Re: Forward from Christiane Paul: RE: [-empyre-] reply to Ben Bogart

[Pall Thayer <palli@pallit.lhi.is>]

On 7.3.2006, at 23:19, Robbins @ Jetztzeit wrote:
> Quickly the point I'd like to suggest in response to Christiane's  
> statement below is in regard to the often levied criticism that  
> "New media art is all about technology."  Unfortunately,  I believe  
> this is more often the case than not.  However, painting is not  
> simply about painting as such ( materially and technically speaking.)

I would say that this comment is well addressed by Christiane here:

> If an art recipient / museum visitor is unfamiliar with a specific  
> technology or interface, it will automatically move to the  
> foreground and become the focus of attention -- which very often is  
> completely unintended by the artist. For the expert audience, on  
> the other hand, the technology tends to be transparent, it moves to  
> the background and becomes mostly a vehicle for content.  
> Unfortunately, this problem of focus and perception cannot easily  
> be solved.

This holds true for everything. Not just technology based art. If I  
knew nothing about painting, I could easily assert the claim that  
painting is about the technology behind painting. In the same way, I  
would say that heavy-metal is about screaming guitar solos and  
classical music is about the orchestra. But just to take things a  
little further, I would argue that there's a lot of new media art  
(generative and data visualization), that is in fact painting. I'd be  
interested in hearing about some samples of well-recognized new media  
work that is only about the technology.

Pall



--
Pall Thayer
palli@pallit.lhi.is
http://www.this.is/pallit