Output Sufferings: After the Virtual

Symposium:

• ISEA94: Fifth International Symposium on Electronic Art
• More presentations from ISEA94:  

• Output Sufferings (Artists in Cyberculture: Spacecapes)

• Output Sufferings: After the Virtual

• Cynthia Beth Rubin

• Panel Statement

  Panel: Output Sufferings

  For those of us who love color, texture, and form, but never quite developed a comfortable relationship with paint, canvas, wood, or other non-virtual materials, the electronic age promised to be our savior. We could be free muse over complex visual relationships and invent new meanings, and leave the dirty stuff to some one else.

  But the dream never came true, or hasn’t yet. We still have to show the images, somehow, either electronically, in projection, or in hard copy. And those of us who turned out backs on the problems of output paid a price. Our work just did not live up to its potential. Or rather, it did not live up to itself. We ended up exhibiting replicas of an electronic “original”, sharing a cheap (or not so cheap) imitation of something that otherwise was not sharable. Finally, we are up against the eternal and inescapable question: does the form of presentation carry meaning? Are we forever stuck in the world of art-objects? And if this is in fact the case, what is the best way to disseminate the work that we do? Are we in a risk of becoming too much a part of the mainstream art world that so many of us are happy to escape?

Category:

• Panel