zzzoooommmary

Media Art Histories, Krems, Dec. 5th, 2010

outline:

0. schedule:

9:30: start
Documenting Media Art

- intro && overview

- practice: research into database archives for Media Art

- theory: descriptive metadata for Media Art

13:00: lunchbreak

14:30: start afternoon session

Archiving Media Art

- intro && overview

- the Ars Electronica archive

- 9 evenings: a theory-practice example && screening

18:00: end

two short breaks (~10 min):

11:15

16:15

krampus is coming! lunchtime = punschtime :)

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1. networking:

- google group: MeediaArrrrrtHystorieeees

- blog: mediaarthistories.blogspot.com

- facebook group: mediaarthistories (http://www.facebook.com/groups/edit.php?officers&gid=36056054067#!/group.php?gid=36056054067)

- flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/mediaarthistories/pool/

- twitter:

--- group: mediaarthistories

--- list: media art histories

---> add your names/contact me --> ninjafx

- skype

---> same thing

- tinychat: no account yet

- vimeo: no account yet

- scribd: no account yet

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media art histories

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2. documentation

- video, audio, photo, graphics, text (written report, own experience,p/ reviews, articles, catalogues,correspondence, ….);con/text: scores, setup, schematics; sketches

- sometimes the only thing left of an artwork

???

--- ignorance: people not interested in collecting

--- obsolescence: things break, are discontinued, newer versions, things get lost,...

--- convenience: more flexible, movable

--- artwork does not depend on an original embodiment, but stays the same even if multiple “copies” exist --> here the boundaries between documentation and artwork are very blurry, esp. in digital art --> artwork as part of the documentation (~conceptual art, code)

--- impossible to keep (performance, glitch,...)

what sort of documentation material is there? ----------------------------------------------------------

- need storage && storage strategy

- need means to refind assets --> structure, metadata

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- descriptive metadata

-- technical metadata: automatically generated, standards such as Dublin Core

-- inventory, labels --> library science standards, same as for books && other library assets, not MA specific

-- additional information constructed through ordering (database)

-- full text: (automagically gathered out of) book/magazine/blog/..., text, interviews, all kinds of info related to but not identical with the actual piece of art

-- interpretation

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-- what are descriptive metadata?

----- metadata that is based on interpretation, not on fact

----- human readable language

----- different types of vocabularies: thesaurus, glossary, taxonomy, ontology, terminology, vocabulary, lexical corpus, semantic network

----- distinctions: label&&structure, 1/many, hierarchy/network, expert/amateur, accessible/closed --> dualistic

--------- what are they used for?

--------- where do they come from?

--------- what do they consist of? words && relations

----- the problem: confusion

----- the “solution” (?) of a “standard terminology for media art”:

“There is a lack of standard terminology for practices, activities and components in electronic art and for the types and genres of documentation that describes those.”

(http://archive.v2.nl/v2_archive/projects/capturing/1_2_capturing.pdf , p.12)

----- what does this express? that we are insecure if the meaning is universally agreed upon

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part 1: practice

- the scope

- my approach: work my way in, hack open

- the process

--- collecting

--- sorting

--- analyzing

--- interpreting

going back && forth between my results and the individual database archives

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could be time 4 our lunchbreak now

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ok, maybe the lunchbreak is over now

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are you ready for more?

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here it comes

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part 2: theory

- terminologies:

--- predecessors / histories: where does this come from?

----------- M. Foucault

----------- logical, invented && mathematical languages && contraptions: Zairja, Lullus (ars magna), Leibniz (ars combinatoria), Wilkins (analytical language)

----------- utopias (Morus et al)

----------- difference engine (Babbage)

----- all of them aim at creating: knowledge systems, diagrammatics, memory temples/theatre --> constructed, staged, man-created

----- scientific, objective vs authority, subjective

----- (finite)

--- current models:

----- AAT

----- individual database archives in detail

--- no way out, really?

----- m. adanson

----- l. wittgenstein

----- analytical engine

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The differences in meaning are what make the words such a crucial issue.

Most databases are still organized in the manner of a shelf, although no physical constraints force them to re-implement what was only meant as a metaphor in data-space.
“The categorization scheme is a response to physical constraints on storage, and to people's inability to keep the location of more than a few hundred things in their mind at once.”

The standard terminology should make meaning and order clear and self evident - “natural”, not to be doubted, but being attributed universal validity, truth value, true or false, following a bivalent logic, black or white, no gray in between, good or bad, god or … devil? – it is, in short, a simplifying model that is achieved by a reduction of complex situations.

future generations must be able to contribute, too

Interpretation remains an approximation of meaning.

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3. archiving New Media Art

- strategies

- archiving=storage: collecting, labeling, taking care, not changing the original format

- migration: transferal into another format

- emulation: coating original format into a wrapper, original format is not altered

- reinterpretation:

- why can’t we just always show the work again?

--- obsolescence of HW or SW

--- original piece was not kept / destroyed / ...

--- faster connections

--- limitations as well as ease of transport (too big, available in other place as well of whole thing or parts; country does not allow import/export; political reasons,....)/ remake is cheaper, more feasible

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resources (strategies) to show:

- 9evenings reconsidered && dvds && documentation

- seeing double

- history will repeat itself

- prehystories of new media: mirroring, retyping, scanning
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resources (database archives):

- DVA

- DLF

- V2_

- netzspannung.org

- rhizome.org

- archive.org

- ubuweb.com

- a.aaaarg.org

- youtube

- vimeo

- artists' websites, f.e. golan levin

- atariarchives.org

- prehysteries.blogspot.com

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resources (vocabularies, languages)

- w0rdm4g1x

- AAT

- wittgenstein (books: philosophical investigations and blue and brown books)

- foucault (books: the order of things and archaeology of knowledge)

- eco (books: language and lunatics && in search for the perfect language)

- okrent (book:in the land of invented languages and excerpt on http://www.scribd.com/doc/43785688)

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resources (copyright)

- n. briz

- d. halbert “resisting intellectual property”

- marcus boon, in praise of copying

- l. lessig (many books)

- CC

- copyfarleft && copyjustright

- copyleft

- copyright

- copy-it-right

- ubuweb-letter in response to this

- the public domain: expired copyrights + or as simple as asking for permission + artists asking for inclusion

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resources (collaborative art projects)

Robert Rauschenberg, Open Score, 9evenings, E.A.T. (dvds and documentation)

Ken Knowlton, Leon Harmon, Nude

Stan Vanderbeek: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg_DowyLuT8

Lilian Schwartz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diLa2lig3dw

Ken Knowlton, On the frustrations...