[-empyre-] Annette Barbier : Participatory Art

[Simon Biggs]

I gave up calling what I do art a while ago. Generally I refer to what I do
as creative practices (note plural). In interdisciplinary and collaborative
working contexts this allows you to divest yourself of a lot of baggage
whilst ensuring that the most valuable aspects of the ³practice formerly
known as art² are retained.

Regards

Simon

Simon Biggs
Research Professor
edinburgh college of art
s.biggs at eca.ac.uk
www.eca.ac.uk
www.eca.ac.uk/circle/

simon at littlepig.org.uk
www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk



From: Timothy Murray <tcm1 at cornell.edu>, <rtf9 at cornell.edu>
Reply-To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:34:28 -0400
To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: [-empyre-] Annette Barbier : Participatory Art

Thanks to Tim and Renate for the invitation.
Participatory Art:  Digital Traces - a few thoughts S

I would almost like to retitle this topic:
"Participatory Acts (rather than Art): Digital
Traces" as it seems that the line between art and
non-art, especially in the area of participatory
work is fuzzy indeed.  Having just visited the
new Modern wing at the Art Institute of Chicago,
I noticed that the ONLY interactive work in the
wing was in the Design/Architecture exhibit, NOT
in the Film/Photo/New Media section.  And this
work is placed there, I suspect, because its
maker is known for graphic design, not because of
any inherent quality of "design-ness" rather than
"art-ness" of the piece.  The phrase
"participatory art" questions more traditionally
defined ideas of authorship, concept and product.
Its authorship quotient extends on a continuum
from live exchange, through delayed exchange, to
contribution (anonymous or not), to manipulation
of existing media or data.  The concept,
prescribed by the artist or collectively created
by participants (perhaps the first eg. of an open
framework with content supplied by participants
is the still delightful "Hole in Space", Kit
Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, 1980).  The
product, from memory through documentation to a
persistent representation that may still function
with its original intention.

Digital Traces raises the issue of
durability/persistence - its desirability and
importance.  I regret the loss of work, my own
and others', to (among other things) changing web
standards and browsers, defunct plug-ins.  I wish
I could state boldly, as Mary Flanagan has, that
[paraphrasing] work that can't be kept alive
should be left behind.  Perhaps one's feelings in
this regard are a function of where one is on
one's personal timeline, with youth emphasizing
the future, age the past.

"Traces," though, also leaves room for thinking
about the leftovers, the remains of an action, as
being a fundamental clue to its meaning and
importance.  In a recent grant proposal for
working with motion capture, I suggested that:
"The intention of this proposal is to take data
that is normally invisible except as it is
expressed by a moving body, and make it visible,
with the body as only an implication.  This
stresses a different aspect of the process [other
than typical motion capture application to a 3D
CG model] - rather than creating a virtual body
whose movements duplicate a real one's, we will
make visible only the traces of that body's
passage through time. These literal actions will
be represented by traces or lines that make
concrete a frozen series of moments in the
completion of an action. These traces are
intended as a metaphor for the effect our
presence has had on the world.  The "butterfly
effect" suggests that every action has extensive
repercussions, most of which we may never grasp."

Artist bio: Annette Barbier (US) graduated from
the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with
an MFA.  She chairs the Interactive Arts and
Media Department at Columbia College, Chicago,
where she teaches new media theory and practice.
She came to Columbia from Northwestern
University, where she directed the Center for Art
and Technology. She and her creative partner Drew
Browning comprise unreal-estates,
<http://www.unreal-estates.com>http://www.unreal-estates.com
and their work addresses issues of identity and
the interdependence of the human and natural
worlds. It is frequently site specific, and often
uses the potential of new technologies to gather
and represent information in new ways.


-- 

Renate Ferro and Tim Murray
Co-Moderators, -empyre- a soft-skinned-space
Department of Art/ Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art
Cornell University

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