BAD EMSER MEDIENKUNSTTAGE
2003

30.05. – 1.06. Marmorsaal, Bad Ems

The upcoming four part conference looks at the questions at the interface of (Media) Art and New Technologies

Part IV "Spaces of Knowledge / Art / Society" is chaired by Nina Zaretskaya of the TV-Gallery Moscow and New York. It examines the quantitative and qualitative possibilities of the internet as an online archive and networked space of knowledge. The complete knowledge of the world is written into the global Net, being continuously filled with new content: the medium, used subversively to explore new communities of artists, digitally constructs new terms on the basis of randomly chosen textual and pictorial units and offers seemingly unlimited possibilities which resurrect the utopia of encyclopaedic knowledge. Art in the service of science, a game with thoughts to promote new teaching and learning methods – so-called edutainment. Artistic positions, however, question the fleetingness of the new world knowledge and ponder how the Net, independent from place and time, can be used in a democratic society as a field of interaction that lends identity.

Nina Zaretskaya will be deliver the lecture:

FROM ONLINE ARCHIVES TO A VIRTUAL MUSEUM.
A FEW IDEAS ON CREATING A MEDIA ART SITE

Although there still exist some people who do not agree with the definition of "global net" being the base of art, no one doubts that the world wide web opens fantastic possibilities in the field of archiving information. Saving and transmission of a broad data-base is the core of computer revolution. Internet has developed this ontological sign with the help of delivery any information directly to the recipient, given feedback is possible, having enriched it with such qualities as globalness, interactivity, and dialogical capacities.

About five years ago Art Media Center "TV Gallery" made a first try to create a site, having placed a part of its information in the Internet in order to broaden the audience of the new technologies' art. For more than ten years TV Gallery has been dealing with the sphere of actual art, arranging exhibitions, performances, shows, educational programs with the help of TV, video and computer technologies. It can be forecast for sure that more and more number of our projects will be realized on the base of new electronic media – Internet, CD-ROM…Collaborating practically with all the Russian artists using electronic media in their projects, organizing research and educational programs (with the most progressive experts getting involved, both home and foreign as well), taking part in various festivals, big exhibitions and art fairs in our country and abroad, TV Gallery set a task to present a wide spectrum of the world development of the art of new technologies in the Internet, to make an electronic data-base on media arts.

In our site version we supposed to give numerous links, which help unite the information from various sources, giving the Internet user the possibility to get a wide and adequate picture of the world media art. To our opinion, this very thing made the project a unique one as its elaboration started at the time when there existed no site of this kind in Russia, which could accumulate information on these problems.

Addressing the wide Internet audience, first of all the ones working in the sphere of contemporary art, or those just interested in computer technologies, we tried to make the information about the art of new media available and interesting to both of them, providing the experts and all the rest interested in this subject with the possibility of a quick contact and feedback. We entered an actual news part, being updated every time and containing not only announcements but also various pictorial materials including real videos of current exhibitions and actions.

In the course of time the forms of the online representation of TV Gallery's archives were getting more and more sophisticated and variable. The possibility of permanent modification of published information, departure from once and for all predetermined static character of printed material, on the one hand, make the work on the site pretty fascinating, while, on the other hand, require special efforts in order to comprehend and cope with this form of preserving and presentation of art pieces.

At the present time, being the consequence of its web presence, the group of semantically close formations, such as archives – depository – museum, acquires a new quality. Within the framework of such wide concept as "virtual culture" their intercommunication is getting more and more evident. Web presence turns out to be both means and imperative for the new forms of their program activities: educational projects, production of art works, critical analysis, theory of museum business, – all this requires revision and reorientation because of a large-scale introduction of the Internet and media technologies with their interactivity, dialogueness and globalness, into contemporary art.

Not long ago an idea of a "virtual museum" was entered into the art discourse, which is being widely discussed in the world now. Thus, the articles of Maxwell Anderson, Director of Whitney Museum, and Douglas Davis, a media artist, published in New York Times a couple of years ago, initiated debates among American intellectuals in connection with actual problems arising in this sphere. How does the online art affects the audience which is similar to the one attending the "real museum" with regard to the number of people? How should be organized the exhibitions of the "virtual museum"? What are the functions of its curators? What is the meaning of the specific character of preservation and responsibility for keeping art pieces? All these questions (as well as many other statements) touched in this discussion have got, to my opinion, a direct connection with the development of TV Gallery's site, which more and more evidently starts functioning as a "virtual museum" of the newest technologies.

I would dare to say that any serious change based on the technological development (in this connection we should mention interaction in the web which led us finally to a general concept of a "virtual museum"), should be comprehended and introduced on a global scale. I am sure that the most progressive steps in this directions can be taken not only in big highly-developed countries, but also in small communities in case they possess new technologies and are oriented towards research and application of the newest elaborations in the field of Science – New Technologies – Art. I do hope we'll be able to obtain the examples of this kind at this meeting.

The site has been created with the assistance of the "Open Society Institute" (Soros Foundation). Russia