Author: Thomas Dreher  
Posted: 09.11.2002; 03:38:11
Topic: Question 2
Msg #: 604 (in response to 418)
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To John and his answer 2/12:
I remember discussions between artists in the seventies. In F. R. G.: Joseph Beuys always experimented and practiced transgressions, meanwhile other artists like Ulrich Rückriem argued for a divide between art and political actions.
It is easier to relate net activism and artivism to political theatre of actions (f. e. performances and street theater within the criticised contexts) than with articulations of artistic engagements in forms of presentation like paintings, sculptures and object art. Net-external art activities are related to objects or events which were separated (and institutionalised) in art contexts and defined by art criteria (as part of their insitutionalisation). Net.art experiments with different uses of new media within a context of deterritorialized data flow. You can´t divide datas in clear framed contexts on the net, except you want to reterritorialize a field which allows to link everything with everything. Actual net activism concentrates on economic, legislative and juridical processes of reterritorialization which will influence all future activities, net.art and `art on the net´ included.
Net.artists are confronted with a context of data flow meanwhile it was a basic decision for artists in the seventies to decide if they want to influence contemporary politics or if they concentrate their political activities on the institutions for art (especially art academies). Artists´ hope to be successful with activities on a wider social scale was diminished in the course of the seventies meanwhile the necessity of political engagement became more urgent (Reagan, Thatcher). These problems of political engagement caused debates between american and british members of Art & Language. Their writings reconstructed the production and distribution of art on a wide social scale. These investigations of the implosions of wider social contexts into art conditions offers more than twenty years later models for collaborations in networks and for resistances against the reinstallation of new borders between art and non-art: artists´ activities explode. Thomas Dreher (TDreher@onlinehome.de)

 



Last update: Saturday, November 9, 2002 at 6:40:07 PM.
 

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