New Media in the White Cube and Beyond: Curatorial Models for Digital Art

by Christiane Paul, Editor
University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2008
273 pp., illus. 42 b/w. Trade, $26.95
ISBN: 978-0-520-25597-5.

Reviewed by John F. Barber
Digital Technology and Culture
Washington State University Vancouver

jfbarber@eaze.net

As an art form that is time-based, and thus dynamic, interactive, collaborative, and ever variable, new media presents a unique set of challenges to traditional ideas of collection, presentation, documentation, and preservation. New Media in the White Cube and Beyond: Curatorial Models for Digital Art , edited and introduced by Christiane Paul, adjunct curator of new media arts at the Whitney Museum of American Art, features cutting edge essays by curators, theorists, and conservators addressing these problems.

As Paul notes in her introduction, the aim of this book is "to discuss the challenges of curating and presenting new media art that have been emerging over the past decade" (1). An immediate challenge is settling on a definition for new media art and defining the territory it occupies. A definition, however, says Paul, is elusive in that the art form, both its production and materiality, is constantly being reconfigured, one assumes through both technological development and artistic application.

Despite constant change, a lowest common denominator for new media art would seem to be that "it is computational and based on algorithms" (3). Art using digital technologies can manifest itself in various forms--from installations to software--and examine a wide range to topics.

Given such a broad territory, Paul and her contributors attempt to map its various regions. The first part of the book attempts to position what is now called new media art and curatorial models by examining historical precedents. Charlie Gere, "New Media Art and the Gallery in the Digital Age," notes that although art forms and practices are embedded in larger cultural contexts, the history of technology and media science plays an equally important role in the art's formation and reception. Gere also discusses the role of museums as archives and cultural memory and asks what effect the real time processing capabilities of digital media might have on future archives.

Sarah Cook, "Immateriality and Its Discontents: An Overview of Main Models and Issues for Curating New Media," suggests iterative, modular, and distributive models for curating new media, as well new metaphors like software programs, trade shows, and broadcasts.

The second part of the book focuses on different strategies for presenting new media in gallery spaces.   Particularly problematic in such spaces is net art, because, as Steve Dietz, "Curating Net Art: A Field Guide," notes, this art form is not represented in its natural state in galleries. Dietz suggests enhancements to more traditional gallery spaces in order to make them more receptive platforms of exchange for net art.

Changes to curating, as a creative labor, wrought by informational content instilled, in part, by technologies used to create the object(s) of curation, is the focus of the book's third part. Joasia Krysa, "Distributed Curating and Immateriality," positions new media art and curating as a self-replicating system through her case study of an exhibition of computer viruses. Building on the idea of viral multiplication and mutation, Jon Ippolito, "Death by Wall Label," explores problems faced by artists and curators when they confront documentation when they confront the standard method for defining art work--the gallery wall label. Ippolito proposes alternatives and discusses documentation tools that accommodate the mutations of new media digital art.

The variable nature of authorship is the focus of the book's fourth part. Sara Diamond, "Participation, Flow, and Redistribution of Authorship," explores the potential of network technologies to facilitate collaboration even while shifting the understanding of authorship and the autonomous cultural contexts of communities. Focusing on Aboriginal groups, Diamond asks what issues technologies raise for their cultural heritage and identity.

The book concludes with four case studies and their curatorial practices. Each show posed significant challenges in communicating its contents and contexts, as well as providing an interface between different cultures, approaches, and audiences. The success of each show, however, demonstrates that artistic and curatorial practices can and will rise to such challenges.

And that seems to be the common narrative thread throughout the books multiple sections and essays. As a process oriented and participatory practice, new media art has profound impact on artists, curators, audiences, and institutions. Traditional roles of artists and curators are being redefined, often to more collaborative models of production and presentation. The audience is often involved as well, participating in the artwork in ways counter to the traditional role of museums and galleries as shrines for contemplating sacred objects.

All these issues require all involved--artists, curators, galleries, and audiences--to reconfigure themselves and adapt to the demands of digital new media art. As a preliminary map of a new territory, New Media in the White Cube and Beyond provides ideas about possible routes that challenge customary methods of presentation and documentation, collection and preservation. The thought provoking essays collected here provide an overview of the conceptual, philosophical, and practical issues confronting the curating and presenting of new media art.