[spectre] about the FreakNet medialab and realism in digital art

[Jaromil]

Goodmorning Europe!

http://bit.ly/eudMiu

as part of a mapping project on "Media labs in Europe" the Freaknet
Medialab has been patiently contacted and included in the picture.

The Freaknet Medialab is the southern Medialab of Europe and one of
the earliest existing, established in 1997, see
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Freaknet

as you can well understand from the overly present news about the
italian government dismay and corruption, our medialab never had a
peaceful time, to not even mention support and funding... yet we have
supported free speech activities for all this time, collaborating in
digital operations campaigns of anti-mafia journalists (I Siciliani),
but also produced worldwide known digital art as many software
creations you see on the http://dyne.org online atelier (don't worry
if its' too cryptic now, some of them are to be understood in future!)

yet there is something more i'd like to say now, rather than continue
in this self advertisement (just let me break the tradition here)
maybe something to reflect upon: watch this post on digitalarti blog

http://bit.ly/eudMiu

after all those years of development on the concept of what a medialab
should be in Europe, how does this post actually fits the aesthetic of
"contemporary digitalart"? like a punch in the eye? how the presence
of a problematic reality fits in an history that has been so far
written by the winners? like a bug squashed between the glasses of a
showcase? whatever it is, between our daily dose of success stories
and always already new feed of optimism for well designed art
productions, this post strikes ... because it tastes different. some
curators might end up call this also "the rise of amateurs", but
actually the people in the picture here aren't amateurs at all,
especially when talking digital.

so what is it? let's think about it. is it the abundance of
advertising language that makes worlds so distant? is actually well
designed advertising classifying as "professional", as opposed to
"amateur"? is this a derive provoked by the colonisation of the
enterprise logic in cultural contexts? or is the Freaknet an
avant-gard of "realism" in digital art?  and will there ever be a
"realist" period for digital art, for such an hyper virtualized world
of relationships... especially now, that cultural fundings are cut in
Europe?

anyway, thanks Laurent of digitalarti and Catherine of PiNG for
including us in this picture: we hope we won't be offending anyone in
being so different as we are, yet, still, in Europe, on its borders.

ciao

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