Commenting on the recent "Computing Culture" conference in California,
Cindy Bernard wrote:

I was unable to attend the conference–so I appreciate <a
href="/cgi/to.cgi?t=1132">David
Hunt's synopsis</a> of some of the presentations. But since I probably
fall under Hunt's category of "object based aesthetic practitioners" I
can't let his introductory paragraph go without comment…

Hunt begins… "Object based aesthetic practitioners could learn a lot
from new media artists…"

I always find it curious when writers define one practice in opposition
to another–in this case "new media artists" against "object based
aesthetic practitioners." I started to write a sentence by sentence
dissection of the assumptions and generalizations in Hunt's
introduction, but my analysis really came down to a few questions–Are
"object based aesthetic practitioners" and "new media artists" mutually
exclusive catagories? Why is it useful to define art practice by medium?
What does it mean to prioritize one practice over another? Whose power
is reinforced through divisive rhetoric?

Natasha Vita More replied:

I'll attempt to answer your questions.

My conjecture is that no, they are not mutually exclusive catagories. It
is not appropriate to pit one style or form against another when the
categoric lines are fuzzy.

"Why is it useful to define art practice by medium?"

Medium is secondary to art practice and not exclusively definitive of
the practice.

"What does it mean to prioritize one practice over another?"

Prioritizing one practice over the other creates a false hierarchy.

"Whose power is reinforced through divisive rhetoric?"

The power of the author is reinforced through divisive rhetoric.

Thank you Cindy.

Aurora Lovelock wrote:

It is refreshing to read David Hunt's report of the conference on
computing culture, which appreciates the distinct possibilites of the
medium. The view, expressed by Natasha Vita More, that "the medium is
secondary to art practice" seems to be exactly what Hunt is questioning
through his reportage.

The "ruling ecriture" is surely that which extends "beyond the medium"
generating and describing in a discursive and controlling manner the
phenomenology of the art experience.

The fact that the culture of computing provides the possibility of
generating new structures for the imagination to work within–As a world
of invisible scaffolds, cyberspace is a place where conscious dreaming
meets subconscious dreaming–a habitat for the imagination whose
ultimate goal is the full embodiment of the mind–is precisely due to
the spatialization of data and the digital memory made possible by the
"semi-conductor."

This aspect of spatialization, the possibility of dynamically re-writing
a set text is a kind of constant symbolic negotiation: "The author
writes not that to be read but that which will write that to be read"
(Simon Biggs) which can therefore again accept authorship but as a less
"significant" part of the equation.

The fact that computing extends "beyond the linguistic medium," "the
text" negotiable in spatial terms, releases art practice from the
stictures of what has now become the "embalming weight of academic
citation."

I'm not surprised etoy were there in protective mode.

We are communicating in text mode WITHIN the medium of computer
technology therefore this affects the concerns expressed.