Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 00:56:35 +0000
From: "Gerald O'Connell" <goc-AT-gacoc.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: News: WebArt Manifesto


In message <Pine.3.89.9810301759.A652-0100000-AT-bloor>, George Free
<aw570-AT-freenet.toronto.on.ca> writes
>On Fri, 30 Oct 1998, Gerald O'Connell wrote:
>
>> by the comment 'it's just art made using a particular medium'. You
>> appear to be unaware that classification by medium is a universally
>> accepted means of distinguishing and defining different forms of art. So
>> we do not need terms like 'painting' or 'etching' or 'watercolour' any
>> more because 'it's just art made using a particular medium' ?
>> 
>> That is why I made the ironic comments about RailArt and BoatArt - the
>> viewres mode of access access to the work just does not stand up as a
>> defining characteristic or criterion for a typology of art. Thus,
>> artists who have become excited about 'the intrinsic nature of the web'
>> as a communications medium, have become excited about the wrong thing if
>> they think that the communications medium is essential to the content of
>> the art itself. What they are really excited about is the fact that they
>> now have a new and unprecedentedly powerful way of communicating their
>> art to others. That is an extremely exciting and important thing, but it
>> has more to do with democratising the social construction of artistic
>> taste than it has to do with the content of art itself.
>> 
>       I think its the process not the content that can be quite 
>interesting. 

You are completely right. The impact of the Internet is potentially
quite shattering: it gives a direct contact between the audience and the
artist that probably has not existed since Cave Painting !  
We are completely conditioned into thinking in terms of a top-down
hierarchical model when it comes to the social construction of artistic
taste: museums, key galleries and critics, the academic art
establishment, all of these sit at the top of a 'pyramid' of opinion
formation, informally constructing league tables of 'greatness' and
'genius', which in turn governs what is seen and read about by the
public. But the Internet is capable of turning all that upside down by
eroding the role of these intermediaries. That in itself is enough to
make it genuinely revolutionary in the history of art.

I am much more sceptical about interactive net.art - I cannot help
comparing the experience of my own interaction with a number of 'leading
edge' soi-disant 'experimental' examples with my son's daily experience
on the Sony Playstation. I am sorry to disappoint the net.artists who
pin their credentials on Internet-based interactivity, but they are
light years behind the games community in exploring the processes of
interactivity and building a new cultural structure around them. Sorry
guys, but the game was over (in the arcade, mainly) before you even
started playing...


>engaging people in an on-line activity for instance. this 
>cannot be put into a file on your HD.

Yes, but I have seen a series of museum installations, particularly at
the ICC in Tokyo, where the interacivity of 'on-line' was simulated off
a hard-drive without changing the artistic impact or significance. 

At present I suspect that many artists are seduced by the enhanced
connectivity of the Internet into believing that the new art that the
Internet stimulates will have to be somehow 'about' or 'addressing' that
connectivity. I think they are dangerously deluded. I think they are
like rock stars who end up going stale with nothing to write about
except being on the road or in the recording studio: it is a strange
paradox whereby coming to terms with a new freedom actually results in a
narrowing of vision.
I think that the Internet's interactivity will lead to new types of art
and artistic ideas; but I think this will happen organically out of
interactivity in a slower, more iterative way. Strange new slants on
traditional artistic practices will emerge (An example: I am, at
present, exploring 'virtual modelling' where the model for paintings and
drawings sends me photographic images that are a response to my
suggestions, and I then work in traditional media from these images -
what is surprising about this is the way that the model starts to get an
interpretive and editorial role that just doesn't exist in the
liferoom...).

>       Also, I find classifying art by medium to be very problematic. I
>think what's crucial is the intention of the artist.

It is always important, but difficult to encompass descriptively. Ex-
post it can lead to the horrors of psychoanaytic criticism etc.

> I find that your
>ecclectic approach tends to lump everything together,

And then others say that that the WebArt definition is too narrow -
feels like getting caught in crossfire !

> when what is at
>issue is the differences between the different 'schools' or tendencies.

Ah !  I am with you there: the WebArt Manifesto is an attempt to draw
attention to the special characteristics of an emergent artform, and to
define it in terms of its medium. I agree that within that definition
there is the possibility for an infinite variety of different approaches
and results. I also think it is valuable for the differences to be
discussed, and for the adherents of different approaches to hurl abuse
at each other in the traditionally passionate manner of artists who MUST
believe that what they are doing is more 'important' than the other
guy's feeble approach - that is why I liked Andy's intemperate note so
much. For people, artists, to feel so deeply about these issues there
just has to be something worthwhile at stake. To me, it just shows that
the ground is worth fighting for... 
> 
>
>       Thanks for raising these issues!
>
>George
>
>
>
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Gerald O'Connell

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


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