On curating, online: Buying time in the middle of nowhere
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School of Arts, Design and Architecture |
Master's thesis
Location:
P1 OPINNÄYTTEET D 2018 Kowalski
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Authors
Date
2018
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Curating, Managing and Mediating Art
CuMMA
CuMMA
Language
en
Pages
147 + 26
Series
Abstract
The invention of the Internet and its related accessories, as untrodden territory and as a medium, have ushered in a new era of artistic creation and curatorial practice, new frontiers for political censorship, and have drastically altered the paradigm of information transmission. The Web, although certainly a powerful social tool, has seeped so deeply into the foundations of everyday life that it has collapsed understandings of the present in exchange for a constantly refreshing sequence of now’s, and cultural institutions are struggling to ‘keep up with the times.’ Operating under the pressure of a capitalist system that privileges celebrity status, production, and modernity as progress, curators are ceaselessly inundated with an overwhelming amount of resources, struggling to dissect and interpret the present moment because the future has already been deemed impatient. What would it mean then if cultural workers were to slow down, and reimagine progress not as linear procession but as collective expansion? This dissertation looks at the ways in which alternative approaches to exhibition making and curating, specifically those taking place online, have long attempted to address the inadequacies and discriminatory practices traditionally upheld by major institutional models. While the speed and omnipresence of digital technologies has also cultivated a tendency for the creation of easily digestible content, slow curating, when used as a curatorial method rather than as a rate of dissemination, can serve as a strategy of resistance against the dueling binaries of past and future from a position that generously expands the middle of now by engaging in situated active thinking and critical reflection. Through an exploration of the evolution of the field of contemporary art alongside that of the Internet, this thesis presents examples of smaller scale institutions currently publishing and exhibiting artworks online that exemplify slow curating strategies. Through an analysis of the ways in which these platforms are designed, accessed, and address their audiences, a series of three case studies center around online publisher Triple Canopy, dis.art, a Netflix like viewing platform, and the digital library Monoskop, in order to illustrate the diverse range of possibilities as well as the inherent problematics of technology that cultural workers face when utilizing digital media to create spaces for the exhibition of artworks, literature, and ideas. Art and its associated movements such as conceptual art, feminist art, and modernism have already shown that while art is often thought to operate on the margins, it has the capacity to spark societal and political transformations—and despite the imposing restrictions of surveillance and control, surely art online makes for no exception. When subordination and emancipation can be achieved by the same tools, simply having the tools is not enough, and any reconfiguration of the conflict depends not only on how they are used, but by whom.Description
Supervisor
Sternfeld, NoraThesis advisor
Dekker, AnnetKeywords
curating, contemporary art, internet, exhibitions, slow curating, digital publishing, online