BIO
Curt Cloninger is an artist, writer, and Associate Professor of New Media at the University of North Carolina Asheville. His art undermines language as a system of meaning in order to reveal it as an embodied force in the world. His art work has been featured in the New York Times and at festivals and galleries from Korea to Brazil. Exhibition venues include Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Granoff Center for The Creative Arts (Brown University), Digital Art Museum [DAM] (Berlin), Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (Chicago), Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, and the internet. He is the recipient of several grants and awards, including commissions for the creation of new artwork from the National Endowment for the Arts (via Turbulence.org) and Austin Peay State University's Terminal Award.
Cloninger has written on a wide range of topics, including new media and internet art, installation and performance art, experimental graphic design, popular music, network culture, and continental philosophy. His articles have appeared in Intelligent Agent, Mute, Paste, Tekka, Rhizome Digest, A List Apart, and on ABC World News. He is also the author of eight books, most recently One Per Year (Link Editions). He maintains lab404.com, playdamage.org , and deepyoung.org in hopes of facilitating a more lively remote dialogue with the Sundry Contagions of Wonder.
Cloninger has written on a wide range of topics, including new media and internet art, installation and performance art, experimental graphic design, popular music, network culture, and continental philosophy. His articles have appeared in Intelligent Agent, Mute, Paste, Tekka, Rhizome Digest, A List Apart, and on ABC World News. He is also the author of eight books, most recently One Per Year (Link Editions). He maintains lab404.com, playdamage.org , and deepyoung.org in hopes of facilitating a more lively remote dialogue with the Sundry Contagions of Wonder.
Re: Setting Up the Punch Line And Blogspace
Myron Turner wrote:
> It's here, where the computer has been internalized and
> where public and private meet that we can possibly create an art which
> like the art of galleries and architectural space takes us beyond the
> short attention span of the punch line.
Hi Myron,
I find the architecture analogy more desirable than the gallery analogy, unless you mean some expansive installation piece that takes over the context of the entire gallery. Otherwise, the gallery is *not* what net art wants to be -- discrete piece after discrete piece, neatly labeled and formally contextualized as art.
I'm guessing that artists are more free to work/exploit the network and new media when they aren't always having to fit their work into some contexted "art" box (as alexei shulgin could have told us in 1995). For example, only one of these pieces is self-aware "art" (florian kramer's "permutations"), yet the rest of the pieces are interesting along the same lines:
http://deepyoung.org/permanent/autodidactic/
Some other possible examples of un-art net.art:
In the physical offices of Google, there is a digital screen displaying ongoing, real-time text feeds of live google search phrases as they are being typed in by users all over the world (cf: http://metaspy.com ). T. Whid (disparagingly or astutely) observed that this is the coolest piece of net art anybody's ever made [i'm paraphrasing]. In a similar vein, Auriea Harvey once commented that NN would eventually be remembered more for her funky bulletin board rhetoric than for her Nato55 software [again, i'm paraphrasing].
So maybe visiting http://www.kartoo.com and searching for "curt cloninger" presents a better example of my "net.art" than http://lab404.com/art/
But then, maybe not. I'm not opposed to what some dismissively call web art or screen art. To me, heavy conceptual use of the network is not a pre-requisite for valid online work, nor does it de facto guarantee interesting online work. I'm just opposed to cheezy one-liner art (whether online, offline, in a boat, with a goat, etc.). I don't just want to "get it." I want to be engaged by it.
_
> It's here, where the computer has been internalized and
> where public and private meet that we can possibly create an art which
> like the art of galleries and architectural space takes us beyond the
> short attention span of the punch line.
Hi Myron,
I find the architecture analogy more desirable than the gallery analogy, unless you mean some expansive installation piece that takes over the context of the entire gallery. Otherwise, the gallery is *not* what net art wants to be -- discrete piece after discrete piece, neatly labeled and formally contextualized as art.
I'm guessing that artists are more free to work/exploit the network and new media when they aren't always having to fit their work into some contexted "art" box (as alexei shulgin could have told us in 1995). For example, only one of these pieces is self-aware "art" (florian kramer's "permutations"), yet the rest of the pieces are interesting along the same lines:
http://deepyoung.org/permanent/autodidactic/
Some other possible examples of un-art net.art:
In the physical offices of Google, there is a digital screen displaying ongoing, real-time text feeds of live google search phrases as they are being typed in by users all over the world (cf: http://metaspy.com ). T. Whid (disparagingly or astutely) observed that this is the coolest piece of net art anybody's ever made [i'm paraphrasing]. In a similar vein, Auriea Harvey once commented that NN would eventually be remembered more for her funky bulletin board rhetoric than for her Nato55 software [again, i'm paraphrasing].
So maybe visiting http://www.kartoo.com and searching for "curt cloninger" presents a better example of my "net.art" than http://lab404.com/art/
But then, maybe not. I'm not opposed to what some dismissively call web art or screen art. To me, heavy conceptual use of the network is not a pre-requisite for valid online work, nor does it de facto guarantee interesting online work. I'm just opposed to cheezy one-liner art (whether online, offline, in a boat, with a goat, etc.). I don't just want to "get it." I want to be engaged by it.
_
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: setting up the punch line
http://web.archive.org/web/20021112214711/http://www.altsense.net/library/factual/i_have_a_life.html
atomic elroy wrote:
> ha, ha ha!
> Wow how meta.. a long boring text, about how... explaining art... is
> not art!
>
> ( I can almost hear the Steven Wright monotone drone on and on... )
>
> reminds me of the morph quote:
>
> "writing about art is like dancing about architecture"
>
> dance the night away, kids!
atomic elroy wrote:
> ha, ha ha!
> Wow how meta.. a long boring text, about how... explaining art... is
> not art!
>
> ( I can almost hear the Steven Wright monotone drone on and on... )
>
> reminds me of the morph quote:
>
> "writing about art is like dancing about architecture"
>
> dance the night away, kids!
Re: Re: Re: Re: setting up the punch line
I still think surface polish is just one aspect of rigor/thoroughness/purposefulness -- the most initially obvious aspect but not necessarily the most important. Think of Matthew Barney's films. They are very polished visually in terms of a high-budget production sheen, and he's taken some crap from the art world for that. But his narrative is far from closed. I think it can fairly be argued that the films reward multiple viewings.
It's like comparing the White Stripes to Stereolab. The former is one-off and raw-edged; the latter is intricate, layered, thoroughly arranged, with an ultra-glossy lounge production sheen. But both reward repeat listenings (and stereolab even moreso).
There is a contemporary cliche that says gorgeous production value = commerce = not art, while low-budget technical shoddiness = legitimacy = art. I don't think it divides so neatly along those lines.
But then I think "Summer Breeze" by Seals & Crofts is a work of sublime genius, so there you are.
Michael Szpakowski wrote:
> *..and another thing..*
> one of the things it seems to me at least, that is a
> necessary condition for great art is a , for want of a
> better word, a *richness* -a depth to the piece which
> means that it repays multiple viewings, readings,
> hearings, visits with new insights.
> Paradoxically its the very perfection of the surface
> finish, the dotting of the Is and crossing of the Ts
> in much commercial work that somehow closes a piece
> off and precludes this quality.
> (and why is it essential that it be so closed off
> ?-because if you're paying top dollar for a invitation
> to folk to spend their hard earned cash on your
> product, however hip the artist you hire, however
> apparently open the surface of the ad or whatever she
> crafts for you, finally, finally you're paying money
> for a *lack of ambiguity* -"buy my product" .And if
> its say, a game, however subtle it is ultimately it
> must be *encompassable*, *soluble* by any of your
> target market, for you to make money -the twists and
> turns, the resonances, must be finite)
> I speculate that a certain lack of surface finish or
> at least an unconcern or deprioritizing of it could
> be related to what leaves a work more in dialogue with
> the specatator, listener, whatever and with its
> context, that creates this richness, this resonance.
> michael
It's like comparing the White Stripes to Stereolab. The former is one-off and raw-edged; the latter is intricate, layered, thoroughly arranged, with an ultra-glossy lounge production sheen. But both reward repeat listenings (and stereolab even moreso).
There is a contemporary cliche that says gorgeous production value = commerce = not art, while low-budget technical shoddiness = legitimacy = art. I don't think it divides so neatly along those lines.
But then I think "Summer Breeze" by Seals & Crofts is a work of sublime genius, so there you are.
Michael Szpakowski wrote:
> *..and another thing..*
> one of the things it seems to me at least, that is a
> necessary condition for great art is a , for want of a
> better word, a *richness* -a depth to the piece which
> means that it repays multiple viewings, readings,
> hearings, visits with new insights.
> Paradoxically its the very perfection of the surface
> finish, the dotting of the Is and crossing of the Ts
> in much commercial work that somehow closes a piece
> off and precludes this quality.
> (and why is it essential that it be so closed off
> ?-because if you're paying top dollar for a invitation
> to folk to spend their hard earned cash on your
> product, however hip the artist you hire, however
> apparently open the surface of the ad or whatever she
> crafts for you, finally, finally you're paying money
> for a *lack of ambiguity* -"buy my product" .And if
> its say, a game, however subtle it is ultimately it
> must be *encompassable*, *soluble* by any of your
> target market, for you to make money -the twists and
> turns, the resonances, must be finite)
> I speculate that a certain lack of surface finish or
> at least an unconcern or deprioritizing of it could
> be related to what leaves a work more in dialogue with
> the specatator, listener, whatever and with its
> context, that creates this richness, this resonance.
> michael
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: setting up the punch line
g:
> Again. you could turn this around if you like. In the work of Joseph
> Beuys, his text, the flow of his language (because he was first and
> foremost a teacher), was his life's work, and the pieces he made in
> the process could be called "examples". But not only that. Beuys would
> have never been such a well-known artist had he stayed silent and
> just produced pieces. (Of course not! we all realise) And, in effect, his
> art would never have been as GOOD as it is (or "is considered", take
> your pick) had he stayed silent.
>
> It all depends on what kind of artist you're trying te be. If you
> make (good) pieces and then go around saying: "Duh, it just came to me"
> you become an "expressive beast" artist, relying and depending entirely
> upon your more linguistically affluent bretheren (users/viewers,
> critics) to put the pieces together. This is one end of the spectrum.
> On the other side, there would be an artist unfathomably more
> hermetic than Beuys, succeeding in piecing together his works on his very own.
> (No-one would be allowed to breathe a word about his work other than
> he.) Of course, in the everyday practise of things we oscillate
> between the two. And let the two influence each other. (Work on pieces, talk
> about them, show them, talk about them more, work on more pieces.)
>
> So -- is it cheating to give that didactic bit of para-art
> instruction? I'd say that silence is a sentence too.
c:
Thanks. That feedback helps.
On a confessional note, I've always thought of myself as wearing two hats -- artist and critic. If I'm a convincing critic, then it seems unfair to even talk about my own artwork, because it's like a conflict of interest. I don't want people to like my art because I'm a good writer. If they like it at all, I want them to like it in and of itself. So that's part of my hesitation to use a bunch of elaborate para-art documents. But your point is well taken -- there's no way to avoid the conundrum; a cryptic or non-existent para-art document still "says" something.
In Annie Hall, Woody Allen tells Diane Keaton that he doesn't want her to smoke pot before they have sex, because if she enjoys it, he'll feel like it was the pot and not him. He compares it to being a stand-up comedian (our recurring analogy) -- "If I get a laugh from a person who's high, it doesn't count, because they're always laughing." That describes the hang-up I have using para-art text to get people to like/understand my art. It also explains why I disrespect artists like Damien Hirst, who seems like he's all pot and no punch line. [But then if you're a relativist (or a capitalist), I guess it doesn't really matter how much you have to pimp/spin the system, as long as you're making the $. Dyske even argued that pimping oneself within the system is a type of art. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Whore.]
> Again. you could turn this around if you like. In the work of Joseph
> Beuys, his text, the flow of his language (because he was first and
> foremost a teacher), was his life's work, and the pieces he made in
> the process could be called "examples". But not only that. Beuys would
> have never been such a well-known artist had he stayed silent and
> just produced pieces. (Of course not! we all realise) And, in effect, his
> art would never have been as GOOD as it is (or "is considered", take
> your pick) had he stayed silent.
>
> It all depends on what kind of artist you're trying te be. If you
> make (good) pieces and then go around saying: "Duh, it just came to me"
> you become an "expressive beast" artist, relying and depending entirely
> upon your more linguistically affluent bretheren (users/viewers,
> critics) to put the pieces together. This is one end of the spectrum.
> On the other side, there would be an artist unfathomably more
> hermetic than Beuys, succeeding in piecing together his works on his very own.
> (No-one would be allowed to breathe a word about his work other than
> he.) Of course, in the everyday practise of things we oscillate
> between the two. And let the two influence each other. (Work on pieces, talk
> about them, show them, talk about them more, work on more pieces.)
>
> So -- is it cheating to give that didactic bit of para-art
> instruction? I'd say that silence is a sentence too.
c:
Thanks. That feedback helps.
On a confessional note, I've always thought of myself as wearing two hats -- artist and critic. If I'm a convincing critic, then it seems unfair to even talk about my own artwork, because it's like a conflict of interest. I don't want people to like my art because I'm a good writer. If they like it at all, I want them to like it in and of itself. So that's part of my hesitation to use a bunch of elaborate para-art documents. But your point is well taken -- there's no way to avoid the conundrum; a cryptic or non-existent para-art document still "says" something.
In Annie Hall, Woody Allen tells Diane Keaton that he doesn't want her to smoke pot before they have sex, because if she enjoys it, he'll feel like it was the pot and not him. He compares it to being a stand-up comedian (our recurring analogy) -- "If I get a laugh from a person who's high, it doesn't count, because they're always laughing." That describes the hang-up I have using para-art text to get people to like/understand my art. It also explains why I disrespect artists like Damien Hirst, who seems like he's all pot and no punch line. [But then if you're a relativist (or a capitalist), I guess it doesn't really matter how much you have to pimp/spin the system, as long as you're making the $. Dyske even argued that pimping oneself within the system is a type of art. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Whore.]
Re: Re: Re: Re: setting up the punch line
Hi Michael,
I think the difference is between lack of intention and lack of polish. John Coltrane's sax tone from 65-67 was beyond unpolished to downright raw. But it was intentional, and it added to the wildness and fancy of his melodic explorations. Punk was a raw reaction to the sheen of disco, but it was intentionally raw for a purpose. So I see a difference with choosing to leave a piece a bit rough around the edges (although I still don't think this de-facto equals "more artistic") and leaving something rough around the edges because the artist is too half-assed to think it through.
I hope that makes sense.
peace,
curt
Michael Szpakowski wrote:
> I hadn't intended to contribute to tis discussion ,
> partly because, as so often with Curt's pieces, I had
> the strange sensation of half formed words being taken
> right out of my mouth and then articulated better than
> I could hope to, but something slightly tangential
> intrigued me, which bears on the arts/crafts question:
> <It's often so that the difference between great art
> and mediocre art is
> in the finishing and polishing.>
> Now is this true ?.. I accept the qualifier "often so"
> but what interests me is how quite often figures in
> the fine arts tradition are relatively *uninterested*
> in finish, in polish ..and I'm thinking specifically
> here of a great Degas piece in the National Gallery
> London swathes of which are manifestly unfinished.
> ( and this is by no means a unique example)
> Now of course the commodification of such pieces means
> that work that was not finished ( and not felt to be
> finished by the artist) can now find itself displayed
> but it seems to me part of the practice of many
> interesting artists (especially but not exclusively in
> drawing) to focus on something beyond surface finish.
> There's also many centuries of tradition in Japan of
> an aesthetic that actually prioritizes sketchiness,
> impermanence, lack of finish.
> I entirely accept Curt's contention that we can and
> should learn from the craftsperson -I've been involved
> in making a number very short films recently and have
> been keeping more than one eye open for techniques in
> TV advertisments, which in many ( but profoundly
> limited) ways offer a master class in the genre, but I
> do feel that to some extent the art/craft divided is
> typified by the fact that the fine artist sometimes
> looks beyond finish not only without detriment but to
> the positive benefit of what they produce.
> To speculate as to why -the craftsperson is always
> embedded in some sort of economic relationship
> -producing for the market , or the feudal lord, or the
> church or whatever.
> The artist (although her products, once made, move
> into the world of commerce) not primarliy so.
> Milton wrote "Paradise Lost", said Marx, not for money
> but because it was *in his nature*. I think here we
> see the shamanistic roots of art very clearly - the
> fact that the finest work arises out of some very deep
> need in the depths of the human psyche.
> best
> michael
>
>
> =====
> *** You are asked for a jusqu'a car-portrait 'imagining ourselves'
> contribution.
> http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/contribute.html
> It black and an empty image must be qu'avec null, he n'est
> become the methods and material digitali/fotografici, (acceptable =
> ink, matita, coal, varnish; acceptable not = computer the photography
> &c)
> http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/index.html ***
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
> http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
I think the difference is between lack of intention and lack of polish. John Coltrane's sax tone from 65-67 was beyond unpolished to downright raw. But it was intentional, and it added to the wildness and fancy of his melodic explorations. Punk was a raw reaction to the sheen of disco, but it was intentionally raw for a purpose. So I see a difference with choosing to leave a piece a bit rough around the edges (although I still don't think this de-facto equals "more artistic") and leaving something rough around the edges because the artist is too half-assed to think it through.
I hope that makes sense.
peace,
curt
Michael Szpakowski wrote:
> I hadn't intended to contribute to tis discussion ,
> partly because, as so often with Curt's pieces, I had
> the strange sensation of half formed words being taken
> right out of my mouth and then articulated better than
> I could hope to, but something slightly tangential
> intrigued me, which bears on the arts/crafts question:
> <It's often so that the difference between great art
> and mediocre art is
> in the finishing and polishing.>
> Now is this true ?.. I accept the qualifier "often so"
> but what interests me is how quite often figures in
> the fine arts tradition are relatively *uninterested*
> in finish, in polish ..and I'm thinking specifically
> here of a great Degas piece in the National Gallery
> London swathes of which are manifestly unfinished.
> ( and this is by no means a unique example)
> Now of course the commodification of such pieces means
> that work that was not finished ( and not felt to be
> finished by the artist) can now find itself displayed
> but it seems to me part of the practice of many
> interesting artists (especially but not exclusively in
> drawing) to focus on something beyond surface finish.
> There's also many centuries of tradition in Japan of
> an aesthetic that actually prioritizes sketchiness,
> impermanence, lack of finish.
> I entirely accept Curt's contention that we can and
> should learn from the craftsperson -I've been involved
> in making a number very short films recently and have
> been keeping more than one eye open for techniques in
> TV advertisments, which in many ( but profoundly
> limited) ways offer a master class in the genre, but I
> do feel that to some extent the art/craft divided is
> typified by the fact that the fine artist sometimes
> looks beyond finish not only without detriment but to
> the positive benefit of what they produce.
> To speculate as to why -the craftsperson is always
> embedded in some sort of economic relationship
> -producing for the market , or the feudal lord, or the
> church or whatever.
> The artist (although her products, once made, move
> into the world of commerce) not primarliy so.
> Milton wrote "Paradise Lost", said Marx, not for money
> but because it was *in his nature*. I think here we
> see the shamanistic roots of art very clearly - the
> fact that the finest work arises out of some very deep
> need in the depths of the human psyche.
> best
> michael
>
>
> =====
> *** You are asked for a jusqu'a car-portrait 'imagining ourselves'
> contribution.
> http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/contribute.html
> It black and an empty image must be qu'avec null, he n'est
> become the methods and material digitali/fotografici, (acceptable =
> ink, matita, coal, varnish; acceptable not = computer the photography
> &c)
> http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/index.html ***
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
> http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover