Re: [-empyre-] net art, curating and power

Beryl Graham <beryl@stare.com> · Fri, 14 Mar 2003 14:40:39 +0000

Dear Empyre List,
Greetings from CRUMB - as has been mentioned CRUMB is discussing 
'curatorial models' this month, and Christina has asked me to 
contribute on Empyre too.
On CRUMB, the debate has mentioned the lack of dictionary definitions 
of 'curating', and the root of the word in the clergy 'curate'. 
Something which several people on both lists have mentioned however, 
is the 'blur' between possible curatorial roles, and the need for 
'collaboration'.
In my experience, 'colloboration' has been particularly important in 
curating new media art, primarily for the very pragmatic reasons of 
the amount of technical knowledge demanded, but also because of the 
breadth of different debates and artforms within the very wide and 
vague term 'new media'.
I'm interested in the demand for collaborative curatorial skills 
which may be needed when you are working outside of the "New York, 
Paris, London" art axis. In my experience, you REALLY need to 
communicate,  to collaborate, to share your resources and critical 
responses, whether your insitution is a gallery, and media lab, a 
university, or a freelance laptop in your bedroom. This leads me on 
to Melinda's question ...
 every month ends up being an experiment.
its interresting that the crumb list has the same topic this month.. but i
notice crumb is much more structured than empyre .. im wondering Beryl how
you see curatorial control in this online forum context?
melinda

I don't personally mentally categorise what I do with the CRUMB list 
as as "curating", but perhaps it is like being a curate in the clergy 
sense of shepherding a flock (of cats, maybe).
Like curating, I suppose there a many different 'models' of running a 
list, and it has felt like different things at different times as 
we've tinkered with the format (perhaps the most memorable one in a 
time of crisis was Sarah's characterisation of us as "nannies to 
naughty kids"). Occasionally, we're the kind of nannies who are off 
drinking at a show opening when we really should be checking that 
nobody is killing their little brother, which is why we've changed 
the format to a theme every OTHER month.  We tend to do a lot of 
reminding and encouraging behind the scenes so it's quite labour 
intensive.
The official line is that we 'curate' in order to try to introduce 
interesting people and interesting ideas that may not otherwise 
spontaneously appear. Sometimes it works better than others. I try 
not to be too heavy-handed on the 'control'. A recent post sums it up 
in short:

"This list is not actually technically 'moderated' in that we don't

screen or select postings before they are posted.  We like to keep it

open.  We do however privately request members who repeatedly break the

guidelines to stop doing so (and very occasionally we remove members who

ignore the requests).  We occasionally wade in if things get sticky

(with varying degrees of success)."

yours,
Beryl

--

_________________________________________________________

Beryl Graham.

Post Doctoral Research Fellow in New Media, University of Sunderland

Tel: +44 191 515 2896     email:  beryl@stare.com

Curatorial Resource for Upstart Media Bliss 
http://www.newmedia.sunderland.ac.uk/crumb/