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UCLA DESMA 9 - Myths and Confusions

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Myths and Confusions in Thinking about Art/Science/TechnologyStephen Wilson, Director, Conceptual Information Arts Program, San Francisco State University http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~swilson/Paper presented at College Art Association Meetings, NYC, 2000 I have spent the last 20 years as an artist and as a writer reflecting on the issues of art and technology and art and science. I havebeen an editor of the Leonardo international journal of art & science for 15 years. For much of that time the field was marginalizedas a minor footnote to the mainstream of art. There are signs that this is changing. Mainstream institutions and academics areshowing more interest. There are 7 sessions this year on art/science and art/technology. It is entirely possible in 10 years thebalance of sessions at the CAA will be exactly opposite of what it is now with the majority reflecting on art addressing science andtechnology.We are at an important cusp as the arts try to figure out what to do about the realities of the 21st century. There are greatopportunities and also much possibility of misunderstanding the moment. I would like today to try to clarify some of the confusionand throw light on the opportunities and challenges. More details about what I have to say will be available in my bookInformation Arts which is going to be published by MIT Press this Fall and also on my websites.Today I will concentrate on myths and confusions in thinking about art/science/technology. Different models of working with science/technology:There is much confusion because artists approach science and technology in a variety of radically different ways. Even though theyare sometimes interrelated it is useful to highlight the differences.- Continued modernist practice: Some artists seek to appropriate contemporary technologies to create new kindsof images, sounds, installations and performances - for example, digitally processed photography, computermusic, or computer controlled sculptures. They see the new technologies as tools that give profound new ways ofdoing what artists have historically done. Certainly new issues must be addressed, but the agenda is not radicallydifferent from historical practice. Artists focus on creating objects and events in specialized art settings such asmuseums and galleries, which they hope will enter the world of art discourse and the art marketplace. Eventechnological art such as interactive computer media, immersive virtual reality, and web art can be easilyassimilated to the fundamentals of the model.- Critical practice: Some artists believe that the centrality of science and technology requires a radically differentresponse from the arts. In this they continue and update traditions of conceptual, performance and situationistnon-object based art. In this view the arts main role should be to deconstruct cultural patterns of integratingscience and technology to clarify underlying meanings ignored in the over-hyped flow of normal technologicaland commercial life. Artists acquire expertise in the technical worlds in order to understand them better and touse the technologies to subvert and analyze them. These artists often seek to place their art in everydaytechnological mediated settings rather than specialized art locales. (more on this model later)- Art as research: Some artists believe the most powerful response is to become researchers themselves. Theyattempt to enter into the heart of scientific inquiry and technological innovation to address research agendasignored by the mainstream and to integrate commentary and play into the research enterprise. I believe this opensup enormous opportunities for the arts.Potential Pitfalls in Critical Practice:Technically sophisticated artists are ideally suited to function as commentators. They are relatively free of the utilitarian anddisciplinary blinders that keep those that work at the heart of the techno/scientific mainstream from understanding the subtexts andunexplored implications of their own innovations. In fact this critical perspective has become a major position for artists andtheorists working with emerging technologies. While this is an extremely powerful role for the arts, there are some dangers. If thearts relegate themselves to the sidelines as the snipers, I fear they marginalize and isolate themselves from the possibilities ofhelping to shape research agendas.Also the position often has its own blindness. Almost all research and technological innovation is written off as the playing out ofdark forces of commercial, military, and governmental domination and exploitation. Researchers and the institutions of science arecaricatured as either evil or naive. The possibility of genuine innovation or insight is dismissed as nearly impossible. While muchof this analysis is cogent, it is not the whole story. Many of the artists and theorists working from this perspective may have neverset foot inside a research lab. Many researchers (especially those working on basic research) start from interesting places ofcuriosity, celebration, defiance of accepted wisdom, desire to explore that which does not yet exist, and the desire to create newpossibilities and understandings. In these they actually function much like artists. Also, most researchers have a very differentworldview than the postmodern critique of the possibilities of universal knowledge and progress; they do not share the radicalepistemological doubts that many critical theorists posit as the true meaning of our times. I fear that the orthodoxy of criticaltechnological critique may be the current iteration of the classic two-culture problem described by CP Snow. That is, thearts/humanities and science/technologies are talking different languages and do not understand each other. Art as Research:Some of the artists I studied have staked out a different role for themselves. They did not accept the role of artist as consumer ofgizmos Indeed, they chose to work in areas where the research has not yet solidified. Also did not accept critique anddeconstruction as their only role. Let me give a few examples: - Ken Rinaldo & Nell Tenhaaf - explorations in Artificial Life- Naoka Tosa - Digital entities that can understand human emotion- Eduardo Kac - Genetic engineering of a florescent dog- Tissue and Culture - sculpture constructed from stem cells- Ken Goldberg - Telepresence- Kitsou Dubois - Dance in zero-gravity- My own - Information Visualizaiton - CrimezylandWhile integrating


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