[preparatory]


Questions of content and ownership are central to the use of the technology and media which today we are discussing as being ‘participatory’, or ‘locative’.

Simply put: what is shared where by whom, during how much time?

How do the qualities of event-based ephemeral ‘gameplay rich’ projects relate to the building of longer term social-culturally structured platforms and formats for information sharing and memory? How do situated initiatives, where information and face-to-face interaction are meshed, relate to community supporting/supported dislocated projects? How do old en new media and organizational forms relate, and combine? Are old communication formats and platforms replaced, or enhanced, or can they never be improved (‘there is no technology that beats lunch’)? How does meaning developing in new media narratives bear upon meaning of old media narratives? Even with disregard to IP complications, issues of authorship and ownership are questioned in participatory projects.

Finally, art and design disciplines develop expanding practices, in which traditional competences are challenged. Relations between producer and consumer are adrift. ‘Professional’ and ‘amateur’ production mixes and merges. How much can we benefit from existing cultural consumption habits and institutions, for new practices and productions in art and design disciplines?

[Paul Valéry, ‘La conquête de l’ubiquité’, in Pièces sur l’art, 1928-34]


Like water, gas and electricity enter our house from far away by force of a hardly noticeable manipulation, to be at our service — just like that we will be fed visual and sonic images, which will appear upon a minute gesture, almost a sign, only to leave us again the same way as they came.

(...)

Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. But the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful. In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last twenty years neither matter nor space nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.

Comme l’eau, comme le gaz, comme le courant électrique viennent de loin, dans nos demeures, répondre à nos besoins, moyennant un effort quasi nul, ainsi seront nous alimentés d’images visuelles ou auditives, naissant et s’évanouissant au moindre geste, presque à un signe. (...) (à suivre)