Collaborative research on media art and culture in Central and Eastern Europe

MONOSKOP research project examines the social context of historical developments in media art in Central and Eastern Europe. Analysis of sociopoetic conditions of art and technology crossings from 1960s to 2000s draws upon the undertakings in experimental and avantgarde film, performance art, computer art, video art, experimental music, sound art, and media theory. The objective is to create professional and solid basis for theoreticians and critics to assist them in development of the theoretical discourse on new media art in the Central and Eastern Europe.

Monoskop log: http://www.burundi.sk/monoskop/log/  
 Archive of related literature

Potential themes

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." (Buckminster Fuller)

• Media art: how was media art category constructed (what it institutes), how it is structured, and what it suppresses, in other words: critique of media art(s). Is this category still relevant today, able to generate new practices?
• Arts and engineering collaborations in CEE: painters with programmers, sculptural artists with architects, musicians with engineers, multidisciplinary collectives. Open organisation. New collaborative practices?
• Media lab culture. Idea of laboratory. Place studies. What are the new experimental models for labs?
• Audiovisual tools and instruments: experiments with synaesthesia in 1910s-20s, electric music instruments in 1920s-30s, electronic music instruments in 1950s-60s, hardware hacking in 1990s/2000s, DIY electronics, graphical programming and synthesis in 1990s/2000s, hive networks. What tools are to be built?
• Media art education: VkHUTEMAS in Moscow 1920s, Muhely in Budapest 1920s-30s, first video and intermedia ateliers in art schools in communist countries 1970s-80s, and boom of media education in 1990s. What are the new models for media/art education?
• Tactical media. Cultural critique in CEE, with regard to technological culture.
• Art servers for 21st century.
• Living media archives. Transclusion / visualisation / formats / licensing / metadata. What systems are to be build to serve the networked culture production?
• Collaborative art

Methodology under construction

• Media art, since Oct 2006
• East-Central Europe, since 2 Jun 2008
• Arthistorical methodologies, since 5 Jun 2008
• Boundary objects between arthistory, history of technology, and sociology, since 7 Jun 2008
• Art as Research, since 22 Jun 2008
• http://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kultúrna_kritika

Local historical overviews under construction

• Media art in CEE, since Jul 2008
• Media art in Hungary, since Jun 2008
• Media art in Poland, since Jun 2008
• Computing and cybernetics in CEE, since Jun 2008
• Media art in Czech Republic, since May 2008
• Media art in Slovakia, since Apr 2006

Next / todo

• Computer museums in CEE
• analyse Tomáš Štrauss' essay on Central European art
• East-West artistic mobility

Meetings

• 22 March 2009 in Prague
• Media archives discussion panel, Doc-film-fest Jihlava, 25 October 2008, http://www.document-festival.cz

Next phase

• Book