How does an online platform that reports on media art define and expand such a genre? “Media art” is just one of the multiple obscure and floating terms that are widely applied in art journals and press. Among its multiple aliases, “new media art” is a favored term among galleries, collectors, and the wider public, even though technologies have accelerated too quickly for the “new” to remain new; “Media-based art” and “time-based art” are applied most commonly in museum practices, where objects must be framed within a historical or exhibitionary logic. Of course, the word “media” in all those terms is not unproblematic. A more precise definition would distinguish “mediums,” which refers to the mediums (or material substrates) used in art, from whereas the alternate plural form “media” which refers to the mass media—a practice followed by only a few art institutions today.
Media and time-based art have evolved greatly since Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell worked with televisions as objects, or since the introduction of video and portable media technology in the mid 1960s. This evolution not only reflects changes in methods of making art but also of the haptic and visual experiences and social conditions in its making. Art institutions have adapted their working structures to incorporate art produced by digital means. Curatorial departments of leading modern art museums, such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Centre Pompidou, and Tate Modern are divided by mediums, based on conservation and management considerations. Although MoMA started featuring art in new electronic mediums as early as 1968 at the exhibition The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age, the Museum’s Department of Media and Performance Art was first established in September 2006. Its mission, as stated on moma.org, is to collect, exhibit, and preserve time-based art, including “moving images, film installations, video, performance, motion- and sound-based works, and other works that represent time or duration and are made for and presented in a gallery setting.” [1]
Other pace-setters in the museum world show similar patterns of sporadic early programming and more recent institutionalization. Tate Modern had held exhibitions about British video art as early as the 1970s such as The Video Show, Tate Gallery, London (1976). However it was not until 2004 that the first Film Curator position at the museum was finally founded. The establishment of the Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe (ZKM) can be traced back to the 1980s, and it’s no doubt the center of media and time-based art in Germany nowadays. Prior to these institutional interests in time-based art, in the 1960s and 1970s gallery spaces and television programs already broadcasted video works across Japan, Europe and North America. To paraphrase Mitchell, mediums are a modern invention that have existed for a long time. The problems and opportunities of “mixed media” and “installation” were around from the start. [2]
The history of time-based mediums is young. As a matter of course, thorough research is still lacking. Based on our conviction that a critical selection of works, artists and opinions can contribute to the discussion, research and display of time-based mediums, SCREEN aims to exploring the newest practices of art in the digital age. In particular, we examine how artists employ time- and media-based art within the context of curatorial and collection strategies. Media art is loosely defined on our site, referring to time-based works (e.g. video, film, audio and software-based installations) as well as lens-based works (photography and moving images). Because of the limited scope of this article, we can only briefly introduce the approaches and definitions of media art on SCREEN . A series of surveys about time-based work and lens-based work will be featured on the “Views” column in the coming months.
[1] See “Media and Performance Art,” http://www.moma.org/explore/collection/media, retrieved April 18, 2015.
[2] W. J. T. Mitchell, What do Pictures Want: The Lives and Loves of Images (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 211.
Chris Fernald. Pop Effigy I. 2015. Unique digital print on paper, 36 x 48″. © 2015 Chris Fernald.
