Curating Media/Net/Art:
Extended Curatorial Practices on the Internet

Curating Internet-based Art in a media of its own developed into a multifaceted communication process on content among users of all backgrounds and provenances. Net curators are deemed cultural context providers, meta artists, power users, filter feeders or simply proactive consumers. Curating (on) the Web, as termed it in 1998 already, not only creates a public space for Net Art protagonists, but also enables them to participate in creating their own public space, which often takes on the form of discursive models. Handling technological developments and knowledge about existing channels of communication are integral parts of net curating, as are providing resources, initiating collaborations and remaining in contact with international networks.

Expanding the curators’ field of action — allowing them to incorporate more than the supervision, contextualisation and exhibition of artworks in museums, galleries or off spaces — is closely linked to the media-specific characteristics of art produced on the Internet. Internet Art does not necessarily have to be presented in a customary exhibition space, because as long as there is a computer with Internet access, it can be accessed anywhere any time. In many cases, Net Art emerges through the participation of an audience with diverse approaches to the Internet, which comments on, transforms and disseminates artworks in many different ways. In addition, the somewhat rather communicative mechanisms on which this art is based are simultaneously its subject, thus allowing it to function as a reciprocal feedback loop between the original author and the user. In the 20th century, the numerous postulations on the end of authorship and the end of concept of the “work of art” as a definable entity with a definable set of limits (Werkbegriff) gave way to a discourse — which, in turn, is constituted through its own development and reception processes — as they also accompany the advancement and visualisation of these very processes. In this vein, curators are those who set up contexts for artists who provide contexts.

In contrast to the late 1990s when Internet-based Art was celebrated as avant-garde spectacles, today Technology-based Art views for the attention of a broader public interested in art. Higher demands are made on curators to include these art forms in conventional exhibitions, which simultaneously poses several problems: curating immateriality, a term postulated a few years ago, is faced with immense technological challenges (1) and at present theoretical groundwork is being laid for providing ways of addressing Technology-based Art that extends beyond viewing it as “Techno Art” and the tacit implication that “The Medium is the Message” (2).

The goal of the project CURATING MEDIA/NET/ART was to focus on the problems of curatorial work being located at the interface between representational space and presentational forms of traditional art formats, in the Computer Art ghettos as well as in the realm of Electronic Art, Net and Media Art. This project is based on an interdisciplinary approach, is applying and using experimental methods, and is comprised of three projects that are compiled for presentation in this publication. The projects are the information platform PUBLICCURATING, the exhibition”space” TAGALLERY and the mailing list CC — CIRCULATING CONTEXTS, which all address the point of juncture between virtual solutions and real world problems. A call for papers resulted in supplementary essays by theorists reflecting on the present state of the debate on curating Internet Art, particularly since the emergence of the so-called Web 2.0. These essays are presented in this publication, too.

PUBLICCURATING is an ongoing research project collecting methods, resources, and theories concerning the changing conditions of curatorial practices on the Web. The weblog, set up in November 2006, is a database of international curating projects, theoretical approaches, and a resource for curatorial platforms, art-databases and contemporary ways of the so-called New Media curating. The second project is TAGALLERY, an experimental “online-exhibition-room” based upon social Internet technologies and folksonomy. It is an alternative space for collaborative curating and cooperation, based upon linking and tagging. Thought as the basic method to create a freely accessible and modular network of personal associations on the World Wide Web, TAGallery extends the idea of a tagged exhibition and transfers the main tasks of non-commercial exhibition-spaces to the discourse of an electronic data space. Last but not least, the third part of CURATING MEDIA/NET/ART is a slightly moderated discussion list named CC — CIRCULATING CONTEXTS and temporarily run from 1 June to 31 August 2007. During this period, five common topics concerning the curation of New Media and Internet Art were the starting point for discussions lead by the participants. Excerpts of the contributions to the mailing list are published in the catalogue as well.

VISUALISING WORKFLOWS AND (FILTERING) PROCESSES

Curating on the Internet is a working process that wants to be visualised in the same way as the processes frequently hidden behind Internet-based Art. The curator, “who does not want to get ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ the system, but stays at her place to deepen her knowledge” (3), acts not only as an intermediary in the presentation of art but also according to his/her own filtering processes, choices and decisions. The transparency of his/her work is highly relevant for the transparency of the presented artworks, too, and aims to get a broad public involved in a collective discourse.

“With the steady incorporation of the Web into the mainstream arts scene, the launching of exhibitions and the building of archives has become an increasingly creative and authorial practice. However, the act of curating used to be a clandestine affair. Those holding the position would have once worked quietly within the institutional archives, orchestrating their exhibitions anonymously from ‘behind the curtain’, but now in the past ten to fifteen years the process of curating and the person who practices it have emerged center stage in public discourse” (4).

Metaphorically speaking, the constant and ongoing publication of a “curator’s notebook” contributes to the visualisation of a workflow that does not only show the final results of this process in form of an exhibition. It unfolds the existence of a network of non-linear thoughts, relational research and deductive/inductive (filtering) processes.

* Which useful methods of visualisation of a curator’s notebook exist?
* Is the curator in “danger of losing reputation” by publishing his/her working methods?
* Which benefits does the exhibition viewer get by taking a look at (or even contributing to) the curatorial process?
* Could an exhibition be completely replaced by the display of the curating processes?

VIRTUAL/REAL REPRESENTATIONS IN REAL/VIRTUAL SPACES

It is easier to get an entire museum collection on the Internet than to get a single exhibition of Internet Art in a museum space. Provided that there is a computer with Internet access, Net Art can be viewed at any time and any location and therefore can be left in its own medium of production. But even if Internet-based Art does not require to be exhibited in the traditional context of museums, galleries or off-spaces, curators have to find ways to present this kind of virtuality in real spaces and transform them into a “living information space that is open to interferences” (5). The chance to be shown in museum contexts raises the importance of a whole genre.

In return, the exhibiting of traditional art collections “is not only accommodated by the spatial realisation of architectural spaces any longer. Increasingly influential is the way that the design of an extended typology of spaces, including the Internet, structure creative practices” (6) and rises the chance to get a broader audience and a more effective discourse, abstaining from conventional forms of display.

“Like the best exhibition publications, extending an exhibition online means more than simply re-presenting it but also reformatting it for the best possible experience in the medium — in front of a computer screen, transmitted via the Internet” (7), and the other way around.

* What are the possibilities to show Internet Art in a conventional art space that go beyond simply putting a computer in the hall?
* How can a museum be reformatted?
* How far can the curator go and transform the display of the artefact without violating its autonomy?
* In how far can an active discourse influence the representation of Internet-based Art in exhibition spaces?

FACING PARTICIPATION/THE LACK OF COLLABORATION

Not everyone is always participating in everything. Curators “whose practice includes facilitating events, screenplayings, temporary discursive situations, writing/publishing, symposia, conferences, talks, research, the creation of open archives, and mailing lists” (8), need to know about how to activate and motivate a potential audience for collaboration. However, the needs of the audience are as diverse as “Net Art’s audience is a social medley: geographically dispersed, varying in background, these art enthusiasts are able to involve their involvement constantly, drawing from roles such as artist, critic, collaborator or ‘lurker’ (one who just watches or reads, without participating)” (9) .

* What are the premises for being able to motivate the public to participate in the curatorial process?
* Does the potential participant need to have a benefit (e.g. co-authorship) to be encouraged to participate?
* Are there any emergency plans if nobody is participating?

WEB 2.0 — CURATORIAL FACILITIES OR TECHNICAL BARRIERS

The hype about the so-called Web 2.0 and its facilities is still unbroken. In the context of representing and contextualising art on the Internet, Joseph Beuys’ message “Everyone is an artist” can be transferred to the person of a curator, too: “When we begin to share our experiences of exhibited artefacts with other people on the Internet, we are producing for public use. For instance, we may write about an exhibition on our weblog; post photos about ‘The Last Supper’ on Flickr; or add to a Wikipedia article”.

Total democracy and freedom in usability — often preached with the token “2.0″ — are not appropriate for everyone. It “counters the technological fetishism and media exclusivity that surrounds too much Computer-based Art and informs many curatorial practices in the field; and it points beyond a common but nonetheless misguided and shallow linkage of techno-formalism and techno-avant-gardism (this is the new art and it looks like nothing before it because it uses New Media)” (10).

To prevent cooperation and interaction-enhancing tools from being simple technological tools, a social network that interacts with them “needs to be able to connect. It needs to allow for co-ownership of others in its activities. An insistence in exclusive ownership in an inter-communal collaboration kills the motivation of co-participants. It destroys a sense of cooperation and trust” (8).

* Where are the boundaries of Web 2.0 in curatorial activities?
* Should every new tool be immediately adapted for curatorial activities?
* What are the premises for a reflective use of Web 2.0 in the curatorial processes?

INVOLVEMENT OF (ART) INSTITUTIONS/THE RISE OF SIGNIFICANCE

The concept of what is traditionally understood as curating is still bound to the institution of the museum and other equivalent exhibition spaces — and so is not only the image of curating but also its mode: “In its evolution since the 17th Century, [curating] centers itself around the ‘expert’ opinion of the curator as educated connoisseur and archivist of various works. In so doing, the curator determines the works’ cultural value, as well as, in present days, their mass entertainment value, which is equally important in the era of ubiquitous free market democracy (at least in most of the Western world)” (11). Contrary to the work of a curator on the Internet, it is frequently ignored that “the global network itself became the educational environment for those without direct access to institutions. The involvement in free and open projects, from where the power user not only builds up reputation, but also gains crucial skills, can easily equal the value of an academic degree” (3).

Problematic within the separation between real and Virtual Art (collecting, curating, etc.) is that neither museums and their protagonists nor the visitors of the institutions recognise the value of Internet-based Art, its working processes and the possibilities of applying it within the museum itself.

In the context of New Media Art, the metaphor of the Internet as a huge archive can be referred to the tasks of museums and other traditional art collections: “The discursivity of multimedia, and how it can be associated with dialectical aesthetics, is characterised by the ways in which montage-like spatial juxtaposition — achieved through hyperlink structures and searchability — is drawn upon for narrative effect. The functionality of links and databases extends upon already existing tabular, classificatory forms, such as the collection archive, catalogue, and methods of spatial arrangement in galleries — all technologies intimately associated with the historical evolution of the museum. Adopting a museological aesthetics that understands, and is more effectively calibrated to digital communication technologies will see the museum emphasised as a machine for creating juxtaposition, a generator of conditions for dialogical encounters with the unforeseen (enabling, even privileging, the experience of surprise, the unexpected and perhaps the random)” (6). The ongoing neglect of the those similarities leads to the fact that “a broader art audience may still place more trust in the selection, and therefore validation, undertaken by a prestigious museum, but in the online environment, the only signifier of validation may be the brand recognition carried by the museum’s name” (5).

* Is it really necessary to have an institution in the background in order to gain a better reputation as a curator?
* How can institutions be convinced about the advantages of working with New Media Art and addressing a public that goes beyond the common art scene?

References
(1) During a lecture in the Museum Moderner Kunst (MUMOK) in Vienna on 27 May 2007, Christiane Paul mentioned, for example, problems concerning the maintenance of technical devices built into installations or of the extreme demands made on video projectors that have to compete with daylight in exhibition spaces.
(2) McLuhan, Marshall (1994): “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man”, The MIT Press, Cambridge/Massachusetts, pp. 7-21.
(3) Schultz, Pit (2006): “The Producer as Power User”, in: Cox, Geoff / Krysa, Joasia (eds.) (2005): “Engineering Culture: On ‘The Author as (Digital) Producer’”, DATA Browser vol. 3, Autonomedia. Brooklyn/New York, pp. 111-127.
(4) Williams, Alena (2002): Net Art and Process
(5) Paul, Christiane (2006): “Flexible Contexts, Democratic Filtering and Computer-Aided Curating”, in: Krysa, Joasia (ed.) (2006): “Curating Immateriality: The Work of the Curator in the Age of Network Systems”, DATA Browser vol. 3, Autonomedia, Brooklyn/New York, pp. 81-103.
(6) Dziekan, Vince (2005): Beyond the Museum Walls: Situating Art in Virtual Space (Polemic Overlay and Three Movements)
(7) Dietz, Steve (1998): Curating (on) the Web
(8) Scholz, Trebor (2006): “The Participatory Challenge”, in: Krysa, Joasia (ed.) (2006): “Curating Immateriality: The Work of the Curator in the Age of Network Systems”, DATA Browser vol. 3, Autonomedia, Brooklyn/New York, pp. 189-209.
(9) Greene, Rachel (2004): “Internet Art”, Thames & Hudson, London, p. 31.
(10) Lillemose, Jacob (2005): Some Preliminary Notes towards a Conceptual Approach to Computer-based Art
(11) Lichty, Patrick (2003): Reconfiguring the Museum. Electronic Media and Emergent Curatorial Models