[-empyre-] the netopticon

[Cynthia Beth Rubin]

Hi all

I want to thank Simon for this little gem inserted into the discussion.  I do not want to digress from the important netopticon discussion - however I do not want people to miss Simon's comment, and hope that we can return to it at another time if it is too off-topic now

I would argue that now that everything is "digital" the need to push artists to define themselves as tied to a specific medium is now longer relevant, as anyone who is computer literate can move from  video to still image print to 3D output.  What counts is the idea, the research behind the work, the concept... but the art world and academies still push medium as the defining factor.

We can even take this one step further.  The mode of presentation is also dependent on what is available and what is the trend of the day that is likely to get work seen.  Do artists make works specifically to post them on YouTube, or would they make the same works to show at film festivals, or to sell on DVDs?

Do we make our work as a form of social engagement that shifts according to where/how it will be seen? 

all the best,
Cynthia

Cynthia B Rubin
http://CBRubin.net

On Jan 15, 2011, at 12:05 PM, Simon Biggs wrote:

> For the past few years I've been arguing against a materialist
> deconstruction of media (as was undertaken by early video artists,
> deconstructing mass media, for example) as I've considered our culture, in a
> post convergence era, to have moved to a situation where the focus should no
> longer be the media but the conceptual and social territories that determine
> how media exist as social spaces (eg: cinema is still cinema, a mode of
> making and experiencing stuff, but it is no longer film). However, with the
> standardisation of web protocols that govern social interaction and
> therefore social formation, we see media determining social space. Perhaps
> it is, again, time to undertake a materialist deconstruction of a
> post-convergent media in order to challenge the normalising protocols of the
> net. This implies artists, once again, as they did in the early development
> of the internet, could usefully develop new protocols for their work,
> sans-web.