[spectre] March 2006 on -empyre- soft-skinned space: "Is Modernity our Antiquity?"

[Michael Arnold Mages]

March 2006 on -empyre- soft-skinned space:  "Is Modernity our Antiquity?"

Please join the conversation this month at -empyre- soft-skinned
space with guests



Christoph Bruno (FR), Erik Kluitenberg (NL), Christiane Paul (US),
Dirk Vekemans (BE), and as moderator/guest, Christina McPhee (US)


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Is Modernity our Antiquity?


"It is fairly obvious that modernity, or modernity¹s fate, exerts a
profound influence on contemporary artists. Part of that attraction
may stem from the fact that no one really knows if modernity is dead
or alive. It seems to be in ruins after the totalitarian catastrophes
of the 20th century (the very same catastrophes to which it somehow
gave rise). It seems utterly compromised by the brutally partial
application of its universal demands (liberté, égalité, fraternité)
or by the simple fact that modernity and coloniality went, and
probably still go, hand in hand. Still, people¹s imaginations are
full of modernity¹s visions and forms (and I mean not only Bauhaus
but also arch-modernist mind-sets transformed into contemporary
catchwords like ³identity² or ³culture²). In short, it seems that we
are both outside and inside modernity, both repelled by its deadly
violence and seduced by its most immodest aspiration or potential:
that there might, after all, be a common planetary horizon for all
the living and the dead."

--Roger Beurgel, artistic director of Documenta 12


A bit of background:


Documenta, the festival of art that occurs every five years in
Kassel, has invited all of us at the -empyre- list to participate in
a formal discussion around
three questions, or leitmotifs,  throughout this year.  This month is
the launch of our participation in this project, which will continue
in July and November 2006, again with topics selected by the
Documenta team.   All over the world, some seventy online and print
journals will initiate dialogue around three core questions; the
results will integrate into Documenta 12 itself next year in Kassel
(summer 2007).   FMI  http://www.documenta12.de/documenta12/english/
leitmotifs.html  A special thanks to Alessandro Ludovico of http://
neural.it. Alessandro is an empyre list member and former featured
guest (2003), who has honored us by  bringing -empyre- into the
Documenta project this year.


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------------------------------------------------>Christophe Bruno
(FR) lives and works in Paris. Awarded with an Honorary Mention at
the Prix Ars Electronica 2003, he¹s been exhibited internationally in
many places: Transmediale, ICC, galerie Sollertis, Nuit Blanche, File
Festival, Modern Art Museum of the city of Paris, Tirana Biennale,
ReJoyce Festival, Microwave International Media Art Festival in Honk-
Kong, P0es1s.net in Berlin, Read_Me, Vidarte in Mexico City....
http://www.christophebruno.com

----------------------------------------------->Erik Kluitenberg
(NL) is a  theorist, writer, and organiser on culture, media and
technology. He is head of the media program at De Balie - Centre for
Culture and Politics in Amsterdam, and teaches at the Institute for
Interactive Media at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam.  He's contributed
to organization and content at  the International Symposium on
Electronic Art (ISEA), Interstanding I, II, & III (Tallinn, Estonia),
The P2P - New Media Culture in Europe conference,   "Tulipomania
DotCom - A Critique of the New Economy" for Next 5 Minutes,
"net.congestion - International Festival of Streaming Media" (2000),
"Debates & Credits - Media Art in the Public Domain" in Moscow,
Amsterdam and Ekaterinburg (2002), the Amsterdam edition of World-
Information.Org (2002),  and the mini-festival "An Archaeology of
Imaginary Media" (2004).


--------------------------------------------->Christiane Paul (US) is
the Adjunct Curator of New Media Arts at the Whitney Museum of
American Art and the director of Intelligent Agent, a service
organization and information resource dedicated to digital art. She
has written and lectured extensively on new media arts and her book
Digital Art (part of the World of Art Series by Thames & Hudson, UK)
was published in July 2003. At the Whitney Museum, she curated the
show ³Data Dynamics² (2001); the net art selection for the 2002
Whitney Biennial; the online exhibition "CODeDOC" (2002) for artport,
the Whitney Museum¹s online portal to Internet art for which she is
responsible; as well as "Follow Through" by Scott Paterson and
Jennifer Crowe (2005).

---------------------------------------------->Dirk Vekemans (BE) is
a digital poet and multimedia artist in Lueven.  He  invented and co-
organised ŒLeuven Per Vers¹ an event of poetry, protest and
performance in 1996, and until 2004 has published literary works and
multimedia experiments in Dutch through ŒNederlandse Literatuur @
ViltNet¹ a Œsmall-scale marginal distribution of cultural goods¹ at
http://www.vilt.net In September 2004 Dirk initiated the ŒNeue
Kathedrale des erotischen Elends¹ (NkdeE) registered as a linked art-
object in Rhizome¹s Art Database.  The NkdeE was also part of the
ŒMostra Internacional de Poesia Visual e Eletronica¹, category
Electronic Poetry, Sao Paulo, November. The three part work ŒMU¹ was
admitted to Regina Pinto¹s ŒMuseum of the Essential and Beyond¹
http://arteonline.arq.br/

------------------------------------------->Christina McPhee (US) is
a multimedia artist working with landscapes of scientific
visualization and cinematic image through a performance based use of
video, installation, digital photography, data base net art  and
drawing.  Based in California, she is currently working att the
margins of cities investigating the seismic landscape, and the
aftermath of debris flow, in the wake of global warming. Upcoming
exhibitions in 2006 will include a solo installation, "La Conchita
mon amour,' at Sara Tecchia New York in October; and, at Cartes
Centre for Art and Technology, Espoo, Finland, a five year
retrospective of her work will be on from May to September. In 2005,
a solo exhibition at Bildmuseet, Umea, Sweden, followed participation
in Groundworks: Environmental Collaboration and Contemporary Art at
Carnegie Mellon University, Regina Goucher Gallery, and two
exhibitions in San Francisco and LA.. Her perfomances and net art
have been part of many new media festivals since 2001 including
Cybersonica at the ICA London (2002), FILE 2002 Sao Paulo, Digital
Arts and Culture Melbourne (2003), and is online in the Whitney
Museum of American Art artport, ctheorymultimedia at Cornell
University Electronic Media Archives, and chairetmetal (Montreal).
www.christinamcphee.net, www.naxsmash.net

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