general

Took down a post about Nick DeMarco's work in the jstchillin.org show in New York that I tried to write based on second hand description. Bad idea, even for a "concept post." On belatedly looking at DeMarco's documentation of the work on his website my interpretation was mostly wrong. Didn't realize he was digitally inserting a painting into some footage from a TV show. That's an idea painter David Reed explored a while back, which I mentioned briefly here. (Reed put one of his paintings in the background of the Michael Mann-produced '80s cop show Crime Story.) Of course the idea could be done multiple ways. Enough said.

Yes, if you're going to do an audience participation piece (in this case making images on a screen move as people in the crowd walk this way and that carrying glowsticks) it's probably not a good idea to yell at your audience to shut up when you first get up on stage. New York audiences are swine but you have to get them to like you--throw them a handful of corn or something. Getting testy won't work.

Update: Bailey claims this was a staged meltdown, a la Zach Galifianakis (Andy Kaufman?), and that audience reaction or non-reaction related to the war and hostility themes of the piece. O-kay.

If the discussion of animated GIFs on this page or elsewhere comes off as an "argument about whether or not GIFs comprise an avant-guard art world revolution" and/or a "polemic attachment to [a] medium," that's bad. Defending an idea of GIFs against a misconception or misinterpretation of why someone might make one probably seems over-adamant when the misconceiver shouts and slurs--internet discourse rises to the level of the loudest person in the room.

The "GIFs went away and now they are back" narrative is, in fact, wrong--they have been standard elements of web design throughout the '00s and have been used on "meme" sites such as YTMND more or less steadily. Some attempt has been made to describe how they are used "artistically"--messing with the timing, arranging them in HTML tables or using CSS--but no one I know claims this as an exclusive or essential way of working. It has some "urgency" in the sense that all browsers read GIFs and you might want to make "art" where it can most be read but this is not the stuff of Castro or Mao.

The New York Times is even using GIFs in its editorial art; that's about as un-revolutionary as it gets.

"The relationships between the images (and how those relationships evolve) is usually more interesting than any of the individual images"

Art is remixed because, at least initially, to the remixer, it is "interesting." Maybe the remix is interesting (or better!) and maybe the process is interesting but those are always secondary attributes. Our problem isn't a dearth of interesting images on the web, it's too many of them.

Cross-posted to Paddy Johnson's blog:

With all due respect to Paddy and my esteemed online colleagues:
I dislike that simple net art diagram and all the pretentious assumptions it stands for ("art is like, on the net, and happens in the space between computers, like wow") and wish it was not on the front page of the GIF show website. GIFs happen on the screen where they are made and the screens where they are shown, not in some vague in-between place. It's true that GIFs can be collaborative and take elements from various locations on the web but they are not an "art of the network." That is MTAA's position but it is an old, Web Art 1.0 position (art solely as critique of invisible hegemonic structures) and doesn't speak for at least one artist in the GIF show. I also dislike Kevin Bewersdorf's hippie zen new age "art circulating through our chakras" GIF--that is no better as an alternative. DH Lawrence might have liked the idea of the solar plexus as the seat of creation but I'll take the mind, thanks. I made my own "art happens here" GIF seven years ago and don't feel like posting it again. I basically don't care "where the art happens."

Update: Nothing wrong with code in art; it's code as art, in the self-conscious, semantic, Charles Harrison/Victor Burgin/Art & Language sense, that gets old. Only one artist in the "Graphics Interchange Format" show is particularly concerned with the latter (a two-person team). Unfortunately they speak persuasively to the man who designed the website, from what can be gathered from the blog discussion after the above comment was posted. "[T]he position of the GIF is shaky enough that you're going to be remembered together or not at all" is how he bridges disparate philosophies of working online: not too encouraging from someone who is supposed to be explaining a new style of working. It's awkward enough being reduced to a file format (a necessary fiction most artists would accept for the sake of context) without being told your art career will sink or swim depending on how it fares.

Update 2: The above-linked thread grew progressively nutty. If you have the stamina to read it, please note the number of times my arguments are paraphrased, each time with increasing levels of speculation, paranoia, accusations of disloyalty and ingratitude, and plain old ad hominem abuse. The case for a difficult artist bucking the show for reasons of ego (as opposed to simple disagreement on principles) is vastly amplified.

Update 3: Sally McKay thinks the (cross-posted) statement above constitutes "polemical attachment to a medium." It's hard enough defending your own words without having to defend ones others ascribe to you.