Re: <nettime> History of Computer Art, chap. V

[John Hopkins <jhopkins@neoscenes.net>]

On 12/Dec/13 00:05, Armin Medosch wrote:

Hallo Armin!

> my reply was in no way meant to be a "critique" of the whole project as John
> Hopkins wrongly insinuated. It is just a critique of the title which projects
> a

Nah, it was a more general reaction on my part, there were a bunch of folks who 
started to drill down looking for weaknesses in it... This should be a part of 
the discourse, but seems lop-sided, without much positive spin.

I totally hear your original suggestions -- accuracy in linguistically framing a 
reductive re-framing of 'reality' is a good thing. And there are more obvious 
'mistakes' and less obvious ones. And accuracy, surely is subjective.

I was just remarking on a general nettime response which seems to be (imho) more 
times skewed to critique or to yawning silence than to praise or support. Seldom 
praise for folk's efforts. Maybe that occurs back-channel, I don't know. I 
haven't done a statistical analysis of this situation, so, yes, it's a feeling, 
I admit.

As a learning facilitator, I recall when I first moved to Reykjavik where I 
established a photo/electronic media program at the Icelandic Academy (B.W. 
'Before the Web'). I was quite troubled that there were no written or visual 
resources for teaching History of Photography, for example, aside from what I 
bought with me. (Yes, perhaps books in private hands, but only a couple 
Icelanders had gone abroad to study contemporary 'art' photography at that 
point). Even my teaching technically was illegal as I was not a member of the 
Icelandic Photographers Union -- a trade union!

This dearth of material in many ways was liberating -- no need to 'fight' the 
canon of history when no one knew anything about it!

But, of course, going back to basics of evolutionary development (paraphrasing 
Santayana): "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." 
Having some texts (almost regardless of their content, in my case in Iceland) 
was better than none. They became the starting point in a discussion, *not* the 
ending point as a definitive statement of the nature of a former reality. I 
guess I've always been happy to see texts such as Dr. Dreher's being generated 
as they (possibly) enrich a learning situation. Happy to the point of being 
blinded to the negative potential of having reality mis-characterized. But wait 
that always happens with any reductive re-presentation!

I am hyper-conscious of making that point a constant learning moment, as I find 
it seems largely forgotten in the education system here in the US. The Bush 
Regime did a good job of removing 'critical thinking' from K-12 curricula, and 
thus, half-a-generation later, that lack is seeping, flooding into the 
universities.

It's true, the discussion occurring in nettime signifies what is always 
necessary, maybe it was the overall tone that I was objecting to.

BTW, what is that ZKM document sourcebook you spoke of (did Darko author it?) -- 
do you have a bibliographic entry for that?

Thanks,
JH

--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
THE KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN:
10 NOVEMBER - 12 DECEMBER 2013
http://tinyurl.com/neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


#  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: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org