<eyebeam><blast> The Net. and the Art Media

[olu oguibe <ooguibe@undp.org>]

rather than swing in all directions at the same time, like we've
occasionally done on this forum, i'd like to take advantage of matthew
slotover's appearance as guest this week to pose a few, albeit general
and widely open-ended, questions in his area of work and expertise.

matthew, at no time was the art media more influential in determining
the fate of artistic careers and shaping the contours of mainstream
taste than in the past half century, and many would argue that little
has changed lately in the enormity of its power and significance. even
at the height of the vogue of the critic as superstar, the critic was
almost always no more than a wimpish scrounger at the mercy of the
editor, the proprietor, and the organ through which 'criticism' was made
possible. today when a new crop of independent curators seem to drive
the art business, mercurial and loose, undermining the critic as the
ethical precepts that governed curator-artist-critic relationships in
the past collapse under their own inherent inconsistency and the triumph
of free-agency, many would still argue that the art media remains
crucial to the art machine as a trader in visibility and strategic
positioning.
 
the implications of the net. for artistic practice [formerly 'studio'
practice] are already in evidence, even if we are still in th process of
properly articulating it. so are its implications for publishing and the
information market, generally.
 
as founding editor of one of the most influential contemporary art
organs in the nineties, what in your opinion are the implications of the
net. for art publishing, criticism, and the art media in general, and
perhaps for media-artist-critic-impressario-consumer relations? in the
age of electronic and network publishing and practice, whither the art
mag. and its all-powerful editor, and why?

olu oguibe
http://www.arts.usf.edu/~ooguibe


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