Öncelikli önerimiz, tüm bilgisayar software'lerinin alternatif kullanimi, sanatçilarin yaraticiliklariyla yep yeni asamalar getirecektir oldugu zaman, (teknoloji ve sanat) ikilemini nasil degerlendirebileceksiniz...When we would propose, the multi-alternative -odd handling- artistic creativity based uses of computer softwares are really advisable, then how will you resume on this still much discussed "art and technology" contraversies?

Mafia Versus Mafia Tilman Baumgärtel 14.04.1999 About Tribal Wars Between Conceptual Art And Net Art download "I am currently interested in the clash and dialogue between the conceptual art mafia and the media art mafia", says media theorist Geert Lovink in an interview which appeared in the latest issue of the German art magazine "Texte zur Kunst" (T.Z.K) of Cologne. It is hardly possible to be more concise about the conflict - and the 'tribal' thinking - which informs the new issue of this magazine: mafia versus mafia. Texte zur Kunst can be considered as an official organ of the "conceptual art mafia" (Lovink), and has in this respect helped with the breakthrough of some neo-conceptual artists, just as it has (re)placed artists of the "classic" conceptual school in an historical art context. There are good reasons for the fact that both camps, media art and neo-conceptual art, view each other with just as much suspicion as (secret) interest. Because, as Lovink says, there are "dozens of connections" between the two schools: while the division between conceptual art and media art was not an issue with Dada or the situationists, the schism started with Fluxus. It was at this point that a certain group began to follow the path of technology, and out of this the genre of Media/Video and Electronic Art developed... Will there be a gang war? And now young curators from the contemporary art sector struggle with the fact they know nothing about computers and networks, while at the same time they wonder where this gap came from in the first place." What makes matters worse", says Lovink, "is the fact that more and more artists have started to work with computers - despite repeated warnings from Cologne, Vienna and New York... Will there be a gang-war? Or interesting coalitions instead?" With their latest issue T.Z.K are pretty clear about their stance: gang-war! The empire strikes back! As Video- and Computer Art are by now perceived to be historical genres, the magazine T.Z.K has decided to come down hard upon the relatively new genre of internet art (also known as net art, net.art, art on the internet) as the most recent manifestation of artistic practice within "new media". Some of the objections which are used against net art, are well-known. These are always cooked up when artists dare - against the technophobic atmosphere which permeates the arts scene - to use a new medium. One can summarise these objections as follows: 1. Working with new media turns the artists more or less automatically into useful idiots for hardware producers. Aesthetics and artistic ideas shrink to the background compared with the ability to use the relevant technologies. 2. Just because artists work with new technologies, this does not mean their work is new or innovative. 3. The assertion that media art or net art (key word: hypertext) is a form of interaction or that this form of art makes the audience a participant/co-creator of the work is a myth. Indeed with an oil painting the recipient is also the co-producer of the meaning of the artwork. 4. And on top of this, these people presume they are part of some avant-garde, while the idea of an avant-garde is historically not sustainable anymore anyway. Some of these arguments are historically outdated in the case of net art, while others depend on false assumptions. When artists feel like it, they can of course ignore new technologies like the internet. This however isolates them from a large, constantly growing part of a potential audience for contemporary art in Western Europe and the United States. The fact that Net-/Media-/Computer Art uses these new technologies, does not mean it is automatically an avant-garde - which nobody has really claimed in a long time anyway. The claim which is put forward in an article by Isabelle Graw (the editor of T.Z.K), that journalistic or artistic pleas for net art constantly predict a "hype" or "boom", is absolutely untrue. On the contrary: as a regular reporter from this somewhat marginal sphere of the art world I am always surprised by the fact that so few net artists take this alleged pioneer-role, something which would discredit them in their own scene anyway. "Nothing new, all seen befor!" Interestingly this avant-garde position is exactly what is called for in another part of this article. Following another worn pattern of argumentation ("nothing new, all seen before"), Graw criticises some net art projects as new versions of concepts from the 80's, such as "subversion, fake, surveillance, transgression, service, corporate identity", and refers specifically to Rachel Bakers' "Clubcard" project. Funnily enough Graw attributes this project to Bakers' artistic alter ego Trina Mould (Rachel Baker works mostly under her own name, the alter ego has its own identity and is used for specific actions. JB). Apart from the fact that Rachel Baker should get a kick out of the fact that finally someone has fallen for her pseudonym, this example shows that concepts of subversion and fake function slightly differently on the internet than they did in projects in the 80's, to which Graw compares them - before concluding both pedantically and venomously: "Maybe it is the right of every young artist to draw on well-known and, by now, out-dated models, without having to take relevant discussions and developments into account." Maybe it is the right of an art critic to mercilessly bash projects he or she does not understand, and with added vigour because of it. The problem with this kind of art criticism lies not so much in its inability for precise observations, but rather in the implicit concept of art history, which in itself appears anachronistic. In the field of art history, according to T.Z.K, the good old concept of the avant-garde continues to exist undamaged and undisputed, despite several decades of postmodernism. One could describe this concept in the following manner: at certain times artists invent the world completely anew, which then, for convenience's sake, are easily classified under period titles. After these new art movements have been around for some time, they are put into the arsenal of art history, where they are well stored, and where, in a backroom of the T.Z.K editorial offices, they are - with the correct periodic specifications- inscribed in large leather-bound volumes by Cistercian monks. By this time, out there in the galleries and museums a new generation of artists is already inventing new artistic concepts and methods. (That this never-ending cycle of complete innovation in art continues to function is obvious after a visit to any group show of contemporary art.) For the generation of artists that operate on the internet, however, this classical concept of avant-garde seems to have become questionable (which probably explains why there have been so few announcements of a "new art" on the net). The continuous play with digital fact and fiction is a re-occurring theme on the internet. This does not mean that net art only recycles previously invented artistic ideas on a new technical platform. Take for instance the numerous pseudo-businesses, which two years ago were something of a sub-genre in net art: though they were - consciously or unconsciously - in effect not too different from 80's-style "business art", there is something Graw, in her simplistic criticism, fails to see. These internet projects have developed a completely different - and global - persuasiveness that far exceeds the credibility of art projects, where the artist buys himself a suit and a tie and claims to represent a company. The continuous play with digital fact and fiction is a re-occurring theme on the internet - which is not just proved by the fact that Isabelle Graw fell for Rachel Bakers' pseudonym. As in its first phase net art was mostly occupied with genuine, media specific properties of the internet, there was some logic to the fact that these net fakes became a reoccurring motive in net art. (Rachel Bakers "Clubcard" project dealt with other topics too, because it was also concerned with the manipulation of search engines.) The "Myth of Interactivity" Now on to another criticism that is being formulated by T.Z.K towards net art: the "myth of interactivity". The idea that playing around with a joystick, a mouse or clicking on a web-page as a form of interactivity stems from the past - from computer art of the 70's and 80's to be precise. In fact a lot of contemporary net art works operate as a criticism of this quite simple assumption. Many net artists have made critical or disclaiming remarks on the subject of interactivity. Also the claim that net art adopts conditions without question, which are forced upon it by the hardware and software industry, is not correct. These technical paradigms are on the contrary constantly used as themes and as targets for criticism, like the many browser projects designed by artists or Paul Garrins' "name.space" show. But to acknowledge this, one would have to be aware of these projects in the first place - and all this research was apparently too much for "Texte zur Kunst". This lack of research also leads to the fact that net art is reduced to art which is comfortably consumed through the WorldWideWeb. Art as an experimental lab for the Net. In the long run and in terms of art history, what may be relevant about all the net art projects nobody knows... and, so what? Would that be exciting at all? What interests me as a net-user and as a journalist who writes about net art, is its status as an experimental lab for the internet. In the early, formative years of the internet as a mass medium, artists used the net for purposes which it was not designed for, but which were nevertheless valid and interesting. These early experiments - that were admittedly sometimes hard to grasp for "net newbies" - are now cooked up by T.Z.K as THE final manifestation. But a lot of what is now being criticised by T.Z.K is just that: experimentation. The high art view of net art which is formulated here, ignores one of its genuine qualities: namely the notion that everybody can be an artist on the internet - if they have a computer, a modem and internet access, that is. To reduce the large number of very different projects and works to "net art as such" and then trash it, is a very dubious enterprise - yet also an interesting example of how one type of mafia projects its own reality onto another one. "Smells like Adorno..." Isabelle Graw, the editor of "Texte zur Kunst", finishes her essay - which is filled with numerous false facts - with the following remarkable conclusion: "Because net art operates in a medium that is its own context, an important property of art is lost: the fact that it is both artistic signification and social set up... (With net art one deals) with a phenomenon, wherein first of all the traditional art context is avoided and secondly the difference between artwork and context is liquidated." Smells like Adorno, doesn't it? In plain words this means: net art can't be art at all, because it doesn't happen in an art context, but on the internet. With this kind of argument one could of course put down any art practice, that at some point tried to leave the white cube of the gallery: Graffiti, Mail Art, Radio- and Sound-works, Land Art, Happenings, Performance and actions in the public space, artists' television... and come to think about, most of what was of interest in modernist art after 1945. What is exciting about net art is that it operates in a relatively new territory, in which rules and standards are not clearly defined as yet, and where some works can - hopefully - cause irritation and confusion to unprepared observers. That such a situation also threatens the hegemony of the critic is understood quite well by Isabelle Graw. Maybe that's why her article doesn't give the internet addresses of any of the art works - otherwise people might actually look them up and judge for themselves. But apart from this, it is not true that net art has systematically avoided the art world, as the net art section of the last Documenta proved. It is closer to the truth to say that the traditional art scene out of habit excludes artists who experiment with new media - the same way it excludes artists that are not from Western Europe or North America, for example. At the same time artists have of course played with the fact that they operate both within and outside of the art context - something which to my knowledge is not against the law and has given all participants a lot of pleasure. Knowing a little bit about how this type of polarised in-out-thinking works, it makes sense that T.Z.K now bashes net art. And that net art strikes back with the same polemic means. Which is what this article does. It doesn't exactly start the dialogue that Lovink asked for. But, well... sorry! Texte zur Kunst, Heft 32 (Dezember 1998) DID YOU NOTE the 7 YEARS aged ideas of the above mafia versus mafia article through your personal criticism filters well updated in 2005) So what ininternet is actually meaning to art today? 2005 siber ortaminda gunumuz sanatinin onemli girdileri ne olabilir? spq@tnn.net adresine yanitlariniz bu metine zaman içinde interaktif "hiper-text"lerle eklenecektir

these photos are from a 2005 sciences showroom for children in iSTANBUL. TURKEY