RE: [-empyre-] net art, state and corporate patronage

[timothy murray <tcm1@cornell.edu>]

> Hello everyone.  After about 3 months straight of below freezing 
> weather here in Ithaca (we've had snow on the ground since December 
> 19), it's finally a beautiful sunny day with hints of warmth in the 
> air--the right weather to send our off for a week of debauchery on 
> their Spring Break.

I wanted to follow up briefly on Priamo's e-mail.  For in addition to 
the institutional challenges faced by curators in museum and library 
settings, there's always the "state apparatus" to acknowledge. 
Priamo suggests that the state holds unusual sway over curatorial 
decisions and assignments in Mexico.  It could be very important were 
we to hear from other participants of Empyre about this balancing act 
between state sponsorship (and censorship) and the curatorial role, 
as well as how this is interfaced institutionally in museums, etc.

What I also find  fascinating is how Priamo links the disempowerment 
(or empowerment) of the curator in Mexico to the lack of an 
industrial backbone.  His assumption is that the computer industry 
would play a more active role as a patron of new media were it 
actually producing technology in Mexico.  Taking off on this point, 
one of my disappointments is the minimal role played by the computer 
industry in supporting my American curatorial projects when it's had 
the chance.  Perhaps the greatest example is the only token 
contributions made by Apple when I first staged Contact Zones.  80% 
of the 65 CD-Roms were produced on Apple, just as 80% of the 
exhibition required Apples for its display.  Yet the company pretty 
much passed its opportunity (and responsibility?) for patronage 
directly onto the show's university host, which purchased most of the 
computers from Apple for the exhibition (although Apple's local sales 
representative did generously lend the exhibition 2 used i-Macs from 
his very limited pool of display models).

I suppose I remain struck by Apple's relative indifference to taking 
up the mantle of sponsorship.   For when it comes to display of 
digital artworks on individual computer screens, the curator is also 
faced with aesthetic decisions regarding design and display of the 
computers themselves, as the partial "ground" of the digital artwork. 
I found that the new i-Macs contributed greatly to the allure and 
attraction of the users who then subsequently found themselves 
enamored by the (alien for most) CD-Roms found within.  My naive hope 
what that a show such as this might have led to more interaction with 
the company on other levels such as design and multimedia support in 
a way that might have permitted the artists who use their systems to 
have more communication with the designers who control the systems 
(we all the frustration involved with Apple's failure to make new 
versions of QuickTime interface easily with earlier versions, etc.)

So further thoughts on both these issues would be more than welcome

Timothy Murray
Professor of Comparative Literature and English
Director of Graduate Studies in Film and Video
Curator, Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell Library
285 Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853
607-255-4012

Co-Curator, CTHEORY Multimedia: http://ctheorymultimedia.cornell.edu/