[-empyre-] bak.jump: [academic/historical] models + approaches

[jonCates <joncates@criticalartware.net>]

Anna Munster <A.Munster@unsw.edu.au> wrote:
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] ~~NMR
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 11:46:39 +1100

>I'd be interested to hear from people who have been involved in anything 
>like this - how successful it might have been, etc

++

Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Opening remarks on new media history
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 00:55:33 -0500 (EST)

>But when performance (instead of <attribute performance>, just like theory 
><instead of attribute theory>, became tethered to classes, theory accompanied 
>it (performance theory of course), and the work became more predictable, and
>also large-scale (thinking of say Robert Wilson). The rough edges disappeared, 
>but so did the dis/comfort of the audience - think of the difference again 
>between the Living Theater and Wilson.

++

Simon Biggs <simon@littlepig.org.uk> wrote:
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Opening remarks on new media history
Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 13:45:37 +000

>Trying to create a space for aspiring artists to discover what it is they
>might do and/or become within the institutional walls of the academy is
>contradictory. 

curriculum development, course offerings + the inclusion of theory in the 
discourse do create predictability but not the erasure of [difficult/
unmanageable] works. that is an overestimation of the effect of academia (which 
[imho] is a brilliant  ex of a truly self-serving academic attitude).
for the past 5 years i have been developing what has become the New Media 
curriculum in the Film, Video and New Media dept @ the School of the Art 
Institute of Chicago. i began creating the foundational basis + articulations 
of the curricular path for New Media when the dept was the Video dept, prior to 
the merge with Film + the restructuring as Film, Video and New Media. in my 
work @ the School, as an artist + as a coreDeveloper of criticalartware, i am 
[engaged/energized] by slippery historical basis for, subjective recollections 
of + experimental approaches to the [construct/category] of New Media. there 
are many thorns, brambles, branches, blossoms, snares, contradictions, 
complications, uncertainties + ambiguities in any ongoing process of genre-
formation + defining "Distinctive Features of the Medium" (david antin) but i 
thoroughly believe that instability is not @ all incompatible w/"Teaching to 
Transgress" (bell hooks). in fact, it can be very helpful + inspiring.
many [her/hi]stories are possible while overlapping, timelapsing + resisting 
one another. these [situations/discussions/works/institutions/organizations] 
are more fluid then fixed b/c they are literally always undergoing 
articulation, reclaimation, negotiation + remediation. these instances are 
wonderfully transient, temporary, contingent + unstable much like new media. 
i have been heartened by the dynamics of this discussion in rltn to new media + 
education + will be asking students in my newly [offered/developed] New Media 
01 course to read excerpts from the archive as well as exceprts from the NMR + 
other srcs so that they might enter these discourses + encounter new media as a 
set of contested, multiple + modular theorypractices.   
jonCates
# coreDeveloper
# criticalartware
# http://www.criticalartware.net
# ++
# Instructor
# Film Video and New Media
# School of the Art Institute of Chicago