Hi Everyone,
I posted an item earlier about the aura and a possible new art-historical
period, i.e. Networkism.
This was discussed on the Artforum list for a while but they had some
conflict problems and
erased a lot of threads. I pasted it to my message before which may have
been too long,
so I'm just pasting a little here.
I have a little different take than Curt on the topic of Networkism–I think
all work in all media
should be "about the network itself," not just internet art. Books and
paintings too. But "the
network" included everything, such as personal growth and antiquity. If one
confines the idea
of the network to trivial technical details of course that's no good. The
network is the new condition of many things, not just art. For example,
www.praccom.com talks about different communication styles in the networked
organization. Managerialism in a networked organization like Microsoft,
whose product is information, is different from that of the older heavy
manufacturing industries.
As Timothy McDonald (?) wrote, the past (including classical antiquity) is
part of the network. I like to express this by re-interpreting Norman
Mailer's idea "history as the novel and the novel as history" as "the novel
as network and the network as history." This is why I include tragic
theory so much in G2K as the Albos- Koros-Hybris-Ate cycle, the hero/polis
dynamic, (and other elements).
With regard to learning as the aura, I think that the aura might also be
interpreted as "authoritative
aesthetic influence." Certainly the hand-made object loses something when
machine-made objects
proliferate. I think Benjamin saw the network of production and consumption
("Arcades" meaning
something like "Shopping Malls") as the new element. He wondered if and how
this network could
become itself aesthetic, a system that protects and advances aesthetic
evolution i.e. "learning" for
individuals and development as a system. Hence the further aspect of the
network as polis or the
political-economic basis of information distribution and exchange.
This idea of aesthetic evolution relates to P.B. Medawar's idea in The
Future of Man of the two ways of handing down information from generation to
generation–genetic and cultural. The former is susceptible to endosomatic
evolution, the later to exosomatic evolution. Medawar stated emphatically
that the two have virtually nothing in common. Exosomatic evolution is
about learning, the development of the information- system, the network, the
tradition, inclusive of individual ability to use the network, benefit from
it, and contribute to it as needed.
Fusco's criticism of Networkism as spatially biased is one of the few uses
of the term "Networkism"
I've seen. Benjamin's statement "transient in both its spatial and temporal
totality" at
www.geocities.com/genius-2000/Daily.html is a good counterweight to that
criticism.
Just as a reminder, if you would like info on the DVDs please contact me
directly and I will send a PDF.
Max Herman
The Genius 2000 Network
www.geocities.com/genius-2000
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New Art-Historical Period
by psst, 01.15.06 07:56 pm
I'd like to propose that the new Art-Historical Period be called
"Networkism." I looked on the internet a little and don't think it's been
proposed seriously yet. Google offers some odd findings of the term.
I think "Networkism" meets the criteria that rendered legitimate the
previous two terms: Romanticism and Modernism. Also, the three are each
spaced one hundred years apart, i.e., 1798, 1898, and 1998, give or take a
couple of years.
I'd also like to claim credit for being the first to propose this new
art-historical period if in fact I am the first to do so. If not, I'd like
to second or affirm whoever was first.
Best regards,
Max Herman
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