CHArt Twenty-Second Annual Conference

Is Interaction More of a Challenge than Immateriality?
Beryl Graham

This paper addresses the question of the characteristics of the work of art – its connectivity, interactivity, variability and immateriality – from the point of view of the museum curator and contemporary art historian. If new media art (in general, from responsive installations to Net art) is seen as a combination of characteristics and behaviours, then it is only through discovering those that we can ascertain the challenges it presents to the practice of curating. Importantly, for art historians, some characteristics of new media art projects do link to characteristics of other (earlier or older) art forms. For instance, museum curators are not troubled about how to show the immaterial output of the Conceptual art movement, so why is the immateriality of data-driven works such a presumed challenge? Drawing on a number of examples of exhibitions and festivals, and individual works of art, this paper will address the question of whether or not art has gone through a tool-based revolution (as most art histories of technology and museum exhibitions might lead us to believe) or a concept-based revolution brought about in part by the technological possibilities available in the production and distribution of art.

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