[-empyre-] ambiguous artistic strategies & critical engineering

[gh hovagimyan]

On Feb 9, 2012, at 8:44 AM, César Baio wrote:

> My background in video gave me important clues for me to understand  
> that digital is much more closely related to the video than to the  
> film. Not by chance this relationship feels very strongly also in  
> the aesthetic field.

GH responds:
I started out in high school in rock bands. My father was an  
electrical engineer working in computers and communications.  After  
Art School I was doing performance, installation, conceptual art and  
primitive video-performance.
This was in the 1970's.  In the 1980's I was doing punk performance  
art and music and had a gallery in the East Village in NYC.  In the  
90's I started working with computers.
I had no training I was self-taught but there were a lot of  
scientists and engineers in my family.   To answer your question --
The idea of a communication network  of sound, images, text generated  
by users is a step beyond the broadcast model of television and  
video. One of the issues of video-art is the idea of limiting copies  
in art to make a rare object.
The main idea of video is a live broadcast or a disjuncture of place/ 
space so your initial premise seems correct to me.  However, video is  
just one of the multimedia components of digital art/media.  For  
example. data sensors, audio I/O
video, stills, photoshop, hacking, animation, video mapping onto 3D,   
virtual worlds etc.. all hold equal value.   Obviously we're talking/ 
working in an information world.