[-empyre-] Re: empyre digest, Vol 1 #172 -

[newradio <new.radio@verizon.net>]

Hi: This message went astray. It should have arrived yesterday morning when
the list was closer to its source. But thought I'd send it anyway. -- Helen
Thorington 
 


Thanks Adrian.  I agree.  Your remarks make me think -- as Valerie has
already said -- that we should start with an understanding of the "art" ..

Data Dynamics was a great show. But it involved a transformation of works
made for the net.  I'm thinking specifically of "The Apartment",   a
commission of the turbulence site for the net. At the Whitney it became an
installation that used the net. Christiana can probably tell us a great deal
more about how this show took shape, how she worked with the artists and
what goals they set. And, not to forget, how much it costs to do this.

At an unfunded level, I worked with three artists for a show at the Moving
Image Gallery in lower Manhatten (NYC) in '00, where the original work
remained more or less intact while staged or framed in a way for the
physical space. And where the physical space itself was modified, if only by
closing out the light, to provide a better landing place for virtual
"descenders". Here only a modest effort was made on the part of two of the
artists to adapt their work. One said: "My work is already a site specific
work and  its site is the Internet.  It was never intended to be part of the
physical world."  The third artist (the most successful) transformed hers,
making it another piece.

Of equal interest to me was Christine Wang's show at the Tribes Gallery
where "Distance" a work Turbulence had commissioned appeared as an object on
the wall.   It's progress into physical space was one you could trace.. part
of a continuum or progression... one that moved from  a) a stream of
simultaneous online video and chat,  to b) organized documentation -- the
web work "Distance", which is comprised of digital photographs of the
realtime interaction, still in virtual space  and made visible by the users
click... to c) two  photographic images... each printed on its own thick
mount and  fixed to a real wall at  285 3rd Street, Manhattan.  The Netscape
frame,  the hiss and crackle of the sound were reminiscent of an earlier
streamed interaction... but what you really had was manageable physicality:
objectness.

-- Helen

My PS for July 5: I think there are other issues that should be taken into
account in this discussion -- funding, and (in the US) the drift of limited
funding to larger established organizations, the "corporatization" pressure
put on not-for-profits -- and the shift on the Internet from a more open,
innovation-encouraging environment, to more control. Large institutions,
corporatization of smaller ones, control, all make me feel that anyone
interested in the development of the Internet and its potential as an
artistic context should think hard and tread carefully ..

I have no question that we're seeing, with museum and gallery involvement,
the development of a lot of interesting "new" work connecting the Internet
with physical space. ($$$)   But there's a lot of stuff that should be
floating free, and whether you call it (or the museum curator calls it) art
is of less consequence than that its development be encouraged.


on 7/4/02 1:09 PM, Jo-Anne Green at j.o.green@verizon.net wrote:

> 
> 
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: RE: [-empyre-] galleries & establishments
> Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 10:08:38 -0400
> From: valerie <valerie@mobilegaze.com>
> Reply-To: empyre@imap.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> To: empyre@imap.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> References: <E7776528DE48D21187080000F6B83AB203F1FF50@mail>
> 
> Hi Christiane -
> 
> Thanks for your comments. You know, it's so important to understand
> the politics of how things come about. I actually though "Data
> Dynamics" was a great show - it permitted the public to zero in on a
> few works and interact w/ them within a specific thematic.
> 
> I'm glad you bring up the topic of budget & politics. I am presently
> working w/ the Musée du Québec on what will be the *first museum
> presentation of net.art in Canada. It is a huge leap of faith on the
> part of the institution - and they have really risen to the occasion.
> The budget (now) is about 5x more than what they first had in mind -
> they have been willing to invest (in more ways than one) in the
> presentation etc. But I think that if they hadn't seen the Whitney
> show "Data Dynamics" (for example), they may have never considered
> showing net.art in the first place. It is (and has been) a very
> enriching experience to talk about net.art to a completely new
> community (the museum) - and they are very excited to show this kind
> of work.
> 
> However, I'd like to ask, do you see the Whitney expanding its
> support of net.art? And how? (eg. presentation, condervation,
> collections etc.)
> 
> Valerie
> 
> 
>> I've mostly been a lurker on Empyre (and enjoyed many of the
> discussions) --
>> unfortunately I seldom have time to post...
>> 
>> I just wanted to add an entirely mundane footnote to Patrick's comments re
>> the net art in the Whitney Biennial (which I curated).
>> 
>>> In the case of the Whitney, it's clear that the issues related to the
>>> representation of net art within the gallery are not yet resolved.  In
>>> both instances, the work was either relegated to a dark room >or
>> 'net.ghetto' or awkwardly positioned next to the stairwell, outside >of the
>> gallery proper. There are exceptions, like Yael Kanarek's >TreasureCrumbs,
>> but that exhibit was offlien at the moment I saw it, >therefore it didn't
>> translate well at all.
>> 
>> I completely agree with the comments (and voiced them myself a zillion
>> times) but the issue is a larger institutional one than figuring out
> how to
>> best represent net art in a gallery. As banal as it is, the problem here
>> very often is money, space, politics, and institutional support. There was
>> no money to show the works in a more "immersive" manner (and many of them
>> invited different forms of presentation than a kiosk set-up). I wasn't able
>> to choose the space either. Showing the net art next to the stairwell (not
>> to mention the gorgeous fire alarm sitting on those walls) to me seems to
>> make a statement in and off itself. The budget for the 10 Biennial net art
>> pieces was roughly 5% of the budget I had for the 5 pieces in "Data
>> Dynamics," which ran at the Whitney last spring (none of the works was shown
>> in a kiosk format). I'm far more interested in discussing and thinking about
>> concepts for displaying net art but budget, space and support are still a
>> big issue. Particualrly if one follows the traditional "press," it becomes
>> obvious that new media art hasn't yet found acceptance in the art world at
>> large (if that's desirable or not in the first place is an entirely
>> different issue).
>> 
>> 
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