WAC : Shock of the View Response : Bookchin

Question

Rhetorical Question (Natalie Bookchin):
Doesn't language both enable and limit our understanding of all things? Why should digital work be any different? Don't existing categories used for "old" media often start to slip when applied to "new" media? For example, where is the "object" in RSN? Is it the computer, the camera, the server? and who is the artist?

Select one of following that best fits an example of shifting categories based on various incidents noticed thus far in"The Shock of the View."

Answers

landscape as marketing 1.69%
landscape as performance 1.69%
polling as art 5.08%
the artist as critic 8.47%
the artist as market researcher 3.39%
the browser as framing devise 6.78%
the curator as conceptual artist 38.98%
the curator as performance artist 3.39%
the exhibition as performance 10.17%
the museum as web design 8.47%
the net as object 6.78%
the web as readymade 5.08%

Question

History/Histrionics/Hype

"It isn't really a matter of how much materiality a work has, but what the artist is doing with it."
--Lucy Lippard, 1973

Question (Shock of the View):
What is new about "new" media?

Answer (Natalie Bookchin):

Answers

browser art 1.69%
metaporn art 3.39%
multi-user interactive environment art 3.39%
net.art 3.39%
new academic journals 1.69%
new careers 1.69%
new categories 3.39%
new categories for grant giving 1.69%
new conferences 1.69%
new genres and subgenres of art making such as: 8.47%
new jobs 3.39%
new types of collaborations 3.39%
new types of exhibitions 1.69%
new words 5.08%
other 8.47%
the prefix 47.46%

Questions

Question (Shock of the View):
What similarities and difference exists between the "real" and virtual art objects/performances/space?

Answer (Natalie Bookchin):
Real:

Virtual:

Answers

Real	Virtual
You end with a metaphor 30.51% You have to drive there 69.49%	You begin with a metaphor 33.90% You can stay home 66.10%

Question

Question (Shock of the View):
Is digital/virtual work a continuation of the "dematerialization of the art object" that has characterized new art of the last thirty years?

Answer: (Natalie Bookchin):
yes or no

You can make a digital photograph, frame it and hang it in a gallery.

Selected
Answers
(to previous
question)

Yes, I think it can be viewed that way. But it really depends on the artist's intent. It's hard for me to ignore the reality of my equipment needs to make "immaterial" work, or view other's work. Doing work in the digital field forces me to keep up to date technologically with software or hardware, and everytime I do this I cringe at how this makes me yet another consumer of expendable goods in the market economy. Ironically, I find it kind of exciting making nothing from something. Is this a step forward or backward?

this is my answer:
http://www.angelfire.com/tn/mystlight
take a look and tell me what fo u mean about it!

no, it's a return... to digital materialization of life

yes and no

yes

Both.  It makes manifest the total throwing away of the corporeal, but makes visible certain materialist agendas.

yes

no.

yes

The answer is yes and no....in one sense it is just a progression of culture.  Our culture has become increasingly technological over the last 150 years, it is a natural progression to make technological art.  As to dematerialization, yes, the traditional art object has become less interesting to the vast majority of viewers over the last 30 years.  It is harder for artists to sell and exhibit traditional artworks as they are becoming more out of touch with contemporary culture.

yes

Yes

it's another referent that causes action in one's perceptual thrust

no...still an object- organizable and archivable much like a performance

sure.

www.yes.or.no.com

I don't know.

clearly yes, though the dematerialization of the art object, or the decay of its aura or 'presence' has been going on for longer than thirty years; probably more like 120 years -- ever since chromolithography began being used to reproduce imagery for sale to a mass audience.  We're now in the riptide of a much accelerated process where markets and media converge. Let's hear it for artists as sand-crabs walking sideways through the undertow!

Yes.
Everything is virtual.
Reality is true.
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No, this work is in no way "dematerial."

Question

Control & Subversion

Question (Shock of the View):
How does the virtual object subvert and/or expand its potential for being seen, experienced, or collected?
Does "virtual" art need the museum?
Do museums need virtual art?

Answer: (Natalie Bookchin):
The museum (as a physical location, not a web site or a computer server) needs "virtual" art (to keep up to date with contemporary trends) more than "virtual" art needs the museum.(as a place to reside and be viewed). But here catagories can start to slip again. What about "virtual" art as a museum or the museum as a server etc...

Question (Shock of the View):
Does anyone see it?

Answer: (Natalie Bookchin):
You are the visitor to this site

Selected
Answers
(to previous
question)

Question

Question (Shock of the View):
Does anyone care?

Answer (Natalie Bookchin):

Answers

An Existential or Gen X dilemna 22.03%
What is it...to care? 77.97%

Question

Question (Shock of the View):
How are audiences expected to experience a virtual object? i.e.: do they expect to see them in a museum, in their home, at work, on a 15 inch monitor etc.

Answer and Question (Natalie Bookchin):
At home you expect to see a TV screen, at a museum you expect to see a painting in a frame and at work you expect to see a computer. But, then what do expectations have to do with anything whatsoever?

Selected
Answers
(to previous
question)

The fewer expectations the better.

Art is Nothingness at work

Expectations establish the framework and the willingness to approach a new [media et al] experience

nothing

I quit expecting things of things a long time ago and currently alot much of my reaction time to delight and wonder when something does occur.

I try to withhold my preconceptions.  For example, it did not surprise me at all to see a telepresent bowling alley at the Walker.
Why would I be surprised to see a computer at a museum, a painting at home, a fishbowl within a frame?  These are all
just symbolic interactions that exist through social constructs.

The key lies in what is experienced... ie, is it created for its medium (the monitor).... still stuck in the old ways of  thinking about museums, seeing, object...

Expectations can ruin an artwork, they can delay completely
the living of a human life.  If I begin to think about my au
dience's expectations I will freeze, it is limiting enough to 
consider my own expectations.  I expect that I will learn more 
and more about computer/art technologies as time passes.

the challenge is to escape the expectation

Everything or nothing....

I am so tired of this.

the import of the unpredictable apparition

This is a really stupid question.  
Audiences see virtual objects all the time.  
Performance documentation for example.
Are they refering to net art in particular (i.e. projects in "Shock")?
Museums for the most part want nothing to do (yet) with net art.

The Whitney disaster doesn't count. I think it is museum professionals who have certain "expectations" that they themselves are not willing to have challenged.

The fewer expectations the better--always.

a few clever phases.

expectations trap us in the loop

expectations are your natural set of standards that you have learned from your youth through now. The thing about expectations is there something you expect but if your able to present something in unusual way or context it's then able to be art.

not much, now

Do you have any expectations to your people?
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...and answer. Do you really think something new is happening here? No. Something very old is happening. Yet again. It's very wonderful. It always is. I love it. No, really! It fills me with wonder, anyway.

Question

Question (Shock of the View):
Does anyone actually take the time to view/experience net-work? (Work that can be accessed through the Internet)?

Answer (Natalie Bookchin):
Please add your name to the list of those taking the time:

Your Name:

Affiliation:

Artistic Practice

Question (Shock of the View):
What has an artist created when she has created a virtual object(space/performance)? Is this aesthetic activity different from creating actual objects?

Rhetorical Question (Natalie Bookchin):
Do you mean actual objects such as videos, films, photography, choreography?

Selected
Answers
(to previous
question)

The artist has created an experience.An encounter that may be intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, etc.

what is the use of creating any singular object? One needs a system of objects
 practices, performances etc to create a culture.

yes, there is a difference

why is it different? It simply employs different tools

Or do you mean "object" within the taxonomy of the programmer's milieu?  The representational nature of the object, per se
becomes fluid when places within the shifting framework of the borders between the virtual and physical.

this is like asking what is art?  is a virtual object an object?  is it "real" ??  such art needs to be defined on its own terms... some share commonality with the traditional "physical".... some do notl...

thank you.

I think looking at virtual work begins as an intellectual activity
and if the work is provacative it can become an aesthetic experience.
However, I notice myself failing to become involved with many
of the virtual works that I view because they lack textural and 
dimensional physicality.  I am generally very intrigued by the 
thought processes that are involved in the artist's creation.
I don't feel judgemental about the choice of medium.  I simply
do not connect with many of the works that I view.

a "different" metaphor.  Their intellectual experience is no different, only the tools of expression. 
Certainly every media has limitations, i.e.  "no smell-o-vision"; no way to control the user rexperience 
and so forth, still the message is the same.  didn't some one say that long ago about media, and isn't 
that what we are saying now? And with reference to the above "What is different about new media?"
new "tekno-art-spaek" for the pedants to engage in sophistry with... <g>

Yes, because the word object refers to something tangible and three dimensional which an art work on the net is not.  The computer is three dimensional, but I do not perceive this to be part of the art work.

Do you mean virtual objects such as videos, grabs, clips, stuff?

What's an actual object?

Has created a vision in tangible means?

the artist him/herself has created nothing.  It is OTOH no different from the creation of an "actual" object b/c it is those things (see Natalie's question above) that are required to get the work noticed and the artists career forwarded.

Oh, not this question again!

A template for scavengers to access, examine, perhaps alter, and regurgitate transformed in the service of capitalism.

they have created a piece of art that only exists in time unless documented. This way of making art is only different to our culture do to its materialistic upbringing.  I think some performances are  imposible to own because you must see,hear, smell, ect.

Does films deal with feelings?
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The concept of virtuality arises from shallow thought ;) How is a "video" more "real" than an mpeg?

Questions

Question (Shock of the View):
What are the artistic opportunities and obstacles of working with nascent and primitive forms of a technology?

Answer (Natalie Bookchin):
Artistic Opportunities

Artistic Obstacles

Answers

Opportunity

Obstacle

Invitations and airplane tickets to conferences on the subject 5.08%
Job offers (Academic and or industry) 8.47%
Manipulating and mastering of search engines 1.69%
Networking: Making friends/making links/expanding one's context beyond the studio and post studio environment 1.69%
Networking: Making friends/making links/expanding one's context beyond the studio and post studio environment 8.47%
Suspicion and cautious interest from the main stream art world 61.02%
The impossibly of mastering your equipment 3.39%
The speed of changes making work, concepts and technologies irrelevant 10.17%

Invitations and airplane tickets to conferences on the subject 1.69%
Job offers (Academic and or industry) 5.08%
Networking: Making friends/making links/expanding ones context beyond the studio and post studio environment 1.69%
Suspicion and cautious interest from the main stream art world 67.80%
The chameleon nature of the computer 1.69%
The impossibly of mastering your equipment 6.78%
The market imperative: discovering and keeping up with new software 1.69%
The speed of changes making work, concepts and technologies irrelevant 13.56%

Question (Shock of the View):
In what ways do virtual work( or net-work) differ from other forms of digital art practice?

Answer (Natalie Bookchin):

Questions and Answers
Questions as Answers
Answers as Questions

Language

History/Histrionics/Hype

Control & Subversion

Artistic Practice

Questions and Answers Questions as Answers Answers as Questions

Language

History/Histrionics/Hype

Control & Subversion

Artistic Practice

Questions and Answers
Questions as Answers
Answers as Questions