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Conceptualizing a Digital Media Museum
Keywords: digital medium, real world digital media museum, Internet, virtual environment, object technology, virtual realities, artificial realities, curatorial jurisdiction, architecture, art versus technology Contents
When art1) is transformed overnight by the arrival of a foray of new technologies -- 2-D image-editing, 3-D visualization, animation, Virtual Realities and World Wide Web piping through institutions, public spaces and private homes -- the change makes the art world and art aficionados queasy. But technologies trump curiosities, enthusiasms and innovations. The sport of technological changes and speed is sonic, to say the least, the manifestation has crossed the green 'command-line' text into the instantly updatable art on the World Wide Web and WebTV entertainments. Unlike conventional art2), which, at most, is at the heel in the good old tradition of aesthetic jurisdiction, is techno-art3) a profoundly philosophical art layered by the artist. Or it is a technological pandering to the arts due to its rising popularity? How do we define art expressed in digital media and who holds the authority? Does an extension of a new media arm to a contemporary art museum represent a digital voice into the millennium? Or is building a real world art museum devoted to the virtual an inevitable endorsement in the digital era? Will a practical Web presence or staging the yearly digital art events across the globe fill in the blanks? Maybe, purists cry foul! This paper surveys fundamentals, and discusses necessities. As it delineates between binary space and real world space, it conceptualizes and examines issues of building an exclusive real world art museum for the digital medium. |
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What is digital medium? Is it art fueled by technology or technology with exaggerated art? The following, a priori, invariably categorizes the digital medium by its underlying technology. It dispels the often misconstrued and common misconceptions amongst others. Is computer graphics considered as the thing of the past? If so, non-digital media artists who remain status quo, should be considered as heroes of the past, journeying into the future by repeating the past! What is the present, how long is the present and what holds for the susurrant future? As archiving takes a new perspective, should a digital media museum be concerned with collecting works generated by once glorified hardware? Even so, where are they now? Will they be displaying and collecting the "Man and Cola Bottle runs into Africa"4) -- indeed, it is just like collecting the Dan Flystra of today's spreadsheet. Will this cast an image of a computer history museum or will it not? Unlike collecting a work from Picasso's Blue Period, first generation computer graphics are purged before they are even known; it is strange to think that the first generation has just begun?! In any case, if computer graphics exemplifies artificial realities, then digital art is the supremacy of computer graphics -- a genre of digital media. As conceptual primitives form mental constructs, the understanding of its constituent parts is a basic prerequisite for many higher-order concepts of digital art. Contrasted with the indigenous and long forgotten ancestors of the 70s and 80s, digital art today has since progressed to the artistry of only massaging a two-button mouse with a 16.7 million color digital palette. Whether to create an authentic oil painting or a lyrical Chinese ink painting is only a matter of choice5). These highly compressed 2 x 2 cm tif files can suitably be printed to their respective surfaces with high resolution! If a digital media museum aspired itself to collecting "art on the non-digital wall", if media curator thinks the language of curating is uniquess, originality and creativity, then the unprecedented is le parole. A digital media museum must widen its aperture, accept new values and set new standards. It must appreciate and understand the excellence of technology behind pixels -- the nomenclature of art born out of technology . There are no fanfares, no fireworks, no ticket booth at the entrance. Just scores of pages, spawning like mushrooms, scattered like snowflakes all over the Web. Innocent and the esoteric by turn and at random. Such is the state of the "art weaponry" published by individuals and institutions alike. Since September 1994, the Web has unveiled a new era of computer graphics5) created by the pseudo techno, or techno-abled, pseudo artists, or artistically qualified selves. Are they art on the Web or Web art?
If art takes pride in technology, its name must be reflected accordingly. Web art must not be mistaken as Net art, or even a hideous name like .Net art as the Net implies Internet. To many, art is no longer a standalone achievement; art is interdisciplinary, a collaboration. Has art departed from its individualistic echelon? Is the result of technologists producing art specified by artists "art" or the result of art produced by technologists "technology"? 2.3.1 Bridging the Real and the Virtual Human beings have an intensely strong attraction towards the virtual and an equally intense fascination10) with the virtual which is contrasted with the real. This sublimation dreamable quest generates structural emotion, provided and sometimes fulfilled by the virtual environment, and dominated by floating feelings of a close association to the unreal -- one that gives rise to e-motion. There are different ways to achieving this fulfillment in the virtual environment on the Internet, hence the name Net Art. Basically, it is art generated in a multi-user environment based on object technologies and the inheritance of the Internet protocols. 2.3.2 Telnet and Object Technologies Definition According to Yourdon and Coad: "An object is an abstraction of something in the domain of the problem or its implementation, reflecting the capabilities of a system to keep information about it, interact with it or both." In other words, object has identity, behavior and state. Thus, object-oriented programming is based on the idea of explicitly describing the set of allowable or prescribed transformations that may be used on or as an object. Examples The notions of avatar11), cyber-garden, robo-pets, artificial life, superbeings and warriors ... are none other than the virtual simulating the real, or the virtual disguising, or the virtual transforming the real. Whatever, the incarnation is transcended by role-playing based on variations of a theme played in a multi-user environment with a logon (during the entire life of the simulation) per single userid from remote locations. It is formulated with the Telnet protocol and object technologies. But what isn't variations on a theme? All still life and portrait drawings are no different from playing the avatar game. The former lies on the ability to draw whereas the later lies in the ability to code. Fun or Fund? To consume or to be consumed in the virtual is perhaps reaching a laudable aim: for it would conduce to a jester triumphant over the virtual environment, both good and bad. However, while there are many who thus appreciate the expression of the sincere virtual realities therein, there are fewer who can appreciate the technical excellence, and even fewer that will understand the expression of significant commonness, a commonality of being fooled by the deployment of a generic genre of programming based on a rhapsody of human willingness to be transformed into prescribed clones. If an art museum aspires to uniqueness and originality, then repetition is a crime. If a digital media museum aspires to new technologies, then this might just be suitable for the time being, not withstanding that some may frown upon the justification of the heavily-funded technical investments for pro-tempore fun. 2.3.3 Virtual Identities MUDs Human beings need to behave within the boundaries in these rule-bound and ordered societies. As such, daily living constraints have propelled communities into virtual living. Virtual beings or cyborgs can evolve, mutate, morph, over time and at the whim of their creator with persona non rivelazione beyond the plane of identity, just by logging into the Internet. In a digital media museum, creating a MUD12) characters can be seen as a useful vehicle for experiencing, and teaching art within an artwork and across museums. The flexibility of self-presentation provided by MUDs makes it possible for players to experiment with aspects of behavior and identity that would be otherwise unattainable. Is this a way to assume, subsume, consume, (and be consumed by) virtual selves (art) and be mused, even resume to be another virtual being (art)? In line with this concept, there are other forms of gratifications based on the derivatives of MUDs like MOOs13). Communications Like any education-flavored institution, a digital media museum must host art forums periodically via designer chat rooms, conduct ICQ14), CU-SeeMe sessions, that move beyond threaded discussions in hypermail and displaying e-mail contacts on the Web. 2.3.4 Ping15) Unlike MUDding, performing artist Stelarc16) piloted Ping Body by first postulating his concept of "useless (physical) body" and "redesigning the human body". He then attached himself to the heavily embodied external electromechanical devices to activate his (himself) designated body components involuntarily. This performance16) was realized via connecting a Mac to a muscle stimulation box which is connected to a PC that pings17) predetermined servers connecting to the Internet. By means of a Perl Script program, packet counts and average round-trip time thus collected from Ping over the Internet at a set interval are parsed, together with IP addresses, host domain name and the country location. This external ebb and flow of data activates animated limb movements thus demonstrating the presence of his virtual body. It displays the collaboration of the performer and his technical entourage. However, the artistic merits of this rhetorical performance need to be identified in proportion to its technical achievements. Other Ping-based applications has been demonstrated by various groups of Japanese technologists, for instance, collecting sound generated by predefined servers on the Internet at different geographical locations18) or measuring the temperature of the earth surface19). Repeatedly, these examples clearly demonstrated the scientific usage of Ping. By the instantiated and inherited properties of this simplest and most economical command, Ping on the Internet, a wide range20) of interesting exhibits can be conjured up and implemented to demonstrate and realize telepresence21), or choreographing devices20) attached to the pinged server. Undoubtedly, this will largely depend on the intelligible exposition of the relation of the artist and the technologist, an indiscriminate bolus. In the age of interactivities, a click of a mouse is considered interactive. Basically, Interactive Art is viewing art through the involvement of the interactivities between participants, or the discrete or simultaneous interactivities between participants and digital devices, or interactivities generated amongst inter-digital devices. One form of interactive art, the interactive art created by the collaboration of Toshio Iwai and Ryuichi Sakamoto22) is aesthetically pleasing and intellectually satisfying. Abstracting Renaissance perspectivalism as seen in Rome, Angkor Wat or the Great Wall of China, can be encapsulated in Virtual Realities and be entered onto your own screen via the VRML23) on the Web. Different scenes and worlds24) can be linked, and even transformed into a new world. Shake and quake the world to get another world. Well, it can be a virtual world that allows you to momentarily experience floating on the Dead Sea while strolling along Champs-Elysee or the delightful tour brought by the cartoonized Firenze? While a digital media museum can leave the navigation through a 3-D human body to the teaching science museum or the deja-vu on the Web, all ye who are keen in acquiring such experiences simply purchase VRML shells to boost the also-have VRML ego! If this continues, will exhibits constantly emerge and suffer from the "old wine new bottle" syndrome eventually? While facts remain, one should just fly in and move into the latest VRML features to create a whole new world, feedback and enhance VRML features to its committee! Ironically, if art owes it to technology, it should also payback! With no shortage of VRML expertise across the world, is a world bordered by a digital media museum wall more prestigious than those outside? Those outside the wall should share more or equal glories than those within, after all, who brought the wall in?
Chain Art is defined as a theme-based art, chained as mosaic pieces created by participating individuals across time-zones. The chaining sequence can be fired by a Perl-scripted engine with predefined downloading and uploading criteria. Thus the completed digital work is as unpredictable as it started. It depends largely on the notion of aesthetics of the varied participants coupled with the unknown and unpredictable nature of the adjacent mosaic. However, the final tiled mosaic art thus constructed within a Web page can be permutated20) by the participating mosaics, with sound and animation attached to any selected mosaic by the same or different set of participants. 2.8 With some 25 Internet protocols, the real artist-technologists will not be surviving in an idea-vacuum. Rather, they are constantly publishing their innovations in their private garages. Digital media museum authorities must open its doors, attract, collaborate and welcome new blood with fresh ideas! 3.1 Curatorial distinction versus the masses If the function of a museum is to curate and educate, though with varying degrees of emphasis, then curatorial functions must march in tempo in the digital epoch. If one can build one's "own world" from an inexhaustible killer database of scenes and themes, walls and floors in one's own comfort and space with a mere ten dollar monthly subscription fee to a VRML service, will viewing a puppeted VRML exhibit of a Sistine Chapel or the Buckingham Palace with a easily affordable 3D eyeglass be more exciting then the result of a DIY? Or, experiencing the virtual in the real museum space by watching yourself being transformed into an avatar being displayed on a 7 x 7 29" cube high resolution digital video wall be more superiorly purgatorated and real then sipping café latté along the sidewalk cafe and watching the avatars sip cappuccino amidst the illusion of 3D space in West Hollywood? Subsequently, can the curious peruse the technicalities of VRML on the Net? Strangely, the paradoxical physical being seems to enjoy indulging the virtual in the real space, and if this is true, museum must dwell on the driving force behind the selection criteria:
It is in this context, aesthetics and artists must be redefined. 3.2 Temporary exhibits versus Permanent Collections Unlike wine, technology depreciates with time; what is new today quickly dissolves into ether without warning. Searching for the coolest, hottest and newest in an embedded web of technologies has increasingly become more difficult, exponentially. Who is the roi de jour is a difficult question. Contents of the "current show" versus the collectibles are becoming remarkably blurred without grace. If a digital media museum is a place that shoulders the responsibilities of a museum, then it should not function like a media laboratory in a manner that everything is in-transitu and experimental. Neither should it evolve into a time capsule! With its Web compendium, the real world digital media museum may increase its popularity via its Web presence, interactivities and collaboration or its traffic may decrease because of its Web accessibility will largely depend on what the visitors can derive outside the scope of its virtual essence. The scope of its content is a careful differentiation and integration of art wrapped by technological excellence, versus technology wrapped underneath art. Museum curators must not rest on an art history and plot the selection confidence curve with their familiar favorites and laud over their real past while looking for their virtual presence. This means, a Picasso of the mainframe era may not necessarily be the best fit. In the digital era, conservation of the "material" is no longer an issue, however, conservation of equipment or archiving an old release of the software for an outdated hardware supported exhibit can be outlandish. How should a digital media museum accommodate and even accomplish such maintenance? Whether an exhibit of a digital media museum should become a museum piece is certainly worth debating at length. As and when this happens, and it certainly will, sooner than you desire, how should a digital exhibit be treasured? Like a real and original Rembrandt classic? Who assigns the value, who prices the work? Perhaps, technology will price it to zero value? By stretching your imagination further, will there be even a digital Sotheby's or Christie's auctioning the once highly fashionable data-glove in the millennium? These may well be concerns for the next conference. How should a digital museum be staffed itself? What should be the balanced aesthetics-technology-savvy ratio of a curator and amongst curators, among administrative and supporting staff? How should they be designated? How relevant is the past curatorial experience incubating current inspirations? These are eminent issues prior to the museum formation. Maybe, issues will evolve into correctness with time? Or rather, it is the usual who has the bigger paw or who has a bigger jaw enlightenment?
How can a museum formulate and decide on the optimal number of "rooms" versus the number of temporary or permanent exhibits -- hence deciding on the temporary versus permanent space and equipment, facilities and fixtures? Can the authorities afford to update real world space as frequently as updating their Web sites? If so, are they guaranteed a steady flow of research-funds to acquire the most avant-garde exhibit while being bewildered by "who will be the next sponsor"? With the proliferation of the pervasive technology across all domains and disciplines, the museum statistician must measure the before-and-after-excitement ratio28) of visitors by age-group, in justifying space versus exhibits performance. Based on the fact that the Web compendium of a real world digital media museum is as important to attract people to its real world space, different approaches can be adopted to conceptualize its virtual presence.
Will an alternative of building a Web-based digital media museum to achieve a satisfactory pseudo physical presence be possible? Currently, this may not be ideal, due to downloading Internet pipeline constraints. As it is, what is certain is: it would never be the same looking at a real Picasso Gernica on the wall vis-à-vis viewing its gif file on the Web. On the other hand, it maybe the best way to accelerate Web Art. Again, one asks: what is the life span of Web Art? Should Web Art created in 1997 still be the same in 1999 or should one proceed to create new sites? The once a year events like Siggraph30), Arcs Electronica31), ISEA32), DEAF33) are some of the more visible yearly shows staged to evangelize digital media, even though their names reflect their epoch of origin. How would a digital media museum curator take the contents of these events into consideration in planning their exhibition schedules? On the other hand, would any of these event organizers agree to move any of their exhibits to be a permanent resident of the museum after the event is over? In the non-tenure digital world, what is permanency? Nevertheless, by doing so, will a digital media museum which aspires to the newness and innovation of technology be considered as an art-folks home? In any case, quantifying this impact is by no means easy, even more difficult to virtually plan real exhibition five years ahead! With plagiarism abounding and the ever presence of robots, crawlers and spiders on the Web, how will the Websters34) decide on how much presence is sufficiently attractive and contribute to the critical success factors of the Web positioning? One must weigh the tradeoffs between copyrights, proxy servers, plagiarism, Web indexing and cataloging versus the richness and extent of the content. Or the real world presence stamps the presence of the origin or innovations? This will depend on the truth revealed in the digi-finger prints logs35)! The truth of the matter is that ruling artists though not techno-savvy, are canny enough to see that they have to dance in tempo before the times run away from them. Anyway, artists are artists, even in the 21st Century; you only have to go to the back room to watch and chat with the star-studded technologists, those that can transfuse the bloodstream of the software and twist the muscles of the hardware. Doesn't this resemble what goes on behind the scene of Hollywood techno-produced shows? Unlike in the movie world, vendors are not necessarily hidden attributes. Nevertheless, artists get the glint in the art world. Unlike the in the technological world too, how many know that the pointing device on an IBM notebook is designed by Richard Zapper? That is in synch, of course, veteran artist names backed by research funds, crowd into the public, talking about bridging the cyber and the real. Or, in minorities, monetarily remunerated technologists are sometimes invited to color the commentary. Undoubtedly, it is art that glorifies the sophistication of technologies and it is technologists that makes the realization of art. Whether it is art dictates technology or technology dictates art remains to be heard! Ultimately, when paradigms shift and boundaries blur, the current dictionary meaning of art36) no longer holds. The digital media museum is a platform of art amalgamated with digital technologies. It should not be a "warehouse" of archiving the heavily-funded and the highly evaporative computer hardware that would taxi-in even before the flight takes off; neither should it be a landscape of the once awesome non-digital video walls -- the reconfigured and rearranged TV boxes demonstrating the glorified past of the 70s and 80s. While it is difficult to stay at the leading edge of information technology that advances without mercy, it should not be difficult to staff the museum with a chief technology officer (CTO) with an artistic director, rather than a Chief Artist Officer (CAO) with a technology director. After all, it is technology that is empowering and enriching the arts and not art raking over the coals of technology. With less than a dozen digital media museums in sight, when will one see the equivalent of the Mona Lisa and the Louvre of the digital era will much depend on the pas de deux of the artists and the technologists and the choreography of the policy makers. Maybe, a better bet is to search and treasure the digital "Leonardo da Vinci" of the 21st Century so as to realize the building and functioning of the next digital media museum! They may be rare, far and few in between dotting the Web! Notes:
1)art as expressed by paintings, sculptures, installation
and performing art. ____________________________________________________________________
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Like the real world installation art,
digital installation art
In considering a real world building
to house digital media exhibits, do we want a wireless wired
museum