Alan Kay is credited with the adage, “the best way to predict the future is to invent it.” The role of artists is particularly interesting in this regard, as the invention and development of one-point perspective, photography, VR CAVEs and various other technologies were fueled by artists. Artists also play a more symbolic role in inventing the future. Marshall McLuhan observed that art “acts as ‘an early alarm system,’ … enabling us to discover social and psychic targets in lots of time to prepare to cope with them,” and he further claimed that, “art has the utmost relevance not only to media study but to the development of media controls.”[1] Two years later, artist Roy Ascott prophesied that, Instant person-to-person contact would support specialised creative work... An artist could be brought right into the working studio of other artists ... however far apart in the world... they may separately be located. By means of holography or a visual telex, instant transmission of facsimiles of their artwork could be effected and visual discussion in a creative context would be maintained... [D]istinguished minds in all fields of art and science could be contacted and linked.[2]
This working group will examine historical and contemporary works of art and theory that envision the future of networked communications and related transformations in the construction of knowledge and modes of being. How and what can we learn from the prescience of past artists and designers as we contemplate the relationship of current artistic practices to the future? The working group will structure its approach to this question around four issues: 1. web epistemology and ontology: in other words, what forms of knowledge and modes of being have emerged or might emerge in networked ecologies? 2. aesthetics and ethics: how have artists used networking as a medium to question conventional aesthetic values? What values have emerged in their stead? 3. processes, collaborations, hybrids: how have the working processes and collaborative efforts that characterize new media art practices transformed ideation and invention? What forms of hybrid outcomes have they generated? 4. actions and interventions: based on our emerging understanding of web epistemology and ontology, aesthetics and ethics, how can artists make relevant contributions to envisioning and constructing the future? SUGGESTED READING: Epistemology and Ontology Roy Ascott, (1990) "Is There Love in the Telematic Embrace?" (link) Eduardo Kac, (1993) "Telepresence Art" (link) Michael Heim, (1991) "The Erotic Ontology of Cyberspace" (link) Aesthetics and Ethics Warren Sack, (2007) “Aesthetics of Information Visualization” (link) David Gunkel and Debra Hawhee, (2003) "Virtual Alterity and the Reformatting of Ethics" (.pdf) Processes, Collaborations, Hybrids Ruth West, et al, (2005) "Both and Neither: in silico v. 1.o, Ecce Homology" (.pdf) Florian Schneider, (2007) “Collaboration. Seven Notes on New Ways of Learning and Working Together” (link) Actions, Interventions Marc Tuters and Kazys Varnelis, (2006) "Beyond Locative Media..." (.pdf) Michael Mandiberg, The Real Costs (link) rtmark (link) Nu Age Vert (link) Other Future-related Streams Imagining the Internet: A History and Forecast (Pew/Elon) (link) Top 87 Bad Predictions of the Future "The Value of Failed Predictions" Paleofuturism Blog Retro-Futurology Future Shock (You Tube video clips from 1972 documentary film based on Toffler's classic) The Future of Futurology (Economist) The Future of Futurism (Slate) "Saving the Internet without Wrecking It" (Boston Review) Acceleration Studies Foundation Ray Kurzweil, (2001) "The Law of Accelerating Returns" Footnotes: 1. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (New York: Mentor,1964): xi. 2. Roy Ascott, “Behaviourist Art and the Cybernetic Vision,” CYBERNETICA: Review of the International Association for Cybernetics, Vol. IX, No. 4, 1966; Vol. X, No. 1, 1967: 47. |
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Art and Net Ontology: Reviewing the Past/Envisioning the Future |