SFAQ_issue_sixteen

was for. What’s happening now that is special is that a new wave of technology has
become accessible to a large number of people. Not every creative act qualifies as art
because the democratization of technology does not necessarily result in the democratization
of the vision, insight, and rigor necessary to produce artworks. The consequences
are that the contemporary understandings of what art is and what a product
is are conflating. Art has long resisted “productization.” Duchamp railed against
“professionalization” in the art field for similar reasons, but as our culture is further
optimized by technology the baseline distinctions are shifting. The question for me is
not so much how art is being changed by contemporary high-technology tools, rather
how broader culture is evolving to forget why it is important for some things, like art,
to remain distinctly interesting in their non-productness.
Ben Valentine Art has always struggled to compete for the public’s attention, and
if art, artists, and arts institutions don’t become networked like the rest of our world
they will struggle even more. Our attention spans are getting shorter, and multi-tasking
is becoming the norm, while art has historically been about the deep and critical
engagement between the viewer and the work. However, I don’t see this as a concern
as much as it is an opportunity—figuring out how to grab and hold our attention and
demand deep engagement has always been a struggle for artists and it always will be.
We are seeing more and more artists making art using new tools; making new media
works, interactive works, networked art, and more. This may bring about a new appreciation
of art for techies who enjoy art but don’t see the ownership of it being of value
in the same manner old-moneyed, more traditional collectors might. Techies are replacing
the pride of personal ownership with open-source, file-sharing, crowd-funding
ideologies. These disruptive, egalitarian models are great for many fields but might not
be a viable model for things that don’t have obvious economic value—things I believe
that make us human, such as creativity, respect, personal relationships. . . . .
Hanna Regev From my observations and experiences, many tech artists do not
share the worldview of the art world, which is a very structured and hierarchical
system, a system that is delivered top-down from elite, self-anointed cultural guardians
who hold the power to determine value. Technology has introduced innovations into
art and expanded the breath and depth of creativity, but has an ironic side. As the
making of art has become more mechanized, the technology sector is reaching out
to artists to humanize the output and incorporate artistic sensibilities. The use of the
brush, pencil, or paintbrush is now at the mercy of the computer. How much of history
of art making is being taken out? Where is art and art history as we know it going?
There is also a big question here about collecting and a need for building new and
different patrons. How are these new forms of artwork collectible in the first place if
they are not object based? I am envisioning a new type of collector who is grounded in
technology and supports the art as an intersection with technology. Programs such as
CODAME ART+TECH’s Adopt an Artist may crack this nut. It is an initiative that calls for
establishing artists-in-residency programs with high tech and social media companies
to demonstrate value in partnering with host companies.
lem with it ending up in galleries. Once I put something online I think part of the
process is that I lose control over context—I’m ok with someone taking a screenshot
of it and posting it on 4chan than it’s also ok for someone to print it out and hang it
on a wall. I want to say “ok” to any use someone decides for it. Kind of a copy/paste
mentality to the dispersal of ideas.
Sheena Vaidyanathan I teach sixth graders computer programming through art.
I want my students to look at code as a medium, just like paint. They learn that they
can use code to do something creative. To make a static image, an animation, or today’s
new kind of art (for example, a video game). I believe artists today should understand
code so they can use it themselves as well as understand digital tools like Instagram. A
sculpture like The Bay Lights by Leo Villareal would not be possible without the computer
program that controls the lights.
Marcella Faustini Personally, I have yet to see art come together in an interesting,
thoughtful and relevant way in this area of art and technology. And in fact, the greatest
challenge we face in San Francisco is the possible loss of the art community itself.
Currently we are experiencing a substantial depletion of San Francisco’s social and
economic landscape that is in no small part due to the influx of technologists and the
housing shortage. The exodus of members of the art community is not necessarily to
the East Bay. Many artists are moving out of the Bay Area altogether, and if the sky-rocketing
apartment prices continue the Bay Area will fail to attract artists who have the
potential to do interesting things here.
Hanna Regev It is a very depressing situation we find ourselves in San Francisco.
Our art scene is being transformed by a powerful political and economic force that
equals a tsunami that left everyone in its wake pretty confused, discouraged, and helpless.
San Francisco has an art culture that is quite disconnected from the very dynamic
waves that are hitting its shores. Few artists here keep up with tech- and performance-driven
events, and our main industry is largely uncultured. No wonder we have
a hard time naming the leading digital artists.
Why is SF so aloof when it comes to embracing artists (digital and otherwise), and
what can be done to make the two worlds work harmoniously? Is it perhaps that
we don’t have a museum dedicated to the “art of now?” Apparently, the definition of
contemporary art is not satisfying and very confusing, to paraphrase the 2014 Whitney
Biennial curators.
Willa Köerner Those with enough money to make an impact on SF’s situation don’t
necessarily share the same definition of “artist” that those of us in the art world subscribe
to. In my mind, the only solution is to abandon our preconceived notions of what
being an artist is or isn’t, and come together to work on projects collaboratively. With
a few more folks out there devoted to championing the arts in our city of technocrats,
I believe we can be successful in developing new ways of working together.
Adel Abidin, Consumption. Courtesy of the Internet.
Willa Köerner I 100% agree that digital art has faced a challenge in its non-objectness.
Technologically created artworks are not easily purchased and hung on a wall
or preserved in a museum collection—interestingly, the aspect and word that defines
these works, (“digital”) is the same characteristic that keeps them from assimilating
into the status quo of the art world. However, I believe that this situation is changing—platforms
like Paddle8, Artsy, Tumblr, and Depict are showing us that collectors
are interested in buying digital artwork. New systems are being created which offer
sensible ways to support artists who create in the digital realm, and this mindset is
even transferring over to museums. SFMOMA recently launched The Artist Initiative, a
program supported by a $1.75 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation,
which seeks to make the museum a pioneer in art conservation. I think that museums,
collectors, and artists alike are beginning to understand that the time has come to
work on solving the problems of collecting/preserving digital art. Soon these problems
will be obsolete, as our ways of thinking about digital vs. object art will shift to a place
where we accept the idea of “collecting” something that you may not be able to physically
touch, and we will hopefully design systems that allow us to guarantee that we’ll
be able to view the artwork in the future.
Dorothy Santos The primary challenge I see within the arts is the historiography
of works created in the digital age. Ubiquitous communication gives us such a wide
array of resources, but with the incredible amount of text written on the topic of arts
and technology we also have to consider modes of classification and what exactly historicizes
a particular artwork. Recently, I gave a talk at the San Francisco Art Institute
to a class of students taking a course titled Internet Art. We discussed the differences
between types of art produced in the digital age. We also discussed why reading the
history and documentation of previous works is an important practice as well. But
the most illuminating moment was hearing the students express how they identify
themselves. A small percentage of the class identified as artists while the rest of the
students had no designation for their practices other than interdisciplinary. While they
expressed having practices that run the gamut when it comes to material tools and
methods, I sensed their frustration at understanding how they could affect change or
add to the discipline of art in a way that is impactful and adds to the existing dialogue.
Ian Aleksander Adams I produce ephemera haphazardly and I don’t have a prob-
DC Spensley San Francisco is a testing ground for social organization right now. But
the city also has a history of coping with boom and bust cycles like the forty-niners,
the logging barons, and a variety of recent tech booms (and busts). San Francisco copes,
absorbs what it can in terms of capital and talent and goes on with its business of
progressive experimentation. What should be considered is the relationship between
economic booms and this progressive social experimentation. There are those who
think that the recent techno-economic disruption and displacement happening in the
Bay Area is a force moving SF towards more conservative baselines (by displacing progressives
for libertarian techies). I am not so sure about this. It could easily be that only
in boom times we have the confidence and cash to push forward on finding out what is
the next better way to organize culture. This time may be a great opportunity to influence
social media technology and hack government in good ways as well as selfish ones.
What would be good to see is a real engagement of tech capital with contemporary
arts in terms of support for work that is emerging outside of the art world.
Ben Valentine Art and much of culture do not have an especially viable model of
existence in a hyper-capitalistic setting, which San Francisco is rapidly becoming. These
emerging, disruptive models like crowdsourcing, crowd-funding, and open-source software
are making amazing products that are changing the marketplace, while also replacing
unionized, secure, and established jobs with a real uncertainty. Disruption has
mostly been a bad experience for the working class and poor. As exciting as this new
dynamic is for a wealthy, educated white man in the Bay Area with an expertise in coding,
these disruptions are leaving most people behind.
Dorothy Santos The biggest concern related to art and technology discussions
would be bridging communities. The same people talking about the same topics is
definitely something that has prevented people from understanding how they can help
expand and be inclusive. More active engagement with a multitude of individuals from
underrepresented populations and including artists working from and through the lens
of social practice could certainly be an interesting point of departure. I will be most
interested to see if the Bay Area can continue to be a place that is open and welcoming
to creatives invested in social, cultural, and historical (radical) change. I have faith that
it can be.
UBERMORGAN, CF1013 0039. Courtesy of the Internet.
Google bus protesters, the Mission District, SF.
SF Mayor, Ed Lee and BFF Ron Conway, Angel Investor.