Day: February 20, 2011

“Thus the studio is a place of multiple activities: production, storage and finally, if all goes well, distribution.”

Buren, Daniel, “The Function of the Studio,” trans. Thomas Repensek, October 10 (Fall 1979): 53 (emphasis added)

The above quote (minus the cheeky emphasis) hails from Caitlin Jones' recent discussion of the internet as post-studio environment. Some good thoughts with mostly terrible examples. (Nasty Nets and Petra Cortright, fine; Oliver Laric and Aleksandra Domanovic, long-winded/didactic; Ryan Trecartin fashion model dress-up page, insufferable/incoherent.)

Jones gets a bit carried away with the supposed openness of the post-studio laptop studio. Plenty happens on the Net that's beyond the artist's reckoning, but that doesn't mean the artist isn't controlling and shaping a persona and how much of an idea "gets out there." Also, how open is a piece of artwork that absolutely "requires Intel-based Mac, OS X v10.5 or later" to be experienced? Many of Jones' examples predate the "login required" social media sites that are fragmenting rather than opening up the Web.

"Open to friends" is not really the same as "open."

"If a tree falls in a walled garden..."

Hat tip Nicholas for the Jones link