Mostly when we say "medium" we mean something of a pretty high order of complexity: TV, say. Or, saints preserve us, 'digital' (I once wrote a book called Digital Aesthetics: hubris, to believe that there was only one aesthetics for the whole digital realm). These media are constructs, not just feats of engineering but imaginary engines, imaginary in that we ascribe to them a coherence they do not actually possess. Convergence is the tip of the iceberg: so many elements which comprise the digital (and TV) are shared with other media. Take lens technologies for example. There are no analog or digital lenses.
Each medium is already a dozen technologies arranged in a system. To label one assemblage “photography” is almost silly: we have to look a) at the elements from which it is composed and b) the commonalities it has with other media. The term ‘medium’ would be better reserved for, say, a type of screen. And then we might be able to find some new results: coherent light operating in scientific instrumentation, fibre optics and a Jean-Michel Jarre lightshow has certain common characteristics but we rarely understand laser as a free-standing medium like print – and yet the commonalities are significant, as are continuities with pre-laser techniques for disciplining light waves.
(thanks to Kris Cannon for sparking this thought)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
At ISEA, there were some discussions concerning whether terms such as "media", "new media", "new media art" are in themselves unusable due to their too general nature, or mismatch with the more refined, more heterogeneous practices in which e.g. artists are embedded in --- Margaret Morse picked up on this in her keynote too.
I think instead of insisting to get rid of the term media (as Zielinski did, but with not much argument) medium specificity indeed is what needs more attention (and for me, media archaeological and e.g. media ecological theories and methods can use here to create novel conceptualisations). The example you raise re. many components in any medium is great -- I think Serres has somewhere a similar idea which he extends also to the different ages/durations of the components (a car might have very recent high tech computers, circuits etc, but also part of the assemblage is the wheel...archaic...), and of course Latour in terms of the various networks and components which form a medium. This is media archaeologically very important, and is a good way to specify what is meant by medium specificity.
I myself have tried to open up similar agenda with a Deleuzian idea of assemblages and affordances. In addition to a Kittlerian insistence on technological specificity, we can perhaps in the same spirit as what you outline here look at what does a medium enable, what kinds of relations, perceptions, and such - (in Mille Plateaux Deleuze and Guattari talk about how a race horse might have more in common was it with a train or a race car or something than with a work horse) -- a transversality in terms of the genres under which we often "brand" media. A media ecological perspective of looking at media as affordances -- which might mean technological specificity but also at non-technological, or perhaps not-always-perceived-as-media objects and processes as mediating affordances.
actually there are such things as digital and analog lenses. In photography, digital lenses can only be used for digital cameras and vice versa for film ones.
Knowing what you mean I secretly celebrated your argument during the ACCA’s Three Responses to the Exhibitions talk (22 Sept) suggesting that, ‘if you don’t understand your materials, how can you understand your concepts?’ (I hope it’s a close quotation). Also, it seemed appropriate to think of being able to make ‘value judgments’ about art: as you pointed out this is no longer the case since the validity of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is cancelled and replaced by remarks such as ‘interesting, exploratory, subversive, etc.’
Minutes later I realized that this is exactly what I have heard from investor-type of collectors – a desperate wish to identify an ideal, autonomous ‘quality’ of art, a demand for the ‘truth’ of art.
After, I kept thinking: when the material is highlighted the contents somewhat comes secondary. However I wish contents and representation is all that matters! Art is indeed ‘engineered’ via knowledge of specific languages (e.g. you pointed out time as the material), but understanding of medium and materials should not as such legitimize the art. For me the ideal is really the art when it is free from material concerns. I would like to associate art with a philosophy rather than techniques and technologies. Painting, sculpture, video, architecture, sound, dance are all disciplines that make the structure people tend to attach art to. I guess ‘the art’ should stay over such structures, and primarily be associated with particular ‘text’/ ‘contents’ that would also serve as the basis of value judgments. We do not say ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but rather ‘art’ and ‘not art’/’artistic’ (the question is: ‘to be or not to be’). The presence of ‘contents’ is for sure another big issue for discussions.
I certainly do not argue that the material is unimportant, but I would like to take the position of stating that the material should not be overly emphasized. The endless struggle to reach the truth through reflection of medium and disciplines is a process that only tells the absurdity of this aim and it is the classic ‘art-as-craft’ gymnastics.
I dare assume that you also have a similar point which you reflected in the comment on the analysis of medium, when you suggested that each medium is consisting of x technologies. To my understanding, using the analysis of medium is the traditional modernism ritual of ‘art specification’ by physical properties.
Respectfully –
Knowing what you mean I secretly celebrated your argument during the ACCA’s Three Responses to the Exhibitions talk (22 Sept) suggesting that, ‘if you don’t understand your materials, how can you understand your concepts?’ (I hope it’s a close quotation). Also, it seemed appropriate to think of being able to make ‘value judgments’ about art: as you pointed out this is no longer the case since the validity of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is cancelled and replaced by remarks such as ‘interesting, exploratory, subversive, etc.’
Minutes later I realized that this is exactly what I have heard from investor-type of collectors – a desperate wish to identify an ideal, autonomous ‘quality’ of art, a demand for the ‘truth’ of art.
After, I kept thinking: when the material is highlighted the contents somewhat comes secondary. However I wish contents and representation is all that matters! Art is indeed ‘engineered’ via knowledge of specific languages (e.g. you pointed out time as the material), but understanding of medium and materials should not as such legitimize the art. For me the ideal is really the art when it is free from material concerns. I would like to associate art with a philosophy rather than techniques and technologies. Painting, sculpture, video, architecture, sound, dance are all disciplines that make the structure people tend to attach art to. I guess ‘the art’ should stay over such structures, and primarily be associated with particular ‘text’/ ‘contents’ that would also serve as the basis of value judgments. We do not say ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but rather ‘art’ and ‘not art’/’artistic’ (the question is: ‘to be or not to be’). The presence of ‘contents’ is for sure another big issue for discussions.
I certainly do not argue that the material is unimportant, but I would like to take the position of stating that the material should not be overly emphasized. The endless struggle to reach the truth through reflection of medium and disciplines is a process that only tells the absurdity of this aim and it is the classic ‘art-as-craft’ gymnastics.
I dare assume that you also have a similar point which you reflected in the comment on the analysis of medium, when you suggested that each medium is consisting of x technologies. To my understanding, using the analysis of medium is the traditional modernism ritual of ‘art specification’ by physical properties.
Respectfully
Art is indeed ‘engineered’ via knowledge of specific languages, but understanding of medium and materials should not as such legitimize the art. For me the ideal is really the art when it is free from material concerns. I would like to associate art with a philosophy rather than techniques and technologies. Painting, sculpture, video, architecture, sound, dance are all disciplines that make the structure people tend to attach art to. I guess ‘the art’ should stay over such structures, and primarily be associated with particular ‘text’/ ‘contents’ that would also serve as the basis of value judgments (you commented on their disappearance at the ACCA's talk). We do not say ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but rather ‘art’ and ‘not art’/’artistic’ (the question is: ‘to be or not to be’). The presence of ‘contents’ is for sure another big issue for discussions.
I certainly do not argue that the material is unimportant, but I would like to take the position of stating that the material should not be overly emphasized. The endless struggle to reach the truth through reflection of medium and disciplines is a process that only tells the absurdity of this aim and it is the classic ‘art-as-craft’ gymnastics.
I dare assume that you also have a similar point which you reflected in the comment on the analysis of medium, when you suggested that each medium is consisting of x technologies. To my understanding, using the analysis of medium is the traditional modernism ritual of ‘art specification’ by physical properties.
Respectfully
There are lenses that could be called "digital lenses".
Check out the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_optics
Carl Looper
Hey Carl - interesting - and the wikipedia link is fascinating; but as far as i can tell, the actual lenses here are still the same; what occurs is the use of micromirrors to correct lens-based abeations in large telescopes, ie those where the image is focused in the lens then re-focused in the mirror! But the though of mobile lenses, or lens systems incorporating either organics or mirrors is truly fascinating.
Post a Comment