Who Is The Real Artist In Telematics?
I would like to share a few specific excerpts from "Is There Love In The Telematic Embrace?"
In a telematic art, meaning is not something created by the artist, distributed through the network, and received by the observer. Meaning is the product of interaction between the observer and the system, the content of which is in a state of flux, of endless change and transformation.
...content is embodies in data that is itself immaterial, it is pure electronic difference, until it has been reconstituted at the interface as image, text, or sound.
Such a view is in line with a more general approach to art as residing in a cultural communications system rather than in the art object as a fixed semantic configuration - a system in which the viewer actively negotiates for meaning.
These excerpts beg the question in my mind: in this realm of telematics, who is the artist, the creator or the consumer?
Historically whether witnessing cave paintings, fire-side stories, literature, plays, films, etc. the author has embedded meaning via theme in the given story. Many scholars and critics have devoted their careers to analyzing and picking apart such works to discover these themes. The creators were hailed as artists for using various techniques and tools to construct a vehicle for their message.
Along with thematic elements, artists must undergo the process of inspiration where they are able to invent or identify the elements necessary to build their vehicle. This is again a unique undertaking by the artist which does not need to be reproduced by the audience - it must simply be consumed.
Now, Roy Ascott argues that "content...is itself immaterial...until it has been reconstituted at the interface..." Therefore, the creator of a telematic system can only ever be partially responsible for the content generated by that system. One cannot award the creator full, or sometimes any credit for the content generated by his or her system.
Further, Ascott asserts that these telematic systems provide "...a system in which the viewer actively negotiates for meaning." What is another word for "meaning"? Theme. The creator is now restricted, if not completely prevented from embedding a theme in his or her system.
I would then assert that the "artist" in a successful telematic experience by a classical perspective is not the creator of the system, but the consumer of the system. The consumer, through an interactive environment, must discover the vehicle of message, and then the consumer must assert the existence of a message in this vehicle. This is exactly the job of an artist in many of our classical media.
I further posit that the transfer of artistic power from creator to consumer is the reason that so many systems today have become more than the sum of their parts. The creators of Twitter are not the artists of our generation, it is the Sarah Palin's who have discovered a vehicle through which to express a message (all be it an evil one) who are the real artists.
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Comments
But this is not a universal truth. Perhaps under the current constraints of technology we find that the "telematic embrace" leads to the understanding of a system as you suggest. There isn't a perfected system through which to view the content. But that won't be--and at one point was not--the way these systems functions.
The renaissance painter does not lose his control over the viewer's image because he did not create the medium for viewing it--the human eye. Creating for the medium is in itself art. Similarly, while the inventor of the canvas certainly can't control what is painted on his creation, the canvas itself can be understood, appreciated, and critiqued as art.
My point is to say that any medium--when perfected--can become art. Any system can itself become art. The universe, as a medium, is art. Whether or not it lacks an "artist" to quantify its beauty is irrelevant (or is it?).
Does a system (or creation) require a creator to become relevant and understandable? Or can it be generated by random events in the same way a human artist might use his own process?
be held in similar regard as say an oil painting? When and how do mediums get consecrated with authority to be valued?