Re: [-empyre-] bandwidth aesthetics

[Felix Sattler <felix@querformarte.de>]

Dear -empyreans-,

honor wrote:
> hi henry, alan et al,
>
> > I agree that in 20 years things are going to be a good bit different
> > (Assuming the likes of George Bush et al don't turn the USA into a 
> > typical
> > authoritarian disaster with no middle class) with better faster gear
>
> i guess my whole point was that you don't actually need " better faster
> gear" in order to create highly evocative + powerful works of art using
> streaming media.  i don't subscribe to the idea that we need to wait 
> for
> some unspecified future moment where broadband is ubiquitous, in order 
> to
> make meaningful works using this technology.  there is always going to 
> be
> bandwidth inequity, no m atter how technology + distrubution systems 
> evolve
> in the next few years.
>
> personally i think that some of the artistic experiments i pointed to 
> in my
> post, which utilise the network in its current sluggish, congested + 
> jerky
> form are not merely the produts of some interim creative era. they 
> tell us
> a lot about the underlying structures of the network + the things 
> artists
> have to consider when working with this network.  they are intelligent 
> and
> sometimes beautiful pieces in their own right.

I too believe there is no point in guessing what future technologies 
will provide us with - as then you had to include more than just a 
changing of the guard of some protocol or type of medium.
It's not just the bandwidth but the issues itself that will have 
changed.
I feel it is as in vain to try to work against the medium you are using 
as it is to keep on exploiting the technologies inherent 
characteristics as the only issue of an artwork.
Art's history (not just art history) has shown us that the most 
exciting artworks have always incorporated both a sense for their 
medium as for the current issues of the art world and society (and how 
both connect). Of course there every right to create utopia but then 
you don't try to image what the net will be but probably what 
everything else will have become, too.
By the way I found most of the works behind all those wonderful links 
provided by Honor (many thanks) have that sense for more than just 
their technological backbone - everybody is invited to have another 
look at.

Felix