[-empyre-] Gross materiality

[G.H. Hovagimyan]

gh comments:

There's a discussion afoot on what constitutes a new media archive  
and a new media curator.  I envision a new media curator as a person  
who is trained in code and hardware systems and  technology.  They  
are able to assemble show that range from finding old hardware to  
assessing the artists intention and updating the work to new  
hardware. Going along with that I always assume that whatever  
software you use or if you hand code you will be using a variation of  
c or c++ etc..  Therefore part of any new media piece should be a  
general description of how what the intention of the work is by the  
artist, how it is to be shown and the underlying coding structure and  
any files or database associated with the work.  It should be that an  
astute new media curator can re-constitute a work using the latest  
hardware and software for these elements. This allows for the curator  
to function somewhat like the conductor of an orchestra using the  
score of a musical work and interpreting.

The other aspect of new media is maintaining a new media archive.   
This is essentially a server/database that contains all the files and  
copies of one's ouevre. This Archive can  be either maintained online  
run as a server and/or also be gifted to a university, museum or  
library.  With these parameters I think one can begin to define what  
*digital art* will look like in the future and what it will be like  
looking back.

In anycase none of this has to do with markets and the art world and  
gross materiality. It does however point to a direction for the  
future of art no matter what the current object obsessed art world   
demands. Think about this, the global manufacturing system has  
reached a plateau of objects where the only path now is to make every  
person on earth live like an American.  If this happens there won't  
be an earth. Object making and manufacturing are not only not  
sustainable they are not forward looking.  This goes for art as well  
as general manufacturing.


On Jan 18, 2009, at 7:50 AM, Julian Oliver wrote:

> there's work i've made that i can't run on modern systems  - far  
> beyond a
> problem of mere emulation. in many ways software based art degrades  
> with the
> hardware (and software) on which it depends.

G.H. Hovagimyan
http://nujus.net/~gh/
http://artistsmeeting.org