[-empyre-] Lichty: Theory and Media Art in 2014

[Patrick Lichty]

My thoughts on Theory 2014.5
There is so much I could say, but I have limited myself to this short
missive. In a way I feel like I became Rip Van Winkle when I entered
Graduate School, as artists usually don't concern themselves with theory as
much as you'd imagine, and my first job in academia was surrounded by people
openly hostile to theory, and my next where the people with whom I could
converse are simply too busy or involved in their own careers.  This means
that through the sage conversation with the SenseLab and Erin Manning and
Brian Massumi, Curt Cloninger, Nathaniel Stern, and Sandra Danilovic, I woke
up after the postmodern focus on epistemology has shifted to the current
trope of ontology, which I am building bridges to.  Mind you, I have my
questions about our current state, which I have my own suggestions for.

Much of my critique of where, and I'll have to admit that I will stay with
the linkage of theory and media art, lies is from a shift from
thoughtfulness to artworld tactical positionality constructed to get in the
latest anthology.  I could be accused of this, but I will speak in my own
defense that 90% of the essays and works published have been in the area of
Virtual or Augmented Realities, genres that I have explored since 1996 (VR,
AR since about 2002).  It is what I call le trope du annee, which is
something that I have also had a critique of on theoretical circles. In
1998, it was Benjamin (I say this arbitrarily), in 2013 it was Whitehead,
And I wonder deeply whether the shifts from Poststructuralism to Non-Human
Ontologies, or from epistemology to ontology for that matter, is a
reflection of culture, or the resultant disconnect of sheer interest of a
community who has, at the call of its finest, decided to follow as a path of
least resistance or merely a desire for acceptance and to be part of "the
conversation".

This is, of course, no less evident in the media art field, there seems to
be a new genre every year, such as surfing, New Aesthetics, Post-Internet,
Social Practice, which has a dual effect. First, it causes the aspiring
artist to conform to fashion, and in many ways, the eponymous song by David
Bowie comes to mind.  Secondly, it causes spasms within the art market and
the academy as every 3-5 years the "new" becomes canonized, and places an
emphasis on academic job offerings scarcely with the time allotted for the
graduate to matriculate. "We're sorry, we realize that post-Jell-oism was
the rage in 2014, but we're really looking for someone with an emphasis in
Drone Epistemology or Unicellular Ontology  now."  Whatever happened to
Underwater Basket Weaving?

Yes, things do evolve; I can admit and accept that.  However, I argue that
what is lacking is an ideology and a rigor traded for sake of position, as
Ian Bogost said about the New Aesthetic so well in the Atlantic, which he
argued was not new, and then later James Bridle, in a Rhizome interview,
said had nothing to do with aesthetics in the first place.  Also, take for
example, the Rhizome panel in which a participant incorrectly stated that
there wasn't much net art before 2000 anyway, to which my admonition drew a
response of, "Well, what was discussed was _mostly correct_."  My reply to
this is that, taken to its logical extreme, a panelist might shrug their
shoulders and state what it matters if six or four million Ukrainians were
slaughtered during collectivization. The answer would be, "two million
lives". 
I know I am grossly exaggerating here, as only in few exceptions does art
have the impact of a World War or genocide, but it does affect the
historiographic foundations of the contemporary where we have developed a
number of artist-theorists (some of them PhDs) who are not well read, or
practitioners like Jesse Darling who state that an Animated Gif creates
Brecht's V-Effekt, breaking the fourth wall of the cyber-proscenium where it
is obvious that the 4th wall consists of an LCD screen on the desk. In
addition, GIFs constitute performativity and not performance, as they
possess no live interaction/1st order cybernetic loop, but no one wants to
be as uncool as to call this out.  That'd be "Hella mean." or "h311a M3an"

Most of these critiques, or critiques of the contemporary is often placed
off into what has been called "The Generational Conversation", between the
'contemporaries' and the 'olds' (who are, what, 90's net artists?)  The
irony of all this is that in 2013 Marisa Olson was asked about her age by a
curator, and Olia Lialina tells her 10+ year timeline in a May 2014 Rhizome
entry.  
I don't think it has to do with generationalism at all.  Sensibilities
change, but art is art. Before the New Media, Visual Studies, and Social
Practice MFAs emerged after 2000, the academy had very little to offer,
there may have been a number of programs in the mid-90's, but they were few,
and some were linked to computer  science programs. In the days of
pre-academization of "New Media", there were largely PhDs and autodidacts,
and no funding. But with the institutionalization of electronic media art,
sets of practices have been put in place that have made the media arts more
consumable and fundable, not that this is bad by any means.  It just means
that it commodifies the field, and this includes art, theory, even ideology
has become dominated by capitalism or a Medici-esque patronage, as in Jeremy
Bailey's biting AR portraits.  Since we have come from epistemology to
ontology, I suggest that culture has lost its way a bit, and perhaps a
little phenomenology might be in order in order to really assess what is
being addressed.

Actually, one of the most prescient quotes about the state of theory today
comes from Lady Gaga, who in "Applause", states:

"I've overheard your theory
.
I guess sir, if you say so
Some of us just like to read"

In many ways, it seems that theory is represented by what the market will
bear.  In closing, I'd like to refer to two pieces of wisdom I've heard from
Cleveland Gallerist William Busta, and both artists Joseph DeLappe and Mendi
and Keith Obadike.   From Busta, he said that taste follows your peer group,
and perhaps this is true, but there are also DeLappe's Drone Project that
makes an exception to this.  From the Obadikes, they said that the trends,
while important, they eventually become like a hamster wheel.  There is a
time where you have to get off the treadmill and do the work you feel is
important to humanity, and more important, important to you.  It's isn't
about being hip or cool.  It's about doing what matters.