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New Media in the White Cube and Beyond: Curatorial Models for Digital Art is a collection of essays edited by Christiane Paul (curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art), addressing several topics of concern to new media art curators. The twelve essays cover the full range of territory that curators will encounter, from understanding how artists use the medium to considering how to preserve works far into the future.

Paul's introduction to the book is a solid briefing for curators interested in new media art but who haven't ventured far into this area yet, and it also usefully summarises the many issues in the field for veteran new media curators. Though each essay is generous with concrete examples, a case studies section is also included. The case studies provide intense and practical examinations of detail which also serve to bolster the points made in the essays.

The book focuses on addressing the proverbial elephant in the room when it comes to new media and museums, which could be glibly summed up as "why don't museums get it?". As the introduction explains and several essays reiterate, museums are in the business of presentation, interpretation, and conservation, and the very nature of new media art makes those three actions difficult. In Jon Ippolito's essay "Death by Wall Label", he says "Like a shark, a new media artwork must keep moving to survive". Museums in their current configuration are clearly a little more at ease with a stationary shark (in the natural history wing, stuffed; or in the contemporary art wing, preserved nicely in formaldehyde, perhaps?) rather than the restless shark-like character of new media. There is no "set it and forget it" if you are in the business of presenting this kind of work.

So what can be done? Several of the contributors offer concrete ways of addressing the gap. Sarah Cook proposes some metaphors for curatorial thinking around these exhibitions: exhibition as software programme/data flow; exhibition as trade show; and exhibition as broadcast. Metaphor and analogy is a tool used throughout, by multiple contributors: Sara Diamond also uses the metaphor of flows in her essay; Caitlin Jones and Carol Stringari use the analogy of removing old, darkened varnish from a nineteenth-century painting when considering the challenges in conserving media works. The heavy use of metaphor and analogy, and making direct links to traditional conservation as Jones and Stringari do with their painting example, will surely make the issues seem less alien to those who are relative newcomers to the presentation and conservation of new media.

Overall this book is an excellent reference and insight into new media from leading thinkers such as Sarah Cook, Jon Ippolito, Charlie Gere, Sara Diamond, and Christiane Paul herself.

More info and to order: New Media in the White Cube and Beyond: Curatorial Models for Digital Art

- Karen Love (Manager of Curatorial Affairs at Vancouver Art Gallery) has written this excellent primer for emerging curators, the Curatorial Toolkit. (PDF download). It's very interesting to look over the bones of our profession, see what the essential, common sense information that we should be imparting to younger generations is. Especially since, with the proliferation of curatorial studies in academia, there may be an emphasis on theory rather than what I would call craft.

- But, lest you think I am anti-theory, I recently was delighted to see (and blogged a quick announcement about) the launch of the Journal for Curatorial Studies, which will be edited by Jim Drobnick and Jennifer Fisher. The first issue of this journal is forthcoming, but I am certain it is one to watch.

- Last but not least, a little personal note. I was recently being interviewed by some university students who wanted opinions from a curator for an imaginary smartphone app they were developing that would allow curators to "shop" for work, and much more. I daydreamed out loud with them about looking at artist profiles and work, and then being able to organise it like a mind-map, developing my own categories and tags. I have such a ragtag collection of notes (both digital and analogue) on art and artists that I want to file away for later, that some kind of application like this seemed like a wonderful dream. Quite suddenly in the middle of the conversation I realised this was a terrible idea -- if it was all public. "I wouldn't want to share that information," I said, to their mild dismay. I realised that if I added a tag such as "dark" or "poetic" or "layered" to an artist or work, (terms that might be a shorthand for so many other things in my own mind) to the artist, or to others, it might not seem merely simplistic, but actually offensive. It might ruin some of the mystery involved in curatorial choices as well (which was a lesser concern). I ended up blurting out to the students, "you wouldn't want to know how sausage is made, either", but that isn't quite what I meant. I meant something nicer, like you wouldn't want to know how much work it was to erect the Eiffel Tower, or something similar. Maybe that is food for thought for you. What would be your dream digital tool? How much sharing would be involved in this tool -- some, none, a little bit? Do you feel like you are making sausage, or building the Eiffel Tower? All I know is that I would love an app that would intelligently record my mind maps of art and artists as I see them or otherwise encounter them -- if it's totally private, and with a self-destruct button too, perhaps.

Welcome to the June edition of Pick 'N Mix, my monthly annotated list of things that caught my eye over the course of the previous month. It's a real jumble of stuff this month! Check it out:

- Firstly, this recent article in LA Weekly talks about MOCA’s Paul Schimmel and the concept of "curatorial ecstasy". Schimmel recounts a moment wherein he reflects on a mentor moving him "...very quickly from the idea of art museums being places that just maintained a history to the museum as a place where you define culture at the moment [...] It was a very activist, engaged approach, stemming from a belief that to begin to define what later will be understood as the history of your particular moment is one of the richest aspects of being a curator."

- I've just noticed that the Icebox in Philadelphia, USA takes curatorial proposals. It's also one of many curatorial proposals wherein it specifically requests that the curator be present for the installation. What it actually says is this: "Curators may not include their own work in the project/exhibition proposal and are expected to be involved in and on-site during the installation process." This statement leads me to two questions: (1) Have artist/curators not got the message yet that including their own work is beyond tacky?, and (2) Do curators feel they do not need to be involved and engaged in the installation process (possibly one of the most interesting moments in the manifestation of your curatorial concept, except in a few (obvious) cases)? I admire the Icebox folk for laying it on the line, but I have to say that confronting what should be clear points like these makes one wonder about that black, white, and grey area called ethics.

- Again on the notion of ethics, but with a different approach, I was intrigued by this post about intangible digital cultural heritage on iCommons: Sarah Kansa and her husband Eric Kansa head The Alexandria Archive Institute, an institution in digital open access for world cultural heritage. Sarah Kansa writes:

"There is no lack of digital content out there. Each community, institution or individual creating and sharing it needs to also take responsibility for preserving it. Currently, content isolated in silos stands the least chance of survival because of its inaccessibility and the lack of portability and re-usability of content. An open access (and open licensing and open standards) approach will go a long way towards preserving our digital cultural heritage in perpetuity, albeit a few years at a time."

Curators who are in the position of making or breaking accessibility to intangible cultural heritage surely feel this pressure. Are institutions supporting moves towards openness, or do curators have to take the lonely path of advocating this alone?

- I had a wonderful time at the IKT Congress in Montreal, and shortly will be posting a report on the Congress here, so keep your RSS readers and browsers poised at attention!

Digital Curatorship: Public Programming in the Information Age is a Connecting Principle event at Culture Lab, Newcastle University, organised in collaboration with the School of Arts and Cultures, 12th February 2008.

This mini-symposium is an opportunity to engage with the constantly evolving nature of practice in the curatorship of digital and new media art. We (Newcastle University) aim to do this by bringing together some of the different constituencies at work in the field both in the North East and beyond, and by providing a platform for different perspectives and informed debate. The event will comprise a series of short presentations from practitioners within the field followed by wider panel discussions including further invited participants.

Likely themes/questions to be addressed might include:

- The natures and identities of digital curatorship (products and processes, changing ideas of the 'artwork'/'artefact', visitor experiences)
- Different professional perspectives on digital curatorship and programming, e.g. those of the artist, artist-curator, curator, technician, educator, artist-educator, conservator, academic etc.
- Digital art and sound/music
- Digital curatorship/programming, installation and site specificity
- Net art and the gallery/exhibition
- Digital curatorship/programming in urban contexts
- Conserving and managing new media in art museum/gallery and exhibition contexts

Speakers include: Chris Whitehead, Michelle Kasprzak, Alistair Robinson, Kirk Woolford, Sarah Cook,
Atau Tanaka, Beryl Graham, Sally Jane Norman.

The panel discussions will pick up and expand upon key themes, issues and ideas which emerge in the preceding talks and will allow for dialogue between speakers and audience members.

The event is linked into the curricula for the postgraduate programmes in Art Museum and Gallery Studies and Art Museum and Gallery Education, but is also open more generally: to staff and students from other programmes, other universities, artists and cultural sector professionals from the region and beyond.

The proceedings may be disseminated in various ways -- through digital recording and streaming and possibly through web or print publication.

Register to attend this free event here.

Links:
Culture Lab
Connecting Principle
Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies
Fine Art Department