April 2012

From Paddy Johnson's "dude-centric net art" thread:

sstage
forced political correctness kills creativity.

sally
I'm on a creative roll here, let's see... I want to curate a show of internet art...who shall I put in it? Don't stifle me now! I want to come up with the best possible idea for a show! What? Women? Augh! ...creativity....stifled....

sstage
I don't really know how to express myself the best way here... I've typed and deleted a few paragraphs that used analogies because I saw that each one could be easily misconstrued.
But yes - an outside demand of quotas on something that should be put together with ONLY the art produced in mind (and please note that the art is genderless, ageless, and raceless) and not things like "not enough women ratio in this microcosm" makes the creativity and passion of the organizers do a nose dive.
some of my favourite net art is created by women... but NOT because they are women and NOT because someone says I should like it because my personal tastes should be ratioed in a gender balanced way.

sally
The internet fosters a lot of unreflective self-expression, and that's truly a wonderful thing, but having to think about how your show might come across to other people besides yourself, in a context outside your immediate circles, is not exactly a big set back for most curators - for a lot of people it's actually kind of the whole entire point of curating. Being accountable for what you put out into the public sphere is challenging, and it should be.

Documentary filmmaker John Grierson said "Art is not a mirror -- it is a hammer." This a shorter, even more radical assertion than the well-known Brecht quote "Art is not a mirror to hold up to society but a hammer with which to shape it." Radical because the "mirror" now refers to any mimetic function and the hammer now smashes without being justified by any social "shaping."

The ultimate logical, scientific extension of thinking "about how your show might come across to other people besides yourself" is focus-grouping. We know how well that works from Hollywood movies: you get happy endings and endless stories about self-actualization in the face of adversity.

A viewpoint free of quotas, averaging, and taking the audience's temperature is not necessarily "unreflective self-expression." Art is one place where you can say "deal with it." If a critic can only talk about your quotas, you've either failed to communicate or your critic is attempting to deflect attention away from the point you are making.

Was intrigued by these Will Neibergall comments to yesterday's Paddy Johnson post about "dude-centric" net art shows. Neibergall hails from Tempe AZ, where a straight male high school student, River Flanary, recently made news by attempting to run for prom queen on a write-in ballot. Flanary said he did it "to give courage" to LGBT students daunted by the ballot, which required students to write in names of girls for queen and names of boys for king. Flanary got the most votes but was disqualified by the school. Neibergall argues along somewhat similar lines that male/female quotas in art reinforce a "heteronormative man/woman structure."

Will Neibergall:
Obviously you don't take the art very seriously if you find yourself standing in the middle of a show making calculations as to the gender makeup of the participants...

Also, I sincerely hope you realize that you are "queerizing" and making some repugnant assumptions about gender lines simply by demanding an expanded female presence in netart. You are saying "People feel, live and act differently if they have vaginas so they are just as important to new media art as men," but this is assuming that A) recognizing that "vagina barrier" is something we have to tackle before we can enjoy new media art for being what it is, and B) transsexual/transgendered/gender neutral people are too "exotic"/queer to demand as readily as women, and the "best we can do" is to get the relatively heteronormative man/woman structure in art. The thing is, we can't demand ANY person to diversify a field with their presence (especially something as spontaneous and voluntary as new media art) so what about we go back to the drawing board and just decide GOOD ART IS GOOD ART NO MATTER WHAT KIND OF CLOTHES SOMEONE LIKES TO WEAR AND WHAT THEY HAVE UNDER THEM

reeraw:
i'm sry, but you lost me at "vagina barrier".

Will Neibergall:
i'm sry, but u lost me at being condescending for no reason

derp:
sowwy, u lost me at 'im 15'

Will Neibergall:
lol.

The NY Observer's GalleristNY blog covered in more detail the lecture by 0-Day Art (Jeremiah Johnson and Don Miller) at Eyebeam, which I mentioned last week. Readers may remember the impetus for 0-Day Art was Rhizome.org Director Lauren Cornell's risible plan last year to sell an animated GIF by "taking it offline so the collector can have it locally." Rhizome's position* seems to be that the poor turn of phrase originated with artist Sara Ludy but of course Ludy said nothing of the kind. "0-Day" refers to the amount of time data should be kept offline for the sake of commerce.

Here's the NY Observer:

“Is it okay to take digital art ‘offline’ to give it value,” asked Mr. Johnson rhetorically. “No. It’s not okay. That’s a ridiculous way to monetize net art.”

Mr. Johnson and Mr. Miller were referring to a video that first piqued their interest in exploring the valuation of net-based work. They saw the video** “How Do You Sell an Animated GIF,” which showed Rhizome executive director Lauren Cornell talking about selling the quirky computer animations that could be taken “offline” and enjoyed “locally” by collectors. While the conversation about limiting access to digital artwork or imposing restrictions on their display and transfer was not new, it forced people to have an opinion about the issue one way or another, including Mr. Johnson and Mr. Miller.

“We’re resistant to attempts to create value or applying a paradigm that exists for physical objects,” said Mr. Johnson who was seated next to Mr. Miller behind a table and partially hidden by an open laptop. Behind them was a large screen which displayed bright green vintage-like computer graphics. “In treating digital works as a physical work, you’re neutering the power of those works.”

Also, this amusing exchange:

[0-Day Art] also passed around a flash drive and encouraged anyone with a computer to download all of the work that 0-Day has ever released.

“This might seem disrespectful,” said Mr. Johnson. “We have ultimate respect for the artists’ intentions.”

“I can’t reconcile your saying you’re trying to be respectful,” said a young man in the audience later, “when what you’re doing is not respectful.”

“If you’re anyone and you’re putting anything online,” said Mr. Johnson in response, “and you expect to control it, you’re delusional. I don’t see how holding a mirror up to someone’s delusions is disrespectful.”

*from what I'm hearing secondhand -- I haven't asked Rhizome for a statement -- maybe someone else wants to take the career risk
**actually not a video but a blog post by Hyperallergic

Update: A Verge article by Joshua Kopstein, also covering 0-Day Art, now has this disclaimer at the end:

Lauren Cornell reached out to us saying that Sara Ludy's work was taken offline at the request of the artist, and that it does not reflect Rhizome policy. Cornell further pointed out that it is Rhizome's goal to preserve digital work, as the group later outlined in a paper entitled Keeping It Online.

There's advocacy for you: at the first sign of controversy Rhizome blames the artist for requesting a business model that is now said to go against the organization's own policy (oddly, that wasn't mentioned at the time of the Hyperallergic interview).