Schmidt wrote:
&gt; I'd  like  to  point  out  at  this  point  that  institutions  like
&gt; Montevideo are revolutionizers of money, e.g. they payed Jaromil for
&gt; working on dynebolican stuff

if it  would be just the  action of redistribution of  wealth, then it
wouldn't  be   revolutionary  at  all.   Some   artists  produced  and
distributed  by Montevideo did  became rich,  but for  them Montevideo
mostly contributed to the  production quality of their artworks rather
than direct funding.

just consider that  if my lifestyle would be  "middle-class fantasy" i
could  not afford  to  sustainably  live in  Amsterdam  relying on  my
current employment, but lucky me i'm not a yuppie :) and i'm fine like
that.  for the  minimum support i get, needed as i  care to support me
and my extended  family when needed, i have to do  much more than just
developing "my own projects", but still all results can be free to the
public,: that shouldn't be special for a public institution, right?  i
believe this is the good signal  NIMK gives - not such a revolutionary
one, but pretty honest: there  are often various degrees of corruption
leading   public  institutions  to   play  commercially   with  public
resources.

other  than that,  we can  call "progressive  attitude" -  rather than
revolutionary" -  when institutions are keen to  interact with liminal
contexts,  with dwellers on  the dystopian  hearth pulsating  in every
metropolis of our "Free Western World".  This kind of interaction (and
the respect for the uncommon ground  in between) is indeed part of the
heritage of  a city like Mokum  A - unfortunately  decaying rapidly as
Europe is turning  into a Fortress for the  privileged and their fears
of the disinherited children of the welfare mirage.

at last  about the  interaction i  mention here: i'm  not sure  how to
define it,  its likely  not a negotiation  nor a compromise,  i'm just
sure  it is  necessary in  any case:  whether we  accept  the upcoming
institutionalised  "Reinvent  Yourself"  strategy  or  not.   I  would
recommend  a  case-by-case  analysis  in  this  regards,  rather  than
thinking universally... like institutions often do ;^)

regarding your vague critiques let me reply:

&gt; with all effects of an open source software"z" driven by the mediate
&gt; support of the state.

dyne.org  development  is not  driven  by  any  state, corporation  or
institution rather  than by the  many problems these  power structures
generate.  we  dedicate most  of our free  time to peer  reviewed free
software  development  in  socially  relevant  contexts  (please  note
"development", not  provision of services)  and as hackers  we operate
pragmatically, on-line as well in various different on-site contexts.

&gt; But  while talking  to them  some  years ago  the Montevideo  people
&gt; turned out  to be  very naive in  political questions. They  have no
&gt; idea about  economy and  no idea of  what is  going on out  of their
&gt; field. That's  okay, as  long as they  incorporate all  folklore and
&gt; avantgarde at the sam time, because it is their mandate and mission.

i'd  be  curious  to  know  what  you  consider  "naive  in  political
questions": myself  i've felt  enriched by the  past 4 and  more years
spent  in  Amsterdam,  by my  colleagues  at  NIMK  (which is  not  so
uniformed in its  composition BTW) as well by  the squatters in A'dam,
from De Bierkoning to the Waag Society.

backing my  objection, i'll point you  out some coverage  on NIMK's 30
years symposium (just happened last week):

http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2009/05/the-netherlands-media-art-inst.php

pasting  you  here  the  transcription  of  my  intervention  at  this
symposium,  let  it  be   also  a  contribution  to  this  interesting
discussion thread:

                            ------------

At the NIMK's symposium "Positions in Flux" I've taken the occasion to
share thoughts  on the  current perception of  Free Software  and Open
Source philosophy  in art,  along with some  overdue criticism  of the
Creative Commons hollow  hype, as well of the  Creative Industries and
their systematised processing  of art for the global  market.  Even if
not  obvious, I  believe the  dynamics  of these  two phenomenons  are
related; among the quoted in the intervention are Benjamin Mako Hill's
"Towards a Standard of  Freedom: CreativeCommons and the Free Software
Movement"[1] and Florian Cramer's post on nettime "The Creative Common
Misunderstanding"[2],  while  the vigorous  critique  of the  Creative
Industries  stands on  Rana Dasgupta's  essay  "The Next  Idea of  the
Artist  (Art,   music  and  the  present   threat  of  creativity)"[3]


Here below a short transcript:

"Open Source" doesn't mean free access, nor open space or open air; it
presumes  a  seamful[4]  approach  to  design as  a  response  to  the
increasing  reliance  on  technology  and  its  accessibility;  it  is
interactive without prescribed  boundaries, following a combinatorial,
generative approachto development;  it is peer to peer  as no producer
can control further interaction patterns; it is grassroot as creations
are  born out  of  initiative and  cohesion  based on  needs felt  and
understood in first person by community members.

About  Creative  Commons, its  motto  "Some  rights  reserved."  is  a
relatively  hollow  call:  the  slogan  factually  reverses  the  Free
Software and Open Source philosophy  of reserving rights to users, not
copyright owners,  in order  to allow the  former to  become producers
themselves. The dis/appropriating loop of creativity must be recursive
to be  fruitful: not only  productionmeans belong to the  people using
them, further creations  should be free to be  recombined. rights must
be granted  focusing on people  interacting, not just  those providing
the interactive infrastructure.

Unfortunately there  is a diffuse lack of  perception for alternatives
offered by  the Open  Source and Free  Software approach  over current
profit models.  As  a present problem, also deriving  from the lack of
understanding  of the  importance of  grass-root  creativity, top-down
cultural   management  is   patronising   art  production:   massmedia
aesthetics of  an entirely sanitised and efficient  creativity, of the
sort  that will  not  rely on  unstable  people and  can therefore  be
globally rationalised.

That the  great artists of  modern Western culture managed  to produce
what they  did, despitethe danger  and intensity of their  effort, was
due in large  part to improvised social forms  built around close-knit
networks  where  thought and  affect  circulated  with high  velocity,
andwhere it  was possible to  try out forms of  non-conventional human
relationships that would  not destroy, nor be destroyed  by, a life of
art. Seen  from an historical perspective,  In the second  half of the
twentieth  century many  of the  functions of  creative  networks were
already  taken  over in  Europe  by  institutions (government  funding
bodies,  universities,  museums,  etc)  and much  of  their  excessive
feeling  wasneutralised. This  was  only  a small  part  of a  general
process of the time: the absorption of human emotion into bureaucratic
channels,  and the  emergence of  a social  coolness,  anefficiency of
feeling.

At this  stage in the  twenty-first century, we  are in the  middle of
another   large-scale  restructuring  of   ideas  of   creativity  and
culture. As one of the most significant generators of image and value,
creativity now has become a  critical resource for the global economic
engine.   What creativity  is,  and  how it  can  be systematised  and
circulated, are therefore  urgent questions of contemporary capitalist
organisation.   As  cultural  producers   are  thrust  into  the  full
intensity of  globally dispersed, just-in-time  production, new images
of creative inspiration and output are required that sit tidily within
the systematised  processes of the  global market. Creativity  must be
rendered comprehensible,  transparent and rational: there  can be none
of  the destructive  excesses  evident in  the  lives of  many of  the
greatest  artists  of  European  history.  Creativity  must  circulate
cleanly and quickly, and it  should leave no dirty remainder. For what
interests Hollywood, and the market in general, is not creativity as a
complex human  process, weighed down  in bodies and  relationships and
empty days,  but creativity as  an abstraction, free  of irrationality
and  pain, and  light enough  to  hover like  a great  logo above  the
continents.

Perhaps, as the logic  of systematised production occupies the terrain
of human  creativitymore completely,  we will reach  a stage  where we
surrender  all knowledge  about  this troubling  domain,  and it  will
become entirely alien  to us. Perhaps one day we  will be terrified of
what  explosive dangers  might rise  up from  the creativity  of human
beings.

[1] http://mako.cc/writing/toward_a_standard_of_freedom.html

[2] http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0610/msg00025.html

[3] http://ranadasgupta.com/texts.asp?text_id=45

[4] http://www.themobilecity.nl/2008/01/05/designing-for-locative-media-seamless-or-seamful-experiences/


- -- 

jaromil, dyne.org developer, http://jaromil.dyne.org

GPG: 779F E8B5 47C7 3A89 4112  64D0 7B64 3184 B534 0B5E</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.5</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Media Mutations - Life | Registration | Simulation (was: Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts Crisis)</subject>
<from>xname</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Sun, 17 May 2009 15:40:16 +0200 (CEST)</date>
<content>&gt; jaromil said:
&gt; Montevideo / Time Based  Arts ...  which is now called Nederlands
&gt; Instituut voor Mediakunst  (NIMK, BTW)
&gt; if  we speak of a national  institute that started in  a squat in
&gt; Amsterdam 30 years  ago

Hello.

I did not remember that the 'Nimk' was started in a squat: isn't this the
story of Paradiso and Melkweg?

As far as I know the 'Netherlands Media Art Institute' was born when
'Monte Video' and 'Time Based Arts' merged (1993).

Monte Video was founded by Ren&#233; Coelho in 1978, and initially operated
from his house in Amsterdam. (was that squatted? I tend to doubt.)
Monte Video focused on video art and provided equipment for producing
works and space to show them (soon collecting and distributing...
video-tapes!).

Time Based Arts was founded in 1983 by the Association of Video Artists,
so it was an artists run association creating a network for distribution;
it was more performance oriented than Monte Video, according to the story
that was narrated to me, and which I deduced from the collection. (Can
anyone confirm this, please?)
Were they squatting? But they were getting funding...
I am somewhat curious.

Maybe other people on this list know more.

There is a page of history on the nimk.nl, but i saw no wikipedia entry on
this topic.
I find the *story of this institute quite beautiful and paradigmatic in
the development of the (non-linear) chain of media mutations (which could
off course be expanded):

happening/performance (art=life)
electronic art
video-art (art=registration)
media-art, software-art (art=simulation)

I paste it below.

Best,
Eleonora

===

**History**

1978
Monte Video is founded by Ren&#233; Coelho. From his home on the Singel in
Amsterdam he makes equipment and documentation available, and furnishes
one room as a gallery. The first video artist whose work is shown here on
the Singel was Livinus van de Bundt, Coelho's inspiration. Other artists,
such as Bill Viola, Gary Hill, Shelly Silver and Gabor Body, soon make
contact. It is not long before Monte Video has a large selection of works
available for rental.

1983
Thanks to government funding Monte Video is able to move to Amsterdam
North. There is now sufficient space to offer regular presentations. Not
only Dutch artists, but also those from other countries are given a chance
to show their videos or installations.

1986
Government funding received by Monte Video is cut back to almost nothing.
Monte Video does receive several small transitional grants from the city
of Amsterdam.
Time Based Arts, which had been founded in 1983 by the Association of
Video Artists, is fast becoming well-known as a distributor of video art,
and continues receiving government funding.

1986-1993
Ren&#233; Coelho continues on his own. Monte Video moves back to his home on
the Singel. The acquisition of production facilities, distribution,
documentation and promotion goes on, financed from his own income and by
organizing large projects. One of these, as an example, was 'Imago', an
exhibition of Dutch video installations which toured worldwide for five
years beginning in 1990. There were also plans laid for the first
conservation programs for video art.
The chairman of Time Based Arts, Aart van Barneveld, died; his death was
followed by many conflicts within the organization. In the early 1990s
Time Based Arts also lost its subsidies and threatened to go under. Monte
Video and Time Based Arts decide to provide a joint art program for
Amsterdam cable TV, Channel Zero.

1993
Time Based Arts merges with Monte Video. Their work is continued under the
new name of Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/Time Based Arts.
This fusion does free up national funding. In both 1997 and 2001 the
grants are expanded and converted into a structural subsidy for four
years.

1993-2002
The Netherlands Media Art Institute moves twice, in 1994 to the Spuistraat
and in 1997 to its present location on the Keizersgracht.
The Institute continues to grow through these years, and adopts the
following mission statement: The Netherlands Media Art Institute supports
media art in three core areas: presentation, research and conservation. At
the same time, through its facilities it offers extensive services for
artists and art institutions. Among these services are educational
programs, to be developed to accompany all activities.

and

**History of the Collection**

The collection of the Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/Time
Based Arts reflects the turbulent history of the Institute. In addition to
the collection of Monte Video, the predecessor of the Netherlands Media
Art Institute, the Institute administers the collections of four
institutions: the Lijnbaan Center (1970-1982), Time Based Arts
(1983-1994), De Appel (1975-1983) and the Institute Collection
Netherlands. This combination of artists' initiatives (Time Based Arts, De
Appel and the Lijnbaan Center) and more formal institutions (Institute
Collection Netherlands and the present Netherlands Media Art Institute)
affords the collection a surprising diversity. In addition to renowned
artists like Bill Viola, Nam June Paik and Gary Hill (who were represented
in the collection as far back as the 1970s), there are internationally
known Dutch artists who experimented with the medium for only a short
period in the 1970s, such as Marinus Boezem, Jan van Munster and Pieter
Engels.
Before any institutions at all had yet been created for the purpose of
collecting small centers were set up in various parts of The Netherlands
which facilitated and promoted the use of video by and for artists. The
earliest examples of this were Agora Studios in Maastricht, the Lijnbaan
Center in Rotterdam (itself a merger of the studio of Venster in Rotterdam
and the video studio which was set up for the Sonsbeek exhibition in 1971
in Arnhem), and a couple of individuals such as the artists Miguel-&#193;ngel
C&#225;rdenas and Jack Moore in Amsterdam, who made their cameras available for
other artists. Many of the works which were made in this earliest period
of Dutch video art only surfaced from oblivion in the course of the 1990s.
Surprising discoveries among them are the works of Dennis Oppenheim, Terry
Fox, Wim Gijzen, Nan Hoover and Tajiri.

With the arrival of the collection of De Appel an enormously rich
collection of video records of performances was added. De Appel flourished
in the 1970s as one of the most progressive international work sites for
performance art. The collection of this institution contained unique works
by Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, Gina Pane, Carolee Schneemann and
others. But in addition to records of events in her own gallery, Wies
Smalls, the founder of De Appel, also built up a collection of
international video art in order to enable the Dutch public to become
acquainted with what was happening internationally, including work by
Douglas Davis, Ulrike Rosenbach, Joan Jonas and Alison Knowles.

In the early 1980s, with De Appel as its base, efforts were begun to
establish an association for video artists, which later created the Time
Based Arts Foundation. The collection of this artists' association, in
addition to works by artists based in The Netherlands, such as
Abramovic/Ulay, Hooykaas/Stansfield, Ben d'Armagnac, Christine Chiffrun
and Lydia Schouten, also included work by international artists like Mona
Hatoum and General Idea.
Time Based Arts maintained an active collection policy, in which any
artist who worked with video could try to have his or her work included in
the collection. As it grew the collection became enormously diverse and
afforded a good overview of the various ways that video could be employed
in the visual arts. Through in to the 1990s Time Based Arts played an
important role in the collection, distribution and support of video art
until, in 1994, under pressure from the municipal authorities of
Amsterdam, it entered into a merger with Monte Video.

Ren&#233; Coelho began his video gallery Monte Video in 1978, and in doing so
laid the foundation for the present Institute. Monte Video was a gallery
which specialized in electronic art and especially in video art that
sought out the creative possibilities and qualities of the medium itself.
An important impetus for establishing the institution was the work of the
Dutch video pioneer Livinus van de Bundt. He was therefore the first
artist to be shown in the gallery. Later the Vasulkas, Bert Schutter,
Peter Bogers, Matthew Schlanger and many others followed. In addition to
the works that were to be seen in the gallery, Monte Video began to be
active in collecting and distributing work. Bill Viola, Gary Hill, Shelly
Silver and Gabor Body were for instance artists who 'stabled' their work
with Monte Video. The gallery owed its international success chiefly to
this. When in the 1990s the conservation of video works became a pressing
problem, the then merged Montevideo/Time Based Arts established itself as
the goad and later as the center of technical expertise for carrying out
the Conservation of Dutch Video Art project. As well as the collections
described above, there was integral cooperation with museums that over the
course of time had also collected video work. In addition to much
technical research, the conservation efforts also prompted considerable
recording work and research into content. Among questions dealt with were
the status of the vehicle, the significance of the material chosen and
establishing the boundary conditions for proper exhibition. Because of the
differences in approach among the institutions from which they came,
considerable time was spent integrating the collections with one another,
and getting the possibilities for the use of the works coordinated with
one another. But now, with the end of the conservation project in sight,
the gaps between the collections appear to be closing ever more, and we
can proudly present our multi-faceted collection to the public, as we do
here.</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.6</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Media Mutations - Life | Registration | Simulation	(was: Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts Crisis)</subject>
<from>Matze Schmidt</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Mon, 18 May 2009 11:22:02 +0200</date>
<content>&gt;&gt; [...] Arts

&gt; what art

&gt; True, art

In short: No money (as one of the forms of profit) without art, no art
without politics. This is a simple formula and any Baudrillard would
have secretly subcribed this, even in an epoch of ended (Hegel and 
followers) or never realized (Debord and followers) art. The fact is,
we* don't need art as art, but -- and someone like jaromil shows this
to us** -- we need other conditions, as painting, code or video or
diy-cooking if you like, I don't care -- changing media is always good.
But we are not able to produce the conditions 'now' -- like someone like
jaromil is may thinking -- because the conditions produce us, alienate
us; they will allways produce us (products produce consumption and vice
versa), but these conditions are (straightforward now) have to be
uncaged from ruling modes of production, in the meant sector reproduced
by national institutions (ZKM in Germany, Ex-Montevideo in NL, your
personal MTV at home). The New Media Arts Crisis is not my crisis, It's
just the crisis of the middle-class (Yuppie or not, fallen programmer or
rising video-installer) in form of some arts with newer or older media,
may it a t-shirt or an lcd. So there is no aftermath here but the
effects of a mixed up (I love this status and condition) highbrow, baby!
elite meshed with an alternative "green" and independent buisness party
with no idea of real coding out there (forget networks, they are roped
parties).
__________
* and ** Me, I and you as the readers who follows this text.

M</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.7</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>Renee Turner</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Fri, 15 May 2009 18:07:37 +0200</date>
<content>
Hi Florian,

You point towards a classic issue, the relevance of context. What do
different registers (fine art, media art, design, activism, popular
culture etc.) give to a particular work and what does a categorization
exclude, meaning what does it make *impossible*. Every register
influences interpretation, (in)visibility, production and funding.

&gt; Since the 1990s, the so-called Fine Arts do provide no really
&gt; desirable environment either, likely they're even worse. It is
&gt; telling enough that the term "Fine Art" suddenly has become a
&gt; universally accepted standard while, not a long time ago, any
&gt; self-respecting contemporary artist would have fiercely rejected
&gt; if not opposed it. In the past ten years of reading contemporary
&gt; art magazines or visiting art biennales and Documentas, I've been
&gt; flabbergasted by the lack of vision and radicalism in this field. It
&gt; has morphed, somewhat comparable to New (composed) Music after the
&gt; 1960s, into an academic discourse ruled by a neo-bourgeois jet set
&gt; of hipster curators posing as cultural theorists on the basis of a
&gt; not-even-half-baked knowledge and recycling of postmodern philosophy
&gt; and cultural studies. The system consists of artists who have been
&gt; academically trained to produce works - along with non-understood
&gt; theory lingo - that fit the required curatorial buzz.

Can you speak more specifically about which curators, what art
educational programs, which artists and what practices? For a
constructive debate, it's important to avoid caricatures, otherwise
there's a risk of creating false enemies, or missing out on how to
best counter the real ones.

And as an aside, I have to admit when I read "not-even-half-baked
knowledge" and "non-understood, I caught myself wondering who are
the guardians of proper interpretation when it comes to theory. (not
to mention, which theories) After all, couldn't theory be mutable in
different contexts or even hackable? In other words, can it too be
practiced, tested and changed once it hits the ground or encounters a
specific situation or discipline?

&gt; Along with this development, the paradigm of the white cube and art
&gt; works as good-looking exhibition objects has become stronger than
&gt; ever before and rules out any art practice not fitting this format.

It's true the white cube is a dominant force to be reckoned
with (or not, depending on what art world you dwell in ;-), but
interventionists/social/political practices have also continued....
(both of the digital and analog sort). You mention UBERMORGEN, and I
would add The Temporary Travel Office, SubRosa, Mongrel, AUDC, Jorge
Blasco's Cultures of the Archive, Marcelo Exposito's various projects,
The Center for Land Use Interpretation, Beatriz da Costa and others...
Maybe "tactical" is a red thread through these works?

&gt; All the while, the system thrives on the delusion that it still
&gt; represents visual art as a whole although, unlike, for example, in
&gt; film where 'highbrow' and 'lowbrow' still coexist, its popular forms
&gt; like comic books, tattoos, fantasy figurines, t-shirt illustrations,
&gt; wildlife paintings... have long been excluded from its system.
&gt;

hmmmm....not sure about this, having worked as a hybrid artist/
designer/curator/media artist/collaborator for some time now, again
I reiterate that there are many different artworlds (and for that
matter artists/inhabitants/vagrants). Sometimes they intersect, rub
next to each other, come into agitation or simply run on parallel
tracks. (Not too disimilar from the so-called new media world.) Think
of open source practitioners, the Max/Flash folk, and those that poach
the web's detritus for their own purposes, they're all a part of new
media arts, but each tend to dwell in different corners of the digital
universe (or maybe not, if you're one of those cross-pollinators :-)

&gt; Instead, we get artists like Mike Kelley all over the art
&gt; world in whose work I'm either not getting something or indeed
&gt; seeing the Emperor's new clothes. ("Review" babble like
&gt; http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/tomorrow_never_comes1/ affirms
&gt; the suspicion that the art world has no clue either.)

I haven't seen this particular work so hesitate to judge. I do however
find it a little problematic to make sweeping statements about the
Emperor's New Clothes and the "art world's" cluelessness based on one
review and one artist.


&gt;&gt; Director Heiner Holtappels opened by noticing that new media art
&gt;&gt; is not easily accepted by fine art. Traditional art has become
&gt;&gt; eclecticism. According to Heiner, all art is technology based.
&gt;
&gt; This is true, yet contemporary art has mostly given up on reflecting
&gt; its media. [I can almost hear an iPhone-wearing curator saying that
&gt; reflecting one's media is outmoded modernism.]

ouch, how stereotypes do prevail. I wonder if there would be a
paradigm shift if he/she had been envisioned with a pre-paid nokia.
;-)


Renee
http://www.geuzen.org/
http://www.fudgethefacts.com/
http://www.geuzen.org/female_icons/</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.8</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>Florian Cramer</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Sat, 23 May 2009 02:05:03 +0200</date>
<content>
Hey Renee,
 
&gt; You point towards a classic issue, the relevance of context. What do
&gt; different registers (fine art, media art, design, activism, popular
&gt; culture etc.) give to a particular work and what does a categorization
&gt; exclude, meaning what does it make *impossible*. Every register
&gt; influences interpretation, (in)visibility, production and funding.

Yeah, and inevitably, these registers are not just different chosen
perspectives we have on particular works, but also institutional and
disciplinary contexts in which workers have to put their work and
whose written and unwritten rules they can't avoid abiding.

&gt; Can you speak more specifically about which curators, what art
&gt; educational programs, which artists and what practices?

I was really thinking of the contemporary art system as it has been
described by its own protagonists, for example in Isabelle Graw's
2008 book "Der grosse Preis", or has been analyzed, with means that
really deserve the term "artistic research", by Hans Haacke as early
as in the 1970s in such pieces as "The Chocolate Master". And many
people have criticized that system from within, from Henry Flynt in
the 1960s to the writer and "Thing Hamburg"-blogger Michel Chevalier
today. I think it is legitimate to make a sweepingly general critique
of the contemporary art system just as it is legitimate to generally
criticize and attack the music industry and contemporary popular music
system for example. That doesn't mean that there would be absolutely
no good music coming out of that system. But unlike other culture
industries, the contemporary (Fine) Art system often falsely believes
in its own autonomy. And it's my general experience and opinion that
the art I'm more interested in is more often than not to be found in
places outside that system. In the 1960s, this was true for Fluxus
and Situationism, in the 1970s and 1980s for the Mail Art Network and
postpunk, and in the 1990s for Net.art, the Luther Blissett project or
the alternative pornography movement. Today, to speak in terms of our
both hometown Rotterdam, I'm finding the interesting contemporary arts
at places like WORM and De Player and only rarely at Witte de With,
for example.

&gt; For a constructive debate, it's important to avoid caricatures,
&gt; otherwise there's a risk of creating false enemies, or missing out
&gt; on how to best counter the real ones.

Well, this is true, and I admit that my posting was polemical
- and emotional. My gripes with the contemporary art
system are also based on bad personal experience and
confrontations such as the one with the "Just Do It" exhibition
&lt;http://www.mail-archive.com/nettime-l {AT} bbs.thing.net/msg02876.html&gt;.

&gt; hmmmm....not sure about this, having worked as a hybrid artist/
&gt; designer/curator/media artist/collaborator for some time now, again
&gt; I reiterate that there are many different artworlds (and for that
&gt; matter artists/inhabitants/vagrants).

Indeed. It's just that the particular art world I mentioned above
- and which can be roughly described as the art world of the many
biennials, the Documenta, contemporary art spaces like PS.1 and KW,
contemporary art journals like October, Texte zur Kunst, Springerin
and Metropolis M, too often monopolizes the term "art" for the art
that it represents. Admittedly, its system can be permissive and
include 'outside' practices, particularly when a curatorial subject
requires it. However, it would be possible to map the institutions
mentioned above just by the overlap of the people they involve,
and come up with a fairly good representation of what makes up
contemporary art.

They same is true, no doubt, if you take ars electronica, transmediale
and ISEA, plus Leonardo, Neural, Rhizome and Nettime, ZKM and ICC
Tokyo, and pin down the system "media art". But just as that latter
system is now being - deservedly - questioned and undergoing a huge
if not terminal structural crisis, I think it is as legitimate to
question the contemporary Fine Art system, and the Western concept of
autonomous art. So, going back to Geert's initial report about the
discussion about the crisis of "Media Art" at Montevideo Amsterdam,
I think that it can't be a solution to integrate a very questionable
"media art" system into an equally questionable contemporary art
system. [As it is now happening, in education, too, for example in the
Zurich art school media department where Felix Stalder teaches, and
where the media programme has been rolled back into Fine Art on the
Master level.]

&gt; Sometimes they intersect, rub next to each other, come into
&gt; agitation or simply run on parallel tracks. (Not too disimilar from
&gt; the so-called new media world.) Think of open source practitioners,
&gt; the Max/Flash folk, and those that poach the web's detritus for
&gt; their own purposes, they're all a part of new media arts, but each
&gt; tend to dwell in different corners of the digital notion universe
&gt; (or maybe not, if you're one of those cross-pollinators :-)

Yep, only that what you describe above is really declining and may not
see much art funding or support in the future. The writing is on the
wall.

&gt; &gt;&gt; Director Heiner Holtappels opened by noticing that new media art
&gt; &gt;&gt; is not easily accepted by fine art. Traditional art has become
&gt; &gt;&gt; eclecticism. According to Heiner, all art is technology based.
&gt; &gt;
&gt; &gt; This is true, yet contemporary art has mostly given up on
&gt; &gt; reflecting its media. [I can almost hear an iPhone-wearing curator
&gt; &gt; saying that reflecting one's media is outmoded modernism.]
&gt;
&gt; ouch, how stereotypes do prevail. I wonder if there would be a
&gt; paradigm shift if he/she had been envisioned with a pre-paid nokia.
&gt; ;-)

I should have told that the above example was taken from a real
life experience, although it's admittedly a deliberate caricature
when I I blew it out of proportion as above. I agree very much with
Brian that artistic practices (to put it as broadly) are deeply
intertwined in culture and communication. There's a good chance,
and I really mean this, that I am getting old - in punk terms:
a boring old fart - who's insisting on outmoded viewpoints. But
I think that critiques of modernism, as legitimate as they are,
become problematic when they're used to legitimize and maintain the
status quo. [An extreme example is the contemporary art gallery
scene and private collections in Berlin and their intrinsic links to
the German discourse of "Neue B&#252;rgerlichkeit" ("new bourgeoisie")
&lt;http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neue_B&#252;rgerlichkeit&gt;.] The current
economic, political and social developments should render all
notions of posthistoire and non-rupture in the fabric of culture and
communication, and hence also in the arts, all the more obsolete.
They also question the bourgeois insistence on artistic practice as a
product of individual subjectivity. And finally, the contemporary art
field has been much ahead of the media art system in postcolonialism;
however, if this reflection is serious, it should not exclude the
notion and system of art itself.

Well, anyway, since the Geuzen collective of which you're a member
operates in its own carefully chosen grey zone between art, activism,
design, media, research and education, I actually think that our
standpoints are quite similar, just that our points of departure
regarding the usefulness of the contemporary art system might
differ. For me, the projects of De Geuzen are a very good example
for a post-autonomous artistic practice. Again, although I'm no
friend of the media art system, I'm quite sure that it would be
practices like those of the Geuzen that would suffer and struggle
to find institutional support once the "media art" system will
have vanished and been replaced with the existing contemporary art
system (particularly the more cut-throat kind of the USA, Germany
and England, with people who are anxious not to pollute Fine Art
with applied or sociocultural practices they hate and detest as
non-artistic [1].).

Florian


[1] a good example would be Berlin's K&#252;nstlerhaus Bethanien, a renown
contemporary arts space, whose director Christoph Tannert bitterly
fights a group of squatters and their sociocultural center in his own
building. 



-- 
blog:     http://en.pleintekst.nl
homepage: http://cramer.pleintekst.nl:70
          gopher://cramer.pleintekst.nl</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.9</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>Renee Turner</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Mon, 25 May 2009 13:37:41 +0200</date>
<content>
Hi Florian,

My apologies for a slightly delayed response. I completely agree that
there are aspects within the art world which need critical scrutiny. I
was simply asking for specificity, and I appreciate that you've taken
the time to clarify.

&gt; But unlike other culture industries, the contemporary (Fine) Art
&gt; system often falsely believes in its own autonomy.

I wonder if this is true. Feminist/post colonial practices have often
argued the opposite and with much efficacy. Think of Jean Fisher's
critical texts, Adrian Piper's work and Lucy Lippard's writing and
curatorial projects and even the recent educational department at
Goldsmiths of Irit Rogoff; all of these practices seem to point to an
art world/system which is political, embodied and implicated.

&gt; And it's my general experience and opinion that the art I'm
&gt; more interested in is more often than not to be found in places
&gt; outside that system. In the 1960s, this was true for Fluxus and
&gt; Situationism, in the 1970s and 1980s for the Mail Art Network and
&gt; postpunk, and in the 1990s for Net.art, the Luther Blissett project
&gt; or the alternative pornography movement.

I'm also interested these movements, practices, antics/pranktics,
but unlike you, I see them as a part of a complex and multifaceted
art world (not outside of it). I find it problematic to define the
system as only popular art mags, the market and large institutions
when there's so much other interesting work going on. (not to mention,
how would you classify those of us involved in art education?)

&gt; Today, to speak in terms of our both hometown Rotterdam, I'm finding
&gt; the interesting contemporary arts at places like WORM and De Player
&gt; and only rarely at Witte de With, for example.

Yes, here we can look into specific curatorial approaches and talk
about who these various institutions and orgs are addressing. (this
takes more time than I have now... but I'm nonetheless interested in
exploring this further at a later juncture) &gt;&gt; &gt; Indeed. It's just
that the particular art world I mentioned above &gt; - and which can
be roughly described as the art world of the many &gt; biennials, the
Documenta, contemporary art spaces like PS.1 and KW, &gt; contemporary
art journals like October, Texte zur Kunst, Springerin &gt; and
Metropolis M, too often monopolizes the term "art" for the art &gt; that
it represents. Admittedly, its system can be permissive and &gt; include
'outside' practices, particularly when a curatorial subject &gt; requires
it. However, it would be possible to map the institutions &gt; mentioned
above just by the overlap of the people they involve, &gt; and come up
with a fairly good representation of what makes up &gt; contemporary art.

I agree, this *is* truly the crux.  It's crucial to map the overlap of  
people/institutions and ask ourselves who's setting the agenda, who's  
controlling the funding and whose *corner* of art world is being  
represented, and moreover, what do these representations make  
impossible, meaning what do they render invisible.


&gt; They same is true, no doubt, if you take ars electronica,
&gt; transmediale and ISEA, plus Leonardo, Neural, Rhizome and Nettime,
&gt; ZKM and ICC Tokyo, and pin down the system "media art". But just
&gt; as that latter system is now being - deservedly - questioned and
&gt; undergoing a huge if not terminal structural crisis, I think it is
&gt; as legitimate to question the contemporary Fine Art system, and the
&gt; Western concept of autonomous art.

It's absolutely legitimate to question art's autonomy, and it's been
happening for some time now. Besides the previous examples listed
above, recently there has been much debate about the proliferation of
biennials how art feeds into a neoliberal agenda.

&gt; So, going back to Geert's initial report about the discussion about
&gt; the crisis of "Media Art" at Montevideo Amsterdam, I think that it
&gt; can't be a solution to integrate a very questionable "media art"
&gt; system into an equally questionable contemporary art system. [As it
&gt; is now happening, in education, too, for example in the Zurich art
&gt; school media department where Felix Stalder teaches, and where the
&gt; media programme has been rolled back into Fine Art on the Master
&gt; level.]

In many respects this cycle has happened to photography (remember
when John Tagg wrote that no history of art photography could be
written without taking into account, pornography, daguerreotypes,
propaganda and family snapshots.) Or video's roots in activism,
home videos, street journalism (Martha Rosler's essay: Shedding the
Utopian Moment).... there's much to learn from these histories of
assimilation. It's important to look at how institutionalization
"tames" media...disciplines the discipline. But while questioning the
systems of Fine Art, Media Art etc, I think as producers, viewers,
educators and implicated accomplices, it's imperative to ask what do
we want to see happen or change.

As a graduate student in the eighties, I was taught by Harmony
Hammond, a painter and co-founder of Heresies. In her painting
class, she reserved time to present her personal collection of
artists' works she felt were under-represented by the mainstream art
world. It was a small but extremely powerful gesture. Eventually, in
2000 the collection was published under the title, Lesbian Art in
America: A Contemporary History. I learned much from Harmony, but
the most influential part of her teaching was watching her practice
*otherwise*.

So in this context, I'm asking myself how can I/we practice
*otherwise* and how might that *doing* nudge or broaden the scope of
dominant discourses and visual regimes.

best,

Renee
http://www.geuzen.org/
http://www.fudgethefacts.com/</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.10</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>carlos katastrofsky</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Sun, 17 May 2009 10:59:58 +0200</date>
<content>
what i am always wondering about is why the media arts field is so
concerned with its media. is dealing with "new media" or "old media"
an excuse for making good or bad art? IMO defining art by its media
is on the same level as defining art by its subject. not getting over
these definitions will result in a ghetto-situation sooner or later.
the problem -IMHO- is not that media art is not recognized by the fine
art world but that the fine art world is dealing with other subjects.
when was the last big exhibition dealing solely with "painting" or
"sculpture" you've seen? ars electronica and the others are doing that
every year: "new media art" with changing subtitles.

the same problem persists when new media artists and theorists
insist on "politicalness" and "radicality". those terms don't say
anything about certain works either, no matter which media is used
in it. they only say that they may be recognised as "political" in a
certain time in a certain context. but that doesn't say anything about
it's "artness" either. "art doesn't become art by having specific
characteristics but by a specific kind of processual reference to it."
(J. Rebentisch, Aesthetik der Installation)

and -please hit me hard if i'm wrong- the "fine art world" questions
such things. this "eclecticism" and "cluelesness" some are claiming
exist, but despite the ugly quest for the next blockbuster there is a
lively scene developing things further without thinking about making
"political art" or "painting". seen from this point of view i think
that hans' claim "The aim should be Art, not Politics." is totally
right, even if it is harshly critisized by geert. to put it bluntly:
if i want to learn something about politics i would read a book with
proper information about it and not go to see art that repeats the
common sense that there are bad things existing in our world. i want
to see art. neither new media nor politics.

carlos

-- 
http://katastrofsky.cont3xt.net
http://cont3xt.net</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.11</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts Crisis</subject>
<from>Rama Hoetzlein</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Sun, 17 May 2009 11:48:02 -0700</date>
<content>i agree.. i'm new to nettime, but following it silently until now, and 
have been doing research in this area.
here are a few earlier notes i've made on this topic:
   http://www.rchoetzlein.com/theory/

in my view, the problem is that new media theory - the theory side 
anyway (not the art) - is largely defined by what we read from new media 
theorists, such as lev manovich and baudrillard. yet these philosophers 
do their primary work in "media theory" itself, that is the 
anthropological study of how media influences culture. thus, their 
central message is that media has meaning, and meaning changes culture:

"True, art is on the periphery for me. I don't really identify with it. 
I would even say that I have the same negative prejudice towards art 
that I do toward culture in general. My point of view is 
anthropological. From this perspective, art no longer seems to have a 
vital function; it is afflicted by the same fate that extinguishes 
value, by the same loss of transcendence."  - Jean Baudrillard

i do not deny their contributions to media theory of course, but despite 
the fact that they may be open about their field of study (as this quote 
shows), the new media arts has not moved to define itself as an "art 
form", but rather defines itself in terms of media. of course, as an 
artist, i disagree about defining media art in such post-modernist terms 
(that is, purely as an outgrowth of culture). contrast the view of art 
above with this one:

"The activity of art is based on the fact that one, receiving through 
his or her sense of hearing or sight another's expression of feeling, is 
capable of experiencing the emotion which moved the one who expressed 
it." - Leo Tolstoy

New media art should be defined from an art-philosophical perspective. 
In this view, meaning is present in all works, to varying degrees, 
regardless of how they might be appropriated by culture. At what time is 
history was art not appropriated by culture? None the less, people 
continued to create art. The process of art-making is one of creating 
meaning, and this relation between the artist and the work is not 
changed despite how the object is ultimately appreciated, used, or 
abused by culture.

-rama hoetzlein</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.12</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>Brian Holmes</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Sun, 17 May 2009 23:32:13 +0200</date>
<content>
Rama Hoetzlein wrote:

&gt; New media art should be defined from an art-philosophical
&gt; perspective. In this view, meaning is present in all works, to
&gt; varying degrees, regardless of how they might be appropriated
&gt; by culture. At what time in history was art not appropriated by
&gt; culture? None the less, people continued to create art. The process
&gt; of art-making is one of creating meaning, and this relation between
&gt; the artist and the work is not changed despite how the object is
&gt; ultimately appreciated, used, or abused by culture.

It's great to read such a fundamental comment. I shall add something.
My viewpoint includes both Tolstoy's and Baudrillard's. I find that
informatic art (my own off-the-cuff term, but surely better than new
media) is compelling precisely when it places subjective expression
within the most strongly coercive social arena of our time, namely
the digital networks. Your idea that there is an art-philosophical
perspective that could exclude or bypass social determinism seems,
begging your pardon, somewhat naive. What is more, I think all the
interest of art itself disappears when it is shorn from the contexts
of power and held up as a pure conductor of subjectivity. Approached
in that way, the art work tends to become no more than a mirror for
our own emotions and fantasies -- far from any state of empathy,
Einfuhlung or whatever one chooses to call it. So I am not surprised
that you move from Tolstoy's fascinating quote (reproduced below) to
the "relation between the artist and the work." I guess I am more
interested in, well, media: the way the work relates the artist to
others.

However, your observation about new media theory (Kittler and McLuhan
were recently mentioned here) is spot on. What we are given from
the podium, over and over again, are lessons about the power of
technoscientific systems. The predicament of the human singularity,
caught within the net of determinisms yet resisting, creating another
reality and expressing this rather fantastic adventure through
whatever kind of material or semiotic medium has been chosen, is left
out of the story, which thereby becomes a monument to the crushing
regularity of the status quo. The same thing, of course, happens to
resistant political action in the hands of the sociologists and the
Heideggerean philosophers of an essential, "historial" alienation.
Both ethics and aesthetics take it on the chin.

In my view, the great inspiration for new media theory has come from
hackers themselves, who create alternative possibilities for existence
within the overwhelmingly powerful networked environment. This is why,
in essays which are inseparably about art and technics, I tend to
use concepts like "reverse imagineering" or "escaping the overcode."
Expression, for me, is the rupture of code, an excess which does not
abolish the labyrinth in which we are caught, but at least opens up a
possible new path through it.

That's one approach. There could be many others. The problem, as
you point out, is that usually there are not, because the theory
very rarely meets any actual practice. The necessary discussion of
technological power holds the center stage. Of course that is easier
for the whole "new media" social circuit, because then you don't have
to think very much, or feel very much, or try very hard to find out
what might be at stake in a particular work.

This list, I guess, is about the best place to talk about how to
approach media art. Thanks to all for starting the conversation. I'm
ready for more. Let the thousand info-aesthetics bloom!

best, BH</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.13</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>Rama Hoetzlein</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Sun, 17 May 2009 17:24:51 -0700</date>
<content>
Brian, thanks for your reply. In general, i'm glad to see that
we're mostly in agreement. Based on my observations of nettime-l,
disagreement is often the norm, so I'm glad to see that there is
some consensus between us that the new media theorists are currently
the only option we've been given, and that we really need some
alternatives.. Now, for some responses.

&gt; Your idea that there is an art-philosophical perspective that could 
&gt; exclude or bypass social determinism seems, begging your pardon, 
&gt; somewhat naive. 

I'm not suggesting that art-philosophy can bypass social determinism.
I have no illusions about the difficulty the artist faces in creating
any real social change, since my view of art does not negate any of
the real research done by the media theorists. My own view is that
the idea of art-for-social-change is long outdated. You suggest
that hackers are the source of real inspiration in new media theory
because they alone are able to transform the media itself, and thus
undermine the system toward some possible escape path. Yet, there
is no reason to believe that even if the media itself changes, that
society will too. In my view, the only way we could overcome the
current technoscientific system would be due to a deep, fundamental
transformation in all individuals - and while I believe art is
capable of doing this one person at a time, I don't think any one
artwork, hacker or otherwise, is capable of really altering the
technoscientific system we find ourselves in on a global level. Thus,
all social change we talk about now is still part of that system. This
is the media theorist perspective, of course - which i agree with -
but as an artist, its incomplete.

The reason I advocate art-philosophy is for the sake of the
individual, and the field of art itself. While i just said the artist
is powerless to transform culture, perhaps to a degree greater than
most would like, the artist is _not_ powerless to transform him or
herself, and others which that person touches through the art..
Despite whatever the technoscientific system may do, to create art is
an intentional act by an individual, and thus has an immutable meaning
just by virtue of being "created". We get to choose what is created
(this does not make it good art necessarily).

That meaning is present in all work "to varying degrees". By this, i
mean that we each have a unique relationship to our artwork. For some,
it is a mirror of personal emotions and fantasies (and probably my
own work most of the time), while others may be able to communicate
more.. So, I'm not evaluating art. Some is good, some is not. However,
having an art-philosophical does not automatically reduce our works to
emotional fantasies. In fact, it is more likely to result in genuinely
empathetic works since it creates a solid foundation for art based on
a philosophy in which art is encouraged to be empathetic, rather than
responsive to a system.

I'm simply stating -- which I think we perhaps both agree with here --
that so far we have not been given any other alternative view of new
media art other than that proposed by the new media theorists. The way
out of this problem is, I believe, through a philosophy of art whereby
the artist has full awareness of the problems of society (hopefully),
yet continues to create works of art despite this. It is possible to
have no illusions about the inability of art to bring about explicit
social change, but understand that it can bring implicit change
through individual communication.

-rama</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.14</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>ben . craggs</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Mon, 18 May 2009 08:42:05 +0100</date>
<content>
&gt; what i am always wondering about is why the media arts field is so
&gt; concerned with its media. is dealing with "new media" or "old media"
&gt; an excuse for making good or bad art? IMO defining art by its media
&gt; is on the same level as defining art by its subject. not getting
&gt; over these definitions will result in a ghetto-situation sooner or
&gt; later. the problem -IMHO- is not that media art is not recognized
&gt; by the fine art world but that the fine art world is dealing with
&gt; other subjects. when was the last big exhibition dealing solely
&gt; with "painting" or "sculpture" you've seen? ars electronica and the
&gt; others are doing that every year: "new media art" with changing
&gt; subtitles.

 &lt;...&gt;

An interesting addition to this would be the emergence of 'New, new
media arts'. I am thinking here, of practices in the field currently
defining itself as bioart. Here the medium that is being manipulated
is a form of living or sem-living matter, or tissue. Bioartist,
Eduardo Kac and curator Jens Hauser have sought to specifically
identify this new art practice, expressly on the basis of the medium
itself. Bioarts, they argue, are most definitely are not those works
that take bios or a form of life, as a subject, but manipulate it as a
medium. That said, the manipulation of living tissue can be executed
through a number of divergent practices, specific technologies, and it
is these that seem to be defined by some as the media, not the living
tissue they manipulate. I guess a somewhat simplistic comparison
would be between with identification of various 'digital media' in
abstraction from the advances in computer technology on which they are
based.

My current work in the field of bioart is increasingly
pushing me towards a frustration at the distinction between
art/science/media/technology/old/new that recurs in the majority of
literature, and if I am not wrong seems to predicate this current
discussion. In the light of these new practices I have been working
towards re-imagining what art and media are in themselves, as
technologies and processes not as distinct practices - the specific
media or declared purpose seem less relevant from this perspective. So
I wonder whether 'meaning is present in all works, to varying degrees,
regardless of how they might be appropriated by culture' could be
extended beyond a simple valorisation of art.

It also seems that those new media theorists, such as Manovich and
Baudrillard are somewhat restricted in their approach in that new
media is perceived in a somewhat teleological sense, newness for
the sake of newness, with new theories to match new media - without
asking what is actually recurring in new media. IMO it seems that
most new media, are really just old media anyway, particularly so in
bioart. Is the creative growth of tissue not what we do continually
as part of our natural bodily processes? Would it be facetious
then to ask whether all media be considered from this originary
perspective, negating the discussions about relative newness or
cultural categorization (ie i's art, it's science, it's technology,
it's media).

Ben</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.15</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>carlos katastrofsky</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Mon, 18 May 2009 16:11:26 +0200</date>
<content>
&gt; The way out of this problem is, I believe, through a philosophy of
&gt; art whereby the artist has full awareness of the problems of society
&gt; (hopefully), yet continues to create works of art despite this.
&gt; It is possible to have no illusions about the inability of art to
&gt; bring about explicit social change, but understand that it can bring
&gt; implicit change through individual communication.
&gt;

but can "change" be a parameter for art? what is to be changed through
art? i agree that a "change" in whatever direction is possible but
IMHO art mustn't be reduced to it. to me art is also someting i can
admire without thinking of having to change something. in fact even
if i see some really good "political art" the first step is to admire
it (wow, great work) and then to think about consequences. art is
something autonomous. to me such an approach would free it from being
a mere form of communication, a medium, or "new media art". but at the
same time it can be all of that.

best,
carlos


-- 
http://katastrofsky.cont3xt.net
http://cont3xt.net</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.16</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>Rama Hoetzlein</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Mon, 18 May 2009 10:11:25 -0700</date>
<content>
exactly.. even if we are fully unconcerned with political art, when
you say "wow, great work", thats just and only what i mean by implicit
change (you are changed).. art is autonomous here because, while the
work may or may not be political, this implicit change defines only
the meaning-relation between the artist, the work, and the viewer.
And that relationship is established independent of the impact of
media on society, i.e. politics. A philosophy of art should provide a
foundation for complete autonomy, and this is done by observing that
the basis of art is creating and appreciating.. keeping in mind that
theory only gets you so far as an artist.

rama</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.17</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts Crisis</subject>
<from>Brian Holmes</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Tue, 19 May 2009 15:44:02 +0200</date>
<content>carlos katastrofsky wrote:

 &gt; if i see some really good "political art" the first step is to admire
 &gt; it (wow, great work) and then to think about consequences. art is
 &gt; something autonomous. to me such an approach would free it from being
 &gt; a mere form of communication, a medium, or "new media art". but at the
 &gt; same time it can be all of that.

What does one admire a piece of art? What is its autonomy?  And what could
be its consequences? I have asked myself these questions for years. Like
most thinking people, I have come to a few conclusions. And since I like
the idea that art can be "all of that" - a form of communication, a medium,
new media art - I would like to share these conclusions with you.

Humans are excessively complex by nature, and inherently social. We are
defined by the surfeit of symbolic activity that goes on in our brains and
indeed, in our full sensorium, and that comes out not only from our mouths
but in all sorts of gestures and postures and practices directed toward the
senses and symbolizing activities of others. A long anthropological
tradition running from Sapir through Levi-Strauss to Sahlins holds that
so-called "primitive" societies are no less complex than modern ones: their
languages show comparable range and variety, but are (according to
Levi-Strauss) oriented differently, more concrete in one case, more
abstracted in the other. There is so much going on in any human being and
between any group of human beings that just ordering or harmonizing all
this excessive symbolization - I mean, excessive over what the utilitarians
think of as the simple quest for satisfaction or corporeal pleasure -
becomes a problem in itself. Because madness always lurks on the edges of
our reeling imaginations, and then there is also depression, or anger, or
jealousy, or prejudice or extreme paranoia, indeed a great number of
obscure problems that can disrupt the life of the one and of the many.

Religion has been the great social technique for bringing all this roiling
thought, expression and sensation into some kind of predictable pattern and
harmony, constituting entire narrative and figural universes, with their
built environments, rituals, music, poetry, smells, tastes, etc, all
associated and carefully correlated with orders of kinship, canons of
sexuality, responsibilities of care, expressions of tenderness,
commandments, prohibitions and the like. What we now call art, as it
gradually detached itself from religion and became a series of aesthetic
traditions interpretable and modifiable by individuals - as it became
autonomous in other words - seems to have taken on the role of being the
sensuous and ideational mirror of the individual's proper "fit" with
society; it became a way of continuing the vast and mostly imaginary
conversation about the ways that the one relates to the many, and
vice-versa.  However, this conversation was no longer necessarily about
harmony: because depending on the very particular context, the proper "fit"
could have aspects of a "misfit," and the quest for an idealized harmony
could involve extreme disruptions of the status quo, disruptions appearing
both in art and in life itself. Just think about the Antigone of Sophocles
and you will see that this kind of problematic was not invented with the
romantics, it goes back quite a ways.  Clearly it gets particularly intense
in modern democracies, where we are all brought up to conceive ourselves as
both legislators and revolutionaries.

Now, amusingly, one of the reasons I ever even bothered to think about such
complex and excessive things, so far from 
"direct political action" and what have you, is that for 
many years I have found myself with a certain nagging problem of getting up
in the morning. Perhaps others have experienced this? It so happens that on
certain mornings I may spend as much as an hour just thinking about a
certain constellation of things: a group of people, an artwork, a political
issue, a line from a song, a concept, a phrase from a book, an image, a
rhythm. Without showing any particular signs of anxiety, insanity,
delirium, fever, swine flu or whatever, I still found it necessary to bring
such constellations of ideas and sensations into some kind of dynamic
pattern that would lend a spring to my step, a direction to my speech, an
effectiveness to my gestures.  Being a bit of a misfit - according to the
aforementioned tradition in the democratic societies - I had to work on
this question of how to fit all this in, nonetheless: how to fit into my
own overflowing symbolic and sensate world, first of all, and how to fit
that world into the multitude of others with whom daily activity brings me
into contact.  Thus I began to think that what is pleasing, satisfying,
attractive, intriguing, inspiring, shocking, repellent, etc in the formal
allure of artworks is also somehow the result of other people's struggles
with the excess of symbolization in which they are embroiled, and that the
"success" of the artwork (wow, great work) is always some variation on the
"infinite theme of the artist(s) trying to break out of one universe and
"fit into another - whether we're talking about a purely abstract universe
"of chromatism or rhythm, or some Hegelian quandry of historical
"dialectics, or the current discussion about cap and trade, or the latest
"dispute over the coolest tattoos in the punk or heavy-metal circle that
"encloses your secret passion. An aesthetic form doesn't directly solve any
"of the weighty social problems - but it helps get a world together, it
"helps structure a pattern and a dynamic and an enthusiasm, which is always
"a good start.

So how 'bout the politics then? Well, according to my little theory, the
personal is clearly both aesthetic and political, because if you can't get
out of bed you are definitely not going to make it to the office, the
march, the meeting, the voting booth, the library, or wherever your
activity is going to have some consequences in terms of organizing social
relations. What is more, this is not just my little theory, because going
back to Plato's Republic or maybe the Rig Vedas, social thinkers have been
very conscious of the influence of things like music on the order and
harmony of the community, the city, state or whatever.  Indeed, not long
ago we saw with dazzled and almost disbelieving eyes that a great
nation-state like China could put a significant fraction of its resources
into organizing an aesthetic display which was not just supposed to knock
everybody out, American style, with its overwhelming show of wealth, but
also and above all to enact and celebrate an ideal of harmony and societal
coordination which, from my anarcho-individualist viewpoint, was at once
vastly impressive and also frankly terrifying, because here I could see an
intensive use of all the latest, hypercomplex aesthetic techniques to knit
together an order that could power a vast authoritarian economic machine
and infuse it with the enthusiam and belief of the many - which is a lot,
when we're talking China. So you want new media? Replay your avi file of
the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics.

What I am trying to get at with all of this is that art is essentially
media, it is not merely but essentially about communication, only what is
communicated is not just a phrase or a slogan or a piece of information,
but a problematic attempt to reconfigure a world on every level of sensate
and imaginary experience. That can be an attempt to fit in or to stick out,
to harmonize or to disrupt, to smash the current relation of self and
society or to conserve it or to invent another one; but insofar as art is
expression, it always projects this struggle over the shape and balance of
a world towards the ears and eyes and excessive imaginations of others.
When we say that art is autonomous, we situate it in the long democratic
tradition where the self, autos, tries to help establish the law, nomos,
accordingly which it can freely develop in the company of fellow human
beings. Now, the problems of this attempt at autonomy are almost infinite,
they are sexual, technical, ecological, emotional, mystical, contractual,
material, they involve philosophy, science, babies, great art and also the
plumbing. And they always involve the relations of individuals and groups
to others whose worlds they do not understand, whose rhythms they do not
feel pulsing in their own veins, whose tacit concepts of harmony and
disruption are not expressed by the same patterns and shapes and colors and
combinations of tones. So when I say, Wow, great art - as I often do, just
the way people in the new media arts circles have done for years at
festivals sponsored by Philips and Microsoft and Sony and the like - the
first consequence for me is to inquire into the world from which that art
arises and to which it points, and eventually to see how I fit into or
desire to break out of that world.  This means that a deep and searching
criticism can never just be criticism of the work, it always has to look
further back, into the world from which it sprang, and ahead to the
consequences of a potential change in the worlds we share, or at least to
the consequences of a change in the way that *I* or *we* will relate to
other worlds in the future.

Finally, it seems to me, in my anarcho-democratic world, that to say Wow,
great art, without inquiring into the consequences, is one of the closest
things one can do to never getting out of bed, i.e. it's close to
sleepwalking.  Because at best, you would then be just letting the great
art fit into your own great dream, or letting it be the colorful and
striking tattoo that will fit you into your small chosen circle. That's at
best - because in the present world of biopower and noopower, just admiring
a work in itself and for itself can mean accepting without question the
world that it mediates, which in the case of the networked technologies
sold by Sony and Microsoft Philips and abused by a vast array of
corporations and governments, can be an extremely predatory world,
configured precisely in order to capture your consciousness and extract
some value or utility out of your passions and dreams. Value that can
ultimately be devastating for the collectivity (as in the debt-fueld
consumption boom of this decade), utility that can make you into the most
terrible of instruments (like the voters lured by nationalist rhetoric into
supporting our proliferating wars).

It has been years since I read Lev Manovich, so what follows may be totally
unjust to his work, but as I recall, what always irritated me in his
writing was a kind of smug insistence that the new media were essentially
defined by a certain kind of rhythm, a certain multiplication of screens, a
certain connection to databases, etc. - in other words, that the new media
were essentially defined by the dominant trends of contemporary capitalist
society. For me this seemed like a total abdication of criticism itself,
and it also seemed to be a sort of cheerful, "I'm on the winning side"
version of the dark technological determinism and philosophical doomsaying
promoted by the post-Leftist thinkers in the wake of Baudrillard. What I
missed was the very question of autonomy, and some recognition of its
quasi-infinite complexities as they've been ceaselessly developing from the
Neolithic to now, in the long and discontinuous series of messages passed
from human world to human world. Imho, the poverty of new media art - its 
"crisis" - has intrinsically to do with the poverty of media 
critique tout court. It is the failure to see how the cultural politics of
individuals and groups are mediated in the work, how they are expressed at
every level of their ineluctable complexity and excess over the "mere
communication" of what already exists.

best, Brian</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.18</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>Michael H Goldhaber</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Tue, 19 May 2009 12:30:11 -0700</date>
<content>
Thanks for some beautiful and thought-provoking statements, especially  
Brian&#8217;s and Carlos&#8217;s. I would add that to me the real medium of all  
art is attention, attention the viewer or reader or listener must pay,  
feels consciously drawn to pay, in a deepening and all encompassing  
way. That attention amounts to a transformation of self &#8212; into the  
mind and body of the artist, as it were. The rest of the world falls  
away for that moment, and so does time &#8212;the moment might be a long one  
&#8212;and,a s Brian suggests will recur  later on, in recollection and  
reflection.

If that is art, it is always political, because it always takes the  
attention payer out of the &#8220;system,&#8221; whatever it might be and however  
much the managers of the system in fact solicited the artist  or the  
work to begin with. The huge abstract paintings of the 1950&#8217;s cold  
only fit on the walls of the rich, but nonetheless, as long as they  
were there, they took over those walls, and made the space different  
from what the collector might have intended, and the same goes for  
Renaissance art and art of other periods.

The reason different media come in is that the artist has an on-going  
problem as to how to capture attention as distractions and competition  
multiply. In some way, to be really focussed on, art must avoid being  
too easy to experience, for then it can become just the background,  
just decoration or elevator music, or something that can always be  
attended to &#8220;later&#8221; &#8212; I.e., usually never. This is  a serious and  
significant problem for new media as well, including much Internet art.

Expressly political art can only succeed, it seems to me, if it comes  
from the inner depths.  For instance, I just finished reading Istvan  
Kertesz&#8217;s &#8220;Fatelessness;&#8221; I don&#8217;t think it is intentionally political  
but it certainly made me boil with anger at the human mistreatment and  
neglect of others. Such art brings what was already there inside us  
and adds to its centrality. But that doesn&#8217;t happen often. In my  
experience most political art is superficial and therefore bad, just  
as likely to turn off sympathetic feelings in the viewer as the  
opposite.

Incidentally,  I don&#8217;t know that good art necessarily causes us to  
think &#8220;Wow! I admire that.&#8221; But it doesn't easily let go of us.


Best,
Michael</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.19</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>eyescratch</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Sat, 23 May 2009 10:30:31 -0400</date>
<content>
On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 9:44 AM, Brian Holmes &lt;brian.holmes {AT} wanadoo.fr&gt; wrote:

&gt; So you want new media? Replay your avi file of the opening
&gt; ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics.
&gt;
&gt; What I am trying to get at with all of this is that art is
&gt; essentially media, it is not merely but essentially about
&gt; communication, only what is communicated is not just a phrase or
&gt; a slogan or a piece of information, but a problematic attempt
&gt; to reconfigure a world on every level of sensate and imaginary
&gt; experience.

Much of media studies is obsessed with witnessing an existence that is
part of mediality, to borrow a term from the previous discussion, by
placing great emphasis on inserting the observer into the equation.
Nevertheless these studies formulate a distinction to preserve some
authorship role. What this kind of representational relationship
ignores is that it precludes any kind of intervention in favor of a
conservation. If the art cannot be conserved because it is conceptual
or a piece of code, the identity of the author is preserved and
celebrated. This is because a piece of media arrives at its monetary
value by being bundled with products that claim to correct the
injustices, needs, or ailments being described in that piece of media.
The media is monetized either for its value of showing a certain lack
or showing the idealized completion that a product might fulfill. An
authorship identity, it turns out, can fulfill this marketing function
nicely for the lack of any particular object that might or might not
exist or lacks monetary value, culminating it seems these days in a
guarded wikipedia entry.

Turns out, while searching for a word to describe the process of
entering into communication via media I looked up mediated. There is
plenty of secondary literature on McLuhan using this word to capture
the processes McLuhan describes, but he himself only uses the word
mediated with the original definition to describe the arbitration
that happens in a conflict. Using the term mediated in the sense that
a form of communication is performed via media, still implies that
there is an exchange occurring where each party must sacrifice some
of their preconceptions in a productive process that is manufacturing
representation. Otherwise this representation veers very quickly
towards the ideological.

hTTp://eyescratch.tk</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.20</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>Florian Cramer</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Mon, 18 May 2009 23:04:49 +0200</date>
<content>
On Sunday, May 17 2009, 10:59 (+0200), carlos katastrofsky wrote:

&gt; what i am always wondering about is why the media arts field is so
&gt; concerned with its media. is dealing with "new media" or "old media"
&gt; an excuse for making good or bad art? IMO defining art by its media
&gt; is on the same level as defining art by its subject. not getting
&gt; over these definitions will result in a ghetto-situation sooner or
&gt; later.

I am not so sure whether I agree. It all depends on your definition of
"media". The problem is that the word "media" means quite different
things in different contexts: In the arts, it traditionally refers
to the material means of expression from which artworks are created
[painting, sculpture, photography, video, performance - that were also
the media meant with such terms as "intermedia", "mixed media" and
"multimedia" since the 1960s]. In communication studies, "media" is
practically synonymous with mass media and refers to an apparatus and
system of communication, including newspapers, radio, TV, Internet.
In other humanities, there is a notion of media as any symbolic or
semiotic carrier.

For example, in the contemporary art (but not media art) world,
there just has been a series of exhibitions on pornography, from
"BodyPoliticx" in Rotterdam to "The Porn Identity" in Vienna. One
could call pornography a medium and thus say that these exhibitions
were curated from a media perspective. After all, the ars electronica
did almost the same thing with its "Next Sex" theme in 2000. Or, a
random example taken from just having browsed the Tate Modern site
and its blurb on the current exhibition "Stutter": "The onomatopoeic
word 'Stutter' refers to an act of speech interrupted by agitated,
spasmodic, or involuntary repetitions. As the title for this
exhibition, it suggests a metaphor for questions of disruption and
discontinuity in processes of thought, systems of communications
or conceptions of knowledge." Again, this is pretty close if not
identical to curatorship from a media and communications viewpoint.

&gt; the problem -IMHO- is not that media art is not recognized by the
&gt; fine art world but that the fine art world is dealing with other
&gt; subjects.

If I take, for example, the subjects of the last nine transmediale
festivals ("Do It Yourself", "Go Public", "Play Global", "Fly Utopia",
"Basics", "Reality Addicts", "Unfinish", "Conspire", "Deep North"),
they could just as well have been the names of contemporary art
exhibitions at PS.1 in New York, KW in Berlin, Witte de With in
Rotterdam, or any other contemporary art space.

&gt; when was the last big exhibition dealing solely with "painting" or
&gt; "sculpture" you've seen? ars electronica and the others are doing
&gt; that every year: "new media art" with changing subtitles.

One could just as well say that contemporary art deals with "white
cube installation art" with changing subtitles.

&gt; the same problem persists when new media artists and theorists
&gt; insist on "politicalness" and "radicality".

The same terms abound in the contemporary art discourse if you read,
for example, "October" or "Texte zur Kunst".

&gt; those terms don't say anything about certain works either, no matter
&gt; which media is used in it. they only say that they may be recognised
&gt; as "political" in a certain time in a certain context.

IMO art is, like any public expression, always political. Art that
claims not to be political being all the more political as a matter
of fact (with symbolist l'art-pour-l'art being a prime example). What
I would describe as the political-artistic quality in the art of,
for example, ubermorgen is that unlike 'actual' politics, it can be
willfully and even criminally irresponsible. One could admittedly
dismiss this as a romanticist argument, but it has nevertheless a lot
going for it, not just if we look at gothic aesthetics and Bataille's
aesthetics of evil, but also at more recent artistic practices like
Otto Muehl's commune and Eastern European art since the 1980s.

&gt; but that doesn't say anything about it's "artness" either. "art
&gt; doesn't become art by having specific characteristics but by a
&gt; specific kind of processual reference to it." (J. Rebentisch,
&gt; Aesthetik der Installation)

Not knowing the full context of this quote, I nevertheless find such
systemic definitions of art quite risky. If the basic quality of art
- in the sense of 'Fine Art' - lies in its self-reference to its own
system, then it would be something very narrow and ultimately boring,
and something already exhausted by Duchamp in the 20th century. It
would pay a high price for having, since the 19th century, rid itself
from more popular forms of visual culture. Such a definition does not
even apply to the arguably most elitist forms of other contemporary
arts such as poetry and contemporary classical music, since poetry can
still be defined outside its own system as highly condensed/conjugated
language and new music as highly organized sound. - On top of that, it
is an exclusively Western concept of art which blatantly contradicts
the post-1990s efforts of integrating postcolonial considerations into
contemporary art. Remarkable enough, these integrations never question
the concept of "art" itself - although the concept of autonomous art
only exists in Western cultures or as a Western cultural import in,
for example, Asian countries (which traditionally do not separate art
from craft).

&gt; if i want to learn something about politics i would read a book with
&gt; proper information about it and not go to see art that repeats the
&gt; common sense that there are bad things existing in our world.

True. Only that exhibitions like Documenta XI have been haunted by
this concept of art.

-F

-- 
blog:     http://en.pleintekst.nl
homepage: http://cramer.pleintekst.nl:70
          gopher://cramer.pleintekst.nl</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.21</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts	Crisis</subject>
<from>carlos katastrofsky</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Tue, 19 May 2009 15:14:35 +0200</date>
<content>&gt; I am not so sure whether I agree. It all depends on your definition of
&gt; "media". The problem is that the word "media" means quite different things
&gt; in different contexts:

i agree. but exactly this is the point: media theory is swallowing
everything, but where are its boundaries? what i am trying to find as
artist (neither theorist nor philosopher) is a definition for art that
goes beyond a mere definition as "media" in whatever sense.
that is why i am aiming on the much-maligned term of "autonomy" (and
i'm following here the previous mentioned philosophy of j.
rebentisch). to me this doesn't mean art is somewhat apolotical or
dealing solely with itself (l' art pour l'art - i guess you had this
in mind when stating "[...] If the basic quality of art - in the sense
of 'Fine Art' - lies in its self-reference to its own system, then it
would be something very narrow and ultimately boring, [...]"). art is
made to be seen/heard/whatever - to be experienced. and this
experience is what defines art and not media. it can change in time
-we quite surely don't experience cave paintings in the same way the
ones did who made them- but i'm not sure if "the media" does, no
matter if it's read as "painting/drawing" or as "hunting scene". what
i am hoping to find by this is a possibility to think about "art" and
neither media nor porn or politics. these are -let's say- "themes"
that can be interpreted, but i hope that art goes beyond being a good
designed set of political opinions. i mean, what political context is
reflected in leonardo's "last supper"? we surely can speculate but do
we know? these are things that are bound to their time and context but
nevertheless we still percieve it as "art".

&gt; If I take, for example, the subjects of the last nine transmediale
&gt; festivals ("Do It Yourself",
[...]
&gt; One could just as well say that contemporary art deals with "white cube
&gt; installation art" with changing subtitles.
[...]
&gt; The same terms abound in the contemporary art discourse if you read, for
&gt; example, "October" or "Texte zur Kunst".

yep, exactly. and this what the "art world" makes as boring as "new
media art". what i had in mind when saying that the "fine art world is
dealing with other subjects" was not the (i would like to call it
nonexistent) contemporary discourse. what can be seen in the fine arts
field (but not in the big biz -documenta, ps1, kw, ...) is an
inclusion of possibilities in expression and perception which i never
saw in any media-art discourse (though i have to admit i am far from
following everything in that area).

&gt; Not knowing the full context of this quote, I nevertheless find such
&gt; systemic definitions of art quite risky. If the basic quality of art
&gt; - in the sense of 'Fine Art' - lies in its self-reference to its own
&gt; system,

i'm sorry if this comes through that way, i'm not the best in
formulating things. i never wanted to present art as solely
self-referential system. if autonomy is read as autonomy of the object
(l'art pour l'art) i would agree totally with you. but seen from the
viewpoint that "art" may not lie in an object but somewhere between
the object and the observer (experience, perception) an autonomy of
art is essential.


thank you all for your replies :-)

best,
carlos
-- 
http://katastrofsky.cont3xt.net
http://cont3xt.net</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.22</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts Crisis</subject>
<from>Station Rose</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Sun, 24 May 2009 13:52:26 +0200</date>
<content>
On Sunday, May 17 2009, 10:59 (+0200), florian cramer wrote:

&gt;If I take, for example, the subjects of the last nine transmediale
&gt;festivals ("Do It Yourself", "Go Public", "Play Global", "Fly
&gt;Utopia", "Basics", "Reality Addicts", "Unfinish", "Conspire", "Deep
&gt;North"), they could just as well have been the names of contemporary
&gt;art exhibitions at PS.1 in New York, KW in Berlin, Witte de With in
&gt;Rotterdam, or any other contemporary art space.

but it wasnt like that cause it was happening ONLY in a festival     .
&lt;ghetto&gt; situation                                                   .

as I see it, many art people are not going to events like
transmediale, cause its not seen as an important place for art. I dont
go, besides when we are actively part of it.

looks like media art is not sexy enough. the exhibits, as part of
festivals, are often too prudish. everything sensual seems forbidden,

too often it s needs written explanations to understand the
(political) work.

I do not believe - and I say that as an artist- that the written word
is necessary to &lt;understand&gt; a piece of art.it can help and make
details transparent, but its not necessary in advance.


my own experience with Station Rose media art projects-like recently
LogInCabin in MAK Vienna- is : they are recognized &amp; seen in art
spaces, museums by the art scene, but not as much in a so called media
art context as festivals are.

basically my impression is that as long as a dicussion like that one
goes on, it makes clear that the art world is something and the media
art scene is out of it.


-- 
----------------------------------------------------
Station Rose     digital_audio  - visual art      http://www.stationrose.com
....................    Gary Danner &amp; Elisa Rose

Frankfurt   - Cyberspace -  Vienna.

* recent project: 20 Digital Years. "LogInCabin" mediascultpure at 
MAK Vienna_sold
* new: "Interstellar Overdrive CD" Japan release (2.09)</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.23</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts Crisis</subject>
<from>John Hopkins</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Wed, 20 May 2009 17:01:58 -0600</date>
<content>carlos katastrofsky wrote:

&gt; what i am always wondering about is why the media arts field is so
&gt; concerned with its media. is dealing with "new media" or "old media"

exactly Carlos...

this revolves around the common (still, ongoing, &amp; perhaps permanent!)
problem of identifying creative impulses by their materialized remains
(media, mediated forms).  There are precisely identical histories of the 
rise of
(materially) specialized festivals, research centers, art school
departments, workshop venues, etc etc -- photography, for example.
Where are all the institutions and organizations and events that swirled
around that particular material result of creative impulse?  They are
gone, gone, gone.  Abd the ones who remain -- does anyone think they are
center for radical creative experimentation?  Most people don't even
remember them.  the Rencontres Internationale de la Photographie and the
Ecole Nationale de la Photographie in Arles, etc etc, huh, who cares?

when there is this material obsession, it is bound to be outmoded simply
because things aren't IT, looking at the world as a bunch of things
doesn't reveal the phenomenal nature of life: another words, focusing on
the detritus that is left, dead, after the creative forces have altered
the local universe -- well it's simply a death cult and is a dead end.
&lt;&lt;yawn&gt;&gt; why ponder on it?  Better to skip the material categorization
process altogether 'cause it IS a dead end...

jh</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>2.0</nbr>
<subject>&lt;nettime&gt; open letter to art critics</subject>
<from>Geert Lovink</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:03:18 +0200</date>
<content>(Written in response to the lack of debate during last weekend's 
Creative Time conference in NYC. I think art criticism is important 
source of inspiration and reference (or not) for net critique. The 
letter also refers to the ongoing, almost funny neglect by the 'art 
world' of 'new media'. /geert)


An open letter to critics writing about political art
- Stephen Duncombe &amp; Steve Lambert

Last weekend Creative Time held their fourth annual summit on the current
state of artistic activism. Over two days, scores of political artists from
around the world gave short presentations and organized longer workshops.
Hundreds of people participated.

The critical response, so far, has been underwhelming: few critics
attended and those that did had little substantive to say. It would be easy
to account for the overall silence and dismiss the surface commentary with
some snarky criticism of our own about a bullshit art world with their
head up their ass who can't recognize that something important is
happening right in front of them. And while this may be self-righteously
satisfying, it is not very helpful. We want to help.

How this event was -- and wasn't -- covered is indicative of the state of
criticism when it comes to political art. The problem is not necessarily
lazy criticism, but the fact that we don't have a developed vocabulary
with which to understand, and criteria with which to evaluate, political
art and activist artists. In an effort to develop a language and criteria
with which artistic activism can be usefully criticized, we offer the
following seven questions for the critic to consider:

1. Does it work? 

Art about politics is not necessarily political art. The function of
political art is to challenge and change the world. This should be obvious,
but there is plenty of "political art" which uses social injustice and
political struggle as mere subject matter: making these forces objects for
contemplation and, perversely, appreciation. The point of political art is
not to represent the world but to act within it.

Thus, the first question to ask of political art is: Does it Work? We
don't mean: does it work aesthetically? but does it work politically. This
entails asking more questions. Questions like: What does the artist want
to achieve with their work? What change do they see happening through
their work? How will this change happen? Who is affected, what affect will
the work have on them, and what actions will these people take?

We're not suggesting that there's one criterion of efficacy for political
art, nor is there one goal that all political arts should move towards.
What we are saying is that political artists, if they want to change the
world, need to think about what they want their work to do. And critics,
if they want to seriously interrogate and evaluate this work, have to both
examine those political aims and ask whether the artist has succeeded.

It is hard to truly succeed as a political artist. Many times, an artist
aims short and sets out to "intervene" and "raise awareness" about a social
problem or political issue. This is the low hanging fruit of political art.
Other work sets out to have a direct impact in a discernible way. Using
art to defeat a pending policy, or elect a politician. This is more
ambitious on the part of the artist, and easier -- if not boring -- for the
critic of political art to judge. Much harder, much more ambitious, and
therefor much more difficult to evaluate, is art that intends to change
the very way we see, act and make sense of our world -- including what we
understand to be politics itself. It is hard to measure the long term
total victory of a shift in the culture.

2. Who is the audience?

The art critic is the audience for most art, and therefor it's quite valid
for the critic to write from his or her own perspective. The audience for
political art is quite different. Political art, by it's very name, has the
"polis" as its audience and this constitutes a much broader demographic -- 
one in which the art critic is confronted with readings of art radically
different than their own. As diverse as we'd like to imagine the audience
for most art to be it draws from a very narrow population, one in which
the art critic is at home. But when the audience is a wider public, the
tried and true perspective of the veteran art critic comes up short. The
critic of political art needs to place themselves in the minds of very
different people. This takes humility. It may even require taking the
radical step of talking to the audience, asking them what they see, what
they think. These are basic techniques of journalism and ethnography that
an art critic may not be accustomed to.

3. What is the relevant tradition?

The tradition that serves conventional art criticism doesn't often work
when it comes to political art. Drawing together art's historical and
theoretical connections, while impressive to the writer's erudite
readership, and possibly entertaining, is largely irrelevant. There are
connections to be drawn, to be certain, but the valid ones here are more
likely to be found in histories of social movements and textbooks in the
fields of marketing, advertising, and public relations. Theories in human
cognition and decision making, for example, are far more applicable,
useful, and insightful into the work of the artistic activist than
discussion of its relation to the newest aesthetic or Albers' color
theory. The training most critics have is not sufficient for fully
understanding this work. Indeed, knowledge of sociology, community
organizing, or rhetoric lends crucial insight into what political artists
are doing, and whether they are doing it well. You are not alone in your
ignorance. We readily admit that many artists are in dire need of this
knowledge as well.

4. What medium and why?

For art critics, medium is important. It situates the work within an
historical canon, provides context and meaning, and a sense of continuity.
For the artistic activist medium is important too, but as a means: the
instrument through which one reaches the audience to effect change.
Therefor, discussions about means are dependent on political
considerations, such as who is the audience, how they are most effectively
reached, and so on.

To privilege one medium over another in the absence of a discussion of
efficacy is to miss the point. A good political artist's practice is
promiscuous when it comes to medium. Critical Art Ensemble said it best
with four words. The artistic activist works: "by any media necessary." A
good critic, therefor, judges the political artist on the mastery of the
medium they choose for the task at hand.

5. What kind of mastery is required?

Fine artists are often rewarded for the degree of control and mastery over
their medium. We valorize artists who can transform materials to fully
express their vision without compromise.

Political art, however, is engaged in the world. The world is messy. It
has a lot of moving parts. This material is impossible to fully control or
master -- and shouldn't be (unless you have fascist ambitions). Whereas
compromise for the traditional artist means diluting their vision,
compromise for the political artist is the very essence of democratic
engagement.

The venue for the traditional artist is galleries and museums -- controlled
spaces where the art itself does not need to speak very loudly because all
attention is focused on it. Political art has a dauntingly large venue: the
street, the marketplace, the mass media. This is an out-of-control space
where one competes with the cacophony rather than retreating into silence
and solitude. Political art, responding to this space, is often brash and
loud. Subtlety is sometimes not its strong point. But we shouldn't fault a
creative activist practice for what's inherently required of it. Indeed,
it should be judged on how well it opens up a space, is read, and
understood within this arena.

Some art lovers may be turned off by this focus on the practical and
tactical, but for creative activists these concerns are essential. We are
not, however, arguing that the informed art critic should simply be
judging political art on how effective it is in communicating a message.
Aesthetics matter -- but they needn't be seen in opposition to efficacy. If
one's goal is to affect change, form serves function. Art that succeeds
aesthetically also has a better chance of succeeding politically.
Beautiful art is art that people are drawn towards. The power of art lies
in its ability to open up a space to ask questions rather than deliver
answers. We think this makes for good politics too.

6. What am I missing?

The "art world" is truly a world all its own, with separate cultural
spaces, communities, and languages. The detachment of fine arts from
popular culture is the norm.

Alternatively, for creative activists, popular culture is their briar
patch. Whereas in fine art, engaging in this terrain is read as pandering,
ironic, "critical," and at all times, exceptional, for political artists
it is the rule. In order to reach everyday people one must speak in a
language they understand. This can be interpreted as dumbing things down.
It is not. In order to convey complex radical ideas in a vernacular
largely developed for and oriented toward consumer sales and crass
manipulation requires a great deal of intelligence and skill. And the
better you do it, the more likely it is to be overlooked.

Within the fine art world to stand out and be noticed is a clear sign of
success. In the practice of artistic activism you are more successful the
more your art weaves into the fabric of popular culture -- lost to the art
world. The entire effort is shrouded in camouflage.

Critics are forgiven for passing over the best of this work in the past,
but let's all begin to look more carefully, ok?

7. What's my role as a critic?

The relationship between artists and critics is often a fraught one.
Critics can be lauded for how well they skillfully and cleverly demolish
and denigrate artists' work. This aligns with the dominate competitive
logic of the commercial art world. This is the paradigm, in part, that
political art is trying to change. Despite this cannibalistic tendency,
we all know that makers and critics live in symbiosis. This is especially
true when the art operates in the broader society and the function of the
work is not to be a unique and valuable object but to effect the world.

In this realm, the art critic is part of the team, with everyone working
towards the big win of a better world. Being a good team member for artists
means making powerful work. Being a good team member for the critic means
offering insightful, relevant, and instructive criticism.

Art critics raise questions. Questions are good. But questions for what
purpose? If you're a political artist, and you're primarily showing people
how smart and clever you are, you're not producing good political work.
The energy is misdirected. The same goes for critics. If you're writing
primarily as a demonstration of how smart and clever you are, you have lost
the soul of being a critic.

The critic might want to ask themselves, why am I writing this? Am I
clarifying and illuminating the work? Am I instructing the artist and the
audience so that better work is produced. Or am I "problematizing" as a
demonstration of my prowess as a thinker. ("Problematizing" is too often
used as a cheap substitute for understanding, analyzing and aiding.)

Being a critic, like being an artist, involves some degree of
selflessness. There is a larger purpose. The critic, through their
attention and analysis of the work, provides a helpful service.

Of course we all know this, but it's easy to get off track.

It's bigger than you and it's bigger than the art.

Modern art is rooted in the belief that the artists' individual expression
is important. In turn, the individual critic's opinions about said artists
and art are important. Think Pollock and Greenberg.

With political art a bigger game is being played. There are still
individual artists and individual critics, but the stakes are not about the
reputations of artists and critics. What's at stake is the transformation
of the entire society. If this sounds grandiose, you may be in the wrong
business.

We don't train people to be good political artists in our art schools.
Most institutions are slow to adapt and are, at best, fighting the old myth
of the lone genius artist expressing their vision in spite of society,
rather than moving forward towards a world in which artists work
collectively in an embedded engagement with society.

Call us optimists, but we assume anyone producing creative work to affect
power is doing it from a sincere and passionate place. If it's not working,
it's not because they don't care enough or aren't committed. It's because
we haven't developed a critical tradition that helps artistic activists
strengthen their work. Political art needs help.

This is why we need you.

Because we're all in this together.

--

See also:
http://artisticactivism.org/2012/10/an-open-letter-to-crtitcs-writing-about-political-art/an-open-letter-to-art-critics/

The Center for Artistic Activism: artisticactivism.org
Steve Lambert: visitsteve.com
Stephen Duncombe: stephenduncombe.com</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>2.1</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; open letter to art critics</subject>
<from>Brian Holmes</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:14:35 -0500</date>
<content>
An open letter to critics writing about political art
- Stephen Duncombe &amp; Steve Lambert
</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>2.2</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; open letter to art critics</subject>
<from>Flick Harrison</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Fri, 26 Oct 2012 07:44:07 -0700</date>
<content>When I read a sentence like this:

"Much harder, much more ambitious, and therefore much more difficult to
evaluate, is art that intends to change the very way we see, act and make
sense of our world -- including what we understand to be politics itself."

I see my life story unfolding in a single problem.

This kind of subtle, provocative or ontologically-challenging work means,
for one thing, an audience limited to those interested in both art and
politics simultaneously.

I would add, however, that the words "art" and "politics" could be swapped
in that sentence, with equal truth.

When engaging with activists there is a demand for practical political art;
agitprop, posters, propaganda, fundraising videos, etc.  When the artist
strays from dogma, they become useless, if not dangerous, to movements.
Meanwhile, engaging the art world with politicized art brings the spectre
of partisanship (with its threat to state funding &amp; rich donors) if not
simple disinterest or politically-motivated rejection.

Therefore at the same time as you call for more critical consideration of
political art, I'd call for more political consideration of it as well.

I'm currently in a collective doing what's called here "publicly engaged"
art; that is, artist residencies in community centres etc where the act of
bringing people together to make art is seen as a positive political
action.  The content of the art is irrelevant to that - except insofar as
the content must emerge from the participants, rather than from above.
It's important to push for high-quality final product, to create a
dedicated team, etc, but the politics is contained in the form of the
project rather than in the results.

Here's our website:

http://somethingcollective.ca/

Critical reception for this kind of art, as far as I can tell, is pretty
slim.  It's not considered "good enough" to warrant proper critical review,
sort of like community theatre, and the political process contained in the
work isn't relevant to art theory, or something.

Headlines Theatre is another group that does this kind of work in a
different way - they do Boal-based Theatre of the Oppressed projects, i.e.
interactive forum theatre with audience members getting on stage to try to
work out the characters' problems.  The theatre critics often don't really
consider it proper theatre, though there is the occasional review.

This one is from Jerry Wasserman, who is the head of the UBC Theatre and
FIlm Department, which I suppose is as legit as it gets, although UBC is
more production- than theory-oriented:

http://www.vancouverplays.com/theatre/reviews/review_after_homelessness_09.shtml

In any case, my latest work is this video I created with an anonymous
activist group in Newfoundland, who took advantage of my residency at Black
Bag Media Collective to get me on board their anti-pesticide campaign.  I'd
love to hear any critical reaction to it.

http://youtu.be/QEoZJWmcBjk


-Flick

--
* WHERE'S MY ARTICLE, WORLD?
http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Flick_Harrison

* FLICK's WEBSITE &amp; BLOG: http://www.flickharrison.com</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>2.3</nbr>
<subject>Re: &lt;nettime&gt; open letter to art critics</subject>
<from>Margaret Morse</from>
<to>nettime-l@kein.org</to>
<date>Sat, 27 Oct 2012 09:52:48 -0700</date>
<content>Dear Flick,

I agree with you and Geert that publicly engaged art is important and that
it gets little critical attention.  What struck me about the theater review
from Vancouver--
http://www.vancouverplays.com/theatre/reviews/review_after_homelessness_09.shtml
-- is that it provided a valuable description of the remarkable performance
as well as the reviewer's despair about the eventual prospects for success
of this emerging form of theater in actually providing actionable ideas for
social change.  The Vancouver play offers the audience the delicious
opportunity to see some audience members actually intervene in the
performance and take the unfolding narrative in another direction again and
again.  Furthermore, we have a life/art connection of the actors and the
audience who have experienced difficult and demoralizing life events and
lived.  What failed for the critic was the reception by the audience,
particularly in the focus discussion afterwards.  

However, the stakes here are far more fundamental. Why not think about this
as a matter of practice and cultivation?  Why should a public be good at
this when they have so few opportunities to develop their critical
capacities? For me, this genre takes off from Bertolt Brecht's ideas and
pushes them further along.   Brecht's performance practices aim at
activating critical faculties that lead to action in the world--the
audience should be able to see unfolding dramatic events in the life course
as far from inevitable.  That entails a number of performance practices
typical of a Brecht play:-for instance, the actors don't embody or identify
with their roles; the narrative is constantly being interrupted with
moments for reflection; dramatic events are put within a larger
socio-political context and discourse.  We critics of publicly engaged art
also need more practice in writing on such performances.  We also need to
create a space and an audience with which we can engage and hone our
abilities.   I regret having had to put down my pencil for several years
after co-convening a very successful conference on The Art of Collaboration
held at UC Santa Cruz in 2008.  Word did not get out about the conference
contributions, to my regret.

All the best,
Margaret</content>
</mail>
</mails>
</chapter>