Submitted Opinions on Media Arts Status

Waiting for you to email your opinion to blackboxwhitebox@gmail.com

1/ Scott McGovern, Programme Director of Ed Video Media Arts Centre, Guelph, ON
Media Arts- video artist, curator

Opinion
yes, a huge question and I’ll try to be brief:
*public perception
*funding/lack of sales
*context in art history/contemporary art
*expectations based on history of video art (cannons not allowing new forms)
*the gallery as presentation space
*access to proper exhibition places designed for media art, complexity/expense of presenting it
*generally, the technology actually is more complex, not easier as is often perceived
*however, it more widely available
*what makes media into art?

2/ Mireille Bourgeois, The Centre for Art Tapes, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Media Arts-Electronic Arts (i.e. robotics, kinetics, processing), Video,  Audio

Opinion-TOP ISSUES:
*The relation between curators and the research and presentation of new media art.
*Discussing the importance of curatorial research within our centres in addition to introducing curating via call for submissions and one-night events.
*Identifying diverse voices in the field of new media research.
*New Media, whether problematically titled or not, isn’t “too big” to discuss, it is crucial and relevant to all our work in the arts.
*Discussing the connection of media arts to visual arts. Artists who we consider media artists do not always identify themselves as strictly working in media arts. Our funding is categorized for valid administration/logistical reasons, but why limit ourselves intellectually by boxing in our theories about what is and isn’t media arts?
*Addressing the value of online archives/exhibitions for media arts organizations, and complimenting this idea with hearing professionals in funding councils, archival research, and copyright experts. (The usual “three” to consider when building an online archive)
*Addressing with funders 1. The lack of opportunities for media art curators to accomplish research within an organization, 2. The lack of acknowledgment that media art events do not always come in the style of a theatre presentation or gallery exhibition. i.e. online presentations are the “public presentation” of certain new media artworks and arguably, raises the audience attendance by thousands, yet do not “count” as Canadian Art Presentations of Media Art.

In the context of a symposium: using successful models/research to display progress in media arts.

3/  Eliane Ellbogen (Artistic Director), Amber Berson (Development and Outreach Coordinator), Emma Geldart (Production Coordinator) and Alex Borkowski (Administrative Intern), Eastern Bloc, Montreal, PQ

Media Arts: Support to emerging artists in digital arts

Opinion-

Our collective opinions on what we believe to be the top issues for media artists in Canada:

a. Funding:  Besides a general reduction of arts funding, at the national level funding is set up differently for new media artists than it is in Quebec. In Quebec we distinguish between film & video and digital arts, but on the national level these categories are grouped together. As a result, your jury may not be familiar with the type of work you are creating, which means you may not get funding.

b. Avenues of dissemination:  We see a lack of network/community among arts institutions, which would create a collective audience and engage a broader public distribution of works (specifically with regards to digital/electronics artists who do not have access to established distribution networks like film/video/audio artists).

c. Transportation:  There are high costs involved in transporting works abroad (technician fees, costs of materials, costs of shipping large often fragile materials), specifically for large scale installations.

d. Archiving:  Preservation of digital artwork, archiving – digital work becomes extremely difficult to preserve as technologies rapidly become obsolete. Ephemeral event/ performance-based work is challenging to effectively document. Lack of consideration for the value of archiving considering the emphasis in media art upon the new and cutting edge.  

e. Lack of funds for technical resources (technicians, technical advisers, equipment, materials)

f. Lack of appropriate production and exhibition spaces for creation of larger-scale digital/electronics-based work

g.Under-developed network for promoting/critiquing digital art

4/ Margaret Rodgers, the IRIS Group , Oshawa, ON

Media Arts- projections  &- listening devices to accompany visual art

Opinion -My involvement in media art as a producer is very low-tech where I mix voice and recently music and other sound clips to accompany 2D installation. The other use is by creating visoe and ppt projections as stand alone pieces. As a viewer of media (time-based visual) art I like the way in which it demands one’s attention for a defined time. And as Laurie Anderson sings about what her brain says, “I like -  to sit in the dark”      Downsides: sometimes self indulgent.

5/ Jack Butler, member of Hamilton Artists Inc., Hamilton ON

Opinion-As a Canadian visual artist, because I want to share my work with the broadest possible audiences, I find myself reinventing my practice (I draw) in almost all of the media boxes you survey. Consequently, I am more interested in the continuities than in the ruptures between technologies-of-the-hand and the digital/electronic.

6/ Robert Ezergailis, Morpheal Productions, Hamilton, ON

Media Arts-Video production, post production, Experimental video./ member of Hamilton Artists Inc. , The Factory(founder)

Opinion- 1). Too few screening options, opportunities.

2). Too little encouragement, opportunity, for meaningful collaboration on media art. It is a medium that by its nature, costs and complexity ought to encourage collectivism, collaboration, group formation, and pooling of talents to produce a wider diversity, in some instances higher quality, of work, as well as enabling wider audiences and even audience participation.

3). The treatment of media art differs too radically from other forms of visual art, and even from auditory art (music). It does not have a readily accessible market, other than fees for screening, if any, or very modest prizes for jury selected works in small festivals.
4). Internet dissemination of media art works.
Of course the internet has done a great deal of serious damage to the viability of media art within the context of all the other arts. No medium of expression has suffered as severely as media art. Artists being encouraged to give away their work to commercial enterprises that make advertising revenue, but kick back little to nothing to the artists, film makers and others who “distribute” by that means. It is the worst thing that has happened when it comes to building a media art cultural industry with any viability or credibility outside of the severely limited public grants structure which is clearly inadequately supportive.
5). Myths about technology.
Another thing that has negatively impacted media art are the technology industry myths perpetrated against the medium and its practitioners. These myths primarily relate to upgrades in technology at an ever increasing pace and escalating cost, allegedly to assure “competitive quality”. This is partly mass media industry driven. The truth is that one can make exceptional art with any technology that one has available, but each technology is different, and produces different results. The fact that the broadcast industry’s standards require something different, ought never to be or become a barrier to artists in media art. The two issues are radically different. Unfortunately the manufacturers of technologies and software have largely propagandized and converted as many from the arts sector as they have from the general public and from the media industry. Some artists have given up simply because they do not meet the new “HD standard” of the broadcast
industry. While some artists have given up because their goal was not media art, but rather it was entry into the mass media industry, others have given up feeling that they have lost in the competition.
6) Costs and Tend to Individual Isolationism

7/ Anonymous,  Montreal, Quebec

Media Arts-Video Installations Arts

Opinion-- Access to funding
- The limited number of New Media venues
- The lack of a cohesive term, ‘brand,’ or general public understanding for new forms of art

8/  Mango Alvaardo, Ed Video Board Member, Guelph, ON

Media Arts-video

Opinion

As a landed immigrant I find more resources and help available to me as a Video Producer from what I had back home (Costa Rica).  I really don’t have an opinion for this survey but I love to hear and get involved in this topic.