D. M. Berry, M. Dieter, B. Gottlieb, L. Voropai: Imaginary Museums, Computationality & the New Aesthetic (2013)

“This text was produced in a four-day long process of collaborative writing, a so called book sprint, facilitated by Adam Hyde through the Booktype software and featuring writers David M. Berry, Michael Dieter, Baruch Gottlieb and Lioudmila Voropai. The instructions were to write an essay on the relationship between the netculture meme, The New Aesthetic and The Imaginary Museum, as an art world meme. Following this intense and extremely creative writing process, a work of approximately 12,000 words was produced as a contribution to the file_under: The Imaginary Museum informing transmediale 2013.” (Source)

Self-published in Berlin, January 2013
41 pages
via anonymous

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Sybil Gordon Kantor: Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and the Intellectual Origins of the Museum of Modern Art (2003)

“Growing up with the twentieth century, Alfred Barr (1902-1981), founding director of the Museum of Modern Art, harnessed the cataclysm that was modernism. In this book—part intellectual biography, part institutional history—Sybil Gordon Kantor tells the story of the rise of modern art in America and of the man responsible for its triumph. Following the trajectory of Barr’s career from the 1920s through the 1940s, Kantor penetrates the myths, both positive and negative, that surround Barr and his achievements.

Barr fervently believed in an aesthetic based on the intrinsic traits of a work of art and the materials and techniques involved in its creation. Kantor shows how this formalist approach was expressed in the organizational structure of the multidepartmental museum itself, whose collections, exhibitions, and publications all expressed Barr’s vision. At the same time, she shows how Barr’s ability to reconcile classical objectivity and mythic irrationality allowed him to perceive modernism as an open-ended phenomenon that expanded beyond purist abstract modernism to include surrealist, nationalist, realist, and expressionist art.

Drawing on interviews with Barr’s contemporaries as well as on Barr’s extensive correspondence, Kantor also paints vivid portraits of, among others, Jere Abbott, Katherine Dreier, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Philip Johnson, Lincoln Kirstein, Agnes Mongan, J. B. Neumann, and Paul Sachs.”

Publisher MIT Press, 2003
ISBN 0262611961, 9780262611961
472 pages

Review: Ralph A. Smith (J Aesthetic Education)

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Annet Dekker (ed.): Speculative Scenarios, or What Will Happen to Digital Art in the (Near) Future? (2013)

There is a growing understanding of the use of technological tools for dissemination or mediation in the museum, but artistic experiences that are facilitated by new technologies are less familiar. Whereas the artworks’ presentation equipment becomes obsolete and software updates change settings and data feeds that are used in artworks, the language and theory relating to these works is still being formulated. To better produce, present and preserve digital works, an understanding of their history and the material is required to undertake any in-depth inquiry into the subject.

In an attempt to fill some gaps the authors in this publication discuss digital aesthetics, the notion of the archive and the function of social memory. These essays and interviews are punctuated by three future scenarios in which the authors speculate on the role and function of digital arts, artists and art organisations.

The book is a sequel to Archive2020 – Sustainable Archiving of Born-Digital Cultural Content, edited by Annet Dekker in 2010.

With contributions by Christiane Berndes (Van Abbemuseum), Sarah Cook (CRUMB), Annet Dekker (aaaan.net), Sandra Fauconnier (Museum Boijmans van Beuningen), Olga Goriunova (University of Warwick), Jussi Parikka (University of Southampton), Christiane Paul (Whitney Museum), Richard Rinehart (Samek Art Gallery), Edward Shanken (DXARTS University of Washington), Jill Sterrett (SFMOMA), Nina Wenhart (independent researcher), Layna White (SFMOMA).

Publisher Baltan Laboratories, Eindhoven, August 2013
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
144 pages

publisher

PDF (updated on 2013-8-21)
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