hyperspace without atmosphere

The same types of distinctions could be made between “new media” artists and what could be called “artists with computers.” The latter care about their laptops as much as Cindy Sherman cared about her camera. Necessary mechanical skills can be learned but the habits accompanying those skills need to be unlearned. Also, artists may not always and at all times be “with computers”—it’s a tool to be picked up and put down as needed.

New media suggests a respect for hardware & software and belief in their newness, something artists with computers don’t care about. New media involves a finicky devotion to programming and process, whereas artists with computers are bulls in the Apple Shop. New media artists tend to germinate in design or media arts programs whereas artists with computers incline to studio arts backgrounds or autodidacticism.

“Contemporary Art”, the Art of the Past Century, was based mostly on the following principle: “if you put something in an empty room, it seems strange and significant”. A variation of that was: “if you take something out of its context, it seems strange and significant”. Another was: “if you change the scale of something, it will seem strange and significant,” and a last one: “if you multiply something, it also becomes strange and significant”.

But after 80 years of different combinations for any kinds of objects inside the hopelessly empty spaces of our art institutions, nothing seems really interesting. We see clearly now, that the supposed “art” is simply a bunch of trash, just some products bought in a mall.
Outside of the Internet there’s no glory. Non-Internet artists are freelance employees of other employees (the curators of the exhibitions). Institutions bestow curators with confidence and power. They are not supposed to look for any unseen objects but for some evidence of human expression which they will bring back to their commissioners, the way a well-trained dog would do with its ball. Exhibitions are identity-control tests. They are not creating anything new, they are just sampling stories.