Allen

In the last issue of Mousse Magazine (Issue 26, December 2010, pp. 196 – 200), German art critic Jennifer Allen published an interesting article titled “From Media to New Media”. Addressing some recent events and publications, from Free to CRUMB’s latest outputs, she argues that the most revolutionary features of digital media – both in terms of distribution and production – are having little or no impact on the contemporary art world. Definitely a worth reading. Here a couple of quotes:

While describing the gradual acceptance of new media art and artists, the retrospective view of A Brief History points to a basic conflict: to remain true to techy origins or to become part of the museum and the art market.

If there’s a new democracy to celebrate in the new media, the most democratic dimension is hard to see. While anyone can be an artist, a photographer and a filmaker [...] everyone will not make it into the museum and the art market. We all increasingly use the same tools to do different tasks, even the same tactile gestures of clicking, saving, copying, pasting, sending. But that radical equality has not quite movedbeyond the screen.