[ home: http://www.bkb.eyes2k.net ]

Seminar Net.art

Freitag, 12-14 Uhr, ESA W, Raum 119, Universität Hamburg, SoSe 2007
Start: 13.4.2007



Statement

"In the time that it has taken me to talk so far, Bill Gates has earned xx million dollars. If an artist is going to play in the cutting edge tech field, the pace is brutal. Not only has Bill Gates's wealth increased x percent in y minutes, but there is now an updated version of director, 2 new releases of the real player (plus and, if you look real hard, basic), 3 enhanced versions of the explorer browser, Microsoft has broken up into 4 companies--Microsoft Classic, Diet Microsoft, Microsoft Lite, and Internet Microsoft--there are 5 new video codecs, 6 aol virus messages in your email, 7 competing music formats and matching players, each Microsoft has issued new patches for Windows for a total of 8, 9 new iMac colors have been introduced, 10 new dot coms have announced ipos, 11 new memes have circulated, and 12 new artist websites have been announced on Rhizome.

In other words, art at play in the field of the Internet, is constantly at risk of seeming, if not being, an outdated version of itself. It is hard to be considered great one moment when you just might be last minute's underbid in an eBay attention economy the next. Especially, I should add in all fairness, when Matt Mirapaul of the New York Times Cybertimes will announce on Thursday that the Walker Art Center, MOMA, SFMOMA, Dia, the Guggenheim, the Whitney , the National Museum of American Art and even the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art all plan to do something with net art . . . sometime in the next millennium.

In all seriousness, however, in general, the older an artifact is, the more it acquires a certain aura of great interest, if not necessarily greatness. Prehistoric footprints are an amazing find, while the once reviled Baroque painting is now eagerly collected and even Norman Rockwell, with the passage of time, becomes acceptable subject matter for a serious museum show.

With net art, this does not presently seem to be the case. The time frame is always the next five minutes, and historical art--art that is older than 5 minutes--more often seems outdated than historic. That is, if you can find or it works with current configurations of hardware and software."

Dietz, Steve 2000: Why Have There Been No Great Net Artists? >>



Seminar



email: b k b [at] e y e s 2 k . n e t

spam-protection: 1. without spaces 2. change [at] to @