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Overview
In Relive, leading historians of the media arts grapple with this dilemma: how can we speak of “new media” and at the same time write the histories of these arts? These scholars and practitioners redefine the nature of the field, focusing on the materials of history—the materials through which the past is mediated. Drawing on the tools of media archaeology and the history and philosophy of media, they propose a new materialist media art history.
The contributors consider the idea of history and the artwork's moment in time; the intersection of geography and history in regional practice, illustrated by examples from eastern Europe, Australia, and New Zealand; the contradictory scales of evolution, life cycles, and bodily rhythms in bio art; and the history of the future—how the future has been imagined, planned for, and established as a vector throughout the history of new media arts.
These essays, written from widely diverse critical perspectives, capture a dynamic field at a moment of productive ferment.
Contributors
Susan Ballard, Brogan Bunt, Andrés Burbano, Jon Cates, John Conomos, Martin Constable, Sean Cubitt, Francesca Franco, Darko Fritz, Zhang Ga, Monika Gorska-Olesinska, Ross Harley, Jens Hauser, Stephen Jones, Douglas Kahn, Ryszard W. Kluszczynski, Caroline Seck Langill, Leon Marvell, Rudy Rucker, Edward A. Shanken, Stelarc, Adele Tan, Paul Thomas, Darren Tofts, Joanna Walewska
About the Author
Paul Thomas is Associate Professor in the College of Fine Art at the University of New South Wales and Associate Professor at Curtin University of Technology.
Zhang Ga is a media artist and independent curator. He is the artistic director and curator of the exhibition this book accompanies.
Darren Tofts is Chair of Media and Communications at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne.
Ryszard KLUSZCZYNSKI is professor of cultural and media studies at Lodz University, where he is Head of the Electronic Media Department. His publications include: Information Society. Cyberculture. Multimedia Arts (2001) and Film–Video –Multimedia: Art of the Moving Picture in the Era of Electronics (1999).
Edward A. Shanken is Visiting Associate Professor, DXARTS, University of Washington. He is the editor of Roy Ascott's collected writings, Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology and Consciousness and the author of Art and Electronic Media.
Stephen Jones is an Australian video artist and electronic engineer.
Douglas Kahn is Professor at the National Institute for Experimental Arts at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He is the author of Noise Water Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts (MIT Press) and Earth Sound Earth Signal: Energies and Earth Magnitude in the Arts and coeditor of Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio, and the Avant-Garde (MIT Press).
Stelarc is a leading international performance artist.
Table of Contents
Series Foreword ix
Introduction: The New Materialism in Media Art History Sean Cubitt Paul Thomas 1
I Considering the Methods of Media Art History
1 From Time-Lapse to Time Collapse or From Representation to Presentation Zhang Ga 25
2 Pre-Socratic Media Theory Brogan Bunt 39
3 Writing Media Art into (and out of) History Darren Tofts 51
4 Viewer as Performer or Rhizomatic Archipelago of Interactive Art Ryszard W. Kluszczynski 65
5 Reprogramming Systems Aesthetics: A Strategic Historiography Edward A. Shanken 83
II Doing Media Art History: Europe
6 Histories of Networks and Live Meetings-Case Study: [New] Tendencies, 1961-1973 (1978) Darko Fritz 99
7 The First Computer Art Show at the 1970 Venice Biennale: An Experiment or Product of the Bourgeois Culture? Francesca Franco 119
8 Between Punched Film Stock and the First Computers: The Work of Konrad Zuse Andrés Burbano 135
9 Polish Digital Poetry: Lack of "Prehistoric" Artifacts or Missing Narrative? Monika Górska-Olesinska 149
III Doing Media Art History: New Zealand and Australia
10 Bush Video: Toward a New Secular Electronic Notion of the Divine Stephen Jones 169
11 Erewhon: Media, Ecology, and Utopia in the Antipodes Susan Ballard 191
12 Media Archeological Undertakings: Toward a Cartography of Australian Video Art and New Media John Conomos 209
13 Australian Video Art Histories: A Media Arts Archaeology for the Future Ross Harley 221
IV Artificial Life from Hardware to Wetware
14 Let Me Hear My Body Talk, My Body Talk Douglas Kahn 235
15 The Living Effect: Autonomous Behavior in Early Electronic Media Art Caroline Seek Langill 257
16 Remediating Still Life, Pencils of Nature, and Fingerprints: Transhistorical Perspectives on Biotechnological Art Jens Hauser 275
17 Relationship of Art and Technology: Edward Ihnatowicz's Philosophical Investigation on the Problem of Perception Joanna Walewska 309
18 The Cadaver, the Comatose, and the Chimera: Avatars Have No Organs Stelarc 325
V Imagining the Future
19 Re: Copying-IT-RIGHT AGAIN Jon Cates 337
20 Visual Digitality: Toward Another Understanding Martin Constable Adele Tan 347
21 Lifebox Immortality and How We Got There Rudy Rucker Leon Marvell 357
List of Contributors 371
Index 377