wwp@yahoogroups.com:
RE: Globorama - seriously
Bo Lorentzen 2008-Jun-26 20:51:00
I am sorry being caught as a thief saddens you ? and it is surely sad that
you claim to be a great person when you don?t steal.
The spirit of the laws is to prevent theft. Having painfully read through
this entire email I can only conclude you are seeking to muddle the
questions with emormous amouts of text with no particular point to the issue
of Globorama stealing and ?repurposing? the content created and clearly
marked as copyrighted content by other artists.
Call it what you want, holly war if you feel like it..
Sincerely Bo Lorentzen
From: #removed# [mailto:#removed#] On Behalf Of
berndlintermann
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 11:38 AM
To: #removed#
Subject: Globorama
Dear Mr. Levy, dear Participants of the World Wide Panorama,
in this discussion on the events related to "Globorama", I would now like to
state my
opinion as an artist, curator, and director of a public museum. The debate
that arose from
the presentation of works from the World Wide Panorama (WWP), both saddens
and appalls
me extraordinarily. My whole life, I have fought together with many artists
for the freedom
of art while encountering hostility and suffering privations. The
developments brought
about by the Internet meant to us that our dream of "open access" was
becoming true. I
trusted that all of us together are continuing the project of enlightenment,
i.e. the
greatest possible access to knowledge and data, which the ZKM and many
artists have
committed themselves to with absolute conviction.
As early as 1995, when I was the director of the Ars Electronica in Linz, I
was among the
first to initiate a comprehensive event dealing with the issue of net
culture. The event was
entitled "Welcome to the Wired World." From the title you can see that I
welcomed net
culture as a portal for the acquisition of knowledge by everybody and as a
platform for the
creativity of everybody. In 1999, my first exhibition as chairman of the ZKM
was also a
net-related exhibition that was entitled "Net_Condition". MIT Press
published an
accompanying catalogue, which was co-edited by Timothy Druckery. This book
especially
stresses the democratic and sociopolitical aspects of the Net from the
perspective of
enlightenment, of education. I see the Net as a grass-roots democracy
that?under the
keyword "access" (see also the respective publication by Jeremy Rifkin,
2000)?promised
open, free access to those interested in art and those eager to learn
without the usual
restrictions that we know from elitists systems. In that sense I have always
tried at the
ZKM to make known to our audience the egalitarian options of the Net in the
context of a
museum. An example for that is our current exhibition "YOU_ser: The Century
of the
Consumer". Here we have established a citizens' gallery that honors the
democratic
promise of photography. In a photo booth, everybody can take four passport
photos of
him/herself, which, as digital images, are simultaneously displayed on five
computer
monitors. The photo booth and the monitors are set up in the publicly
accessible lobby of
the ZKM. Upon entering the museum, the visitors see their own portraits and
those of
other visitors as a large-scale projection. Everybody can take a photo of
him/herself,
everybody can see him/herself honored by a portrait in the museum. So there
are not only
portraits of celebrities or portraits by famous artists of anonymous people,
but every
citizen immediately obtains his/her right, i.e. his/her picture.
Following the concept of the exhibition "YOU_ser", the installation
"Globorama" was set up
in ZKM's Media Theater, which is part of ZKM's lobby and therefore?free of
charge?
accessible to everybody. Years of research in the field of panoramic
projection technology
and a research grant of the Federal State of Baden-Wuerttemberg enabled the
ZKM to
conduct a public test: the test examined to what extend it is possible to
provide the public
with access to the certain contents of the Net and databases in an exciting
and
emancipatory way by means of net-based installations. A series of panorama
projections
was realized in cooperation with artists such as Jean Michel Bruy?re or the
Wooster Group.
"Globorama" deals with panorama works on the Net. Panorama images were
chosen, since
on one's monitor at home, these can only be displayed in 2D. The idea was to
point out to
the public that there is this wonderful present of panoramic works on the
Net. Our artists
and developers saw it as their task to familiarize the citizens with the Net
and its contents
by means of an artistic interface. It is the general mission of the ZKM to
convey knowledge
at the frontline of research and to acquaint the general public with current
artistic
practices of social importance. In doing so, the ZKM continuously provides a
platform to
artists to present their works to the public. The ZKM considers it as its
mission not only to
present well-known masterpieces by artists ranging from Pablo Picasso up to
Mark
Rothko, but also to continuously draw attention to less well-known artists
and to provide
them with a forum to present their work to the public?and this in a way that
facilitates
the public's access to these works within a non-profit environment without
causing the
artists any costs. This is how the idea emerged to present panoramic works
in an
adequate, three-dimensional way as panoramic projections. By pointing to the
individual
net artists, who publish panoramic images on the net, the artists and
developers of the
ZKM intended to offer an optimum form of presentation. For that purpose,
also a laser
pointer was developed that enables interactive access to the works of the
panorama
artists. It was intended to make the WWP project visible in a prominent way.
To achieve
this, technological innovations were used and the most current technologies
can be
utilized. We also conducted an empiric survey among the visitors in order
to?if the need
and the wish to do so should arise?to undertake improvements in the future.
This is why
"Globorama" was tested for 10 days with pupils and young people in the
context of an
event in Stuttgart, which aimed at sparking young people's interest in and
enthusiasm for
technology, since young people do have higher expectations regarding digital
presentations than adults. This was by far more successful than expected. Is
the ZKM now
to be punished for that?
All these efforts were undertaken as part of research activities carried out
for the benefit of
net culture. Our aim would also have been to present this project at the
Biennial of Seville,
which opens in October 2008, in order to acquaint a wide audience with the
existence of a
database with panoramic works and their diversity. It now saddens me that
already in the
development phase of the project "Globorama", the reactions of the WWP
participants are
that intense?in a phase in which the technical basis is only just being
created and can
only just be tested with the aim to provide artists with a platform of a
quality as high as
possible. As the curator in charge, I can't inflict this dispute?and neither
a dispute about
high fees?upon the organizers of the Biennial only just because I would like
to integrate
net-based installations into the Biennial. I originally intended to also
provide a platform
for artistic net-based projects in Seville, but now, I will refrain from
that.
Following the current general discussions about the Net, I have to
acknowledge that also
the Internet is mainly a big supermarket dominated by strong commercial
interests. But
especially the artistic community has considered it its prime goal to
counter this and to
defend the Net as an arena of open access and to not let the Net become a
supermarket,
but to support the concept of the Net as an initiative of
educational-political and artistic
matters. What it comes down to is not to leave the hegemony to the
providers, but to
emancipate the user. User generated content is my aesthetic and museological
goal.
This understanding of net culture as outlined above, i.e. that museums serve
the aim of
spreading net culture and to communicate modern net culture to the general
public
without making any material profit whatsoever in doing so and only for the
benefit of art,
has met with great approval worldwide. The ZKM ranks among the few museums
that also
possess comprehensive technological expertise for the discussion of net
culture and for
the communication of the goals of the Net community.
If it should now turn out that other views should prevail over this
perspective, I'd consider
this a severe setback?especially in view of the approval I have met so far.
I thought that
the concepts of freedom, of scientific and artistic research were also
especially rooted in
the Net. If this should not be the case, and if the educational work of a
museum is to be
judged on a technical legal basis and not based on aspects of educational
policies, then,
as consequence, I would have to drastically reduce my commitment to net
culture. I would
have to give up ten years of hope, in which I have seen the Net as the
"promised land" and
which have met with the approval of so many. In the future, I could then
only consider
net-based projects in an extremely reduced way and resort to the safe
mainstream, to
which everybody has already resorted.
The ZKM also considers it its mission to serve the protection of the
artists. Off the beaten
tracks of the global mainstream exhibitions that present again and again
only a few very
well known artists, that are placed well at the market, the ZKM set it as
its target to also
present less known and also forgotten and marginalized artists. This
concerns, on the one
hand, historic artists, such as Ruth Vollmer and Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt),
two Jewish
artists who emigrated from Germany and who had to continue their work in the
USA and
Venezuela. The exhibitions and catalogues on these two artists led to the
fact that they
were also rediscovered and honored elsewhere, as, for example, in the
context of the last
Documenta. At present, we are presenting almost forgotten Italian material
painting, the
experiments of which were seminal for the development of Robert Rauschenberg
and of
the post-war art in the USA. But ZKM's aim also includes current artists and
current forms
of art, for which the ZKM has very often been able to initiate the start of
an international
career. So, Olafur Eliasson had his first comprehensive exhibition at the
ZKM (with an
accompanying publication by MIT Press). And the ZKM is, indeed, not only a
museum of all
genres and media of art, a museum of the time-based arts, but also a place
for research
and development, where many artists-in-residence can realize and present
works. In this
context, the ZKM again and again ventures into uncharted territory and thus
into
unforeseeable situations.
As a last point, I would like to mention some thoughts on the field of
aesthetics. So far,
the artistic option to draw on elements of other creations in one's own
creation was
considered the essential achievement of the 20th century. The essence of the
collage from
Cubism up to Dada was to bring together content from other sources by making
it part of
a new art work. Also the Surrealists, as, for example, Max Ernst, used
images and writings
from popular culture in order to produce new works. What Pop Art?from
Rauschenberg
up to Warhol?did was to make use of the images of mass culture by means of
the screen
printing technique. At the end of the 20th century, this method, as you
know, led to
Appropriation Art, from artists such as Richard Prince up to Cindy Sherman,
and Sherrie
Levine. It is in no case my intention to characterize "Globorama" as
Appropriation Art, but
only to point out with this example that, with a strict application of
copyrights, important
developments in 20th century art would not have been possible and that these
art forms
would not exist. But, surprisingly, there this issue was never raised, since
it obviously
concerned the elitist media of painting and graphics. Therefore, it would be
rather
unfortunate, if in the democratic mechanic arts, which are already despised
by the elitist
media, the artists would restrict each other all of a sudden in their
developments. This
would be a big favor for the traditional arts. With utmost regret, I
anticipate that this will
have a lasting impact on the arts and that the big gateway to freedom will
now be
slammed shut again, a gateway of which I hoped it would be opened for the
arts by net
culture.
Hence, I appeal to everybody not to block the artistic and scientific
development of net
culture for the sake of short-term individual profit?the ZKM does also not
make any
profit?, but, on the contrary, to respect the spirit of artistic freedom and
of scientific
freedom. Because, as Montesquieu had already written in 1748 in "De l'esprit
des lois": It
is, above all, the spirit of the laws that counts. Hence, it would be of
benefit to everybody,
if, in this spirit, a productive collaboration between the participants of
the WWP and the
ZKM could be established in the future in order to jointly advance and
defend net culture
as a democratic and free medium.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Weibel
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