12:15 p.m. 7.Sep.99
Linz, Austria

Gerfried Stocker is Co-Director (with Wolfgang Modera) of the Ars
Electronica Center (AEC) in Linz, Austria [http://www.aec.at]. The AEC
organizes the annual Ars Electronica Festival, houses the Museum of the
Future, and co-organizes the Prix Ars Electronica with ORF (the Austrian
broadcasting company). Educated in engineering (communications and
computers) and musical composition, Stocker became interested in the
possibilities for using computers not just to make music, but to find
new ways of presenting music in public spaces, such as parks.

The next step was to go into the networks. In 1992, he worked with Heidi
Grundman, producer of the ORF's Kunstradio program, on an interactive
sound installation at the World Trade Fair in Seville, Spain. In this
project, he used a modem connection to broadcast sounds from the
installation on the radio in Austria. In 1995, his "Horizontal Radio"
project connected 36 radio stations in Europe, Russia and Canada for a
24 hour broadcast program in which listeners were able to control the
audio mix via a web interface. This interactive paradigm of telematic
feedback between public and private spaces via a network informs much of
Stocker's curatorial practice today, as can be seen in projects at the
AEC such as Ken Goldberg's "Telegarden."

Since joining the AEC in 1995, Stocker has channeled his artistic
energies into his role at the AEC. I asked him if he missed making art:

Stocker: As a media artist, I had to play several roles: technician,
organizer, promoter. This is an interesting model. In the work I do now,
I participate in the process with artists on projects we commission.
It's a kind of substitute for me, and it's so challenging, that I don't
miss making my own art. But sometimes ideas are burning under my
fingernails, as we say.

Tribe: I'm interested in how the topography of Ars Electronica's
curatorial terrain morphed and expanded since the first festival twenty
years ago. We could initially look at this from a semiotic perspective,
starting with the name Ars Electronica itself, a name which
simultaneously evokes the classical era with is use of latinate
nominclature, and the age of electricity.

Stocker: At first, Ars Electronica was focused on electronic
music–synthesizers and midi, which was then the cutting edge of
technolgy. There have always been a lot of cutting edges at Ars. By the
early 90s, it was virtual reality. And since 1995, it has been networks.

So Ars has always followed the technology, but we are not interested in
the technology itself. It's not what technology can do, but what we do
with technology. Ars is about art, technology and society. This third
element became more important when I came in 1995. By then, this notion
of techology as revolutionary, this utopian vision, was no longer
relevant because technology was no longer an element of the future. The
future was here. So the social impliations, ramifications and and
transformations of techology became more important than before.

Tribe: What role does aesthetics play in your approach to art?

Stocker: Aesthetics is a word we used to describe an element in art that
is very hard to describe. Aesthetics can be for example a major category
for sinnliche Wahrnehmung [sensory/sensual perception]. In media art, we
there are two approaches: art as a sensory or formal experience, and art
that takes up a social responsibility and adopts new technologies
because of a need to deal with their social impact. As an artist I took
the latter approach, but as a curator I don't make a judgement as to
which approach is more important.

Tribe: What is the place of net art in this field?

Stocker: I don't consider net art as a sub-genre of media art, but as an
independent category. Net art and media art have as much in common as
photography and film; the only thing they have in common is technology.
Interactive art could be seen as a link between net art and media art
(which includes video, computer music and interactive art). Tribe: What
is the historical lineage of net art? Do its roots lie in the
interactive art of early 90's, or perhaps more in conceptualism, mail
art, or Fluxus?

Stocker: I don't know, but I agree very strongly with the importance of
this question.

Tribe: Several museums, such as the Walker Art Center, are staring to
collect net art. Is the Museum of the Future building a net art
collection?

Stocker: We are only building documentations, not collections, because
you can't collect the moment of happening. The most important thing in
net art is the time-based process of exchange and communication. And you
can't collect that, you can only document it. But I believe, and it's a
very important personal position for me, that I would rather invest in
production than collection. What is the role of the museum in net art?
You can't support it by collecting it. As soon as you collect it, you
damage it.