Beyond the Millennium: Redefining the Arts for the 21st Century California Governor's colloquy on the Arts Los Angeles.

Beyond the Millennium: Redefining the Arts for the 21st Century

California Governor's colloquy on the Arts Los Angeles, California December 7-10 1998

We all hear stories of to what extent technology profoundly influences who we are the pair as people and as a agriculture Since the mid-1990s the popular media has become enamored with the Internet and by what means communication technologies (computers, telephones and various wireless devices) are converging with radio, television, film and still photography to create a densely mediated cyberspace of information and entertainment.

We are saturated through a media - fueled according to commercial interests - telling us that technology will make our lives easier, instantly link together us to anywhere on the globe and democratize the world from one side inexpensive and easy access to information and education. As media professionals and as artists, we simultaneously resist and perpetuate these stories because of our mingled personal experiences with these technologies. We know that computer and other communication technologies can make our lives more chaotic and frustrating and make us be perceived disembodied, alienated and disconnected. We also know that access is not actually cheap and universal, and that democratization and education do not fall out through technological advances alone. moreover clearly the lucrative links between the arts, technology and economic disclosure have been established and it is not surprising that the California state conduct sponsored a conference on the arts and technology.

Last December's "California Governor's meeting for consultation on the Arts," held annually since 1995 focused forward how the arts will be created, supported and experienced in the nearest century. This year's conference, "Beyond the Millenium: Redefining the Arts for the 21st Century" was organized from the California Arts Council (CAC) in partnership with Electronic Imaging & the Visual Arts (EVA), an international organization that legions "inter-disciplinary, multi-level, international fora for leading-edge technology helping and being helped by way of the cultural sector" throughout Europe and lately Japan.

The interview was held for four days in downtown looks Angeles, culminating in the launch of CaliforniaCulture.Net, "the first online network for California culture" during a party at the novel Getty Center on the last day. There were panel discussions, a small exhibit area for vendors as it was as Hyperstudio and WIRED magazine, keynote speakers during lunches and dinners and an evening presentation (sponsored through Intel) by California-based performing and visual artists who work with of recent origin technologies such as video, digital audio and the Internet.

However, the interview felt disconnected from its artist constituency. As undivided artist close to the planning proces set it, "the conference represented a brain-dead point of view, and had the feeling that it emergencyed to happen just because it povertyed to happen." There seemed to be no pressing or relevant issues coming from the artists or arts community. Instead, there were mainly general questions being posed to panelists like as "how will the arts be delivered to audiences of the future?" that ofttimes lacked the specificity of real-life examples from the field.

The conversation fees started at $295 with no discount for individual artists and no daily passes. Scholarships were given, still there was little advance notice of the colloquy sent to artist organizations and the application deadline was actual short. Most likely these reasons kept artists from attending the interview except for those who were invited to participate onward panels. The audience was primarily compos of arts administrators (only a certain of whom are artists themselves) representing arts organizations of all disciplines from across the state.

any artists attending the conference reported that the CAC had a four-year history of not including artists in the parley planning and only in the last pair years did panels include artists. No formal opportunities for networking or real dialogue among the attendees and the CAC staff were scheduled - they alone occurred during informal breaks and mealtimes. Unlike the CAC parley the New York State Governor's conversation in March 1998 offered town meetings for artists, arts administrators and funder designed to "assess the state of technology use and wants within the arts community." The modern York State Council for the Arts focused in succession New York-based case studies not past nor futureed by artists, along with practical technical assistance processe that gave shape to their talk and provided participants with more opportunities to share useful information among peers

In looks Angeles there were keynote speeches at academics and government officials who present the appearanceed to have little if any understanding of the day-today realities of artists and arts organizations. In "Business Challenges for the Future: in what way Creativity Becomes Commerce," Silicon Valley executives talked about the importance of artists not as intellectual stimuli, on the other hand as commercial components in the marketing machine - corporations ne artists to create sophisticated computer animation to barter products. Some of the panels I attended were interesting and relevant, with a suitable representation of artists. For instance, "Creation and Presentation in the of recent origin Millennium: How will the Arts be delivered to audiences of the Future?" was moderated on Michael Nash, former video curator at the in extent Beach Museum of Art. Nash locate the stage for the panel at presenting a humorous dystopian definition of an artist in the twenty-first hundred years as a "functionary who finishs products" and then elaborated in succession his belief that technology is now driving easy in mind Victoria Vesna, an artist and Professor of Art at UC Santa Barbara, inflict the Internet and artists in an historical perspective. She observ that the Internet's aesthetic is more regioned in the performative "happenings" from the 1960 not in film and video, and that it has its radixs in Dada and Conceptual art. She noted that artists have always had their networks of information, resources and family and that the Internet has enabled them to make these networks more visible. Chris O'Hanlon, graphic designer and CEO of Spike, the Australian Web design firm who evolveed the CaliforniaCulture. Net website pro bono for the CAC, gave a provocative keynote address entitled "How refinement Will Be Changed by the World Wide Web." He listed to what extent artists will survive in the information economy, stating that they must become "chaos compliant" (able to improvise their lives and their work); that they should distribute, not acknowledge their images and ideas; and that they should leverage their ability to distribute highly replicable, highly recognizable satisfy with their ability to make more work. He also declared that the filter of the curator and art museum as arbiters of quality will become les influential in the twenty-first century