Re: [-empyre-] traditional art world politics

["Patrick Lichty" <voyd@voyd.com>]

> To me, such a comment (mine) is rather semantic, and was a sidenote, but I
> see your point. What I mean by this is the cooptation of technological
forms
> of art by commodification and power structures (political, et al) that
> define the set of relations that are more prevalent in the larger art
> market.  For example, in conversation with SImon Biggs in '99, we remarked
> at the relatively horizontal political field of the net art community, and
> the again relatively open nature of that community.
>
> At that time, some stratification was taking hold, although small, and now
> that technological forms are being recognized more widely by the
> traditionalist institutions (Tate, SFMoMA, Louvre, Whitney, Guggenheim).
> This is also true of the the gallery system, albeit all of this on a
smaller
> scale.

In so doing, many of the issues in ththe traditionalist art cultural ecology
will transfer increasingly to the tech art world, and create its own system
of niches and architectonics that will be intrinsic to our genres, but will
nevertheless be linked to that previously extant social terrain.

> My feeling on this is that the milieu of technological art will have a
> component to it that is similar to the larger traditionalist art scene,
> combined with the effects of consumer marketing and claims of creativity
as
> facilitated by technology.  Not that this is a radical shift, in that all
of
> this has in part has already taken place, but my thought is that it will
> become more prevalent as technological art forays further into the
> mainstream.
>
> Not that many areas of technological art have their own agendas of elitism
> (both by virtue of access to knowledge and development of skill [dare I
say
> 'virtuosity'?], and others by technological, economic, social, and
> educational issues), and will not permit a 'populist tech art' per se.
> However, there are exceptions to all of this, such as the East LA high
> school robotics champions, cyberzapatistas, hacker culture, open source
> initiatives, etc.
>
> Therefore, although the same relations seen in traditionalist forms seem
to
> be inscribing themselves onto technological forms, there are areas in
which
> these relations will be more or less evident, but I feel that on the
> average, the move will be in the direction of the shape of the terrain of
> the extant art world, professional and amateur.
>
> However, as mentioned, this was merely a sidenote, and had little to do
with
> what I was trying to propose.
>
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