[-empyre-] sum socialPolitical operating [contexts/systems]

[jonCates <joncates@criticalartware.net>]

Barbara Lattanzi wrote:
> I would like to hear how you and the criticalartware team might 
> characterise the contemporary political
> dimension of your project.

this is a very formidable + slippery challenge, but i will attempt to 
address sum of the socialPolitical [contexts/systems/positions] 
criticalartware operates [in/from].

//>Version>03_artists_software_development.exhb

our criticalartware version.1.2.4 release announced our participation 
in the Version>03 DigitalArtsConvergence @ the Museum of Contemporary 
Art Chicago. we curated an aspect of the convergence called 
"artist_software_development" featuring seven pieces of artware:

[_artist..............................................artware_]
mary flanagan....................................[search]
Hanna Kuts + Viktor Dovhalyuk...........stadt sound station
Barbara Lattanzi................................AMG STRAIN
Peter Luining.....................................traber073
Roman Minaev....................................content-type
Shirley Shor......................................Becoming
Josephine Starrs + Leon Cmielewski...Bio-Tek Kitchen

data.src:
http://www.criticalartware.net/dotexhb/versionfest03/

mini of these projects, esp AMG STRAIN + Bio-Tek Kitchen, operate out 
of direct + powerfully articulated political positions.

//Version>03_BerylKorot_ThreeTales.evnt

in addition to "artist_software_development" we brought Beryl Korot, 
a founder of Radical Software, to screen + discuss her most recent 
collaborative documentary digital video opera, Three Tales. Three 
Tales, described as "an exploration of the dire consequences of 
20th-century technology", also takes an 
[aestheticized/politicized/conceptual] stance on the socialPolitical 
[meanings/constructions] of the technological.

criticalartware version.1.2.4 release operates in a situated 
political [context/climate] + also underscores the way in which 
criticalartware functions as a platform to enable [discourse 
on/development of] the applications, thematics + early moments which 
frame our [activities/efforts].

//SFPCS_2003.prnt

in our presentation "realtime histories: analog bridges to digital 
systems" @ San Francisco Performance Cinema Symposium (SFPCS) 
(criticalartware coreDeveloper) blithe riley mapped the United States 
cultural context during the emergence of  (what would later be 
called) Video Art to the current moment. blithe drew into proximity 
the relationships between experimentation, art, activism, resistance 
+ the development of cultural alternatives in the US during times of 
war, movements for social justice + struggles for power. blithe 
emphasized that [aesthetic/structural] experimentation + resistance 
co-mingled b/c of the approaches of participants + imperatives of the 
times. this expressedly politicized version of the hystories we 
[discuss/develop] is an important part of our stance on + efforts to 
multiply parallel histories of knew media.

//KateHorsfield.int

in our interview w/Kate Horsfield (Executive Director of the Video 
Data Bank) she states:

"Video had a promise connected to it, it was a promise of looking at 
the world through a different perspective that was absolutely 
anti-television. It was where people could discuss complex issues of 
identity and race and economics or experiment with radical visual 
forms, like Woody and Steina have. The radicality was at the center 
of it, weather it was political radicality or creating something 
extreme in terms of this visualization. In the 80's video tried to 
behave nicely so that it could be more popular, particularly among 
television viewers. That was a stepping stone into wanting an 
acceptability, where even video artists were trying to get rid of 
this radical history.

...

I talked about how galleries in 1995 were sort of reinventing video 
and stripping off the history. This was the reason I got involved 
with Surveying the First Decade. It was revenge, really. Maybe they 
can claim that there is no history, but there is a very rich history. 
So, I  spent 5 years working on that project with Maria Troy, Deirdre 
Boyle and Chris Hill. It's a 17 hour VHS project that shows exactly 
what the history was, including all of the radicality of it. What is 
interesting about that, is that it has been a huge sales item. It 
wasn't the sales that I cared about. What I wanted was for every 
educator who was working with a younger generation of video artists 
to show them what the history was, to not let it totally disappear. 
As long as that project is circulating, it won't."

- Kate Horsfield on the precedents for + history of Video Art

//empyre.dll

bensyverson wrote:
> That being said, we stay fairly agnostic on a lot of technological 
> politics to avoid coloring the discourse >too heavily.

of course, coloring occurs + colors like categories always 
[leak/bleed]. in sum [instances/moments] [coloring/categorizing] is 
an intended goal. this goal functions while always in relation to the 
goal of [building/offering/facilitating] a platform for developing 
discourse + encouraging people to participate.
--
//jonCates
 ---> criticalartware coreDeveloper
http://www.criticalartware.net