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Re: INFOWAR: Re: What do Metropolis
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ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 98
INFOWAR. information.macht.krieg
Linz, Austria, september 07 - 12
http://www.aec.at/infowar
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Nick Wray wrote:
>I largely agree with Brian's analysis (as below) of the Ars 'InfoWar'
>debate. More so, 'war' as a theme seems to be used in the Ars Electronica
>context more like a brand than a defined thing. You are using it in
>relation to new media - I would argue - as a way of 'sexing-up' a subject
>- a subject whose essential definitions (that is definitions of 'what new
>media is?', 'who is an author?' and even 'what are authoring tools?')
>haven't even been stated let alone agreed.
-----
Yes, the term as used by Ars seems more about branding, hyping and
marketing than anything else. As I suggested in an earlier post, the term
Infowar is highly emotive. Of course artists and thinkers often enjoy
using emotive elements in their work (it saves a lot of effort) but for
that to work well it has to be contextualised and deconstructed, otherwise
it comes across as a cheap trick. Last night the Channel 4 News here in
the UK ran a long story on some new BSE issue. It was terrible. The
interviewer/broadcaster was hitting this industry guy with very general
questions in a very aggressive manner, and the guy was saying "I can
answer your questions if you let me", and the interviewer said he was not
interested in his answers but in evidence that everything was as the guy
said it was (I wondered as to the difference at this point). In the end it
was clear that the interviewer was scare-mongering, knowing that this
would generate fear and outrage in the viewers, and thus justify this
incredible waste of TV time as "news". This might be routine in the
States, but in the UK we are not so use to this type of self-serving
broadcasting.
With the title Infowar I feel that Ars is getting very close to doing the
same type of thing... starting up a debate about something that is largely
the product of the paranoid musings common amongst Pentagon officials and
weird fringe groups (are they the same people?). Is this a subject that
should engage our minds and time?
Geert, could you please give a more succinct definition of what you mean
by Infowar, and how you see the debate progressing (without being
proscriptive in any way) so as to get things back on line, as I am sure
there is space here for a genuine and interesting discussion.
>I'm not saying I'm right, but I've made an attempt to at least define some
>of the fundamental underlying issues about what we are discussing (and if
>there is a 'war' I'd suggest that it is implicitly defined as one fought
>between where on a scale new media is accepted as a commercial form of
>publishing or a social tool of new dialogue ('discuss'!) at the following
>web site: www.paperwork.demon.co.uk and at
>www.paperwork.demon.co.uk/milia.html.
-----
What is described here is less a war or guerilla action as a traditional
media art piece of intervention. This type of practice has a long
honourable tradition which is nothing new in regard to new media (such as
interactive systems or the Net). Many of the arts sites on the Web employ
this strategy as routine, sometimes to good effect (although the routine
nature of this work is a bit dull and boring). I doubt that paranoia or
"angst" about where power lies is going to lead to a productive analysis
of the territory, nor to promoting particularly evocative or profound art.
I think back on the all the artists who happened to be both good artists
and capable of evoking the patterns of power they engaged with. How would
they have handled this?
ciao
Simon Biggs
London GB
simon@babar.demon.co.uk
http://www.easynet.co.uk/simonbiggs/
Consultant Curator, Digital Imaging Gallery
National Museum of Photography, Film and Television
http://www.nmsi.ac.uk/nmpft/
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