Rethinking new media curating

Simulation-based artworks often meld virtual and physical space, becoming that much more difficult to ‘frame’ for a viewer's experience. Each encounter is rather unique. The curatorial role in presenting such kind of immersive installation might simply lie in the process of entering & exiting of the mediated space.

An insightful documentation of the way new media works can be displayed, interpreted, and collected by Beryl Graham and Sarah Cook also looks to re-position conventional curatorial practices. The duo finds out how the histories of time-based arts range well across video art and performance or ‘live’ art.

The duo for over a decade has been involved in a debate on whether those 'exhibiting' new media art are technicians, artists or curators. An educator, artist, arts organizer, and curator, the former - having served as Professor of New Media Art at the University of Sunderland - is an authority on the subject along with Sarah Cook, a research fellow and cofounder of CRUMB.

Time does present specific curatorial challenges since a dynamic work in some way the timescale of process. Audience expectations of the rapid speed and uninterrupted availability of new media like the Internet’s round-the-clock nature, also figure here. Presented in form of a comprehensive overview, insightful analysis and kaleidoscopic compilation of new media art practices, ‘Rethinking Curating: Art after New Media’ offers an insight into the intriguing landscape of contemporary curating methods.

The book traces the history and trends of new media art, illustrating the complex topography of curating in and for the new millennium through illustrative case studies. It also explores the scenarios when there is no curator, or when it is the audience who curates an exhibit, and also probes why would a new media artist want to showcase work in an art museum.

The writers offer practical advice from curators and artists themselves engaged in areas related to distributive and participatory systems as far as art production is concerned through practical examples, including Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s telematic ‘Body Moves’ (involving a computer producing images in response to viewer activity), and Andreja Kuluncic’s ‘Distributive Justice’ (a participative internet based project).