i just returned from a "curatorial summit" at the banff centre for the
arts. amazing place.

one of the panels addressed the biennial phenomenon: these major
international contemporary art mega-shows that have spread ike a virus
from venice to havana.

the biennials are more a symptom than a cause of the globalization of
the contemporary art world. in the past decade, as even the
micro-movements of the eighties (neogeo, simulationsim…) vanished into
a swirling miasma of styles and agendas, a new breed of professional
emerged to dominate: the globe-trotting transnational artist.

the biennials create a spectacular environment in which the jet set
artists compete for attention and market share by staging ever more
ambitious installations. in this context, it becomes clear that the
venue is driving the art.

which makes perfect sense, given the postmodern emphasis on context (the
work of art does not exist in a vacuum–its meaning is a product of
interactions between intrinsic and extrinsic signs).

but it is nonetheless an interesting way to think about artistic
practice. rea, an aboriginal artist from australia who was at the
conference, said that she had learned to "think backwards," starting
with the venue, then imagining a finished product, then contriving a
process by which to arrive at that product, then getting to work. this
stands in stark contrast to the typically modernist approach in which we
start with a blank canvas and see where the paint takes us.

and it gets me thinking about the net as a venue, or a set of venues.
register a domain (mouchette.org, superbad.com–whatever strikes your
fancy), make a web site, announce it on rhizome raw and bang! you've got
an audience. so one type of online venue is yourdomain.net.

maybe a curator will send you an email asking you if you're interesting
in making a web art work for her museum's site as a commission. that's
another type of online venue. an institutional one.

net art has also been gaining a toe-hold in physical space, as places
like ars electronica and the zkm have started to exhibit
net.installations like jenny marketou's smell bytes and ken goldberg's
telegarden.

i ask myself: in each case, how much does the venue drive us to think
backwards? and what is thus lost when we put process at the service of a
calculated effect?

in this light, check out www.mediaseoul.org: the site for media art
2000, a major contemporary art and technology biennial sept 2 - oct 31.

barbara london is a curator.

amazing list of artists, pretty much the stars of media art (not new
media art), e.g. vito acconci, chantal akerman, laurie anderson (okay,
maybe she counts as new media), matthew barney, christian boltanski,
stan douglas, douglas gordon, dan graham, zaha hadid, gary hill (also
new media, i suppose), rem koolhas (!!!), steve mcqueen, bruce nauman,
tony ourseler, nam june paik, paul pfeiffer, rosemarie trockel, bill
viola, pipilotti rist…

here's a statement from the site:

+ + +

With major media artists from Korea and around the world participating,
the Media Art 2000 exhibition will highlight important works from the
past as well as the present. The exhibition, through art, will also shed
light on the technology revolution taking place. Emphasis will be on
post personal computer media art, since science and technology were
first seriously applied to art.

Curators:

Barbara London (U.S.A, MoMA in New York) Jeremy Millar (U.K, The
Photographers' Gallery in London)

Site:

Seoul Metropolitan Museum

Theme:

"escape"

Participants:

'escape' will feature contemporary art that explores accelerated life as
it plays out in the increasingly rewired, electronic landscape. In the
world today, "good" and "new" are often used interchangeably, but what
do they now mean? Within a rapidly evolving, computer driven
environment, is the 'new' more often technical novelty rather than
fundamental change?

In order to explore more fully these questions, escape will present the
latest art works in various media, alongside works from previous
decades, works which enabled the conception (conscious or not) of those
which followed. (The reverse might also be true, the actions of the
present determining the past.) While for so long, art has been
characterized by a specific medium, the character of 'media art' itself
is, curiously, rather general. As a term it is ill-defined, and more
often than not lured by the spectacle of an entertainment driven popular
culture.

The year 2000 may be a 'media age', but perhaps it is a 'post-medium'
one also.

In looking more broadly, escape explores relevant themes as they emerge
in over 40 works from the last 20 years. At present, these themes
include:

Virtuality: This is commonly, but inaccurately, placed in opposition to
reality. Virtuality is, instead, a process of potential and is always
real. This process of potential, of becoming rather than being, is
evident in the process experiments of the 1960s as well as more recent
self-organizing pieces using digital technologies.

The Material and the Immaterial: This is closely related to notions of
virtuality, as a virtual 'object' can be seen as being both. Once more,
these notions were explored in length during the 1960s with the
'dematerialization of the art object', discussions which have enormous
relevance for much contemporary practice.

Social Simulation: The socializing of humans and electronic devices is
occurring. Simulations of various sorts are decisive in enabling unique
interactions between people, including between viewers of the art work
and the various devices the artists use.

Speed and Space-Time: From Cubism and Futurism to Conceptual and Digital
Art, "speed" and "space-time" are major themes of twentieth-century art.
Technological developments often define themselves, or establish their
'identity' in relation to how they affect one's perception of space and
time (or rather space-time), and this is true also of the artistic
movements which emerge with them.

Just as each technology is understood in relation to that which came
before (the 'horseless carriage', or the 'information superhighway'), so
it is important that contemporary works be seen within an historical
perspective. Seen in this context 'media art' becomes more
understandable in terms of the past and a technologically determined
future.

Is there anyone who doesn't like toy tractors?!