“Overture” and "New Media from Borges to HTML"
Preface: With these readings, and thisresponse, I have reached an all new low, an unsurpassable level of laziness. I plugged Wagner into a speech synthesis program and let the computer do the reading for me. I think that this is an action very much in the spirit of the subject.
To combine and shorten the two articles: We are told who the people behind the internet as we know it are. And more power to them. Loads of utopian ideals about improving the way we work and interact. Vannevar Bush's Memex, for example. A very good thing, since it was meant to make information work in a non-linear way. Hypertext and hyperlinks, absolute staples of our age. And again, examples of ways to stop thinking linearly. Very good things, indeed. (Although to briefly digress, I believe that non-linear organization has ruined traditional media. I, for one, can't read books for research purposes without thinking “Ctrl + F” to myself, or draw without the urge to “Ctrl + Z.”)
The second article makes handy reference to the people we've learned about in the first article. And it actually has an argument in it. This argument is, of course, that New Media will not become the poor cousin of capital “A” Art, even though most “Artists” are now using technology in their “Art.” The argument continues. The crux of it being that the true artists are the men and men (not a typo, considering the people who the article actually cites as innovators) who are/were behind the programming that has brought us to where we are.
I agree with the second article, although I do find that the tone is still a little too rah-rah utopian. Really, everything is art with these people. Why do they insist (in both articles) that technology has to be art? The second article seizes on and criticizes the romantic notion of the artist. I find that hypocritical, since the argument presented in the article is into the exact same thing, insisting that programmers and other folks of a similarly technological bent must be the true artists of today. Why can't they just let technology be technology? Does everything really need to serve some grand cultural purpose?
Having said previously that I agree with the second article, and then having gone on to disagree with it, I will now proceed to agree with parts of it. I agree that New Media will not become a poor impersonator of “Art.” I agree that New Media is a whole other beast. I will agree that New Media provides a forum for artists who cannot or choose not to make their way in traditional art. I agree that “Artists” are using technology in their own “Art.” But it serves a different purpose than New Media. I would argue that “Art” uses technology for its own means, in order to put across art-y ideals. However, the people who do the tinkering and actual doing in “Art” that uses technology are generally not the “Artist.” The “Artist” has a grand idea and gets a technician to do the technological work. The “Artist” is then celebrated as a fine innovator and creator for coming up with such a clever idea. In New Media, this doesn't happen. The people who work in New Media actually know what it is that they are doing. They are, as a result, twice as capable, since they not only know how to come up with clever ideas, but also know how to execute them.