Artists and Geeks
I’m waiting – and have been for over ten years – for the arrival of an art form that is truly net native. I don’t mean something "virtual". And I’m not talking about collaborative story-telling and memes of that ilk. In fact, I don’t really know what I mean, which is exactly the point. My frames of reference are all old and worn out.
I’d rate the Internet up there with paint in terms of its importance to the art world. Yet there has emerged neither prominent artist nor movement that one could identify as clearly "of the net". There is no Internet Andy Warhol. I find this surprising and somewhat frustrating. Pick up any art magazine and you’d swear that you were still in the 1980s. In fact Julian Schnabel is still making headlines – a certain indicator that we’re in desperate need of something new.
Part of the problem has been computers which are, in effect, a complicated and intimidating barrier to entry. Sure, iMovie, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. are easy enough but to do anything truly creative on a computer you need to learn how to program; an effort distinctly lacking in appeal for most artists. And for good reason. It’s arcane, fussy and unforgiving. Not things that normally inspire great creativity.
Don’t get me wrong. The best coders I have ever known are all extremely creative. And the best artists are all technical masters. It’s just when you approach the intersection of high tech and art you encounter an unmoving traffic jam because no one is building bridges between the two worlds. Again, I find this surprising.
To me, the Internet is a vast frontier of artistic opportunity that is still completely unexplored. It will take coders and poets, hackers and musicians, right brain and left to craft a way forward. For the first time, I actually feel like we’re approaching a place where it could happen. With computing power, storage, bandwidth, web services and other previously inscrutable technologies now fading into the background, becoming normal, I believe there is finally the foundation to build the necessary tools; interfaces to the Net that do not resemble computers – don’t resemble, in fact, anything we’ve seen before.
August 1st, 2007 at 6:22 pm
You still need to be a savvy coder to make a site work. And you still need to be a creative artist to create art. The two art opposite parts of the brain. It’s a very rare individual that shares both. It most likely will never happen that you get both in one person and then find that same person determined enough to perfect both sides and make something viable and aesthetically enriching.
August 1st, 2007 at 8:36 pm
I think projects such as http://www.wefeelfine.org/ are a move in the right direction. A good visualization can be as audio/visually pleasing as any other piece of art. But where it differs than everything that came before is its organic nature — not only is the piece itself constantly flowing, constantly challenging and engaging the viewer, but it’s also dynamically updated. It’s pulling data off of the massive database we call the internet.
I’d say that these types of projects are potentially a new art form for this small distinction: classical art forms boil down to an artist mediating all of the inputs and influences of the world through his/her brain and talents; this piece is the artist using his brain to create a powerful tool, which itself mediates direct inputs from the world.
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Thanks for the comments. I agree that Internet art forms will need to incorporate elements that are native to it – specifically time and data – but perhaps also phenomena (meta-data) we’re starting to see now around social and community networks. Frankly, I think a new breed of tools are needed. Ones that take advantage of all these new possibilities. It’s early days and I’m no where near smart enough to figure out where it’s all headed
August 12th, 2007 at 12:37 am
Have you ever seen the work of Jennifer and Kevin McCoy (http://www.mccoyspace.com/)?
They’re an amazing NY-based husband and wife duo whose work fits your combination of technical achievement and artistic merit (take a stroll through their flickr account for a glimpse at what I mean: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mccoyspace/sets).
But, on your larger point, about not having seen somewhat acheive that combination _on the web_, I think you’re right on. All the amazing net.art-ists, — Jodi, et al — made great work that was truly native to the web, but, coming before the web really became the main home for global popular culture, it was just too early-adopter-y/avant-garde to have any kind of Wharhol-ish mass impact.
It’s my guess that with the way the really lets us live in our little individual niches, the kind of middlebrow success — even fame — of a Warhol is going to get less and less common. Indeed, a greater and greate space will open between the viral pop hits (Chocolate Rain) and the high brow/conceptual/obscure (Jodi, _why the lucky stiff). Both of these push the boundaries of the web as a creative medium in their own ways, but neither is very likely to really break out in the way you’re describing.
August 17th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
These comments are great. I hadn’t really thought about how the current environment might preclude a mass-market art hero like Warhol from ever arising again. I guess it’s possible. But I’m not willing to give up on my belief that humans like heros. We want and need heros. We still have “hits” and “rock stars”. I’d like to think they can still exist in the art world. Maybe I’m wrong. Or maybe both can coexist – the Long Tail of aesthetics!
August 29th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
I believe that the democratization of illiteracies has always eventually resulted in a flood of good.
When books exploded on the scene, the ability to read became more valuable to the average person. No chicken and egg about it!
I think something similar is in effect here: As the traditional facets of engineering become more modular and more abstracted, the ability to build complex, smart things will become at once both more accessible and more desirable.
August 29th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
…the democratization of *literacies*…
dumb auto-spell check.
August 31st, 2007 at 8:09 pm
leMel,
Thanks for your comment. I couldn’t agree more. Most people don’t thing of books (mass produced by printing press) as a technology advance but it certainly was when it was introduced. It opened up an enormous new universe to anyone willing to become “literate”. I often use the same analogy you refer to here to describe our goal – demystify technology, move it from the domain of the high tech priesthood and let anyone interested use it to their benefit, easily and productively.