Fwd: [undercurrents] "October 100th issue"

[anna balint]

i read and read about the perception of net.art in on the undercurrents list.
behind accusing  net.art for not backing up anti racism issues,
- which could be a valid critique to apply in Europe too, 
since racism in is a very big problem in East Europe,
but not exactly as it can be seen from a New York perspective -
i wonder how can happen in the United States to separate so much
social criticism and media criticism, is there no mainsteram and alternative
media construction of society, reality, history and politics?
more important is of course is there still need of alternative media and alternative art in Europe?
there is one source of alternativity for sure : the reception of the classics of avant-garde - 
- at least East European avantgarde is still subject of research,
the connection between new media art scene and pioneers of telematic arts and networks artist
is still waiting to be made. 
[i guess Henning Ziegler will end somewhere by accusing hypertext as a form which looses connection 
with the social, will see... i doubt that the form is the problem]
greetings,
anna
 

------- Start of forwarded message -------
From: Animas999 at aol.com
To: undercurrents at bbs.thing.net
Reply-To: undercurrents at bbs.thing.net
Subject: Re: [undercurrents] "October 100th issue"
Date: 7/15/02 3:50:28 PM

Dear Jennifer
 Thanks for your incisive assessment. I did want to comment on one passage -
In a message dated 7/15/02 2:35:12 AM, jag at cats.ucsc.edu writes:

<<  One reason some net art may be threatening or 
distasteful to other contemporary artists is that it has circumvented 
the traditional sites of validation (galleries, museums, criticism) 
while also, more recently, infiltrating them, or creating its own 
galleries, criticism, etc.  >>

Avant garde movements since the mid 19th century have sought out ways of 
circumventing traditional sites of validation - the poets maudits met on 
their own, the Dadaists created Cabaret Voltaire and put their art in the 
streets, the 60s avantgarde groups met in artists' homes and warehouses and 
bars, and artists in repressive regimes around the world have built their 
underground galleries and created "apartment art" cultures. Mail artists all 
over the world in the 70s were developing alternative circuits of 
distribution. Only people with short memories would argue that the internet 
was the first artist-controlled alternative space.

<<Ars Electronica and digital art have been 
around for a long time, certainly long before the official "art 
world" took notice... Indeed, I would imagine a number of net artists 
and other digital artists could speak to the fact that they had to 
create alternative venues just to be able to show their work to their 
peers.  >>

Yes Ars existed before but something happened in the mid 90s that is not 
taken into account here. Chico MacMurtrie, a Chicano robotics artist who used 
to show at Ars in the early 90s before net.art, has told me over and over 
that the digital boom in the 90s completely altered that festival and the 
kind of artists involved - its all about designers and engineers nowadays, 
and about using the festival as a showcase for R&D that serves the software 
industry and the special effects and digital animation departments in 
Hollywood. First there is the massive propaganda campaign in 94 to popularize 
the internet. Remember Gore's speeches about the information superhighway? 
Then there was the dot.com boom which created zillions of jobs for recent 
college grads who made exhorbitant amounts of money designing web sites - 
that excess capital facilitated the accelerated development of leisure 
cultures around the internet and adding an art sector to it added to the 
cache of an emerging design world that wants to see itself as artistic. Art 
schools scrambled to open digital art programs and art and science 
initiatives to access private sector funds - every school I have worked at 
since 94 has done so. Deans see millions coming in for digital media centers, 
a new legitimacy for art ed provided by an alliance with science and future 
wealthy alumni who will donate. Many young artists didn't have the need at 
first to get grants or utilize non profit networks because they had access to 
corporate resources. Many highly successful digital artists today whose works 
are bought by major museums work or worked for corporations doing design. 
Many very successful architects such as Diller and Scofidio and the Asymptote 
group make a fortune in their businesses and moonlight as biennial artists, 
taking advantage of large support staffs and endless tech resources to 
produce their "artworks."

<<Ironically, this fact places net artists in the "underdog" 
position once held (and as far as I can tell still held) by artists 
of color and women.  Hence, the defensiveness, no doubt.>>

Artists of color and women still hold the underdog position in the US 
Jennifer. Whereas white women moved through the ranks of burgeoning MFA 
programs in the 70s and 80s, the institutionalization of multiculturalism has 
coincided with academic downsizing and the decline of the non-profit art 
sector. It gets harder and harder to get a full time teaching position as an 
artist, which is often the key factor that enables non-commercial politically 
oriented artists to work on a continuous basis. The defensiveness is in part 
due to the tussles over who defines what constitute avant garde practice, and 
much theorizing about digital media, tactical media and the internet has 
implied that the concerns and strategies of multiculturalism are moot, passe, 
naive, luddite, etc.  The big difference between the multicultural and 
net.art sectors is that net.art WAS absorbed by the mainstream at a high 
speed where as mutliculturalism has been ghettoized in museum educational 
programs. When black curators have tried to argue with museum acquisitions 
committees about purchasing black art, they get the most outrageously racist 
responses you could imagine - "those people have their own museums," or "but 
how will that kitch stuff fly in the midwest?" -- these are direct quotes! On 
the other hand, Net.art had barely existed before it was included in 
Documenta 10. It took Fluxus 30 years to get acquired by museums. Carolee 
Schneeman has only two two pieces to museums in over 40 years. The McCoys are 
already selling their pieces to the Met and they have been exhibiting for 
less than a decade. Ken Feingold animatronic heads sold instantly by 
Postmasters and were included in the last Whitney Biennial. Danial Martinez's 
amazing animatronic sculpture of a suicidal Mexican worker on his knees 
laughing as he slits his wrists was barely even noticed by the mainstream 
press in LA or elsewhere. While black artists before the 80s generation still 
is not acquired by museums or most contemporary art collectors, net.art and 
digital art made by net.artists is sold by Postmasters Gallery in New York to 
major museums and several private collectors. Black artists and Chicano 
artists had been making art for more than two hundred years in the US without 
be dealt with by white institutions. Net.artists started being commissioned 
to make portals for the Walker and the Whitney within five years of 
graduating from college. American artists of color whose work is not in major 
museum collections are simply not paid attention to by commercial art 
publications such as Artforum. But Artforum has already launched a special 
section on net.art sites and hired a columnist who edits Rhizome's list to 
cover the net.art scene.

I'd say net.art is far from underground, far from autonomous and amazingly 
connected to the art market. That doesn't stop many for fantasizing about 
autonomy. And of course, there are many net.artists who only make work for 
non-commercial venues. That always happens. There is always more supply than 
demand in the artworld.

Best
Coco
 >>





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