One could certainly argue that
the role of a curator of contemporary art is
increasingly shifting towards that of a filter
feeder, since cultural production in general has
become more 'networked' through current
technologies and changed public art viewing
practices. However, the politics of selection
and the role played by art institutions undergo
more substantial changes in the online
curatorial process, which takes place in the
non-locality of a distributed network.(1)
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One of the basic theoretical
perspectives of communication is the concept that the
discursive room influences – or perhaps even co-creates
– the meaning itself in the communication process. The
symbols one interacts with here are not necessarily
limited to sounds and gestures; they can also be
artifacts, which unlike the majority of ordinary words
in spoken language also may own a primary iconicity.
That is to say the inter-play between expression and
content seems to be evident.
At the beginning of the 20th century
artist Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) demonstrated the
communicative importance of the room by exhibiting
objects for everyday use in an art gallery, making
visitors, both the ordinary audience and the art
critics, look at them as art. Today Duchamp's 'objet
trouvé' (found object) is a constitutive part of the
Western cultural heritage. The objects, i.e., artifacts,
can communicate attitude as well as meaning, interest,
and character. The objects - things, pictures or "art"
if you like - get their meaning through social
interaction, where different agents agree about their
content as well as their extent.
Recently in Sweden we saw a
contemporary example of how the concept is revisited by
the audience and the critics in the stir caused by the
artist Anna Odell (born 1973) with her exam work at
Konstfack (University College of Arts, Crafts and Design
in Stockholm), Unknown,
woman 2009-349701 (2009). Contrary to
Duchamp, Anna Odell moved art outside; instead of
exhibiting 'ready-mades' in a gallery, Odell exhibited
herself in a vulnerable and mediated situation. Had
Odell chosen to call it journalism, her venture might
not have aroused such strong feelings. It would very
likely have become part of a different discourse, with
other rules and other agents, perhaps to some extent
comparable to Hans-Günter Wallraff's exposures of
various social conditions.
One might be able to draw some
conclusions from the above; the choice of arena still
seems to be important for the emergence of meaning. What
creates meaning in the examples mentioned is not only
what is being said and how something is expressed but
also where the words are spoken.
Of course it can be difficult to
maintain that all meaning is constructed in the
receiving of social context; most people would say that
the artist himself/herself is to some extent
responsible. Therefore we often speak of the two
references of the artwork: the artist on the one hand,
and artists and society(2)
on the other where networks between different
participants interact. American sociologist Howard
Becker (born 1928) introduced Arthur Coleman Dantos'
(born 1924) concept 'artworld' to a larger public, when
he interpreted the relationship between different
participants in the art arena.(3)
The significance of these conventions
naturally does not apply only to the analogue world;
this should generally also apply to communities on the
Internet and certainly to the sphere of digital art. The
context – the scene - that creators of digital media
utilize is likely to influence the very appreciation of
the creative work. The question of what may be counted
as art will, of course, not be investigated here; I
will, however, try to examine different views held by
some contemporary people involved.
The digital scene has brought about a
change in many people's relation to social phenomena as
well as to artifacts. This can be compared to the
long-established institutional concept of art, where
many parties are involved in building conventions about
what art encompasses: the artist, the public, the
institutions etc. If new areas are introduced they must
be investigated and acknowledged by the participants.(4)
Thereby the world of art will be regarded as part of
interactive events and processes of society – closely
related to the theoretical perspective which in
sociology is termed 'symbolic interactionism.'(5)
In this connection it is important to
discuss the role of media in identity creation – not
least when it comes to artistic manifestations in new
media. In her dissertation Den medierande
konsten:scenen, samtalet, samhället (The
mediating Art – Scene, Debate, Society), Anna
Orrghen discusses a discursive tension field between
art, media and society where art is mediated through a
representative.(6)
But media also imply a stage in their own
right. This makes it intricate to examine manifestations
of art based exclusively on material premises. I have
earlier, in other contexts, tried to analyze the
difficulties in drawing up similar borders in connection
with video art, computer art, and new media. The radio,
television and film media changed our view of artistic
artifacts long before the Internet had its breakthrough.(7)
We also have another distinct example
of this in the nowadays almost forgotten practice, which
is indeed outside the digital platform but still has
many similarities: 'Artists' books.' The artists' books
are not books about artists, nor are they illustrated
books but an alternative space where the artist no
longer is dependent on art galleries and other
institutions. It can manifest itself in different ways;
it could allude to book as a concept, and assume to
mould characteristics or act as a medium for image and
text. The concept was launched in the USA in the 1960's.
Artists' books nowadays also include work that makes use
of the so-called New Media, e.g. work created for CD or
DVD.(8)
When the Internet became a natural part
of the media landscape, there was no longer need for
specialist competence in a particular field in order to
reach an audience with one's work. It became possible to
find inexpensive and efficient channels for one's
messages with fairly simple methods. Conditions for
creative work changed while professionally created
material, as well as creations by laymen, were shared,
revised and treated by several creators in interaction
and co-operation with each other. Thus the Internet
became a discursive arena with a partly new framework,
fewer or no "gatekeepers" and less need of special
means.
Internet facilitates for the art world
to obtain a great variety of interpretations and
creativity. Besides, there were other advantages to
digital production; the picture could move inside and
outside the frames in endless orbits where imagination
was the only limit. Unlike many other earlier media,
e.g. within video art, the dimension of time – regarding
linear observation – was now dissolved. Just as in other
discourses, members of the art world use elaborate
concepts in their professional practice, building up
competence and ability of discernment. Language
functions for coding, perception and articulation when
it comes to organizing impressions and obtaining
knowledge of the world.(9)
It is quite probable that there are
variations in the appreciation practices among creators
of digital media, not only between laymen and
professionals but also among participants with different
backgrounds and traditions. In order to investigate this
I made a number of interviews between 2008 and 2010 with
established participants in the Swedish art scene.(10)
The issue I started with was whether there existed
different appreciation practices, for example regarding
the selection of works of arts and the appreciation of
quality. Is the appreciation depending on traditions
that curators carry with them or does it rather depend
on the room where the art is exhibited? In the
background there is also the issue of the professional
competence of tomorrow's curators, which has been
discussed by Christiane Paul and Anne-Marie Schleiner,
among others.(11)
Most web sites contain
hyperlinks to other sites, distributed
throughout the site or in a "favorites" section.
Each of these favorite links sections serves as
a kind of gallery, remapping other web sites as
its own contents. Every web site owner is thus a
curator and a cultural critic, creating chains
of meaning through association, comparison and
juxtaposition, parts or whole of which can in
turn serve as fodder for another web site's
"gallery." Site maintainers become operational
filter feeders, feeding of other filter feeders'
sites and filtering others' sites. Links are
contextualized, interpreted and "filtered"
through criticism and comments about them, and
also by placement in the topology of a site. The
deeper a link is buried, the harder it may be to
find, the closer to the surface and the
frontpage, the more prominent it becomes, as any
web designer can attest to. I am what I link to
and what I am shifts over time as I link to
different sites. … In the process, I invest my
identity in my collection – I become how I
filter.(12)
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***
(The following summaries are from the
interviews conducted during 2008 and 2009. All the
facts here refer to the time of the interviews.)
Sachiko
Hayashi was born and raised in Tokyo. After a
year at at a boarding-school in USA, she continued her
further studies in Tokyo where she received a BA in
International and Cultural Studies before moving to
Sweden. Having received a Master's degree in Digital
Media in England, she also completed two-year
post-graduate studies in Computer Arts at the Royal
Institute of Art (Kungliga Konsthögskolan) in Stockholm.
Today she works as an artist as well as editor for the
net journal Hz
Journal. The journal is published by Fylkingen,
a society for artists, composers, musicians and dancers,
founded in 1933. The journal is a development of the
earlier Fylkingen Bulletin, in which the performers
themselves wrote articles about their work and
activities. Hz is published twice a year(13)
and addresses relevant areas for the actors of music,
new media, sound art, etc. From 2003 it also
includes Hz
Net Gallery with Hayashi as its curator; it
introduces international internet artworks.(14)
Sachiko Hayashi underlines that the
Internet is not explored in the same way as
presentations in the physical world which, through its
long history, has developed more hierarchical systems.
Artists using the Internet as a public exhibition room
theoretically have the same technical opportunities to
reach as wide audience as the respected institutions
like MOMA.
When Sachiko Hayashi selects works for
Hz Net Gallery, she uses open calls on international
forums. Then she first studies the submissions without
looking at any CVs the artists may have attached. Her
criteria are that the work should be created
specifically for the Internet and that it should contain
some degree of interaction as opposed to fixed media.
The selection has recently been broadened to also
include creative use of blogs.
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The first issue (2003) of Hz Net
Gallery, introducing four netart by linking to
the works/sites of "Self-less" by Wolf Kahlen,
"A is for Apple" by David Clark, "Soundscraper"
by Stanza, and "www.nowar.nogame.org" by
Jimpunk.
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Earlier absence of articles dealing
with net art implied, according to Hayashi, that it
could be difficult to judge submissions. As is the case
with New Media, artists often come from vastly diverse
practices and do not always speak the same language. It
is not always the case that artists in the field have
had an art education. For example, working with a coming
issue of Hz Net Gallery she once received many
contributions from poets whose works it was difficult
for her to evaluate since she herself comes from another
tradition.
Hayashi recalls how international
communities, such as Rhizome founded in 1996, became
important centres for net art through debates and
exchange of information as well as archiving.
These forums, with their email discussion lists, have
also been active in defining different movements within
the genre.
According to Hayashi, art which only
exists in digital form has not been taken seriously.
Some net artists thus may have felt forced to exhibit in
the more traditional sense; i.e., in the physical world.
One of the reasons for this may have been the lack of
critics and reviewers within new media - and
particularly so regarding Internet based art. Even
if one can nowadays find art critique in the field, it
would still not be in Dagens Nyheter (Swedish daily) or
in Art in America. This was an important factor to
consider in relation to the development of Hz Journal,
as she thinks it vital for creative artists to have
channels of communication open amongst themselves: "So
that we ourselves can understand what we are doing."(15)
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A snapshot (part, made on 18
July, 2015) of "I Want to See All of the News
from Today" by Martin John Callanan, presented
in Hz Net Gallery 2007.
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* * *
Electrohype
in Malmö, Sweden, was founded in 1999, initially in
order to organize an exhibition and workshop. Since
2000, it has organised biennial exhibitions with
"computer based art" in the physical setting. Lars
Gustav Midbøe at the organization describes his
work method as some sort of "mail-order-curating"; that
is to say that much of what they select is appreciated
through documentation of the work instead of
appreciation of the work itself. The method is
based on practical considerations. Midbøe finds it
difficult to insist that artists build up their
installation before they know if the work will be
accepted or not. In the preliminary sorting
earlier experiences are taken into consideration as is
economy. When there are only a handful of works left,
external people are asked about their opinions and
finally Electrohype's board makes its decision.
Midbøe describes the selection
procedure of having to rely on documentation as
"frightening" – it is a complicated documentation, and
at the same time it is difficult to know if the work
functions in its context. However, he also says he has
become better over the years in finding a strategy to
the problem, e.g. by involving a third person for
his/her opinion of the presentation. The method, though
it works well, remains to be time-consuming; if they
receive 300 proposals, it takes weeks to pick out the
works for an exhibition.
In appreciating a work of art they look
at function, originality, and quality. Lars Gustav
Midbøe thinks that quality often lies somewhere between
technical brilliance and artistic brilliance – an
artwork can be a fascinating installation but lack a
fundamental idea. Or one finds a great artistic idea but
the technical presentation is not up to standard. Midbøe
compares it with how the material exclusiveness of video
art often overshadowed the content as late as in the
1980's. (16)
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Electrohype 2004. Photo:
Electrohype
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Anna
Kindvall, who runs the organization Electrohype
together with Lars Gustav Midbøe (17),
is an artist with her background in photography and
copper plate printing before enrolling herself in
education in Interactive Multimedia in the Netherlands.
Her primary field today is photography and electronic
art. Kindvall talks about the procedure before the
exhibitions, how they send out a call using their own
mailing lists and then get about 150 - 300 applications
back. Half of these artists will then be selected; in
addition to artists whom they know about or who they
have been recommended, there are also artists previously
unknown to them. During three weeks Kindvall and Midbøe
then go through all applications, with the result that
before each exhibition they get a good overview of what
is happening on the scene. One important part of the job
in finding a suitable selection is that the works should
represent what Anna Kindvall and Lars Gustav Midbøe
classify as "computer-based art".
…our definition of [computer
based art] is "nonlinear art", that is, art
which cannot be transferred to linear media such
as video or paper …but stays /remains in the
computer. It is the computer that manages
things. It may be a light installation, it may
be a moving sculpture, it may be a flash
slideshow…There is an ongoing process while the
spectator watches the work.(18)
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"LV Aero Torrents" (2007) by
Voldemars Johansons at Electrohype 2008. Photo:
Electrohype
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The variations in the appreciation
practices regarding the handling of digital art become
particularly distinct in the examples above, as one
activity takes place in a more traditional exhibition
venue while the other activity is Internet-based.
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NOTES
(1) ^
Christiane Paul (2005), "Flexible Contexts, Democratic
Filtering and Domputer-Aided Curating: Models for Online
Curatorial Practice." Online: http://www.anti-thesis.net/texts/DB/DB03/Paul.pdf
(2) ^
Here in the sense of structure, place and time _
Gesellschaft as well as Gemeinschaft.
(3) ^
Howard Becker (1982), Art Worlds, Berkeley:
University of California Press.
(4) ^
Ibid. p. 34, p. 131, p. 156, p. 310.
(5) ^
The term was coined /launched/ by Herbert Blumer in
the 1930s.
(6) ^
Anna Orrghen (2007) Den medierande konsten –
Scenen, samtalet, samhälle. (The mediating Art –
Scene, Debate, Society). Gidlunds, Stockholm.
(7) ^
See e.g. Gary Svensson (2008) "Det digitala fältet
– produktionsvillkor i förändring" (The digital
field – production conditions under change).
Included in Eriksson, Y. (ed.), Visuella
markörer: bild, tradition, förnyelse (Visual
markers: image, tradition, renewal).
Carlssons förlag, Stockholm.
(8) ^
This is built on an interview with artist Leif
Eriksson, who in 1978 founded SAAB – The Swedish Archive
of Artists Books – and the publishing firm Wedgepress
& Cheese.
(9) ^
Charles Goodwin, (1994) "Professional Vision," American
Anthropologist 96(3): 606-633.
(10) ^
Interview conducted were: Sachiko Hayashi 2008-12-15,
Leif Eriksson 2009-05-25, Anna Kindvall 2009-10-06, Lars
Gustav Midbøe: 2009-10-06.
(11) ^
See e.g. Christian Paul, op.cit.
(12) ^
Anne-Marie Schleiner (2003) p 3.
(13) ^
Hz Journal is now published once a year.
(14) ^
Hz Net Gallery existed as part of Hz Journal between
2003 and 2009.
(15) ^
Interview with Sachiko Hayashi 2008-12-15
(16) ^
Interview with Lars Gustav Midbøe 2009-10-06.
(17) ^
Kindvall was with the Electrohype organisation until
2011.
(18) ^
Interview with Anna Kindvall 2009-10-06.
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Orrghen, A (2007) Den medierande
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