[nettime-lat] Fw: The New Architect: Art in Technological Times

["Luciano A. Ferrer" <lnferrer@onenet.com.ar>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "TheNewArchitect" <TheNewArchitect@newsletter.webtechniques.com>
To: <laferrer@bigfoot.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 8:38 PM
Subject: The New Architect: Art in Technological Times


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> 
> "010101: Art in Technological Times"
> 
> By Stacy Meyn
> 
> Contemporary Art vs. Digital Technology 
> 
> The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is the first to collect Web 
> projects as part of its architectural design collection. The museum 
> has benefited from a growing web presence, its proximity to the 
> digital design boom, and has seen several of its featured artists 
> win Webby awards. In an acknowledgement to this convergence of 
> technology and art, SFMOMA recently launched "010101: Art in 
> Technological Times." The exhibit, which includes an elaborate web 
> component, features works by five artists "who are responding to a 
> world altered by the increasing presence of digital media and 
> technology."
>  
> Vision
> 
> Exhibiting web art is controversial. "People have questions about 
> how you exhibit web art in museums and whether it even belongs 
> there," says SFMOMA curator Aaron Betsky. "We're all grappling 
> with what it is that you call Web art, or Net art, or digitally-
> based work, and how you present it and collect it." 
> 
> The task of taking the curatorial and artistic vision of 010101 
> from concrete to electronic went to San Francisco's Perimetre-Flux, 
> who've been involved in PC-based projects with SFMOMA before 
> (Carleton Watkins: The Art of Perception). 
> Perimetre-Flux was bornin 1998, when Media/Design Director Stephen 
> Jaycox and his associates decided to move away from building things
> like corporate extranets. "The bulk of us were trained as 
> architects and doing industry-related projects. It was interesting 
> but relatively banal as far as subject matter and we were looking 
> for ways to get into narrative experiences."
> 
> It was this combination of skills that attracted Curator Aaron 
> Betsky when SFMOMA was putting together 010101. "We had bandied 
> a few other people around but I already knew Stephen Jaycox very 
> well. Perimetre could provide the whole continuum from digital
> work to architecture, including graphic design."
> 
> Enter 010101's exhibit interface. "It became a question of how to 
> reconcile the online experience and the gallery experience when 
> there was a growing tendency of onlineartists to resist being 
> represented in gallery space," explains Jaycox. "This exhibition
> sought to create a way to contextualize the five commissioned 
> Web projects online so that you felt like you were going 
> somewhere."
> 
> Process
> 
> 010101's artwork includes video practices, sculpture, computer-
> driven installations, and good-ol' drawings and paintings. The 
> site allows users to track interactivity through flowcharts of 
> vistors' "synthesized messages," archived discussion PDFs, or 
> log into the dialogue forum and participate in "SiteStreaming" 
> online tours.
> 
> But what sets this virtual exhibit apart from anyone ftping 
> artwork online is the unique interface merging the works. Enigmatic
> plus-and-minus icons lead to expandable/collapsible introduction
> details and a user's guide. Relevant quotations ("Think Texts") 
> prevail, triggered from various locations. Horizontal theme 
> navigation bars launch exhibit categories: anonymity, technology,
> detritus, nomadism, identity, sprawl, and reality.
>  
> "Our approach was infrastructural at first as we had decided that 
> the backbone of the project would be built around the Think 
> Texts," says Jaycox. "A database structure was created to allow a 
> changing body of content to be pushed into the Web and 
> gallery spaces simultaneously (in the gallery on kiosks--on
> the Web site via black pixels which pop up randomly). This allowed 
> Web and gallery to be like a parking lot for texts. The ability 
> for this content to change is what would keep the exhibitions' 
> content fresh,throwing new lenses between viewers and 
> the artist's work."
> 
> "Part of this exhibition is about how technology is changing both 
> art and how it is displayed or received and understood," says 
> Bestsky. "We didn't come to Perimetre with any particular 'make 
> it like this'. Just an understanding of how artists and designers
> were responding to changing computer communication technology and 
> that the designof the exhibition be part of that response."
> 
> Jaycox understands this dichotomy. "I think the biggest challenge
> for the project was to discriminately reconcile the Web and gallery
> spaces. We decided with the curators that the Web presentation of 
> 010101 should have a sense of place--that it would be understood 
> as an aesthetic/experiential context for the artists' work 
> contained within. Thus the effort was to create a user experience
> that was differentiated from the way that the institutional site, 
> sfmoma.org, claimed space."
> 
> Another challenge was to create user experience that was unique 
> and had meaningful navigational/temporal qualities. Jaycox 
> recognized that if viewers came to the site with 
> preconceptions/expectations about the experience they would have, 
> the resulting challenge would be a disappointment. "The design 
> was to create a navigational landscape that could be learned 
> quickly as an engaging and poetic experience," he explains. 
> "This is not about data--it is about data aestheticized.
> 
> Nuts 'n Bolts
> 
> The site is being served in SFMOMA's basement, using a QuickTime 
> Streaming server as well as the database and the site servers. "We
> all agreed that 4.0+ browsers with the two relatively ubiquitous
> plug-ins (QuickTime, Flash) would suit our target audience and
> encourage those lacking to upgrade their software," says Jaycox.
>  
> The Museum will be be responsible for the online content for about
> 12 months, after which it will be available in an archived state 
> via ArtMuseum.net for 3 years. In the meantime, site visits to 
> 010101 have tripled since it joined a Museum web ring and Betsky 
> has noted brisk foot traffic to the Museum gallery.
> 
> A New Begining
> 
> 010101 has its critics, but this is web curating at an early 
> stage. "Don't forget that the Web as a medium for doing anything 
> but sending text is really only five years old at the most," says 
> Bestsky." People are still learning what the medium is while they 
> make it."
> 
> 010101 is open and continues through July 8th, 2001
> 
> Stacy is a freelance writer, Web developer, and occasional artist
> involved with media, socio-political, and health-related projects.
> She is co-founder of and has written for Worldly Remains magazine,
> a pop culture review (worldlyremains.com). 
> mailto:stacy@wellnesswealth.org.
> 
> Check Out:
> 
> http://010101.sfmoma.org
> SFMOMA's 010101: Art in Technological Times
> 
> http://www.wired.com/news/topstories/0,1287,2009,00.html
> "Museums Add Web Sites to Collections" by Susan Kuchinskas
> 
> http://www.sfmoma.org/espace/espace_overview.html
> Examples from SFMOMA's digital architecture collection
> 
> http://www.sfmoma.org/info/webby_winner_announce.html
> Webby awards for SFMOMA artists
> 
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