French artist and critic Joseph Nechvatal just posted in “On Verge” a long, extensive review of Beyond New Media Art, described as “particularly topical and noteworthy, as it is very much in the current inclination to formally re-evaluate contemporary art in terms of a developing post-media understanding.” Mixing appraisal and criticism, Nechvatal offers an insightful reading, connecting the book to more recent developments in the ongoing contemporary art vs new media debate. Check it out!
new media art
Beyond New Media Art
Book
Link Editions is proud to announce the release of “Beyond New Media Art”, by Domenico Quaranta.“Beyond New Media Art” is the revised, updated version of a book first published in Italian with the title “Media, New Media, Postmedia” (Postmedia Books, Milan 2010). Through the circulation of excerpts, reviews and interviews, the book produced some debate outside of Italy, which persuaded the author to release, three years later, this English translation.
“Beyond New Media Art” is an attempt to analyze the current positioning of so-called New Media Art in the wider field of contemporary arts, and to explore the historical, sociological and conceptual reasons for its marginal position and under-recognition in recent art history. On the other hand, this book is also an attempt to suggest new critical and curatorial strategies to turn this marginalization into a thing of the past, and to stress the topicality of art addressing the media and the issues of the information age.
From the book’s preface: “So what is New Media Art? What does this term really describe? And what has occasioned the schism between this term and the art scene it is supposed to describe? And lastly, what accounts for the limited presence in critical debate of an artistic practice that appears to have all the credentials for representing an era in which digital media are powerfully reshaping the political, economic, social and cultural organization of the world we live in?”
Link Editions is a publishing initiative of the Link Center for the Arts of the Information Age. Link Editions uses print on demand and digital formats to create an accessible, dynamic series of essays and pamphlets, but also artist books, catalogues and conference proceedings. A keen advocate of the idea that information wants to be free, Link Editions releases its contents free of charge in .pdf format, and on paper at a price accessible to all. Link Editions is a not-for-profit initiative and all its contents are circulated under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) license.
Firing a new canon?
Book
I worked on this a couple of years ago, but it’s finally out in printed and digital form. Edited by Valerio Terraroli and published by Bompiani / Skira, It’s an art history book meant for the high schools and universities, from cave paintings to… net art. I made research for the second half of the Vol. 5, on contemporary art from the Fifties to the XXI century, and I was able to add some issues that are not usually featured in high school art history manuals.
Re: Bishop’s “Digital Divide”
Debate
This is my response to Claire Bishop‘s essay “Digital Divide“, published in Artforum in September 2012 (also posted in the comments section of the article):
Reading this article was a pleasure, and a pain. Some of the points made here are really good, and I also felt a lot of empathy for many of the examples raised, such as the use of obsolete or dead media, or the “archival impulse”, which have been the polar stars of my curatorial and critical work so far.
The problem is that Bishop fails in formulating the main question, that is: contemporary art should respond to the digital age – why it doesn’t? In my opinion, this question should be reformulated this way: “why the mainstream art world, the small niche I belong to and I’m talking to hereby, doesn’t respond to the digital age?”
Reaction: Art Fag City
Book
Paddy Johnson, “Is New Media Accepted in the Art World? Domenico Quaranta’s Media, New Media, PostMedia”, in Art Fag City, August 30, 2011.
Do institutions and galleries have a growing interest in New Media? Two weeks ago, I identified the art “internet bubble” at The L Magazine, a trend that’s currently giving new media the spot light. Not everyone sees new media the same way though. Domenico Quaranta, an Italian writer and curator previously best known to this blog for “Holy Fire“, a dubiously themed new media exhibition in Brussels that included only “collectible” work, being one such example. Quaranta’s followed up the 2008 exhibition by writing a whole book on the subject of New Media — “Media, New Media, PostMedia” — one core theme being that the field isn’t accepted in the contemporary art world. ”New Media Art is more or less absent in the contemporary art market, as well as in mainstream art magazines,” he writes in his abstract, ”and recent accounts on contemporary art history completely forgot it.” Go on reading…
Review: Régine Debatty
BookRégine Debatty, “Book review – Media, New Media, Postmedia“, in We Make Money Not Art, August 27, 2011.
“It’s not every day that i feel like recommending a publication to anyone interested in new media art. No matter the depth of their involvement with new media art, no matter their degree of expertise. Whether you’re a student, an academic and someone who curates or collects contemporary art and is ‘just curious about new media art’, Media, New Media, Postmedia is one book you ought to read. The catch is that, so far, the book is available in italian only. The abstract i butchered above as well as the list of contents are available in english online. It’s not much but it should give you an idea of the breadth and tone of the publication. Media, New Media, Postmedia is a brave book, one that might ruffle a few feathers sometimes (but oh so elegantly!) The publication gives a carefully researched overview of the state of the ‘new media art vs contemporary art world’ debate, navigating deftly between opinions and ideas. As far as i know Media, New Media, Postmedia has no equal in english and i do hope Quaranta looks for and finds a publisher who will be willing to translate it.” Go on reading…
Presentation: ENSAD, Paris
Book
On Wednesday, March 23, at 2.30 PM Domenico Quaranta will present the book Media, New Media, Postmedia at the prestigious ENSAD, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris.
Au cours des dernières décennies, un corpus étendu et complexes de pratiques s’est développé, à la croisée de l’art, la science et les technologies.
Dans les années 1990, avec l’accès grandissante aux technologies et le développement de la culture numérique, cette recherche a explosé et conquis un grand nombre d’artistes: le New Media Art (dit aussi “art numérique”) est né. Pourtant, malgré cette diffusion exponentielle, l’art numérique n’a pas été capable de conquérir le monde de l’art contemporain. Quelles sont les causes de cette exclusion? Un contraste de traditions? Le refus obstiné de la part de la critique officielle à intégrer ces pratiques dans l’histoire de l’art? à l’incompatibilité entre ces formes de création et le marché de l’art?
Le critique et commissaire d’exposition italien Domenico Quaranta accepte le défi et, dans son livre Media, New Media, Postmedia, qui vient de paraitre en Italie, il esquisse une série de réponses à ces interrogations. En critiquant une définition de l’art basée sur la nature technologique des oeuvres, il présente une panoramique international de ce débat actuel et discute les enjeux de l’art à l’âge de l’information.
Paul Slocum
Quote“New media art may eventually find its market, but since it currently has not, its prominence in the art archive may depend on those in the field writing avidly about the unique experiences they’re having with art, computers and the Internet. New media artists are pouring themselves online every day to see a fuller picture, and they must report back often lest others miss out on the astonishing beauty of the Internet.”
Paul Slocum, New Media and the Gallery, in Artlies, Issue 67, 2010
The whole issue is quite gorgeous, featuring texts by / about Charles Broskoski, Beryl Graham & Sarah Cook, Angelo Plessas, Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung, Guthrie Lonergan, Tobias Leingruber
Graham & Cook
Quote
“One problem as far as the acceptance of new media art into the mainstream of the art system is that it has been briefly taken up as a novelty and shown only for its newness. The hype surrounding the technology driving new media art hasn’t helped its long-term engagement with the art world.”
Beryl Graham and Sarah Cook, Rethinking Curating. Art after New Media, 2010
Lev Manovich
Quote“As digital and network media are rapidly became an omni-presence in our society, and as most artists came to routinely use it, new media field is facing a danger of becoming a ghetto whose participants would be united by their fetishism of latest computer technology, rather than by any deeper conceptual, ideological or aesthetic issues – a kind of local club for photo enthusiasts.”
Lev Manovich, “From Borges to HTML”, 2003