First Hybrid Activity

 
» For Fri­day 16-Jan

  1. Read Droit­cour, “Why I Hate Post-Internet Art” (2014) blog entry

      (also check out the com­ments respond­ing to the entry)
  2.  

  3. By end of class time Fri­day, post com­ment below

    (brief, 1–2 sen­tences; respond­ing to read­ing and/or dis­cussing with classmates)

    — dis­cus­sion prompts, respond­ing to read­ing and each other; any (not all!) of these top­ics, along with other points of inter­est for you:

    • Droit­cour’s main argu­ment? dis­cus­sion about art itself or the dis­course (the way it is described/talked-about)?
    • any spe­cific art-discipline writ­ing? most thought-provoking point or sen­tence? how dis­tin­guished as a “blog entry” vs. a “schol­arly arti­cle”? (and does this matter?)
    • what does the post do or accom­plish or gen­er­ate? (check out the com­ments; what are respon­ders react­ing to?) does this get you think­ing (newly) about art + tech­nol­ogy con­nec­tion? (if so: impli­ca­tions? if not: is this debate rel­e­vant to artists?)
    Bonus / Optional check out Droitcour’s arti­cle “The Per­ils of Post-Internet Art” in Art in Amer­ica mag­a­zine (30-Oct 2014)

  • Not to compare/contrast, but we read a blog entry by Droit­cour (a cura­tor and critic) — which he cites in his arti­cle. what do you think of the dis­tinct writ­ings in terms of pub­li­ca­tion, purpose/message, audi­ence, impact (note the com­ments on the mag­a­zine arti­cle ver­sus blog!)…?

 
 
 
Reminder:

 
 
 

GHink posted this in Art and tagged it , , , on .

Comments

  • I don’t quite agree that post-internet art or sim­ply inter­net art only looks good on the inter­net and not in per­son. The inter­net is by means of dis­play­ing a cer­tain medium of art, but a lot of times I feel that dif­fer­ent emo­tional dimen­sions can get lost in trans­la­tion when the item is viewed online rather than in per­son. Of course things can be exag­ger­ated when shown on the inter­net to empha­size liked char­ac­ter­is­tics of the art piece, but the fact that he says these things would be bor­ing if viewed in real life is a bit of an exag­ger­a­tion in my opinion!

  • Alexis Nyeki says:

    He hates post-internet art because it’s no longer mean­ing­ful…
    This guy is a hip­ster sit­ting in the cor­ner of his dark room typ­ing angrily at the fact that the inter­net became pop­u­lar…
    “I liked inter­net before it was cool“
    I can’t help but to think that just because the world has gained so much access to, well, the rest of the world, does it make the art any less art? What even qual­i­fies as art?
    There is much more to explore, and while “pre-internet” art could’ve been at the height of its career in the begin­ning –sub­jec­tively speak­ing, where is it now?
    How­ever despite his tantrum, I do like the use of proto– as an addi­tion to describe this gen­er­a­tion. See­ing as how we have a name for every­thing else that has occurred in the past it wouldn’t do this era jus­tice to assume its role.

  • Jordan Shiparski says:

    I found the anal­ogy of what Post-internet art does to art what porn does to sex pretty clever, in addi­tion to the truth in his anal­ogy with Post-modernism. Though I ulti­mately am sid­ing with the fact that we live in a very pro­gres­sive soci­ety, and this is essen­tially just another step in a world were the con­cept of art is con­stantly expand­ing. The blog­ger hon­estly comes off as some­what of an ass­hole by being so cina­cle about an art that really is one of the most eas­i­est modes to get an artist’s work out to the mass pub­lic. The biggest pos­i­tive take away I got from the blog­ger was the light shed on the con­cept of “Proto-”, and the opti­mism it brings to the table as this appli­ca­tion of it was some­what new to me. Over­all, great post.

  • I thought it was very inter­est­ing when the writer men­tioned how inter­net art really is made for the inter­net and because of that would not look good in a gallery because it sim­ply was not made for that space. I never would have thought that it could not trans­fer over, but it seems to make sense given that you can­not appre­ci­ate a paint­ing as much on a com­puter screen because you can’t see the brush strokes, the lay­ers of paint, or the tex­ture of the can­vas. It’s the same for inter­net art that it would lose its authen­tic­ity to view it any­where but on the internet.

  • Given that I was scrolling down my Tum­blr dash­board moments before read­ing this post, I am acutely aware of the type of art the author is ref­er­enc­ing. “Post-Internet Art” is art for a short atten­tion span; it can­not cap­ti­vate for much longer than the effort it takes to ‘like’ and ‘reblog’ it. It comes off as detached; it some­how isn’t worth the usual 1000 words allot­ted to pic­tures (and the author of this piece cer­tainly didn’t want to expend any on spe­cific pieces either). For me, read­ing the post itself exem­pli­fied the ben­e­fits of a move­ment from post– to proto– think­ing: focus­ing on ‘post-’ makes one ‘sigh’ and become annoyed, while ‘proto-’ is more hope­ful and ‘points to mul­ti­plic­ity and possibility.’

    • Satya Chavez says:

      Hana, I think you’ve nailed what a huge issue is, with post-internet art. Art, whether visual, musi­cal, or the­atri­cal, is meant to insti­gate a reac­tion. It’s meant for ana­lyza­tion and after­thought, and time to decide what the 1000 words even are, that a pic­ture could rep­re­sent. Post-internet art tells you in a sec­ond every­thing you need to know about the image. What a sad world we live in, that we feel there is not enough time to appre­ci­ate art.

  • Nathan says:

    He describes this post as a rant, and under the topic of schol­arly arti­cle vs. blog entry he has made his dis­po­si­tion clear. I’m not quite sure what he’s ref­er­enc­ing since we aren’t given an exam­ple (I sup­pose we’ve seen it) but Hana’s com­ment about art for short attention-spans could carry over quite nicely to the atten­tion he brought to sup­port­ing his point. Also, for how “seri­ous” the prob­lem sounds I’ve never heard the term “post-internet art” before and if it hasn’t caught too much ground yet I’m pos­i­tive we can name it proto-internet if this guy is so intent on it.

  • The key to under­stand­ing what “Post-Internet Art” means is that, despite how it sounds, it doesn’t sug­gest that we have left behind the use of the Inter­net as we know it; we have just expanded it to fur­ther it and make it bet­ter use of it. When he says that “Post-Internet Art” is bad, I dis­agree with that because the Inter­net, as of now, is a world of end­less pos­si­bil­i­ties. He finds it “bor­ing to be around”; how­ever, that’s not what the Inter­net is about. It’s about a world of cre­ative pos­si­bil­i­ties at your finger-tips. He also states that “Post-internet art seems like art about the idea of art world success—the art one would make to become a well-known artist if one doesn’t care about any­thing else.”. I also dis­agree with that because the Inter­net is another cre­ative medium that an artist can use. Why not include online art as a cre­ative out­let, just like we do for paint­ing, sculpt­ing, etc.? I found this arti­cle to be bit­ter towards what the Inter­net is now, and that’s how I’ve always thought of it.

  • Andy Cole says:

    After read­ing the arti­cle, I cant really wrap my head around why he hates post-internet art. I under­stand that he doesnt like it, but if he doesnt like post-internet art, then why not just leave it alone. If some­one cre­ates a work of art, what­ever it may be, that per­son will be express­ing them­selves freely. The fact that this guy wrote a whole blog on why he hates post-internet art seems point­less and to a cer­tain extent rude. It takes a lot for some one to make a piece of art and when he just shits on the idea of post-internet art, I find it disrespectful.

  • sarah may says:

    I feel this writer’s down­fall is that he isn’t will­ing to open his eyes and appre­ci­ate all kinds of art. It’s like he’s stuck in a museum and won’t allow the oppor­tu­nity for art to grow. Art is always chang­ing and just because it may be made for the inter­net, doesn’t make it bad art. The idea of art not trans­lat­ing between the com­puter and an in-person expe­ri­ence is under­stand­able, but yet can and should still be appre­ci­ated. Like in film, con­vert­ing from film to dig­i­tal can change the qual­ity but if you go in know­ing that, then there is no rea­son not to still appre­ci­ate it as art. I am glad, that the writer rec­og­nized his lack of knowl­edge on the mat­ter and didn’t just bash on spe­cific artists. At least he knows his blog is sim­ply an option piece and not factual.

  • Jessica Wilcox says:

    I agree that post-internet art “looks good online in the way that laun­dry deter­gent looks good in a com­mer­cial”, but isn’t that the point? This medium is intended to be viewed on a com­puter screen, and as a result, has adapted to appear opti­mal online. Just because this art form may not seem as inter­est­ing in per­son as it does on a screen, its artis­tic value is not revoked. Fur­ther­more, the point of the Inter­net is to con­nect those around the world and allow images, mes­sages, etc. to be shared. I think his crit­i­cism of artists using the web sim­ply as a means of pro­mot­ing their work is rather asi­nine, espe­cially con­sid­er­ing he is using the same medium to invoke his opin­ion. While I dis­agree with the vast major­ity of his rant, he does make thought­ful argu­ments and I think this is an incred­i­bly well-written article.

  • ryan winchester says:

    There was already a com­ment on the arti­cle like this, but I feel like the mean­ing of “post-internet art” has changed from how Gene Mchugh meant it. I also don’t think he has a right to be upset because the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion now uses the inter­net instead of just hack­ers or pro­gram­mers etc.

  • Natalie Romano says:

    While over­all the arti­cle was com­bat­ive, and was clearly a rant. The author was right about iden­ti­fy­ing how an art­works medium or dis­play prac­tice affects its mean­ing, as with inter­net art. How­ever, I did feel it was rude to deem an art­work as unimag­i­na­tive because the author of the arti­cle did not con­nect with or approve of an artists choice of medium. For many artists today the inter­net seems to offer more as a means of rapid and imme­di­ate expo­sure of their art. Not that the art is solely cre­ated to be viewed online, while I’m sure some artists do, its some­times just the most effi­cient way to sell and show their art. At the begin­ning of the arti­cle I thought I too dis­liked inter­net art, but then inter­net is actu­ally a great tool artists today are lucky to have at their disposal.

  • Phoebe Mattoon says:

    I agree with Nathan in that this was def­i­nitely not an arti­cle but a blog and an unin­for­ma­tive one at that. I found myself dis­miss­ing him just by the rant style in which he wrote. His angry and rude atti­tude took away any cred­i­bil­ity he may have had.
    I wish he had given some exam­ples of the art he was dis­cussing. It wasn’t clear whether he was talk­ing about the art found on Tum­blr and on the web or any art made in this “post-internet time.“
    I also agree with what Sarah May said in that art is not sup­posed to be con­strained in the walls of a museum. The inter­net is a great way to make art acces­si­ble to any­one and explor­ing new ways to cre­ate art that can’t be done in muse­ums or tra­di­tional art environments.

  • GHink says:

    Great com­ments & dis­cus­sion so far, every­one, wow!
    Remem­ber that your com­ments can be brief (1–2 sen­tences) and in response to a classmate’s remark. (Next week we’ll go over expec­ta­tions for com­ments — length, for­mal­ity, pur­pose, etc — sep­a­rate from blog entry writing)

    To gen­er­ate dis­cus­sion between folks, try read­ing the com­ments already posted: not just to avoid repeat­ing points; as well, you could con­tinue respond­ing to the read­ing — par­tic­u­larly using any of the prompts I posted above.
    In other words, feel free to respond to the read­ing in a reply to a class­mate (con­tin­u­ing discussion)

    (Also: I am read­ing everyone’s com­ments but not reply­ing, to allow you all to steer the convo!)

  • I think the author takes a very aggres­sive approach to post inter­net art. It seems he is stuck in cer­tain archaic ways of the past and is still try­ing to under­stand younger gen­er­a­tions fix­a­tion of the inter­net. Obvi­ously some­thing that you see online is not the same as going to a museum but who really liked being forced on field trips to muse­ums any­ways. Post inter­net art takes away a cer­tain view­ing process that you can only get when you see art in per­son but it also allows artists to explore a new medium and way of get­ting their art shown.

  • Satya Chavez says:

    Why I hate post inter­net art is bru­tally hon­est and quite frankly, a lit­tle dis­heart­en­ing. This is the first time I’ve con­sid­ered this idea of liv­ing in an era where the inter­net is the place we try to get away from. The respon­si­bil­ity that comes with an email that needs an imme­di­ate response, or a bill that needs to be paid, or a home­work assign­ment that needs to be sub­mit­ted before 1:00 on Fri­day; all of this is proof of how the inter­net became “the world one sought to escape from.” Could this mean that proto-internet era might be a time in which the inter­net is used less?

  • John Wittbrodt says:

    The author of this arti­cle has a strong bias against “post-internet art” and his fiery tone makes this arti­cle unap­peal­ing. I agree with Phoebe about his rude atti­tude dis­tract­ing from his cred­i­bil­ity. I found myself ask­ing “who’s he to judge?” and his seem­ing unwill­ing­ness to change his opin­ion turns off the reader.

  • Carson Bartels says:

    For a rant, the guy makes a good argu­ment, but I find the label prota far to vague. I find the term post-internet as an appro­pri­ate descrip­tion of our gen­er­a­tions cul­tural shift. If post-modernism is a response to hav­ing expe­ri­enced mod­erism, then post-internet should be a response to hav­ing expe­ri­enced the inter­net. The past tense is appro­pri­ate for the term because our gen­er­a­tion has already been changed by the tech­no­log­i­cal shift.

  • Keana Cowden says:

    This arti­cle is clearly writ­ten by a man who is highly cyn­i­cal of the new wave of tech­nol­ogy. I think that while he does hit some home runs with his view and he expresses them in a very appeal­ing way, I can’t agree that this ‘post– inter­net” art is a bad thing. I think that as a gen­er­a­tion of hum as we haven’t quite fig­ured it out yet. Which is true of any new tech­nol­ogy. It just takes time to adapt to it and make it bet­ter. I think that given time, peo­ple will dis­cover ways to enhance it and embell­ish. I also think that the idea of “pro to” is endear­ing, how­ever when he states The future is a lan­guage with­out gram­mar, an uncon­scious with­out dreams, pure noth­ing. Inescapably the future becomes every­thing so as again and again to remain noth­ing.” I can­not agree that we will evolve into a recur­ring cir­cle of noth­ing. New ideas and new art can always be made because the earth is always changing.

  • jun flynn says:

    i agree with car­son that “post” is an appro­pri­ate label for a gen­er­a­tion hav­ing expe­ri­enced the inter­net. and i am def­i­nitely inter­ested in the rela­tion­ship between the inter­net and visual art, but the aggres­sive rant style of the post made it dif­fi­cult to relate to. i dis­agree with his cheap­en­ing of “post-internet art” and feel as though his gen­er­al­i­sa­tions were harsh. social media has become a very strong plat­form for artists to put their art into the world and i see this devel­op­ment as mostly positive.

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