[-empyre-] is: institutionalization was: art games pre computers

[jonCates]

hi Paul (+ all)

Paul, as you may have noticed, your work is + has been very  
inspirational/influential for me + those who i collaborate w/... as i  
am sure it is for others onList also... + in this thread, an  
important text/presentation of yours for me is:

Initiation and the Academy - Paul Brown (1998)
http://www.paul-brown.com/WORDS/ISEA98.HTM

in which you wrote:

"Historical models suggest that there is a 40 year hiatus between the  
invention of new technology and emergence of a mature aesthetic or  
language which may govern it's use as a creative medium."

so that has a resonance for the sound of academicized taxonomies +/or  
communal folksonomies of Art Games + gaming as are being discussed  
here + now

On Mar 22, 2008, at 3:50 PM, Paul Brown wrote:
> However it seems to me that contemporary practice doesn't or  
> shouldn't last forever - it evolves and changes

yes, which is why a process-orientation helps orient (by which i mean  
navigate, not otherize) + organize

> So two things can happen to it.  It can be institutionalised by the  
> mausoleums and thus became a "legitimate" part of the historical  
> record.  Or it dies with the artist(s) and is effectively lost and  
> forgotten though (like early computer art) may assume some  
> "apocryphal" status.

really though? these are our only 2 options? this is binary? b/c it  
seems to me that through play + playful forms, i.e. FLUXUS or Art  
Games or new approaches to archiving activity that are all as Julian  
wrote here 'plastic' or 'parasitic' as Anne-Marie Schleiner wrote in:

"Parasitic Interventions: Game Patches and Hacker Art" - Anne-Marie  
Schleiner (1999)
http://www.opensorcery.net/patchnew.html

could be hybrid in a way that can prevent the kind of binary collapse  
into either/or oppositional states that you suggested earlier were  
the only possible outcomes of a historical process...?

// jonCates
# Assistant Professor - Film, Video & New Media
# The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
# http://saic.edu/~jcates
# Game As Art, Art as Game
# http://artgames.ning.com