@sixtyandfour I suck at timing... So if you’re still interested.... the paper focused on the application of relational aesthetics to viewing digital art.... It’s just a surface level analysis that will hopefully provide footing for something bigger... Here’s some stuff that helped me build my case. :)
Mostly, it required building a case that suggested relationships exist between users and algorithms and by extension Internet art: “the principle theme that emerges when considering Internet art is relationships – relationships between people, places, events, objects, ideas, and ultimately relationships between algorithms themselves” (Elwell 2011:87).
For my example of relational aesthetics I used Franko B’s I Miss You! and this definition of relational aesthetics: “the increasing centrality of relationships (e.g., of exchange, collaboration, and participation) [in] contemporary artistic practices” (Doyle 2013:89). An important aspect of Franko B.’s performance is the effect it has in defamiliarizing the museum’s affective space. This means that the museum, with its conventional susceptibilities, have been transformed to accommodate the artist’s purpose. It functions merely as a platform for the performance to take place.
I used Laura Brothers’ work as my example of scrolling and relational aesthetics:
In an interview Brothers described her approach to LiveJournal as an exhibition space:
I assume that the way in which my work is normally viewed is through the action of scrolling. You’re on a computer and you are gliding the images in succession past your gaze. I liken this to a sort of super slow motion filmstrip. It’s a way of storytelling. For a post, each individual image is viewed in relation to the one that comes before it and the one that follows. Meanwhile, they are all sort of floating in an endless black space. There’s no real clear-cut definition between the images in this context. So to me, within each post, each distinct image is really part of the same piece; the same story. (Connor 2015).
One big paragraph that explains my position on scrolling:
It requires the work of the viewer’s physical body to navigate through a website by moving their fingers on a mouse or mouse pad. It can also include physically touching the screen of a tablet or smart phone (on an iPad or iPhone for example) to move the screen upwards or downwards. Scrolling requires the Internet user to interact with the space in order to view the work. Scrolling requires the viewer to play a significant role in the work through participatory action. It may be suggested that a viewer of Brothers’ work is in some way performing a relationship with the work. There is an implied intimacy between the viewer and the action of scrolling.
