new
art
This
page looks at discourses world wide. There are discussions around new media, post
structuralism, complexity science and postmodernism.
It
is now understood that the term 'new media' has reached it's terminus. What has
been called 'new media' or 'art and technology' has become split into the multiplicity
that digital media engenders. Practitioners and commentators now speak in media
specific terms: there are locative media (e.g. GPS based practice), interactive
media (often DVD or CD based, including 'games'); net art (internet interface);
digital video (many contexts, including VJ); digital audio (ranging from performance
to net enabled, including DJ); and moving image (ranging from image database to
animation). The term 'new media' has become obsolete; no longer new. The consequences
for creative practice are a matter of discussion at artist gatherings worldwide.
changing
orders of thinking: an article by alexander galloway and eugene thacker
Thinking
from the right side of the brain: animal instinct, bee, swarm, self-organisation,
political animal and animal politics: complexity and post-structuralism generate
a call for adhocracy.
contemporary
sculpture
The
physicist E. A. Jackson wrote that in nonlinear systems, 'the ratio (action/reaction)
is not constant.'
Whilst
Jackson's words were clearly not written as a challenge to sculptors, nonetheless
such readings of space-time challenge the concept of space as homogenous, and
can be seen as challenging the hegemony of spatial continuity as necessary to
sculptural discourse. In other words, how does a medium borne of the sculptors
chisel cope with spatial and temporal discontinuities, as outlined by current
ideas around nonlinearity? Come
In an international
touring exhibition of new German art, might contain some
answers.
cultural
theory
What
is happening to culture today? Where are we going collectively, and as individual
nations and cultures? There is an increasing perception that culture is hybridising.
As Eduardo Manuel Duarte
has written: "The current leitmotif of multicultural discourse is hybridity.
To speak today as a multiculturalist is to speak of culture as open-ended, permeable,
and continuously (re)produced by cross-cultural encounters; a borderland topos
where the lives of people from a multiplicity of backgrounds are constantly intersecting
and crisscrossing and thereby producing 'a polyvalent assemblage of new cultural
meanings [source].'
As
Cornel West reminds us, analyzing multiculturalism from a contemporary philosophical
perspective means situating oneself within hybrid culture and giving up on the
'quest for pure traditions and pristine heritages' [source]."
To
make all this concrete, here is a link to a Chinese artist talking about globalisation
and hybridisation. These quotes relate hybrid
culture to architecture. Adding to the dynamic complexity, hybrid culture
in business practice is discussed with
reference to the VW-Skoda merger. The hybridisation of culture is also the
context for this digital
cyberpunk drift through Los Angeles and postmodern urban conditions. A Korean
writer muses on hybridity
and racism, on Harvard University's site. Hybrid culture has relevance to
teaching and theory
practice, and contributes to dialogue around the puzzling state of contemporary
identity in Scandinavia.
contemporary
philosophy
Just
when you might have thought the limelight was beginning to dim on 20th century
French philosophers, along come Deleuze and Guattari. They do "not advocate
an intellectual anarchism in which the only rule would be the avoidance of any
rule. It [their book 'A Thousand Plateaus'] deploys variable, local rules in order
to construct a bewildering array of concepts such as assemblage, deterritorialization,
order-word, faciality, ritornello, nomadism, and different kinds of becoming.”
(Paul Patton writing in 'Deleuze: A Critical Reader' 1996, 1,2).
There
is a rising tide of literature devoted to an analysis of Deleuze and Guattari's
writing. In particular, their concept of rhizome has proved helpful to Western
writers in understanding the internet (see this
article). Rather than setting out to obfuscate, Deleuze and Guattari aimed
to set philosophy free from burdensome intellectual weight. This is laudable,
though it has to be said that their multi-concept writing can be difficult to
understand. A good introduction to their work can be found in Stephan Wray's 'Rhizomes,
Nomads, and Resistant Internet Use.'
post
modernism
Post-structuralism,
Baudrillard, Bathes, Foucault, Derrida, post modernism: if these words mean alot
to you, you may already know this site, by George
P. Landow of Brown University in the US. It covers the burning issues of creating
today: understanding ourselves, art, technology and meaning in relation to hypertext.
There are of course, two post-modernisms, one an aesthetic movement in the arts
(exemplified in architecture), the other a philosophical movement that countered
the enlightenment project. They are linked by name and a host of other connections,
but there is a fundamental difference between the two.
The
debate roars - with anti post modernist papers emerging everywhere, but it seems
it is too late. This
type of complaint at post modernism comes from many quarters; it was particularly
well structured. However, all the papers on the net will not a change make. Why?
Because practical post modernism, functional post modernism, has already roosted
in significant parts of the art world - such as gallery staff and curators. These
people are able to make decisions that influence what is shown. It should be remembered
though, that the post modern orientated art world professional, is just one part
of the kaleidoscope that is the art world.
To
find out everything you want to know about post modernism but were too afraid
to ask, click here.
The page has links to the widely recognised Grove Art Dictionary written by 6000
writers world wide.
video
Iranian
born Shirin Neshat lived in Iran before the fall of the Shah, was educated in
the United States and lives in New York. soliloquy is a split screen work,
with the 2 screens facing each other in a blacked out room / gallery. One screen
depicts her in a modern, western setting and the other in a traditional Middle
Eastern one. The depiction of architecture, geography and pace of life are in
sharp contrast to each other, yet viewed simultaneously. As the viewer, you stand
somewhere between the screens, self editing what you choose to see as you cannot
see both screens simultaneously. At different points in the production, she looks
at herself in the opposing screen and you get the feeling that while she appears
to be in two places / times simultaneously, she is isolated in both settings.
The work lasts for 17 minutes as literally transports the viewer into two worlds.
Stills from "soliloquy"
In
this
interview she talks about the work, partially filmed (35mm transferred to
video) in Turkey (7km from the Iranian border) due to censorship problems in Iran.
Here is an interview with the artist talking about her video
and photographic work. This link
is to a Time Europe background article, and the artist's series of photographs,
in particular women of allah. The Museum
of Contemporary Iranian Artists have more of her images.
As
a side note to the artist's work, Neshat lived near the World Trade Center and
was one of the people shown in the news running from the terrible devastation.
She also had a child who went to school blocks from the attack and had to go and
rescue her child that day, before the final fall of the towers and the many buildings
around them.
new
media
David
Rokeby is a sound and video installation artist based in Toronto, Canada.
He has been creating interactive installations since 1982. He has focussed on
interactive pieces that directly engage the human body, or that involve artificial
perception systems. He was awarded the first Petro-Canada Award for Media Arts
in 1988, the Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction for Interactive Art (Austria)
in 1991 and 1997 (with Paul Garrin) and recently received the first BAFTA (British
Academy of Film and Television Arts) award for Interactive Art.
One
of his interactive systems, very nervous system, is being used to enable
a paralyzed woman to speak and write. It is also currently being used by composers,
video artists, and medical facilities in many parts of the world. He continues
to work on his ongoing installation entitled "The Giver of Names", a system that
describes objects presented to it in poetic and metaphoric ways.
Solar
Circuit is the Southern Hemisphere's companion to Polar
Circuit, a bi-annual new media artists gathering. The first Solar Circuit
was held in Tasmania Australia - the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery held an
exhibition of particpants work, called wild2002.
Going new places with
digital moving images? - check out http://www.wigged.net/
for an international selection of web based, sound and moving image work.
interactive
art exhibition reviews
Jonathan
Horowitz wants you to name his cat…among other things. In his a media-plied exhibition
at Yvon Lambert, Horowitz, a New York based artist, mixes the silly and the banal
in an attempt to locate the hierarchical dopiness of culture. Using lo-tech computer
and video methods, Horowitz simply goes about describing desire...more
Interactive
art in Tokyo.
hot
art sites
Hacking
not into websites, but into reality - many of the'projects completed' section
exploit reality by shifting it subtly. http://www.realityhacking.com/
Ever wondered
about randomness and order in website construction? Jodi.org [ http://www.jodi.org
] uses random generators to rearrange appearances, but wait there is a pattern
- or is there? This site is often referenced by those studying cyberculture.
