Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 19:46:30 +0000
Subject: when minds interactively network


In message <Pine.3.89.9810250859.B2712-0100000-AT-bloor>, George Free
<aw570-AT-freenet.toronto.on.ca> writes
>
>       The real promise of the internet lies in its potential to be a 
>collaborative medium. We need new kinds of works and facilities that 
>promote--and arise out of--the joint engagement of participants, in which 
>all are creators...
>
>"We believe that communicators have to do something nontrivial with the
>information they send and receive. And ... to interact with the richness of
>living information - not merely in the passive way that we have become
>accustomed to using books and libraries, but as active participants in an
>ongoing process, bringing something to it through our interaction with it,
>and not simply receiving by our connection to it ... We want to emphasize
>something beyond its one-way transfer: the increasing significance of the
>jointly constructive, the mutually reinforcing aspect of communication - the
>part that transcends 'now we both know a fact that only one of us knew
>before.' When minds interact, new ideas emerge."
>
>-J.C.R. Licklider
>
 Sure thing.

If anybody wants to do some interacting with a leading edge attempt to
establish the WWW as an artform in its own right, digest this:

RENAISSANCE 2001 
AND 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ART/TECHNOLOGY INTERFACE


We live at a time when the impact of technology on art has never 
been more apparent. The artist's toolbox has been extended to such
a degree by digital technology that even the traditional benchmark 
concept of "medium" has broken down, erasing the possibility of 
capturing and containing the artwork by describing accurately the 
physical support system required for communication of the idea that 
supposedly lies at its core. The current trend towards "conceptual" 
art can be seen as an instinctive response to this process: artists 
are moving their activity into new areas in an attempt to isolate 
this aesthetic core from a series of physical media in which they 
have subconsciously lost confidence as a storage or communication 
mechanism.

At the same time, this digital technology is revolutionising the basis 
of human communication. The groundwork was laid more than twenty years 
ago when the world's telephone companies started the explosive growth 
of IDD (International Direct Dial) facilities. IDD has freed up 
international telephony and resulted in a massive growth in 
international network bandwidth. People started to regard global 
communication as being normal, natural and direct. Simultaneously, 
rules (Internet Protocol) have been created for inter-computer 
communication via this network. Because digital technology enables 
a combination of store-and-forward and real-time facilities, it is 
now possible to communicate globally via computer at a previously 
unimagined level of complexity and sophistication. Thus we have 
the extraordinary phenomenon of the Internet.

The advent of the Internet, and its explosive international growth, 
has given a powerful new sociological dimension to the changes 
created by the revolution in digital technology. It has democratised 
communication to the point where the tools of publishing and 
distribution are now passing into the hands of the individual who 
originates the cultural objects that were previously mediated, and 
hence controlled, by a variety of organisational structures: dealers, 
galleries, museums, publishers, academic institutions, etc. etc. .
This trend is fundamentally subversive, in that it calls into question 
the role of the entire set of social structures that have grown up 
between the artist and his audience. And, for that audience, there is 
now a new possibility of direct contact and communication with the 
originators of the cultural objects that it consumes.

It is against this background, and as a response to it, that 
Renaissance 2001 (R2001) has come into being. The following list 
serves as a non-linear guide to its key concerns and characteristics: 

- ART, CONTENT & COMMUNICATION
Traditionally, art 'movements' have been (as social constructs) 
defined by some organising principle based on content - that is to say, 
some perceived common thread inherent to the work of the participants. 
Thus, it should be possible (assuming prior induction into the grammar 
and vocabulary of Art Criticism) to recognise and distinguish between 
the work of, say, an Impressionist and that of an Abstract 
Expressionist. R2001, in contrast, is pluralist in its basis and 
relatively unconcerned about content. Instead it focuses on areas of 
intention, recognising that superficial similarities of surface 
appearance have become inadequate criteria for categorising cultural 
objects. The members of R2001 share a common, loosely defined, 
humanitarian purpose: to create art that makes a positive contribution 
to human social evolution during a period of unprecedented technological 
and social change. As artists, we are most comfortable with the idea of 
achieving this end through intuitive, 'organic' methods. An 
important aspect of this preference is the use of the Internet as a 
means of working together and building an international audience for 
our work.

- R2001 & THE INTERNET
Until very recently, artists have tended to use the Internet in a 
relatively conservative fashion, as a straightforward communications 
channel (building their own 'homepages' and 'virtual galleries) or 
sales medium. R2001 represents the next stage of development beyond 
such activities: as a phenomenon, it has arisen as a result of, and 
could not exist without, the Internet. Its organisers live in Tokyo, 
London and Helsinki, and have never met face-to-face. Its membership 
is drawn from artists living in Japan, Australia, Spain, Korea, 
Switzerland, Germany, New Zealand, Finland, England, Italy, Norway, 
Canada, Turkey, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iceland, France, Scotland 
and the USA. Its website draws hundreds of visitors daily from every 
part of the world. And all of this has been accomplished in just a few 
months via the Internet - a logistical exercise impossible by any other 
means.

- R2001, ART & SCIENCE
R2001 comes in many different flavours, with an artistic, cultural and
ethnic diversity that already puts most conventional international arts
festivals to shame. Its artists use the computer and the paintbrush
with equal comfort, evolving a new relationship between art and science
that integrates the new digital media with other, more traditional,
forms in a bewildering rush of styles and virtuosity. This tendency is 
supported by a growing database of digital resources held at the R2001 
website for the benefit of members and others. Moreover, the R2001
council has become proactive in a series of initiatives to extend the
benefits of leading edge digital technology to artists who would
otherwise lack the technical skills to deal with it: in the website's
Virtual Reality section there are a number of Java, QTVR, and Virtus
Player applications we have developed in order to display members' work
in a public setting that they themselves would not be capable of
initiating. It is already clear from the response to these efforts that
many artists are keen to engage with new technologies if given a context
that is sufficiently supportive of their work. 

- PUBLIC TASTE & THE GLOBAL AUDIENCE
R2001 is creating a global audience for an expanding group of artists 
from every part of the world. A key aim in this process is to subvert 
and reverse the traditional processes whereby public taste is 
manufactured on a top-down basis through the arbitration of institutions 
that have hitherto 'owned' the world art audience. The power of museums, 
public galleries, art critics, commercial galleries and academic 
institutions is exercised (sometimes unconsciously and sometimes quite 
deliberately) in such a way as to shape and mould public taste in art. 
R2001 seeks to democratise this process by creating its own audience 
via the Internet, and then by converting this influence into pressure on 
institutions to embrace the art to which its audience has responded.
This possibility of reversing the directional flow in the process of 
constructing public taste, may well be the single most significant
outcome of the new digital techologies. And it is notable that this
outcome portends a socio-aesthetic rather than a technical change, in
the form of a shift in the power-base for determining which art gets to
be seen where and by whom.


The first art galleries around the world to mount R2001 exhibitions, 
consisting partly of computer screens linked to R2001 members' Internet 
sites from every corner of the globe, will be active participants in a 
fundamental process of change that encompasses Art, Science, Technology 
and Communications. It is R2001's belief that this change will
constitute a paradigm shift in socio-aesthetics, creating the basis for
positive and permanent change in the relationship between artists and a
new, democratised, global art audience. 

Gerald O'Connell
(February 1998)

....and please respond to this:

________________________________________________________________________
In recent years some artists involved in the Internet have started to
explore the possibilities of the WWW as an artistic medium in its own
right. During 1998 several R2001 artists have made a major contribution
to this movement, and have acted collectively to make their work
available both online through the R2001 website, and at public
exhibitions in New York. This has led to considerable debate and
discussion as to the nature and definition of the new medium, and our
conclusions are formulated as a manifesto that encompasses:
i) the establishment of a formal nomenclature for a new medium and
artform;
ii) a definition of that new medium and artform;
iii) a rationale for the nomenclature and definition.

You will find the WebArt Manifesto at

http://r2001.com/webart/manifesto.html


Furthermore, we are now looking for critical/academic reviews, views,
essays, rhetoric, polemic etc. on the subject of WebArt, and the works
displayed in the R2001 WebArt Gallery at

http://r2001.com/webart/webart2.html

- contributions will form the basis for a new section within the R2001
website, and should be emailed directly to goc-AT-gacoc.demon.co.uk
________________________________________________________________________

  

Gerald O'Connell

http://www.gacoc.demon.co.uk/


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