RE: [-empyre-] One more try

["Brett Stalbaum" <stalbaum@ucsd.edu>]

Nick states: " If you'd prefer that the new discipline not exist, or
would like to call it a filter or category and not allow it to be
considered as a discipline, a way of thinking, then you're putting
yourself on the sidelines of this new field -- I'm not doing that to you
-- and you are no doubt situating yourself somewhere within another
field. I wish you luck in it.
...
Rather, what I see as limiting are the unwarranted claims that nothing
good can come from this new field and that a perspective focused on our
culture's new computational abilities is silly and bound to be
fruitless."

Computation is at this time an inherent part of all of the various
representations (including database modeling as representation) that
impinge upon and mediate contemporary economic relations globally,
drilling down to significant economic impacts even for people who have
never seen or touched a computer - actually, especially for these
people. Why wouldn't artists welcome a discipline that can address the
ubiquity of computation as a global "agency" in a contemporary,
interdisciplinary and theoretical context that integrates the traditions
of the arts and the humanities?

Computation has transformed every academic discipline; that "new media"
has emerged as a sub-discipline of study across a broad range of "arts
and humanities" is no more surprising than finding bioinformatics and
econometrics emerge as important disciplines in biology and economics. I
am so bored writing that last sentence, and so amazed to see Nick
compelled to defend the obvious, when we should be thinking at this time
how to expand the diversity of new media practices. (In the sense of
particular practices, theory, aesthetic issues - the uses of computation
are incredibly broad and each use is a potential for intervention or
exploration by artists - but I also mean 'to expand' in a global sense
of cultural diversity - there is so much of importance yet to be
addressed that arguing about the dangers of engaging in a new discipline
is, as Nick said, fruitless.) I think the New Media Reader stands very
clearly as a landmark collection of key texts for further analysis of
'early' new media - it is in no way a collection that seeks to place
limits on what this still immature discipline is - for example in the
way that Ken Jordan/Randall Packer's book "Multimedia: from Wagner to
Virtual Reality" does.

All right, that is enough complaining from me: I am starting to sound
like an artist;-)

-----Original Message-----
From: empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
[mailto:empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Nick
Montfort
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 3:35 PM
To: soft_skinned_space
Subject: [-empyre-] One more try


Sorry that my thinking seems blinkered and stupefying. I'll try once
more
before the onslaught of the semester begins to restate this to everyone
and their single or double arrows:

The field that I'm part of, new media, is a discipline being developed
by
artists, theorists, scientists, and engineers, among others. If you'd
prefer that the new discipline not exist, or would like to call it a
filter or category and not allow it to be considered as a discipline, a
way of thinking, then you're putting yourself on the sidelines of this
new
field -- I'm not doing that to you -- and you are no doubt situating
yourself somewhere within another field. I wish you luck in it.

I hardly think the above perspective is limiting or oppressive. Rather,
what I see as limiting are the unwarranted claims that nothing good can
come from this new field and that a perspective focused on our culture's
new computational abilities is silly and bound to be fruitless. As I've
said, I am sure that new media will not be the only discipline or field
that deals with art on the computer. I would hope that those who come
from
other perspectives could be as open and accepting of a new discipline,
one
that seeks to critically understand such work and to inform the practice
of those who make it.

I'm afraid no one has said anything to persuade me that the computer is
incidental to new media or that a perspective focusing on it is
counterproductive. We already have a successful, productive discipline
based on the computer and computation: it's called computer science. I
think the uses of the computer for literary, artistic, ludic, and other
sorts of expression are also worth considering in a focused way, one
that
draws on computer science and on work done in the arts and humanities.
The
work of Espen Aarseth, Lev Manovich, Janet Murray, and others has
already
demonstrated to me, at least, that a strong new discipline can be
developed here.

-Nick Montfort
 http://nickm.com  nickm@nickm.com
 My new book, Twisty Little Passages: http://nickm.com/twisty
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre