Class Trip: RHIZOME ARTBASE 101
New Museum of Contemporary Art / Media Lounge
556 West 22nd Street
RHIZOME ARTBASE 101 surveys salient themes in Internet-based art-making, a practice that has flourished in the last ten years. The exhibition presents forty selections from Rhizome.org's online archive of new media art, the ArtBase, which was launched in 1999 and currently holds some 1,500 works by artists from around the world. Featured works are grouped by ten unifying themes and include seminal pieces by early practitioners as well as projects by some of the most pioneering emerging talents working in the field today. Encompassing software, games, moving image and websites installed on computers or elaborated in installations, Rhizome ArtBase 101 presents the Internet as a strapping medium that rivals other art forms in its ability to buttress varied critical and formal explorations. Artists in the exhibition include Barbara Lattanzi, Michael Mandiberg, Prema Murthy, Rtmark, and Alexei Shulgin.
posted by Lee Arnold @ 12:10 PM
3 Comments:
I knew that eventually I would encounter a type of "new media" that would validate performance art as "art" by comparison. Let's just say that I was not impressed. The only piece worth commenting on was the "Nike Platz", even though it was based more on commercial branding and sociology than the computer as an artistic medium. The group was very successful in mimicking the Nike sales package, and people friendly tactics. It was "okay" to erect the giant red Nike swoosh in a historically rich square because it was made out of recycled sneaker parts. Similar to, it's "okay" to let five year olds manufacture the sneakers because at least they have a job! A correct portrayal of the disgusting side of commercialism.
I enjoyed viewing the reactions of the public to Nike Platz, and taking their age into account. In general, the younger the person, the more accepting of the changing city. The piece was an interesting documentation of public reaction to commercial control. The group, Nike Ground, used the computer to one, composite a picture of the Nike sculpture, and two, to design the cube and poster's for their performance, that is it. Though I enjoyed the piece, it was not "new media" but a film documentary.
I feel the same way about most of the exhibit. Something specific about art is that it should entice some sort of emotion, fun, exciting, wonder, I really didn't get any of those feelings, they were cool and thought out, but they also need to think about the audience, and for spending all that money, they need to be more interactive, you expect much from work in our field. Video monitors and flashy colors isn't enough to convince me this is life changing work, I want something I can interact with and maybe even learn from, moving the mouse and zooming in on some data isn't really as exciting or incredible as I were to want it to be. Although you might do art for arts sake, arts not coming to see itself in a gallery.
Adam has a good point. We go to Museums and Art shows because we want to understand a little bit more about life. Art is supposed to open our eyes to the world around us, and like everyone else, I felt that RHIZOME definately didn't do that for me.
Maybe I have high standards when it comes to Art, but I got the feeling walking around the gallery that most of the Artists exhibited belong to an older generation - they seemed fascinated by the computer as if they're seeing it for the first time. Moreover, technically speaking, the works in the show were mediocre at best.
The experience intensifies even further if you compare RHIZOME to the Goya prints exhibited in the upper gallery. It would be an understatement to say the so-called modern Art paled next to it (In the spirit of his time, Goya was a huge pioneer in his way of thinking and unique style of execution). So, I guess in that sense, the visit did open my eyes to the world around me...
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