[-empyre-] who decides what to keep in the long term

[<valerie.leblanc@acadnet.ca>]

Following are a few responses to February's Digest:
There are many valid points to investigate in the in the
concept of digital archiving but, as Sharmin Choudhury
posed on Feb. 7, the question of 'who decides what to
keep,' not in the immediate but in the long term has to be
one of the most challenging.


Re: Ellen Fernandez-Sacco's correspondence to Jon Cates in
reference to Naim June Paik's views:

Nam June Paik, often positioned as progenitor of Video Art,
first
resident artist of the Experimental Television Center,
studied by the
Variable Media Network in relation to archiving, + who
first deployed
the phrase "information superhighway", provides an art
hystorical
reference to this conversation, interlinking various
strands of these
hyperthreads...
"This is a glimpse of a new world, when you will be able to
switch on
every TV channel in the world and TV guides will be as
thick as the
Manhattan telephone book.?
data.src:
title: Global Groove
dvr: Nam June Paik
date: 1973
format: [video/performance/satellite transmission/network]


VL:
Nam June Paik himself poses an excellent example of 'what
is kept.' When bringing him into discussions I, of course,
also quote that he has been noted as the first video artist
(through taking his portapak into the street during a papal
outing.)  NJP has set many standards by breaking through
what was what he perceived as the standards.  Nam June Paik
has to be one of the primary icons (and iconoclasts) when
speaking of new media, performance.  Yet, I also mention
that the beginning of video art cannot be attributed to one
person and no movement ever needs to be distilled to one
defining moment.  

In all of his wondrous accomplishments and ideas, Nam June
Paik must also represent that brand of SUPERSTAR
COLONIALIST representative of the 1970's.  Many amazing
breakthroughs belong to him.  And yet, if we read through
the videotapes and reports of performances, there were many
collaborators.  In a sense, all of his collaborators from
the decades of the sixties, seventies, eighties, and on...
are there on the pages, engraved in invisible ink.  Digital
repositories, can certainly provide the means to expand on
the sense of the 'era.'  Links to other Fluxus artists can
be visited and we can get more a sense of the whole
picture.  When that frame (of reference) is expanded,
Charlotte Moorman is then immediately seen and we see the
more elaborately other facets of Nam June Paik's life as an
Artist and a person.  The 'why' becomes more evident, we
get more of a feeling 'for the whole mesh of the this time
period in human history.'  In a sense, the 'art' of the
time becomes more integral, it is seen as having place and
not as something set outside of the 'necessary.' 

One of the most significant factors counter productive to
the Fluxus and other avant garde movements, has been the
saving, the retrieval, the museum honoring of the 'relics'
of avantgarde performances.  Museums hold many relics. My
bias leans toward photography, film, video, and audio
recording.  I would prefer to see and hear these 'real
life' accounts as captured in image or voice.  Or, if the
occasion is well described to me, in the words of those
that were there, I will not need to touch the paper with
the trace of Nam June Paik's essence left when he dipped
his tye in paint and dragged it across paper.  Again,
digital repositories can house all of these 'simulation
tools.'            



And, again referencing NJP, if we leave only one prized
definition of our culture ('one' in the sense of discretely
attributed actions) for 'future minds' to read, how will
those minds be able to discern that this example
'personifies' what we truly value, place above all else,
when it will be found amid a myriad of logos, icons of
advertising, mythical symbols of the 'toys' of our times.
 In essence, how can any preserved cultural object hold
more power than the automobile or the 'American' fry?
 Maybe the answer lies again in the digital repository that
is capable of housing expansive records that are left
online.  NJP's 'glimpse of the ultra thick TV guide' may be
found in the form of that repository, but then again, 'how
can' and 'why should' the record of culture, as sometimes
the custom in the past, be reduced to an honouring 
system for superstars.  Again, I am referencing the
question that Sharmin has posed.



>From here I would like to reference the passage from
Saturday, Feb. 12 
1. Re: archiving (//jonCates) 

EXCERPT:
title: Video: Shedding the Utopian Moment 
dvr: Martha Rosler 
date: [1985/1986] 
format: [essay/txt] 

reapproaching Martha Rosler's shedding of utopian moments
from the 
perspective of net.art rather than Video Art , Rachel
Schreiber wrote: 

"Although early video artists utilized the tools of popular
culture, 
there was at that time a great difference formally between
video art 
and broadcast television productions. While recent digital
editing 
technologies have diminished this difference, enabling
artists and 
television producers alike to access higher-end
post-production for 
very little cost, the discrepancy persists. Some artists
have used this 
to their advantage, mining the amateur aesthetic as a
postmodern 
statement of non-mastery. Still, we can readily see the
difference 
between a video art production and a made-for-TV sitcom,
drama, or news 
show. When considered in relation to their parent
technologies?video in 
relation to broadcast television, net.art in relation to
the 
commerce-driven applications of the Internet?the gap in the
latter 
relationship may be shrinking. The primary reason is that
the means of 
production are precisely the same: net.artists and
corporate Web 
designers draw from the same skill set, sit at the same
computers, and 
use the same software." 

<---CUT-N-PASTE---> 



"Entering the Public Sphere and Other Issues of
Distribution 
as net.art can enter the public sphere seamlessly, the 
possibilities for subversion are far greater than for video
art. " 

VL:
This is a significant observation and is easily proven.  As
we sit at our machines, 'audiences of one,' we commune with
the sender, what can be more real than reading someone's
thought's, or posted statements? The encounter takes on
more 'reality' and 'seeing' there in the cyberspace is
'believing.'  What is laid out for us is often more than we
can experience through daily encounters in the material
world, sometimes, even in classroom dialogue.  Certainly
the possibilities for subversion are greater!  

<---CUT-N-PASTE---> 

"Net.art distribution is intrinsically easy. A URL can be
given out by 
mass e-mail, in response to specific inquiries, or on a
website, and 
people in varying locations may view the work as long as
they have 
access to a computer and an Internet connection. More so
even than with 
video, Jenik argues, the distribution system for net.art is
so 
intrinsic to the medium that it helps shape and define the
work itself: 
To the extent that the Web is a distribution system [which]
is also 
linked to the basic tools of production (HTML), it has been
granted a 
great deal of power in structuring the art created for it.
If the 
network is down, there is no way to see/access the work, so
in that 
case it may no longer even ?exist.? Also, many works are
dependent on 
the ?distribution? or connectivity of the Web in their very

conception--in a way, the distribution becomes a theme or
layer within 
the work itself." 

VL Response
Feb 13 / 05
Each form of presentation presents a new aspect, sometimes
making a work that was previously bordering on 'boring' ?
interesting and with new found significance but RETRO HAS
TO GO.  Last week I saw a bus ad for a radio station: a
large closeup of Paul McCartney with the caption, ?the long
and rewinding road.? For me, it represents all that is bad
with the revisiting of popular culture.  I won't be tuning
into that radio station but as an artist, I will probably
attend re-enactments of 70's performances and as a
researcher, I am constantly looking at previous time
periods.  I first found myself needing to look more closely
at aspects of archiving, and digital archiving when I saw
the three-quarter inch video format disappearing and being
replaced by new formats.  I am keenly interested in
exploring some responses Sharmin Choudhury's question and i
hope that they do not all render down to economics and
special interest politics.  And as we all work to
contribute to that dialogue, I stand on the soapbox and say
to artists working in all media:  try to make something new
without needing to prejudge its enduring significance
according to the weight of history and time.  At some point
we will have to leave the perfection of the genome map use,
high animal and plant profit turnover and remember to throw
a few ideas out there to burn up on contact, to be captured
and locked up in the dungeon, to be laughed at  - or to
strike a nerve that permits being laughed with, burned into
anecdotal memory, or to be carried through long term
mention and memory.

With the essay Facts And Artifacts in the Collective
Matrix, based on interviews with persons directly involved
in establishing digital repositories, personal archiving
and collecting, I have tried to offer first hand accounts
of the 'what - why - when,' the 'where' disappears in the
digital world; I hope that the 'who' does does not become
tied with the 'why' in the politics of economics and
surveillance.  

  
As I write this response, I am wishing that we could have a
standard response format so that the sections that we
respond to and our words of response could be easily
distinguished.  I hope that this reads okay by the time it
gets to the other sides of the world where you might read
this.
- Valerie LeBlanc
- all for today, February 14,05