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RE: INFOWAR: information and art



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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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Tina LaPorta wrote:

>>Art is based on imagination (coupled with style)<<

Valery Grancher wrote:

>>Art is a xultural phenomenon and we have to kkep in mind that
occidental art<<

Art is - above all - a cultural articulation of a technology, and style is 
barely an indicator.
 
Josepha Haveman & -j. wrote:

>>What happened to the quiet research-library atmosphere? ... Despite the 
official rhetoric, we like our elitism. We like what it gets us: exclusivity, 
a quiet channel like a quiet library or even monastic space for
 learning and thought. A channel with content rather than noise.<<

>>Aside from certain campuses, is there anyplace 
out there with this quality of a research-library cloister?  Is this 
something 
 we as artists, writers, and thinkers etc. need (if not daily, at least as an 
option)?<<

Well, nothing happened really. Unless that is again an issue about which one 
is more real - the actual or the virtual. (About a year ago one of my highly 
useless papers dealing with art of the late XVIIIth century was basically 
rejected by a (now) 519 university (in a (most probably democratic) 
EU-country) because its department found usage of the images downloaded from 
Internet (the only available colour reproductions to date) and some quoted 
materials from electronic journals simply and plainly sacrilege-like.) It 
looks like those elitist places are becoming generators of 
"bringing-coal-to-Newcastle" - so inability to adapt and accept changes leads 
to the confusion of content and noise. 
 
To maintain hermeticism of (any) highly pretentious intellectual space(s) 
engaging mostly in satisfaction of its own problems is not really necessary, 
although for many belonging to such a space might be not just comfortable, 
but also vital. On the other hand, people sharing certain similarities are 
wanting to have a gathering place. But again - to do what in it? The ability 
of conducting a conversation or an oral discussion is becoming more and more 
seldom found ability since it is being replaced by communication(s) that, in 
the end of the day, serves the ultimate goal of getting through with one's 
own notions and opinions in order to prove his/her own superiority and 
coolness? And when each member of a designated crowd (of those 
artists/self-proclaimed and/or institutionally approved 
intellectuals/writers/etc.) follows this principle religiously, then it 
results in noise and disturbance. 
 
And from -j again:

>>How do you see art magazines and similar media fitting into this-the stuff 
that straddles scholarship and advertising?  Especially with salable media 
like painting...<<
 
Do they really? An art critic goes on about her first class flights, 
receptions in Europe, her meetings with some other critics and art-stars in 
an article where she pretends to be writing about a retrospective of a 
well-known and well-selling painter in a well-known museum of a well-known 
metropolis - are you sure this could be scholarship? It's gossips, it's 
manifestation of the critic's newly acquired intellectual impotence (but she 
still needs cash), it's useless information, it's advertising and 
self-advertising - but scholarship?! And how many glossy art(sy-fartsy) 
magazines manage to beyond these writings?
 
Regards,

Nomeda

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