2008 Annual Report for the New Media Caucus

After the second year of my term as President, I am happy to tell you that the New Media Caucus continues grow and prosper. The Dallas meeting of the College Art Association was active and full of exciting ideas and people. The NMC sponsored three well-attended panels : "Not Learning from Net.Art: the Rise of Newer Media" chaired by James Morgan;  "art blogging == global.exhibit(local)" chaired by Paul Catanese ; and "The Synthetic Aesthetics of New Media Art" chaired by Carolyn Kane. The last two were co-sponsored by the Dallas Contemporary where the NMC also sponsored a very successful show, “realTime08”, curated by Dean Terry..

Even beyond official NMC events, new media was the theme of six other panels and a fashion show, the Leonardo-organized " Social Fabrics: Art + Media +Interconnectivity" show at the Conference Center. Surprisingly, the new media impact on the conference was probably a little greater what we saw last year in New York.

But we can increase this still further for the upcoming conferences in Los Angeles and Chicago. For LA, the panel topics are already set, but many have new media themes or would want a new media voice on the panel. The deadline for applying for these is May 9. If you want to create your own panel, the deadline is in early September for the Chicago conference that will be 17 months later (a long wait, I know, but it is worth it). 

I want to encourage you all to submit paper proposals for the Los Angeles panels (deadline is May 9th), and panel proposals for the 2010 Chicago conference. This is how your voice will be heard.

Our final event in New York was our annual Business Meeting, where we discussed priorities, policy, and elected officers. We heard from the previous years' committees and set up the committees for the coming year.

We now have 380 members, a 10% increase over last year, from 13 different countries. The meeting’s focus was working more closely with SIGGRAPH and ISEA, and continuing our recent successes with exhibitions and panels into 2009.

You can download the minutes here, as taken by Juliet Davis, but I want to pull out a few highlights:

As always, if you have any suggestions, questions, or issues that you think the Caucus should get involved in, don't hesitate to email me at gwyan.rhabytcsueastbay.edu

Gwyan Rhabyt, New Media Caucus President
California State, East Bay
gwyan.rhabytcsueastbay.edu

CAA 2008 Annual Conference Events

Conference Dates: February 20-23, 2008 Dallas

New Media Caucus presents Three Juried Sessions, a Screening, an Exhibition, and our Annual General Meeting, most in conjunction with the Dallas Contemporary, a few blocks away from the Conference Center.

Screening:

Title: "The Algorithms of Art”

Curated by: Holly Willis, Institute for Multimedia Literacy, University of Southern California

Time: Thursday, February 21, 5:30-7:00pm

Place: The Dallas Contemporary, located at 2801 Swiss Ave

Theme:

As the computer becomes increasingly central to all areas of cultural production, more and more artists are exploring the possibilities of code as an expressive form and creating artworks that are dynamic, generative and performative. These are also artworks that challenge definitions, ontologocial categories, conceptual models and expectations, requiring new articulations of aesthetic parameters and an expanded notion of art itself.

This panel invites artists and theorists interested in algorithmic art to discuss this emerging form. Questions to consider include: What happens when software becomes a medium, and artworks are not stable, situated artifacts but instead dynamic, generative systems? How does this emerging artform intersect with existing art practices, including music, animation, video art and performance, and how might their accompanying discourses contribute productively to our understanding of generative art?

Session One:

Panel Title: "art blogging == global.exhibit(local)”

Panel Chair: Paul Catanese, San Francisco State Univeristy

Time: Thursday, February 21, 7:30-9:00pm

Place: The Dallas Contemporary, located at 2801 Swiss Ave

Panel Description:

An explosion of new blogs from artists, collectors, galleries, residency programs and museums are reshaping notions of professional practice within the arts. Though promotion is certainly a major driver in this arena, sites such as Art.Blogging.LA, Walker Blogs, Art Fever and PORT are especially good at projecting a local arts scene into a broader context. Other models investigate blog as sketchbook, establishing a new format for the open atelier.

Does art blogging indicate the emergence of a dislocated, yet thoroughly local arts scene? Can blogs shift the space of studio practice while retaining its capability to be unstructured? Is the quest for site traffic inherently at odds with healthy periods of gestation and dormancy? What models exist for balancing these forces? What are the implications for establishing or maintaining an art practice for those who remain virtually present, yet physically distant?

Session Two:

Panel Title: "Not Learning from Net.Art: The Rise of Newer Media”

Panel Chairs: James Morgan, San Jose State University

Time: Friday, February 22, 12:30-2:00pm

Place: Houston Ballroom A, Adams Mark Conference Center

Panel Description:

This panel considers the qualities of an emerging medium (second life and mmo based works) in the context of net.art. We shall include significant scholarship on the rise/history of net.art and see how and where SL is stumbling. The purpose of this will be to provide a type of roadmap for success to emerging media based on the stumbles fumbles and lessons learned from net.art.

Theory based arts venue creation has produced one fundamental lesson: The translation of media production through simulation produces no functional difference across environments. With over two years experience in the creation of an arts venue and new media center in Second Life we have found no significant difference in the positioning of the gallery or artist. This leads to the inescapable conclusion that art creation is also not different on any essential level between these media, and possibly others. The search for an comparative model yields net.art. Though there are differences in the construction of the social environment net.art closely mirrors the development of art in the emerging medium of Second Life. Because of this there are both opportunities (for study and experimentation) and cautions (or lessons learned).

Panelists:

Patrick Lichty, Interactive Arts & Media, Columbia College, Chicago Editor-In-Chief Intelligent Agent Magazine

Brad Kligerman, Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris-Malaquais and Building with Immaterials

Marisa Olson, Rhizome at the New Museum of Contemporary Art

Joel Slayton, CADRE Laboratory, San Jose State University

Session Three:

Panel Title: "The Synthetic Aesthetics of New Media Art”

Panel Chairs: Carolyn Kane, San Jose State University

Time: Saturday, February 23, 10:00-11:30am

Place: The Dallas Contemporary, located at 2801 Swiss Ave

Panel Description:

Contrary to traditional aesthetic theories that argue for the primacy of the subjective and phenomenological aspects of color in the interpretation of artwork, color in electronic media, like the logic of technical media itself, is thoroughly removed from anthropomorphic sensibility.

Much new media art criticism exemplifies a hermeneutic approach that seeks to rationalize and transform a work into an intelligible “art object” for canonization and social theory. Is this approach problematic for the nonsensical logic at the heart of technical media art? Can color, as a physiological and pre-cognitive field, as well as a major principle of aesthetic theory, effectively reconcile computer based artwork with the subjective and humanistic drives in art making? For instance, the new media work of Paper Rad, Pipilotti Rist, and Jeremy Blake all use color in ways that address both the technical media platform and its aesthetic sensibility.

And don't forget...

"The New Media Caucus General Meeting ”

Chair: Gwyan Rhabyt

Time: Saturday, February 23, 12:30-1:45pm

Place: Dallas Ballroom D1, Adams Mark Conference Center

Description:

Your chance to become a leader in the field of New Media

And

"Media-N Journal Meeting”

Chair: Rachel Clarke

Time: Saturday, February 23, 1:45-2:15pm

Place: Dallas Ballroom D1, Adams Mark Conference Center

Description:

Get involved with the NMC's peer reviewed journal

Other CAA 2008 Annual Conference Events [link]

Call for Panel Proposals for CAA 2008 in Dallas

The New Media Caucus invites panel proposals for our affiliated panel session at the College Art Association annual conference in Dallas 2008. Submitter(s) will chair and organize the proposed session its call for submissions or invitations (the board will help with the admin, and publicity, etc.).

Proposals should outline:
… Concept for the panel
… Areas of investigation
… Questions the panel will raise
… Specific topic areas presenters could address
… What types of presentation formats will be considered.
… If your panel will be invitational who are possible panelists (you don't need to ask them, we just want to see the kind of people you would have as panelists). … If your panel will have a call for submissions, give us a timetable for the process
… Note: for the affiliated panel, while the panel chair should be a New Media Caucus member, panelists need not be CAA members or even artists. Chairing and participating in an affiliated open session (open to the public) does not disqualify you from submitting a proposal for the following year's CAA conference.
… A CATCHY TITLE -- you really need to stand out in the sea of panels.

As a sample proposal, below is of one of a previous years' panel sessions:

Video art has been used as a conceptual, self-reflexive tool to examine society, culture, and media hegemonies for over 40 years. Video art moves about walls in flowing digital paintings and confronts us like a voice in installations. Similarly, sonic sculptures draw us through gallery spaces, inviting our attention and participation. This panel encourages artists who work with video and/or sound to discuss the relationship of their art to aesthetics, content and technology. Presenters could address: What strategies do artists using video and sound now adopt? How does the public assess the artistic quality of a form that represents entertainment and cheap reproduction? How do we talk about the shared conceptual space between sound, installation and video art? The panel invites proposals from artists, theorists and art historians. Unusual formats are encouraged.

Proposals will be reviewed by the New Media Caucus executive board. The deadline to submit your proposal is May 15th. Notification of acceptance will be late May. Your role on your panel will be as chair. The chosen panel will be submitted to CAA on June 9th.

Email submissions by May 15th to: gwyan.rhabyt@csueastbay.edu

CAA 2007 Annual Conference Events

Conference Dates: February 14-17, 2007 New York City

New Media Caucus presents Three Juried Sessions:

Session One:

Panel Title: "Can Geeks be Humanists ”

Panel Chair: Macia Tanner, Independent Curator and Writer, Berkeley, California

Time: Thursday, February 15, 12:30-2:00pm

Place: Trianon Ballroom, 3rd Floor, Hilton New York

Panel Description:

A common perception among artists, curators, art historians, art critics, and art audiences outside the new media art community is that artists using contemporary technologies create work that alienates the viewer and conflicts with the humanist legacy of Western art and other cultural and aesthetic traditions. This notion is all too often reinforced, superficially at least, by much of the new media work produced. This panel will address and challenge those assumptions with presentations by artists whose work and practice consciously extend and amplify humanist aesthetic traditions. In the subsequent conversation, panelists will be invited to explore the definitions and appropriateness of those apparently oppositional terms -- “geeks” versus “humanists” -- and consider a third: that of “artist.“ They will discuss those characteristics of new media art that seem to justify the charges against it -- notably in terms of communication with and/or reception by traditional art audiences and critics -- and whether these concerns should matter to anyone now, particularly to the artists themselves.

Panelists:

Intimacy in New Media Art
Andrea Ackerman, independent artist and psychiatrist

Claudia Hart, Pratt Institute; Lehman College, City University of New York

Beyond Functional: Embedding Responsive Art into Human Systems
Sabrina Raaf, School of Art and Design, University of Illinois, Chicago

Animate Objects, and the Evocation of Empathy
John Slepian, Wesleyan University

The Beautiful and the Terrifying
Gail Wight, Stanford University

Session Two:

Panel Title: "Digital Difference: Recontextualizing New Media Art ”

Panel Chairs: Juliet Davis, University of Tampa; and Jeff Warmouth, Fitchburg State College Time: Wednesday, February 14, 2:30-5:00pm

Place: Mercury Ballroom, 3rd Floor, Hilton New York

Panelists:

Three Pleasures of the Medium
Will Pappenheimer, Pace University

When the Sitter Is the User: New Media and the Static Body
Michele White, Tulane University

New Forms of Fragmentation: Samples, Cycles, and Elements in Motion
Roberto Bocci, Georgetown University

Early Generative Aesthetics and Contemporary Art Movements
Christoph Klütsch, International University, Bremen

Collaboration in New Media
Patrick Lichty, Columbia College, Chicago

Session Three:

Panel Title: "Art as Mediation”

Panel Chairs: Randall Packer, American University

Time: Thursday, February 15, 6:30-8:30pm

Place: Michael Klein Room, The New School, 66 West 12th St, 5th floor

Panel Description:

This panel explores how communications and new media are increasingly employed in the arts to engage, connect, and empower global audiences in times of crisis. As ruptures from world crises deepen, more people look to alternative models for exchange and mediation. Technological means have recently surfaced in the arts that successfully bridge social, cultural, and political differences. Different disciplines come into play, in questioning, challenging, and experimenting with social and political change. How do artists, curators, and theorists use telecommunications technology proactively? How do peer-to-peer networks, on-line social spaces, and blogs lead to participation and empowerment? How are artists using electronic systems to reposition the notion of dialogue and to define dialogue as mediation that counters or disrupts stereotypes and dangerous ideologies?

Panelists:

Steve Dietz, curator and Director, Zero-One, San Jose, CA

Carin Kuoni, curator and Director, Vera List Center for Art and Politics, New School, New York

Drazen Pantic, internet activist, Co-Director, Location One, New York

Jon Winet, artist and Professor, University of Iowa

And don't forget...

"The New Media Caucus Business Meeting ”

Chair: Gwyan Rhabyt

Time: Saturday, February 17, 12:30-2:00pm

Place: Sutton Parlor Center, Hilton New York

Description:

Your chance to become a leader in the field of New Media

Other CAA 2007 Annual Conference Events [link]

Siggraph 2006 Conference and Exhibition [link]

Conference Dates: August 1-3, 2006, Boston, Massachusetts

New Media Caucus Juried Session Report:

On Sunday July 30th the New Media Caucus sponsored panel “Locative Media: Urban Landscape and Pervasive Technology Within Art” took place at the 2006 Boston Siggraph Conference. The focus of the panel’s discussion and presentation was an exploration of locative media and the utilization of pervasive, networked, location-aware devices. The panelists discussed artistic intervention within urban geographies and how these new technologies transmute urban areas into experimental canvases. The panelists examined the current and future state of locative media and Ubiquitous computing practices, establishing an artistic and theoretical discourse on mobility, geography, tracking, architecture and space.

After an introduction by the Mike Salmond (Northern Illinois University), as panelist chair, the first presenter was Carlos Rosas of Penn State University who discussed his networked distribution of artworks via Emitto.net, [http://146.186.186.70/] and his most recent collaborative undertaking MAMA or the Media Art Mobile Attack unit. This is a collection of interactive works that will travel to urban spaces nationally and internationally making use of whatever media systems exist and will ‘unpack and react’ to its immediate environment. The second panelist, Mike Phillips from Plymouth University (UK) and director of the Institute of Digital Art and Technology [i-DAT] presented on ‘smart buildings’ and the development of ArchOS or the Architecture Operating System. This software and hardware integrated system allows for the free flow of building data and works as an integrated efficiency feedback program, as well as an on-going architectural art project. Phillips also presented on the departments’ Sloth Bot [http://www.arch-os.com/projects/slothbots.html] or ‘reactive architecture robot’. This slow moving robot reconfigures its behavior (and the space in which it operates) based on human foot traffic and proximity. The third panelist, Hasan Elahi of Rutgers University presented his on-going project ‘Tracking Transience’. Elahi was once under investigation by the FBI as a suspected terrorist, based purely on his ethnicity and travel habits. As such Elahi now voluntarily records his daily routines via the web, phone and GPS systems; effectively ‘self tracking’ himself as an information weapon against the United States government [http://elahi.rutgers.edu/track/]. The panelists created a stimulating open discourse during and after their presentations. Many of the audience were unaware of Ubicomp or locative media projects and were especially fascinated by Elahi’s attempts to self-document in order to avoid future attention from the FBI. Issues were raised on privacy and awareness as well as the nature of ‘smart things’ and the pervasiveness of technologies into all areas of modern life.

Panel Chair
Michael Salmond
Northern Illinois University Illinois,

USA Panelists (in order of presentation)

Carlos Rosas
Pennsylvania State University
Pennsylvania, USA

Mike Phillips
University of Plymouth
Plymouth, United Kingdom

Hasan Elahi
Rutgers University
New Jersey, USA