:: Monday, April 19, 2004 ::
NEW WRITING: British New Media Art Conference - Tate Britain, 03/04/04
BY: Garrette Lynch
EXCERPT: Steve Dietz started the day with the keynote speech discussing the much hyped Y.B.A. (young British artists) and pondering why we don't hear about Y.B.N.M.A. (young British new media artists). He criticised new media, net.art in particular, for not having enough theory and critical debate surrounding it. He suggested that the New York times statement in a recent article, that net.art was dead (which he emphasised was only published in print), would occur unless the community become more open to other forms of contemporary art, accepted that it needed to work with institutions and not shun them as it has to date and generally questioned if new structures are needed for new media or whether we should be working with existing structures.
Steve Dietz set the mood for the day, with questions and ideas that reoccurred time and time again and more visuals and urls than are humanly possible to note (though I did try). His call to the net.art community to move forward and work with institutions seemed incredibly gracious in light of recent events at Walkerarts and his attitude was anything but pessimistic. One thought which occurred to me towards the end of his keynote speech was, even with the enormous advantages more critical debate would give (after all this is what net.art review is all about), would more theory / more institutionalisation create a new elitism in net.art? Would this discourage and restrict access to those wanting to enter the form of new media art already intimidated by the high technical level? How could we find a balance in keeping with net.art's grass roots approach and the institutions established modes of promotion, presentation and debate?
click here to read entire article.
ORIGINAL POST: Wed Apr 14, 12:38:11 PM
BY: ana boa-ventura
Meantime in Caracas...
In times of political turmoil, hats off to those that in Venezuela keep doing beautiful work. Ricardo Benaim is such an artist.
A couple of years ago he started the Proyecto Mapa, which one could say that corresponds to Simon Bolivar's dream of the two countries South American countries (Venezuela and Colombia) in one single map. The artists encouraged contributions from artists for "interventions" * on the Colombia-Venezuela "map" that they made available on their website. They even developed the currency for this virtual country (beautifully designed bills).
You can see some of the gatherings of all the artist involved, along with the "manifesto" (convocatoria) and the concept here: http://www.artedos.com/mapa/
Once you enter the site, choose "el Encuentro" (the meeting) or "los mapas" (the maps) to see some images of the project (the physical meeting between Colombian and Venezuelan artists, the maps sent to by the artists), or if you can read Spanish explore it all.
The project is now in stand-by, which was the motivation for writing this piece - when people must dodge from bullets to stay alive it's difficult to keep the focus in your work, whatever it is, artists included... It's sad to say but things in Venezuela may not be exactly like in the documentary "The Revolution won't be Televised". But this is no place for political statements...
*Note: An artistic intervention is often used in Latin countries and in English it loses much of it’s meaning - it means to act, generally in a political and aesthetic way.
ORIGINAL POST: Tue Mar 30, 01:07:35 AM
BY: Eduardo Navas
EXCERPT: syzygy The Human Remix Art in Motion's fifth annual international festival of time based media was held for a second consecutive year at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, California. Last year's AIM festival was held at the Armory's satellite warehouse which, although quite spacious, led to an almost chaotic experience of media in all shapes and forms from elaborate installations to simple computer monitor displays. This year, however, the festival was held at the armory's main building, which is much more intimate. AIM was also more selective and included fewer participants. While this may be due to the physical space available at the armory, the end result is a highly advanced and sophisticated set of media projects presented with unexpected and welcomed cohesion; something that is quite hard to accomplish when presenting new media in a physical space. This may be because New Media relies on technology that has proven to be most effective everywhere but in the white cube. It is great to see that this year's AIM is quite an exception.
click here to read the entire article.
E X T E N D E D . F E A T U R ENEW WRITING: WLADIMIR VINCIGUERRA - PornNouveau_Artworks
BY: Francesca De Nicolò
EXCERPT: Se virtualmente clicchiamo sulle immagini delle nostre beniamine, scopriamo che c’è dell’altro; strillano vendetta immesse in un montaggio ennesima citazione/contrasto. Loro, infatti, non a caso accerchiano un carro armato inneggiando al fate l’amore non la guerra, sono sdraiate tra palazzi e scontri metropolitani e ancora sono languide apparizioni nel traffico abbrutente di un tamponamento a catena alla Crash di Cronenberg.
Ma c’è anche un altro strappo messo in atto nella nota e navigata società dei consumi, dove la moda è fatta di lustrini, boa stivali di latex e modelle nordeuropee. Le Valchirie dominatrici del sesso ridicolizzano l’altro-uomo e quali potenti vampire spaziali allargano le gambe illuminando la via della rivelazione,doppie e conturbanti. E ancora quali principesse della vernice denudano l’ambiguità dell’altro, che affascinato e inibito dalla provocazione né è vittima.
click here to read complete article
This article will be featured through 25 April 2004.