[-empyre-] networked_art
Eduardo Navas
eduardo at navasse.net
Sun Oct 4 11:36:23 EST 2009
Hi everyone,
Writing from Mexico City. Transitio_ MX is full on. If I may promote
things a bit, I would like to share a couple of sites. The main site:
http://transitiomx.net/
And a blog entry I made just last night:
http://remixtheory.net/?p=394
I will be making other entries as the events and openings take place. But
on to the main subject of my e-mail.
It is quite an honor to participate again in a discussion on Empyre. I've
been following the postings and would like to comment. But first, I want to
thank both Helen and Jo for being open minded and inviting me to work with
them. I find Turbulence to be an extremely important resource that must be
supported. It was one of the first places I veered towards when I first
became interested in new media based work.
What I find of interest about the networked book project is that it is quite
a challenge for academics as well as cultural producers outside of academia
to work with technology that can be appropriated by any camp with no
apparent conflict. One thing that Academia is currently trying to deal
with, in my view, is on how to keep up with the changes that new
technologies bring to usual academic publication. The necessary critical
distance that is expected in serious peer reviewed journals is quite hard to
implement online--print still holds some "seriousness." This anxiety is
expressed in a more commercial form in how newspapers are coping with print
vs. online access.
I believe that that the networked book project exposes this tension, and to
respond to Gabriela's question on a possible plan, the truth is that we
don't really know how things will turn out. But we're hoping people will
consider the challenge and consider chipping in, hopefully by bringing fresh
approaches that none of the collaborators considered previously. It does
take a lot of effort to tackle specialized writing, which is why I think
some people who hold professorships or are recognized researchers may think
twice about what to write in collaborative projects that cross a threshold
as the one we focus on in the networked book project.
That's all for now, but will be back.
The very best,
Eduardo Navas
On 10/2/09 7:34 PM, "Gabriela Vargas-Cetina" <gabyvargasc at prodigy.net.mx>
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
>
On 10/2/09 7:34 PM, "Gabriela Vargas-Cetina" <gabyvargasc at prodigy.net.mx>
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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