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.
A Non-Manifesto for the Summer of 2008
In the summer of 2008, I want to see more...
Art not about the intersection of technology and culture.
Art not about physical bodies in virtual space, virtual bodies in physical space, virtual space in physical bodies, or physical space in virtual bodies.
Art not trans-gendered, trans-disciplinary, or trans-local.
Art not about the art market of Chelsea, the gentrification of Brooklyn, or the suburbanization of New Jersey.
Art not immersive, multi-disciplinary, multi-modal, or multi-cultural.
Art that does not make use of youTube, mySpace, or secondLife.
Art that is not a critique of consumerism.
Art that is neither neo-dada, neo-fluxus, neo-situationist, or neo-arte povera.
Art that does not seek to be inclusive of the difference of the other via collaborative cell phone video podcast collage.
Art not about viral memes, online marketing, the noosphere, media saturation, or MK-ULTRA mind-control experiments.
Art that does not incorporate the Wii remote.
Art not seeking to dismantle the artificial dichotomy between nature and culture.
Art not seeking to dismantle the artificial dichotomy between science and art.
Ubiquitous computing, global positioning systems, surveillance cameras, animal architecture, and anything having to do with the human genome project are right out.
Art not green, sustainable, or post-human.
Art that does not celebrate Darwinian evolution as the cosmology of our times.
Art not using generative software algorithms to re-examine the tradition of American landscape photography.
Art that does not attempt to create an abstract cartographic mythology by synthesizing theoretical physics and Tibetan Buddhism.
Art not about moving through urban space.
Art not exploring artificial life, artificial intelligence, artificial insemination, artificial sweetener, or anything else artificial.
Art that is not a simulacrum of a palimpsest of an artifice of the spectacle.
Art that embodies neither emergent systems nor dystopian futures.
Art that is not a Deleuzean mash-up of Cagean algorithms.
Art that does not allude to Sol Lewitt, Josephy Beuys, Bucky Fuller, Johnny Depp, or John Ashcroft.
Art not about the U.S. homeland security advisory system.
Art that does not attempt to vectorize the trajectory of desire.
Art not conceived in response to a call for proposals.
Art not conceived in response to this list.
Art not about the intersection of technology and culture.
Art not about physical bodies in virtual space, virtual bodies in physical space, virtual space in physical bodies, or physical space in virtual bodies.
Art not trans-gendered, trans-disciplinary, or trans-local.
Art not about the art market of Chelsea, the gentrification of Brooklyn, or the suburbanization of New Jersey.
Art not immersive, multi-disciplinary, multi-modal, or multi-cultural.
Art that does not make use of youTube, mySpace, or secondLife.
Art that is not a critique of consumerism.
Art that is neither neo-dada, neo-fluxus, neo-situationist, or neo-arte povera.
Art that does not seek to be inclusive of the difference of the other via collaborative cell phone video podcast collage.
Art not about viral memes, online marketing, the noosphere, media saturation, or MK-ULTRA mind-control experiments.
Art that does not incorporate the Wii remote.
Art not seeking to dismantle the artificial dichotomy between nature and culture.
Art not seeking to dismantle the artificial dichotomy between science and art.
Ubiquitous computing, global positioning systems, surveillance cameras, animal architecture, and anything having to do with the human genome project are right out.
Art not green, sustainable, or post-human.
Art that does not celebrate Darwinian evolution as the cosmology of our times.
Art not using generative software algorithms to re-examine the tradition of American landscape photography.
Art that does not attempt to create an abstract cartographic mythology by synthesizing theoretical physics and Tibetan Buddhism.
Art not about moving through urban space.
Art not exploring artificial life, artificial intelligence, artificial insemination, artificial sweetener, or anything else artificial.
Art that is not a simulacrum of a palimpsest of an artifice of the spectacle.
Art that embodies neither emergent systems nor dystopian futures.
Art that is not a Deleuzean mash-up of Cagean algorithms.
Art that does not allude to Sol Lewitt, Josephy Beuys, Bucky Fuller, Johnny Depp, or John Ashcroft.
Art not about the U.S. homeland security advisory system.
Art that does not attempt to vectorize the trajectory of desire.
Art not conceived in response to a call for proposals.
Art not conceived in response to this list.
Manifesto
Hi Jim,
I would love to see more A.I. experimentation happening with the assumption that knowledge is embodied rather than disembodied. Ironically, the idea that one could "upload onesself" as code is influenced by residual quasi-Christian medieval dualistic gnosticism that (wrongly) divorces mind and body. It assumes that humans are essences rather than embodied processes, and that these essences can be reductively encoded. If one starts with these assumptions, one is going to head down an entirely different research and art-making path than if one starts with other assumptions.
One thing our brief dialogue has illuminated is that one's presuppositions about what it is to be human radically influence not only the type of art one makes, but the way in which one approaches the histories and taxonomies of art itself.
I agree that algorithms make certain moves in art more feasible, and this can lead to new places in artmaking. But ultimately, art is about people being in the world, and all that such being entails. If computers lead to hermetically sealed algorithmic experiments that lose connection with cultures/natures/languages, then the paradigmatic presumption of disembodied essences will have led to a kind of disembodied, metaphysical art that becomes increasingly irrelevant to embodied human agents. Manik are right to perpetually ask -- how does any of this theory ultimately address our life in this specific political situation? I think it is a fair thing for "western" "academics" to be reminded of.
Best,
Curt
I would love to see more A.I. experimentation happening with the assumption that knowledge is embodied rather than disembodied. Ironically, the idea that one could "upload onesself" as code is influenced by residual quasi-Christian medieval dualistic gnosticism that (wrongly) divorces mind and body. It assumes that humans are essences rather than embodied processes, and that these essences can be reductively encoded. If one starts with these assumptions, one is going to head down an entirely different research and art-making path than if one starts with other assumptions.
One thing our brief dialogue has illuminated is that one's presuppositions about what it is to be human radically influence not only the type of art one makes, but the way in which one approaches the histories and taxonomies of art itself.
I agree that algorithms make certain moves in art more feasible, and this can lead to new places in artmaking. But ultimately, art is about people being in the world, and all that such being entails. If computers lead to hermetically sealed algorithmic experiments that lose connection with cultures/natures/languages, then the paradigmatic presumption of disembodied essences will have led to a kind of disembodied, metaphysical art that becomes increasingly irrelevant to embodied human agents. Manik are right to perpetually ask -- how does any of this theory ultimately address our life in this specific political situation? I think it is a fair thing for "western" "academics" to be reminded of.
Best,
Curt
Manifesto
Hi Jim,
I don't know where you are going with the Bible and Darwin. Humans are embodied along with their knowledge (as Mr. Szpakowski so poetically described). I don't need the Bible or Darwin to tell me that.
On embodied knowledge:
Johnson, Mark. 2007. The meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
On embodied language:
Kenneally, Christine. 2007. The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language. New York: Viking.
On scalar technological differences:
Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
I agree with you that computers are more than glorified typewriters and glorified adding machines. You are arguing against a straw man (who "squirts ink").
What is "traditional media" to you? Fluxus? Beuys' social sculpture? Chris Burden's performance art? Marcel Broodthaers' institutional critique? Sol Lewitt's instruction-based drawings? David Wilson's "Museum of Jurassic Technology?" None of these artists use computers (altough Lewitt and Fluxus artists like Brecht do use a kind of code). Are these artists "traditional" to you? Do you lump them with abstract expressionist painters? Is the dividing line between "traditional" and "non-traditional" drawn along "digital" and "analog" lines? Right now I use code and software in my work because they help me explore language and time. But I also use my voice, my physical body, and my Rhodes electro-mechanical keyboard because they help me explore language and time. If by some bizarre turn of events I discover that oil paint helps me explore language and time, then I'll use it.
Peace,
Curt
I don't know where you are going with the Bible and Darwin. Humans are embodied along with their knowledge (as Mr. Szpakowski so poetically described). I don't need the Bible or Darwin to tell me that.
On embodied knowledge:
Johnson, Mark. 2007. The meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
On embodied language:
Kenneally, Christine. 2007. The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language. New York: Viking.
On scalar technological differences:
Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
I agree with you that computers are more than glorified typewriters and glorified adding machines. You are arguing against a straw man (who "squirts ink").
What is "traditional media" to you? Fluxus? Beuys' social sculpture? Chris Burden's performance art? Marcel Broodthaers' institutional critique? Sol Lewitt's instruction-based drawings? David Wilson's "Museum of Jurassic Technology?" None of these artists use computers (altough Lewitt and Fluxus artists like Brecht do use a kind of code). Are these artists "traditional" to you? Do you lump them with abstract expressionist painters? Is the dividing line between "traditional" and "non-traditional" drawn along "digital" and "analog" lines? Right now I use code and software in my work because they help me explore language and time. But I also use my voice, my physical body, and my Rhodes electro-mechanical keyboard because they help me explore language and time. If by some bizarre turn of events I discover that oil paint helps me explore language and time, then I'll use it.
Peace,
Curt
Manifesto
There is no proof, and probably never will be, that there are thought processes of which humans are capable and computers are not." -j.a.
Or conversely -- there is no proof, and probably never will be, that computers are capable of all human thought processes. It's largely an academic, semantic argument hinging on one's understanding of anthropology. It has less to do with what computers are pragmatically capable of and more to do with how one defines what it is to be human. Usually, the more one thinks "A.I." is possible/has happened/will happen, the weaker one's estimation of humans.
Anyway, there is a lot more to being in the world than "thought processes."
I think you misunderstand what I mean by "scale." I'm not dissing computer tech so much as pointing out its continuity with hammer tech. Hammers radicalize our way of being in the world. Computers exponentially radicalize our way of being in the world. As if one could be nostalgic for the former and demonize the latter (a la Heidegger). As if one could trivialize the former and utopianize the latter.
I don't care about "digital art" or "traditional art." I care about using whatever is at hand to make the art I want to make -- digital, analog, mechanical, biological, neural, lingual, play-dough-ial.
Or conversely -- there is no proof, and probably never will be, that computers are capable of all human thought processes. It's largely an academic, semantic argument hinging on one's understanding of anthropology. It has less to do with what computers are pragmatically capable of and more to do with how one defines what it is to be human. Usually, the more one thinks "A.I." is possible/has happened/will happen, the weaker one's estimation of humans.
Anyway, there is a lot more to being in the world than "thought processes."
I think you misunderstand what I mean by "scale." I'm not dissing computer tech so much as pointing out its continuity with hammer tech. Hammers radicalize our way of being in the world. Computers exponentially radicalize our way of being in the world. As if one could be nostalgic for the former and demonize the latter (a la Heidegger). As if one could trivialize the former and utopianize the latter.
I don't care about "digital art" or "traditional art." I care about using whatever is at hand to make the art I want to make -- digital, analog, mechanical, biological, neural, lingual, play-dough-ial.
Manifesto
Then I guess we won't be hearing from you again. Or will you keep using the evil machine to dialogue on the evil network behind the evil facade of a pseudonymous identity? Or are you baiting us? Are you really just one of us, bored and trying to stir up a bit of conflict so as to pass the time away in front of monitor instead of doing other more important things like bathing or eating after dinner mints. Will you grace us with your virtual presence some more, or will you drop your "cyber"-bomb and return to the "real world," never to be heard from again? Believe me when I say, I am tingling with anticipation!
Here's what's dead -- the modernist myth of manifestos, revolutions, and radical ruptures from the past; the idea that the technology of the computer differs from the technology of the ball peen hammer in any capacity other than scale. As has been argued, a p2p network in and of itself is more intriguing than any single file shared on it. The only thing more boring that art mimetically representing networks (aka. net art about net art) is art ideologically opposing art mimetically representing networks (aka. anti-net art). "Art should imitate nature in its function rather than its appearance" (an imitation of the appearance of something Mr. Cage once wrote). The network itself functions -- as art:
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/22
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/87/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/78/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/228/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/98/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/97/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/290/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/302/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/42/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/54/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/155/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/85/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/107/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/108/
You've got to swim in the spectacle to detourn it. You can't throw your boot into the factory machine without a bare foot on the factory floor. Anti-spectacularization is the "revolutiotnary's" role in the spectacle. The revolution will always be televised. A post on a net art bulletin board "rejecting" net art -- welcome to the spectacle.
I'm thankful Debord didn't reject television. Otherwise we would have never had:
http://www.ubu.com/film/debord_spectacle.html
Actually, I don't care about any of these things. Maybe you are right. Maybe "computers" are the "death" of "Art."
However I do take "vehement" exception to your categorical "dis" of youTube. To categorically dis youTube is to implicitly dis Dan Deacon and Liam Lynch's epic "Drinking Out of Cups," the best "piece" of "art" on the "interweb" in "years."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skCV2L0c6K0
As Warhol is my witness, such an insult SHALL NOT STAND! I defy you to try and make it stand!
Your Affectionate Uncle,
Tommy Noble
Here's what's dead -- the modernist myth of manifestos, revolutions, and radical ruptures from the past; the idea that the technology of the computer differs from the technology of the ball peen hammer in any capacity other than scale. As has been argued, a p2p network in and of itself is more intriguing than any single file shared on it. The only thing more boring that art mimetically representing networks (aka. net art about net art) is art ideologically opposing art mimetically representing networks (aka. anti-net art). "Art should imitate nature in its function rather than its appearance" (an imitation of the appearance of something Mr. Cage once wrote). The network itself functions -- as art:
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/22
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/87/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/78/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/228/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/98/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/97/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/290/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/302/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/42/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/54/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/155/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/85/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/107/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/108/
You've got to swim in the spectacle to detourn it. You can't throw your boot into the factory machine without a bare foot on the factory floor. Anti-spectacularization is the "revolutiotnary's" role in the spectacle. The revolution will always be televised. A post on a net art bulletin board "rejecting" net art -- welcome to the spectacle.
I'm thankful Debord didn't reject television. Otherwise we would have never had:
http://www.ubu.com/film/debord_spectacle.html
Actually, I don't care about any of these things. Maybe you are right. Maybe "computers" are the "death" of "Art."
However I do take "vehement" exception to your categorical "dis" of youTube. To categorically dis youTube is to implicitly dis Dan Deacon and Liam Lynch's epic "Drinking Out of Cups," the best "piece" of "art" on the "interweb" in "years."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skCV2L0c6K0
As Warhol is my witness, such an insult SHALL NOT STAND! I defy you to try and make it stand!
Your Affectionate Uncle,
Tommy Noble