Difference between revisions of "Media art and culture"

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''In section ''Media and Computation'' I show that new media represents a convergence of two separate historical trajectories: computing and media technologies. Both begin in the 1830's with Babbage's Analytical Engine and Daguerre's daguerreotype. Eventually, in the middle of the twentieth century, a modern digital computer is developed to perform calculations on numerical data more efficiently; it takes over from numerous mechanical tabulators and calculators already widely employed by companies and governments since the turn of the century. In parallel, we witness the rise of modern media technologies which allow the storage of images, image sequences, sounds and text using different material forms: a photographic plate, a film stock, a gramophone record, etc. The synthesis of these two histories? The translation of all existing media into numerical data accessible for computers. The result is new media: graphics, moving images, sounds, shapes, spaces and text which become computable, i.e. simply another set of computer data. In ''Principles of New Media'' I look at the key consequences of this new status of media. Rather than focusing on familiar categories such as interactivity or hypermedia, I suggest a different list. This list reduces all principles of new media to five: '''numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability and cultural transcoding'''. In the section, ''What New Media is Not,'' I address other principles which are often attributed to new media [digitally encoded media is discrete in contrast to analog, different media types are displayable using one machine, random access,  digitization inolves loss of information, endless copying w/o degradation of media, interactivity]. I show that these principles can already be found at work in older cultural forms and media technologies such as cinema, and therefore they are by themselves are not sufficient to distinguish new media from the old.''
 
''In section ''Media and Computation'' I show that new media represents a convergence of two separate historical trajectories: computing and media technologies. Both begin in the 1830's with Babbage's Analytical Engine and Daguerre's daguerreotype. Eventually, in the middle of the twentieth century, a modern digital computer is developed to perform calculations on numerical data more efficiently; it takes over from numerous mechanical tabulators and calculators already widely employed by companies and governments since the turn of the century. In parallel, we witness the rise of modern media technologies which allow the storage of images, image sequences, sounds and text using different material forms: a photographic plate, a film stock, a gramophone record, etc. The synthesis of these two histories? The translation of all existing media into numerical data accessible for computers. The result is new media: graphics, moving images, sounds, shapes, spaces and text which become computable, i.e. simply another set of computer data. In ''Principles of New Media'' I look at the key consequences of this new status of media. Rather than focusing on familiar categories such as interactivity or hypermedia, I suggest a different list. This list reduces all principles of new media to five: '''numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability and cultural transcoding'''. In the section, ''What New Media is Not,'' I address other principles which are often attributed to new media [digitally encoded media is discrete in contrast to analog, different media types are displayable using one machine, random access,  digitization inolves loss of information, endless copying w/o degradation of media, interactivity]. I show that these principles can already be found at work in older cultural forms and media technologies such as cinema, and therefore they are by themselves are not sufficient to distinguish new media from the old.''
  
'''Simon Penny''' v texte ''Consumer Culture and the Technological Imperative: The Artist in Dataspace''<ref>Simon Penny (ed.), Critical issues in electronic media, SUNY Press, 1995, [http://books.google.com/books?id=vzFJnyBjaLMC (google books)]</ref> hovori o digitalnom, pocitacovom a elektronickom
+
'''Simon Penny''' v texte "Consumer Culture and the Technological Imperative: The Artist in Dataspace"<ref>Simon Penny, "Consumer Culture and the Technological Imperative: The Artist in Dataspace", 1993 [http://ace.uci.edu/penny/texts/consumerculture.html (full article)], in: Simon Penny (ed.), Critical issues in electronic media, SUNY Press, 1995, [http://books.google.com/books?id=vzFJnyBjaLMC (google books)]</ref> hovori o digitalnom, pocitacovom a elektronickom
 
umeni (pouziva ich ako synonyma) ako o spojnici troch historickych
 
umeni (pouziva ich ako synonyma) ako o spojnici troch historickych
 
prudov: techniky (engineering), transnacionalneho komoditneho
 
prudov: techniky (engineering), transnacionalneho komoditneho
 
kapitalizmu, a tradicneho vytvarneho umenia. kedy digitalni
 
kapitalizmu, a tradicneho vytvarneho umenia. kedy digitalni
 
medialni umelci pracuju s estetikou technologii, ktore su
 
medialni umelci pracuju s estetikou technologii, ktore su
v kulture technologiami moci.
+
v kulture technologiami moci.<br>
 +
''In many discussions of computer arts, the conversation has focused upon a dialectic between the sciences and the arts, a recapitulation of C. P. Snow's somewhat dated dualism. I want to insert a third term, without which such a discussion can have only limited relevance to contemporary culture: consumer commodity economics. [..] In this discussion, the terms "computer artists," "electronic media artists," and "artists who use technology" are used interchangeably, as I know of no useful and brief blanket term. There will be some specific reference to interactive media artpractice.''
  
 
'''Armin Medosch'''<ref>Armin Medosch, Technological Determinism in Media Art, 2005, [http://theoriebild.ung.at/view/Main/TechnologicalDeterminismInMediaArt (full text)], [http://kyberia.sk/id/2927577 (excerpt)]</ref> k Pennyho trom prudom pridava este dva:
 
'''Armin Medosch'''<ref>Armin Medosch, Technological Determinism in Media Art, 2005, [http://theoriebild.ung.at/view/Main/TechnologicalDeterminismInMediaArt (full text)], [http://kyberia.sk/id/2927577 (excerpt)]</ref> k Pennyho trom prudom pridava este dva:

Revision as of 19:11, 20 June 2009

The term media art is useful and used for artistic projects bringing up the technological, aesthetical, social, cultural, legal and political issues that come along with the emergence of new media. Since 1990s the new media have included internet, web, mobiles, wireless, GPS, and others. Media culture in this regard uses and is used by new media.

Media art includes projects exploring technological and aeshetical of emerging tools and standards, such as video, computer, mobile devices, internet, software, code, computer games, streaming, GPS, sound production devices, or robotics. These projects usually focus on the manuevre limitations, stereotypes of perception, or aesthetics of these tools.

Looking at the media art and culture mailing lists, conferences and festivals, the current discussions are held on various topics, such as public domain and accessibility of data, software, and devices, democratisation of electromagnetic spectrum (open spectrum), social web (or web 2.0), protection of personal data and identity, and human rights. Projects dealing with these social, cultural, legal and political issues stemmed from media art field and still can be considered as a part of it.


Definitions

Stephen Wilson v Information Arts[1] klasifikuje prace na zaklade pouzitych technologii (v knihe spred 6 rokov ich naratal vyse 80).

Christiane Paul v Digital Art[2] rozlisuje medzi umenim, ktore pouziva digitalne technologie ako nastroje pre tvorbu tradicnych umeleckych objektov (fotografia, tlac, socha, hudba) a umenim, pre ktore su tieto technologie jeho vlastnym mediom, v ktorom je produkovane, zaznamenavane a prezentovane a ktoreho interaktivne a participativne vlastnosti taketo umenie vyuziva.

Peter Weibel[3] claims "Futurism, Cubism, Cubofuturism, Suprematism, Dadaism, Surrealism, etc." to be conceptual precursors of media art. New art forms emerging after WW2 such as "action painting, Fluxus, Happening, Pop Art, Kinetism, Op-Art, Ambiente, Arte Povera, actions, performances, etc.," are enlisted to the cause of preparing the ground for the 'liberated' digital image.

Lev Manovich v The Language of New Media[4] postupuje od materialnych zakladov novych medii k ich formam.
In section Media and Computation I show that new media represents a convergence of two separate historical trajectories: computing and media technologies. Both begin in the 1830's with Babbage's Analytical Engine and Daguerre's daguerreotype. Eventually, in the middle of the twentieth century, a modern digital computer is developed to perform calculations on numerical data more efficiently; it takes over from numerous mechanical tabulators and calculators already widely employed by companies and governments since the turn of the century. In parallel, we witness the rise of modern media technologies which allow the storage of images, image sequences, sounds and text using different material forms: a photographic plate, a film stock, a gramophone record, etc. The synthesis of these two histories? The translation of all existing media into numerical data accessible for computers. The result is new media: graphics, moving images, sounds, shapes, spaces and text which become computable, i.e. simply another set of computer data. In Principles of New Media I look at the key consequences of this new status of media. Rather than focusing on familiar categories such as interactivity or hypermedia, I suggest a different list. This list reduces all principles of new media to five: numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability and cultural transcoding. In the section, What New Media is Not, I address other principles which are often attributed to new media [digitally encoded media is discrete in contrast to analog, different media types are displayable using one machine, random access, digitization inolves loss of information, endless copying w/o degradation of media, interactivity]. I show that these principles can already be found at work in older cultural forms and media technologies such as cinema, and therefore they are by themselves are not sufficient to distinguish new media from the old.

Simon Penny v texte "Consumer Culture and the Technological Imperative: The Artist in Dataspace"[5] hovori o digitalnom, pocitacovom a elektronickom umeni (pouziva ich ako synonyma) ako o spojnici troch historickych prudov: techniky (engineering), transnacionalneho komoditneho kapitalizmu, a tradicneho vytvarneho umenia. kedy digitalni medialni umelci pracuju s estetikou technologii, ktore su v kulture technologiami moci.
In many discussions of computer arts, the conversation has focused upon a dialectic between the sciences and the arts, a recapitulation of C. P. Snow's somewhat dated dualism. I want to insert a third term, without which such a discussion can have only limited relevance to contemporary culture: consumer commodity economics. [..] In this discussion, the terms "computer artists," "electronic media artists," and "artists who use technology" are used interchangeably, as I know of no useful and brief blanket term. There will be some specific reference to interactive media artpractice.

Armin Medosch[6] k Pennyho trom prudom pridava este dva: kulturny priemysel (frankfurtska skola) a socio-politicke hnutia (aktivizmus). Pojem "media art" chape ako stresny pojem, analogicky k vyssie spominanym pojmom.

Mark Tribe and Reena Jana in New Media Art[7]: New Media art and older categorical names like "Digital art," "Computer art," "Multimedia art," and "Interactive art" are often used interchangeably, but for the purposes of this book we use the term New Media art to describe projects that make use of emerging media technologies and are concerned with the cultural, political, and aesthetic possibilities of these tools. We locate New Media art as a subset of two broader categories: Art and Technology and Media art. Art and Technology refers to practices, such as Electronic art, Robotic art, and Genomic art, that involve technologies which are new but not necessarily media-related. Media art includes Video art, Transmission art, and Experimental Film -- art forms that incorporate media technologies which by the 1990s were no longer new. New Media art is thus the intersection of these two domains. We chose to limit the scope of this book to work that was made after the term New Media art was broadly adopted in 1994, and to focus on works that are particularly influential, that exemplify an important domain of New Media art practice, and that display an exceptional degree of conceptual sophistication, technological innovation, or social relevance. Deciding what counts as media technology is a difficult task. The Internet, which is central to many New Media art projects, is itself composed of a heterogeneous and constantly changing assortment of computer hardware and software?servers, routers, personal computers, database applications, scripts, and files?all governed by arcane protocols, such as HTTP, TCP/IP, and DNS. Other technologies that play a significant role in New Media art include video and computer games, surveillance cameras, wireless phones, hand-held computers, and Global Positioning System (GPS) devices. But New Media art is not defined by the technologies discussed here; on the contrary, by deploying these technologies for critical or experimental purposes, New Media artists redefine them as art media. In the hands of Radical Software Group (RSG), for example, data surveillance software, similar to that used by the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), becomes a tool for artistic data visualization. In addition to exploring the creative possibilities of this software, RSG develops a critique of surveillance technology and its uses. According to the authors, contemporary new media art pieces tend to deal with themes such as collaboration, identity, appropriation and open sourcing, telepresence and surveillance, corporate parody, as well as intervention and hactivism.

Oliver Grau in Virtual Art - ? [8][9]

Roy Ascott in Telematic Embrace - ? [10]

Rudolf Frieling and Dieter Daniels: media art is "by definition multimedia, time-based or process-oriented"[11]

Geert Lovink [12]

Michal Murin [13]

Denisa Kera [14]

Mária Rišková in [15]: "Uznanie umenia nových médií ako relevantnej súčasti inštitucionalizovaných dejín vizuálneho umenia sa naplnilo, keď sa rozšíril termín media art (umenie médií, mediálne umenie), ktorý jasnejšie vytýčil pravidlá hry a uspokojil zástupcov konvenčných dejín umenia:

  • prepojil súčasné nové médiá s historickým vývojom = nové médiá sú pokračovateľom experimentov niektorých avantgárd (ktoré už dosiahli akceptáciu v akademických kruhoch)
  • akceptoval zaradenie autorov nepochádzajúcich z akademickej umeleckej scény do oblasti umenia
  • odstránil sporné adjektívum „nový“ a zhrnul pod „médiá“ už prediskutované pojmy multimediálneho a intermediálneho umenia = spolupôsobenie zvuku – obrazu – pohybu – času – procesu – priestoru...
  • prijal fenomény, ktorú už nemohol nikto v súčasnej kultúre prehliadať = interaktivita, úloha publika atď."

More writings

  • Má pojem nová média dnes ještě co říci? 2007 [1]

New media

  • Lyotard in book La Condition Postmoderne (1979), in which he prophesised the end of the grand narratives, the end of man's control over being (Descartes), the end of the humanist tradition. In Les Immatériaux exhibition he curated he made the visitor realise that the existence of new materials (new technologies, computerized spaces, internet) would alter man's relationship with the world even more extremely. These 'new materials' would force him to recognize that the old Cartesian programme of mastering and posses¬sing nature was history. These 'new materials' were not, as Lyotard explained, materials that are new, but materials that 'work' or 'talk' themselves and thus question the idea of Man being the only one who works, talks, plans and remembers. Goods, images and signs themselves generate new processes, resulting in ever new goods, images, signs and meanings. The sphere of influence of these processes extend far beyond the conscious intentions and interpretations of those who make and absorb it. This is the most fascinating proof of the ability of 'a work' to work and to affect its own operations. It has a 'life' of its own.

References

  1. Stephen Wilson, Information Arts: intersections of art, science, and technology, MIT Press, 2003, (online), (fulll book), (google books)
  2. Christiane Paul, Digital Art (World of Art series), London: Thames and Hudson, 2003, (online), (commentary)
  3. Peter Weibel, On the History and Aesthetics of the Digital Image, 1984, (full text), (excerpt)
  4. Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001, (online), (full book), (google books), (excerpt)
  5. Simon Penny, "Consumer Culture and the Technological Imperative: The Artist in Dataspace", 1993 (full article), in: Simon Penny (ed.), Critical issues in electronic media, SUNY Press, 1995, (google books)
  6. Armin Medosch, Technological Determinism in Media Art, 2005, (full text), (excerpt)
  7. Mark Tribe and Reena Jena, New Media Art, Taschen/Brown, 2006, (full text)
  8. Oliver Grau, Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion (Leonardo Book Series). Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2003
  9. Oliver Grau (ed.), MediaArtHistories, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007 (full book)
  10. Roy Ascott, Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness, Berkeley: University of California Press. 2003 [http://burundi.sk/monoskop/log/?p=64 (full book)
  11. Rudolf Frieling, Dieter Daniels (eds.), Media art net 2: Thematische Schwerpunkte/ Key Topics, Springer, 2005, (online), (google books)
  12. Geert Lovink "New Media, Art and Science: Explorations beyond the Official Discourse" (2005) (full text)
  13. Michal Murin "Nové médiá" Profil 4 (2000) pp. 4-5. (full text) (Slovak)
  14. Denisa Kera "Nová média" (full text) (Czech)
  15. Mária Rišková "Agónia a extáza umenia nových médií" Flash Art Fall (2008) (Slovak)


Resources


  1. REDIRECT Template:Artists cultures