{"id":2102,"date":"2010-06-30T16:51:05","date_gmt":"2010-06-30T14:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/?p=2102"},"modified":"2014-04-03T07:35:02","modified_gmt":"2014-04-03T12:35:02","slug":"new-media-new-modes-on-rethinking-curating-art-after-new-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/30\/new-media-new-modes-on-rethinking-curating-art-after-new-media\/","title":{"rendered":"New Media, New Modes: On “Rethinking Curating: Art after New Media”"},"content":{"rendered":"

My review<\/a> of Sarah Cook<\/a> and Beryl Graham’s<\/a> book (both of CRUMB<\/a> – the Curatorial Resource for Upstart Media Bliss), “Rethinking Curating: Art after New Media” (Leonardo books \/ The MIT Press) is the Rhizome News feature<\/a> today. Teaser:<\/p>\n

\"rethinkingcurating.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Humorous and surprising, smart and provocative, Rethinking Curating: Art after New Media<\/em><\/a> (MIT Press, 2010) jumps from opposing viewpoints to opposing personalities, from one arts trajectory to another. The entire book is a dialectic exercise: none of its problems or theories are solved or concluded, but are rather complicated through revelations around their origins, arguments and appropriations. Overall, the book adopts the collaborative style and hyperlinked approach of the media and practice it purports to rethink. In other words, it is not just the content of the book that asks us to rethink curating, but the reading itself; by the end, we are forced to digest and internalize the consistently problematized behaviors of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153media formerly known as new.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Sarah Cook and Beryl Graham, co-editors of the CRUMB site and list (the Curatorial Resource for Upstart Media Bliss)<\/a>, have co-authored the book via email and on a Wiki, and assert outright that it is not a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153theory book\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; its structure instead \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reflects the CRUMB approach to research, which discusses and analyzes the process of how things are done\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (12). The sheer number of examples, citations, and first-person accounts in this nearly 350-page volume make it so that every time the trajectory coheres into a singular point or argument, it is then broken up again, into a constellation of ideas that make us rethink, again. We are issued challenge after challenge to our assumptions about media, our understandings of curatorial practice, and our opinions about the spaces in which we exhibit art. It is only after an exhaustive study of seemingly irreconcilable philosophies, practices and venues, the book implicitly argues, that we can begin to engage with what needs to be rethought, and how to do so.<\/p>\n

Rethinking Curating<\/em> makes three basic arguments. First, that one must approach a broad set of histories in trying to understand any given artwork, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153for new media art this set includes technological histories, which are essentially interdisciplinary and patchily documented\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (283). Second, that such broad histories have led to the unique development of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153critical vocabularies for the fluid and overlapping characteristics of new media art\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (283). Cook and Graham reason that new media are best understood not as materials but as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153behaviors\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c participatory, performative or generative, for example. And third, that these behaviors demand a rethinking of curating, new modes of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153looking at the production, exhibition, interpretation, and wider dissemination (including collection and conservation) of new media art\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (1).<\/p>\n

Read the whole article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My review of Sarah Cook and Beryl Graham’s book (both of CRUMB – the Curatorial Resource for Upstart Media Bliss), “Rethinking Curating: Art after New Media” (Leonardo books \/ The MIT Press) is the Rhizome News feature today. Teaser: Humorous and surprising, smart and provocative, Rethinking Curating: Art after New Media (MIT Press, 2010) jumps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,3,7,8,25,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-art-and-tech","category-me","category-re-blog-tidbits","category-reviews","category-stimulus"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9blZT-xU","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2090,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/20\/chelsea-highlights\/","url_meta":{"origin":2102,"position":0},"title":"Chelsea Highlights","author":"nathaniel","date":"20 June 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Wonderful day yesterday, slowly moseying around Chelsea and surrounds from gallery to gallery, afternoon drinks with good friend and great artist Sean Slemon, dinner with brilliant writer\/thinker\/academic and all-around fabulous lady Rebecca Schneider (and our respective partners - can't get enough of that Nicole Ridgway, so it's a good thing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hany Armanious at Foxy Productions","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/armanious.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5749,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/18\/syllabus-sharing-interactive-and-generative-art-a-max-msp-and-jitter-class-at-uwm\/","url_meta":{"origin":2102,"position":1},"title":"Syllabus sharing! Interactive and Generative Art – a Max, MSP, and Jitter class at UWM","author":"nathaniel","date":"18 November 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Welcome back to another episode of syllabus sharing here at Implicit Art! This class focuses on interactive technologies and aesthetics in contemporary art. Students will learn basic software development and real-time computational methods. They simultaneously learn and make projects with MIDI sounds or drawings, digital audio, human interface devices (USB\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/IMG_5620-1-e1511024880832-300x280.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":44,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2003\/03\/04\/marcus-neustetter-interview\/","url_meta":{"origin":2102,"position":2},"title":"marcus neustetter interview","author":"nathaniel","date":"04 March 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a great interview I did with Marcus Neustetter, of The Trinity Session, South Africa. The Trinity Session is a Johannesburg-based creative collective whose work ranges from curating and exhibiting art, to community development and empowerment projects, and the networking of South African artists with each other and the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art and tech"","block_context":{"text":"art and tech","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art-and-tech\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":514,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2004\/12\/03\/my-humblest-apologies\/","url_meta":{"origin":2102,"position":3},"title":"art pick at JAG; tomorrow at noon!","author":"nathaniel","date":"03 December 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, dear readers; my humblest apologies for the inaction on this blog as of late - at some point, I just needed to slow down a bit. I know it sounds lame, but my wife actually took our digital camera with her to an academic conference all this week, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":845,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/10\/18\/surface-franchise\/","url_meta":{"origin":2102,"position":4},"title":"surface @ franchise","author":"nathaniel","date":"18 October 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Not for Data by Virginia MacKenny, 2005 - a huge and beautiful series. We like her a lot. And Franchise gallerist Lara Rivera breaks into curating her first group show at the famed 44 Stanley space. Surface features paintings by a fantastic ensemble of artists: Luan Nel, Virginia MacKenny, Moshekwa\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1072,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/02\/12\/rhona-gorvy-the-new-art-on-paper\/","url_meta":{"origin":2102,"position":5},"title":"Rhona Gorvy @ the new Art on Paper","author":"nathaniel","date":"12 February 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"For those of you who have not heard, Art on Paper has moved into 44 Stanley; a newly renovated ex-Franchise is looking fab with all kinds of nooks and crannies for prints and marks... Admittedly, I always thought this space was a bit big, and the art tended to sometimes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Denigration, from The Dream and The Abuse. Rhona Gorvy. 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