Thomas Hobbs on Sun, 30 Mar 1997 01:25:07 +0100 (MET) |
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<nettime> Re: nettime: Net Art |
I know that the original posting for this discusion were nearly tens days ago, but unfortunately i have been away form my eamil for a little while. I want to make this point, as i feel that it was seriously over looked (and often is in many discussion about the internet in other disciplines): You must remember that the internet is space in its own right, it is far different from any medium that has ever gone before it. Much like there is much discussion about not thinking about the computer as a tool but as an environment, the same applies to the Internet as it is an extension of the computer. The variety of software and types of ways of using the internet is now as more diverse than the variety of software that is found on the average home PC user. The Internet is no longer confined to the linits of text based chatlines (irc's), email and ftp. I could describe a number of 'chat' environments that run through the extremes of text based irc to text MUD's and MOO's to VRML envrioments to java based system like 'world fiction' at Nexsite. My point comparing 'net.art' to relatively specific video art, proformance or whatever is now as ridicous as comparing the tidal currents of the pacific to that of a shaking glass of water. Almost asking what is net art is like asking what is art: it can only ever be a subjective individual with relatively 'shared' opinions. Let me explain: I am a student of interactive art at Newport School of art and Design in the UK. My background is basically with (computer controlled) video installation which has be heavially influence by the the notions of site specific (the writings of Robert Smithson, Dan Graham and Gordon MattaClark) and the Video art of Bill Viola particually and Nam June Paik. This has a board basis including 'anti-modernism', Fluxus etc. to develop its own genre which I am interpreting myself. This means I am seeing the internet or more specifically to my work: the World Wide Web. This is based on ideas of space (defined as achitecture, environment and 'conversation' [between its components]) used in creating (previously) site specific installations is used to develop projects on the Web and in physical space. (The first of these projects on on my site http://www.backspace.org/phytodigi/). This is very different form the way Stelarc has used it for proformance with video conferencing, the work of Jenny Holtzer on the 'after capricorn project', Dew Harrison's collaborative inititive to do with reintepreting the Large Glass, Heath Bunting's variety of activities (described elegantly by j.bosma), Julie Myers' Peeping Tom or any number of internet projects I could mention that are done by my contemporaries at Newport: need I explian? My point is the people above I have mentioned have approached in very different ways, very different backgrounds within an art context and with very deifferent ideas about exploting the potential of the web. befroe you you suggest that people approaching painting or video art have very different ideas about what they want to do with may I suggest that yes this must be so but these have very real particular subjective attributes that cannot be ignored: painting is pretty much 2d and is an object that has no power as a moving space, video moves but is confirmed to a beginning and end with a middle, a TV and no interaction it is not a changing space. The web or the internet can be exploting for all these attributes and many more, attributes which are growing all the time. Or it can homein one: perhaps the 2d and painting (like virtual galleries) or concentrate on the genre of video art. J. Bosma talks of its relationship to Wim T. Schippers writings about the net art like a process of murder for its requirement for perfectionism and secrecy. I don't like the secrecy but I believe there is a great deal of truth in this, but more to the wider scope of things: art is about perfectionism and excellence. This does not mean art cannot be rough, simple of spontaneous, it is just that it requires thought that takes time and contemplation, it is just that the net (because it is multi-media) highlights if you do not. Romanshy (Technology as symtom of dream) describes Alberti's development of single point perspextive in relation to the self, he describes the creation of a window, a window that becomes a veil that the world is viewed through. I quote: 'The veil here is not one that is given but a self chosen one, a vieling which the self has itself created. the self here has written its own prescription. it has created its own vision, which is peculiar as creating one's own language, as Merlean-Ponty notes, as much we are born into and borne as much as we are born into borne perception. the modern self is however a radical departure from this position. The intentional self chosen character of the veilling proclaims at the theshold of the mordern world and a new power: the power of the self to be its own creator. In tis respect the artist at his tabel can be regarded as a harbinger of Fausrt who is perhaps the most dramatic illustration of the passion and tradegy of slf creation, and the image of faust finds a later echo- perhaps more familar to us today in that of Dr Victor frankenstien' I would perhaps not go as far a Romanshy but I think he makes a significant point that artist (those considering 'net-art') that you will see it how you want to see it, the confinement and 'termalisation' of viewing the net work is singular: it reaffrims the self, it ignores quite often the space you are sitting in looking at the computer creating a world of its own. If you do not see it as a space its own right, like the (slightly) less complicated world or environment you are failing to recognised it significance and diversity. Much is said about the disappearance of the self as it desperses across the landscape of the internet, but is it completely the opposite: your self is becoming more and more confirmed taking on more and more information relative complicating your ideas. It is more like everyone else has disppeared! Bosma talked brilliantly of Heath Bunting's work which highlights the essence of space, it has a relartionship to the physical. The net is a great advocator against semiotics and representation, in preference of mediation and creation. The great thing about the potential of net-art is that is not an tangible finite static object, it is a space that can contain objects, the change flux and can be interpreted different and make spaces we as artist never dreamed of. I fwe think of it like this and develop to this end it can be agreat educator, if we look for a defined genre of 'net art' we are encouraging a single point perspextive that the discussion of net art on nettime proves will never happen. In this direction all we as individuals will learn is more form our own ideas than from eachother. remember there is no such thing as virtual realtiy, anything becomes reality if we confine ourselves to it for too long. Tom Hobbs --Newport Sch of Art and Design (UK) --http://www.backspace.org/phytodigi/ elbow@obsolete.com______________________________________tjhobb01@newport.ac.uk --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@icf.de and "info nettime" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@icf.de