Interaction - Artistic Practice in the Network - Review

Artistic Practice in the Network

Edited by Amy Scholder and Jordan Crandall (New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 2001)

Interaction is the edited record of an online forum initiated by Eyebeam Atelier in the spring of 1998. Over a period of three months, the experiment dubbed [less than]eyebeam[greater than][less than]blast[greater than] engaged netizens in an email dialogue that eventually generated the sizeable inbox of 650 messages. For those with Web-based email accounts, this might not seem more than the spam received over an average weekend, but the senders in this ASCII anthology kept the promise of that "from-to" heading with thoughtful gifts that escape the usual get-out of-debt dross. Although the electronic exchange can be hard to follow at times in the seven preserved threads organized into chapter headings, Interaction certainly keeps this reviewer aching to hit reply.

Anyone seeking to interact with keyboard pals on the Internet can indulge in MOOs or similar signals from the electronic domain, but the organization of [less than]eyebeam[greate than][less than]blast[greater than] kept the usual adolescent banter of mating calls from disrupting the directed purpose of the dialogue. To develop Interaction, 22 special guests were invited to post an inaugural address, six hosts were employed to keep the conversation flowing, and a moderator screened all incoming messages before they were distributed in suitable packages. It will come as no surprise then, that many of the posts included in the published log presumably come from the honored guests and hosts (they are not listed or highlighted in the notes on contributors) comprising the luminaries of this elite community. All the ensuing talk of expansive networks, global versus local identity and the power politics of cyberspace consequently reverberate with a hollow sincerity inside the overprotective firewalls of the [less than]eyebeam[greater than][less than]blast[greater than] server.

With the subtitle "Artistic Practice in the Network" and interspersed pages of projects mostly undertaken by the noted email contributors, the structure and function of Interaction obviously reiterates what "networking" is all about. The emerging vision for the network--and most notably the Web--echoed by this project is not about inclusion. It is about exclusive domains that control a larger marketplace, whether it is to peddle fluffy etoys or adopt net.art to a database format. Most declared network extensions sadly seem to unite under the troubled auspices of the .com model: there is always a call for community under a branded identity, a semblance of programmed interaction that passes for dialogue, and ultimately parsed responses filtered through the tedious bureaucracy of an html [less than]form[greater than] (with its hidden fields)

Despite the fact that Interaction reads like the transcript from a large Charlie Rose roundtable sporting live links to telling back drops around the world, the individual contributions initiate a dialogue that spills over from the screen to the page and beyond. Often thoughtful, frequently lengthy, and always considered, the postings beg one to ponder options for a reply. Email has generated an almost instinctive urge to respond, and with decades passed since. "The Death of the Author" and "What is an Author" it is certainly gratifying to encounter a theoretical publication that explores the interfaces of writing in more adventurous formats than the usual scroll of an authoritarian monologue.

The Great Divide: Photographs from the Canadian Rockies, by Ernie Kroeger Banff Centre Press/100 pp./$17.99 (sb).

Harmony of Reflected Light: The Photographs of Arthur Wesley Dow, by James L. Enyeart. Museum of New Mexico Press (P.O. Box 2087, Santa Fe, NM 87504-2087)/176 pp./$45.00 (hb).

The Illuminating Mind in American Photography Stieglitz, strand, Weston, Adams, by David P. Peeler, University of Rochester Press (P.O. Box 41026, Rochester, NY 14604)/353 pp./$75.00 (hb).

Information Design, edited by Robert Jacobson. The MIT Press/358 pp./price unavailable (sb).

COPYRIGHT 2001 Visual Studies Workshop
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group