Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 06:53:27 -0500
Subject: Re: when minds interactively network


to communicate globally
global iconic language
must become

Gerald O'Connell wrote:

> 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/
>
>      --- from list avant-garde-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---





     --- from list avant-garde-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---