| Simon Biggs on 20 Feb 2001 13:05:33 -0000 |
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| <nettime> Re: net art history |
>On Mon, 19 Feb 2001, olia lialina wrote: >> But don't you see that net art and net artists changed the >> landscape of contemporary art? Now, art institutions have to >> learn to act as nodes (not as a center). And they do. Murph wrote: >Can't see that has happened much from my perch here in NYC. Maybe in >Europe that's true. Certainly the Guggenheim is becomming more nodal, but >that doesn't have much to do with net art. More like global conquest. ----- The net has certainly changed the world to some degree but I can't see that net artists have changed anything significant (not that museums are particularly significant anyway, when compared to other global institutions or issues). I can't think of many artists that have changed things in the bigger picture. I was not aware that this was the role of the artist. Even if looking at so-called "revolutionary art", whether Russian, Mexican or whatever, where the artists have believed that they were a key component in cultural change it is retrospectively apparent that they were deluding themselves. Artists do not transform the world. They transform how they personally see the world and this gradually rubs off little by little on others...but only when they are ready for it. Art is not politics...although it might be political. >There's been interest in the "archaic days" lately, the period pre-1994 >stretching back to the dawn of humankind. Carl Leoffler's death the other >day reminded me that his ArtCon newsgroup was one of my first contacts >with other artists on the net. I think both Heath Bunting and Brad Brace >were there. ----- I wasn't aware of Carl's death. That is a more significant cultural event than the death of Balthus that everyone is talking about...at least for me... >I think John Hopkins teaches at Boulder off and on. Universities are >looking for ways to cash in on digital art. Amerika's use of the phrase >"innovative ciriculum" is a dead giveaway. That's biz talk, not art talk. >Art students all want to make Jurrasic Park these days. ----- Universities want active research profiles. The current interest in all things digital and net-based means that artists working in that area can bring to the institution their research points. Ultimately this translates into funding and PR. Some universities even expect such artists to teach ;) Simon Biggs London GB [email protected] http://hosted.simonbiggs.easynet.co.uk/ Research Professor Art and Design Research Centre School of Cultural Studies Sheffield Hallam University Sheffield, UK http://www.shu.ac.uk/ # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [email protected] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]