[NetBehaviour] Ars Electronica 2006

[Mark Hancock]

All,

did anyone else attend this years Ars Electronica event in Austria?  
If so, I'd be interested in knowing what people thought of the  
Placing Re:Placing Media Arts talk hosted by Andreas Brockmann?

An attempt to gather together various theorists and curators and  
other 'worthy' people, to try to understand the present state of  
Media Arts, and question why the mainstream art world wasn't taking  
Media Arts seriously (!).  I felt the talk became too much of a  
desperate cry for the attention of an older parent. Rather than  
getting on with what is happening within the media arts scene and  
enjoying the 'privileges' afforded by not having to contend with the  
issues that come with so much mainstream arts, (such as ‘high’, ‘low’  
brow, or the difficulties of navigating the marketing/sales system of  
many galleries etcetera etcetera) It seems that many want to take  
these issues on as well. Surely the beauty of media/digital arts is  
that they are attempting to bypass these old structures? Attempting  
to invent new ones?

Also, post-conference, there was discussion of what constitutes good  
media arts anyway? I'm certainly on a continuous path to  
understanding that myself.

Mark