Re: [microsound] glitch and/as neo-modermism?

[jcates@xxxxxxxxx]

"Ian Andrews" wrote:

> I don't see the 'glitch' as belonging exclusively to music.  It has its
> equivalents in video art, online art and net.art.

Absolutely. This tendency can be found in many diverse and overlapping 
theorypractices.

> So I then decided to look at some precedents in history.  The only
> examples I could find in music were in minimalism and process art /muisic 
>(Lucier et al).  I could not find much theory associated with these practices 
> by either the artists themselves, or by cultural critics. 

Some writings from recent history which you might find useful/interesting: 
"Behind the Blip: Software as Culture" by Matthew Fuller might interest ppl 
both in rltn to this thread and to the thread on the politics of digital or 
post-digital media and possibility of criticism with(in) existing/institutional 
forms.
Also, "inTerVention: The Contexts of Negation for Video and Video Criticism," 
by David James discusses Video Art as focused on its own deconstruction, 
breakdown and negation.
>From the Cyber-Cultural Studies field, "`Virtual Machine' and New Becomings in 
Pre-Millennial Culture." by Barbara Kennedy discuss digital-ness in relation to 
systemic (human [bodily]) breakdown.

Manovich as a manifesto writer does seem to be playing somewhat w/the form 
itself and with our assumptions. I think we should remember what Kim wrote 
about Manovich, he may be ;)ing while offering these manifestos and perhaps we 
should process them similarly. But perhaps not, they also seem somewhat 
straight forward. 

> My contention is that there is not a great deal that is really new in
> new media art.  Many of its elements  (literature,cinema/time based moving
> image, sound, design, gamming) have been around for quite a while. I
> don't feel that its necessary to come up with a grand new unified theory that
> embraces the lot.

Also absolutely accurate. In terms of the "new media" reoccurring _Remediation_ 
by Grusin and Bolter provides various ways to think through and explain these 
histories. Oliver Grau's work also specifically connects new media to past 
forms, i.e. VR to Panoramas. Prior to them, Timothy Binkley wrote an essay on 
camera technologies and "computer visions" published in the Millennium Film 
Journal.

Unified theories are dangerous on so many levels and we should always seek to 
problematize any reductive or essentializing understanding of our 
theorypractices. I'm likeminded in rltn to your emphasis on "hybridity". In 
terms of approaching "pure art" it seems unlikely in the current context unless 
one is also denying recent history or nostalgically revisiting a former era. I 
am particularly interested in these questions of history and ahistorical 
tendencies in the digital/post-digital arts. It always seems to me that any 
attempt at recovering these degrees of purity becomes a discourse on 
contemporary histories regardless to whether the work intends to or not.

Jon Cates
Instructor
Film, Video and New Media
School of the Art Institute of Chicago

"Behind the Blip: Software as Culture" by Matthew Fuller
www.noemalab.com/sections/ideas/ideas_articles/ pdf/fuller_sw_as_culture.pdf

"inTerVention: The Contexts of Negation for Video and Video Criticism," by 
David James
Millennium Film Journal
No.20/21
Fall Winter 1988/1989
http://mfj-online.org/journalPages/MFJ20%2C21/MFJ20TOC.HTML

"`Virtual Machine' and New Becomings in Pre-Millennial Culture." by Barbara 
Kennedy
_The Cybercultures Reader_ by David Bell, Barbara M. Kennedy
2000
Routledge

_Remediation:Understanding New Media_ by Grusion and Bolter 
1999 
MIT Press

_Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion_ by Oliver Grau
forthcoming 
MIT Press
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?sid=00A54EE8-08A8-4EC7-9612-
2A839C20865E&ttype=2&tid=9214

"Camera Fantasia: Computed Visions of Virtual Realities," by Timothy Binkley
Millennium Film Journal
No.20/21
Fall Winter 1988/1989
http://mfj-online.org/journalPages/MFJ20%2C21/MFJ20TOC.HTML

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