[-empyre-] networked_art

Sun Oct 4 08:46:00 EST 2009

Hello Gabriela:

Traditional cohesion among  chapters was not our central concern.  The  
idea was a "trans-disciplinary
book that ...[would] address recent artistic developments made  
possible by computers, networks and
mobile connectivity."  That may sound like a subject matter but it's  
pretty broad.  And we hoped that by
encouraging the "readers" participation in its development, it might  
become a different kind of book,
generating thinking, as Anna put it, rather than canonizing it.

The guidelines can be found here : http://networkedbook.org/goals-objectives/

They include: "The shaping of creative practice that is open,  
contingent and participatory."

  In other words, we invite you to participate in the book's  
development, to enlarge upon, comment on
  or challenge what is already there, so that over time it becomes a  
visible "record" of  a transformative time.

We did want to have a tag cloud on the homepage that  would aggregate  
the tags of all of the chapters.
Rather than categorize the chapters, the tag cloud would visually  
represent author-generated tags,
so visitors to the site could immediately grasp the most prevalent  
topics and themes. As additional
chapters get added, the cloud would obviously change.

Unfortunately  we haven't been able to get the tag cloud to work yet.

All the best with your new project,

Helen

-- Helen
On Oct 2, 2009, at 10:34 PM, Gabriela Vargas-Cetina wrote:

> Hello.  I've seen the site and love the idea.  It does look like a  
> lot of
> reading, but it seems to be possible to get a general feel for it  
> quickly.
> Not sure in which direction you want to take the project, though.   
> Do you
> want to bring together specific themes, or specific people, or  
> specific
> discussion topics?  As it is right now I cannot see what the  
> cohesion among
> the pieces is or is meant to be.  Free-flowing rhyzomes of thought, as
> Johannes points out, already exist in the www, in different types of  
> media.
> Anyhow, this project gives me ideas for a project of my own, which I  
> would
> like to launch very soon, on musicscapes in the city of Merida,  
> where I
> live.  Thanks for the inspiration,
>
> Gabriela
>
>
> --
> Gabriela Vargas-Cetina
> Professor of Anthropology
> Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas
> Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán
> Campus de Ciencias Sociales
> Carretera a Tizimín Km. 1
> Mérida, Yucatan 97305
> Mexico
> Tel. +52 999 930 0090
> gvcetina at uady.mx
> http://antropuntodevista.blogspot.com
> http://www.geocities.com/g8guitars/
>
>
>
> On 10/2/09 7:15 PM, "Anna Munster" <a.munster at unsw.edu.au> wrote:
>
>> small point of clarification: there's no imperative to go and read  
>> the whole
>> Networked book now to join in the discussion this month.  As  
>> Johannes points
>> out there's quite a lot there! But we are all hoping that people  
>> might have a
>> look at the site initially so that they can follow some of the ideas
>> especially about *designing* and *writing* toward an open history,  
>> as Jo so
>> beautifully put it!
>>
>> We also hope that the project will entice people back over time and  
>> that they
>> do contribute and comment and that the authors take that  
>> participation on,
>> think critically about the feedback they are getting, reflect and  
>> perhaps
>> change their thought in relation to encounters with the thought of  
>> others.
>>
>> The question of time is here a crucial one and from the beginning  
>> of this
>> discussion we're already seeing some interesting comments about  
>> this: the time
>> one needs to write, to write collaboratively, to think, to reflect,  
>> to act, to
>> be in the moment in history, to be beyond that moment in order to  
>> gain
>> understanding and so on. I'm very glad these questions are being  
>> raised right
>> at the beginning of the month as I think they are crucial ones for
>> contemporary thought and conceptual production....
>>
>> anna
>>
>> A/Prof. Anna Munster
>> Director of Postgraduate Research (Acting)
>> Deputy Director Centre for Contemporary Art and Politics
>> School of Art History and Art Education
>> College of Fine Arts
>> UNSW
>> P.O. Box 259
>> Paddington
>> NSW 2021
>> 612 9385 0741 (tel)
>> 612 9385 0615(fax)
>> a.munster at unsw.edu.au
>> ________________________________________
>> From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> [empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Johannes  
>> Birringer
>> [Johannes.Birringer at brunel.ac.uk]
>> Sent: Saturday, 3 October 2009 6:19 AM
>> To: soft_skinned_space
>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] networked_art
>>
>> dear all:
>>
>> happy October to all.
>>
>> Am i understanding your invitation to mean, Anna & Helen, that we  
>> are asked to
>> read http://networkedbook.org/   .............alongside and with  
>> the empyre
>> debate here?
>> how many networked books/writings about networked_art  are there  
>> now, five,
>> eight?
>> and i see the blogs.....Anna's "Data Undermining" is 34 pages long  
>> ("pages"
>> once you copy and paste the blogessay into something that can be  
>> printed out).
>> This promises to be a heavy month, and is there s u c h much  time  
>> to read and
>> read-write?
>>
>> and speaking of much time, or time to be had to think, after  
>> experiencing
>> one's artistic or other work , and others' artistic and other  
>> work,  i tend to
>> believe that media theory cannot be written today and tomorrow and  
>> for the
>> next week.
>>
>> If you suggest, Anna, that >>This is very interesting because it  
>> suggests that
>> networked scholarly or perhaps theoretical writing about  
>> contemporary media
>> and media arts has the potential to perform a transformative role  
>> in media
>> history *canons*>>, you may be onto something (but transformational  
>> is a
>> religious concept of course and I am a non believer)
>> that has become live, lively, for example also in the debates (on  
>> CRUMB)
>> regarding curating the time-based arts or digital arts, or in  
>> educational or
>> political debates about the need for art or funding or venues, and  
>> then there
>> are many more debates,  but one perhaps cannot confuse the  
>> liveliness with the
>> reflective and critical process of writing histories or media
>> histories.......i do hope the books on Now don't appear now or   
>> tomorrow, but
>> in a while, so one can look back further as well.
>>
>> I am not sure i say what i mean.
>> But i wonder whether websites and blogs, blog comments and
>> postings/repostings, YouTubes and other new networked/distributed
>> disseminations,  or so-called collaborative editings, --  
>> "Schnipsel" in german
>> (fragmented bits) ---   amount to an embodied pedagogy or studio  
>> practice (not
>> to speak at all here of physical traditions)  that relates to what  
>> you call
>> the canon  (our cultural, literary and artistic traditons or cultural
>> knowledges?) and if they do, how to create formation, or influence  
>> the museum
>> and the institutions of HE? --  the professor as the contemporary  
>> knowledge
>> dj, re-mixing tapes for the next student blog?    I have to read  
>> Gregory
>> Ulmer's Learning Screen/Electracry, cannot comment on it yet.
>>
>> small example --  I went to Alan Sondheim's website
>> (http://www.alansondheim.org/)n  recently, to see whether there  
>> might be text
>> that could be used to reflect on dance and Second Life, something  
>> my students
>> or dancers could grapple with.  I found this data site, and had no  
>> real time
>> to start the data undermining
>> so Sondheim will not quite collaborate on canon formation for me.
>>
>> PS
>>
>> I did show "Aletsch" (a film he made) in the studio today, a  
>> formidable,
>> gripping work.  It's not available online, and is not coeditable.
>> ah, there is a bit (extraction):
>> what you get online, is a Schnipsel
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhS08Kro70I&NR=1
>> Since it has religious connotations and antedates Chris Crocker  
>> ("Leave
>> Britney Alone"), it is worth stuudying perhaps.
>>
>>
>>
>> with many regards
>> Johannes Birringer
>> DAP Lab
>> London
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au on behalf of Anna Munster
>> Sent: Fri 10/2/2009 9:37 AM
>> To: soft_skinned_space
>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] networked_art
>>
>>
>> Thanks for that insight into your own motivations Helen, I look  
>> forward to
>> also hearing from Jo about where she was coming from in terms of  
>> initiating
>> the project.
>> But I wanted to pick up on a couple of things in your post:
>>
>> You said:
>> <But, as Mizuko Ito says in her excellent introduction to  
>> "Networked Publics",
>> the problem, for those of us struggling to understand the  
>> transformations
>> taking place, is that they -- the transformations -- are impossible  
>> to
>> understand at the time they take place.>
>>
>> and then:
>>
>> < the need for "other" histories. The ones familiar to us were  
>> written
>> yesterday....Today there are more media theorists; they understand  
>> more; we
>> need their perspectives; we need new histories, multiple  
>> interpretations. And
>> we need them - not a year from now when today's views might appear  
>> in hard
>> cover already well worn, but online, where every interested person  
>> can see and
>> respond to them today.>
>>
>> This is very interesting because it suggests that networked  
>> scholarly or
>> perhaps theoretical writing about contemporary media and media arts  
>> has the
>> potential to perform a transformative role in media history  
>> *canons*. You also
>> referred later in your post to Stein's idea about the shifting role  
>> of the
>> 'prof' from traditional transmitter of knowledge to a facilitator -  
>> almost
>> like a networked platform itself, which disperses, aggregates,  
>> queries and
>> distributes ideas.
>>
>> In keeping with some of those ideas, would you think of a project  
>> like
>> Networked as a new kind of *text_book*, one which doesn't distill,  
>> summarise
>> and codify the cannon but rather one aimed at generating a critical  
>> thinking
>> with (rather than about) networks?
>>
>> best
>> Anna
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre

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