20140611 MARIUS WATZ - EYEO FESTIVAL 2014, MINNEAPOLIS

FIELD REPORTS FROM THE TRENCHES

OF ART & TECHNOLOGY
Hard-earned insights from the curious intersection of
art, design and startup culture. Including:
Inconvenient truths about (digital) art
Myths, misconceptions and the realities of being a
professional artist

TWITTER.COM/MARIUSWATZ
MARIUSWATZ.COM
GENERATORX.NO

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WORKSHOP.EVOLUTIONZONE.COM

IMPLICITLY SUBTITLED
Things I Didnt Know About The Art World,
But Really Wish Someone Had Told Me
Ask Me Anything About Art, Love And
Money
I Wanted To Be An Artist But All I Got Was
This Lousy Career (Ok, I stole that one from Nate Lowman)
How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To
Love Art World Capitalism
Why Art School Is A Ponzi Scheme

BUT FIRST, A DETOUR THAT I REALLY WISH

WAS COMPLETELY REDUNDANT.

Dave Schroeder, being awesome.

WE ARE ALL AWESOME. SO WHY DOES

THE WORD BROGRAMMER EVEN EXIST?
The tech, design and startup worlds are full of smart
people.
Sadly, this apparently does not preclude the persistence
of discrimination based on gender, race or sexual
preference.
Diversity is an agreed-upon universal goal, but simply
agreeing does not make it so.
By the way, I am not implying that the Eyeo audience is racist or sexist. Im just
saying stupid shit does go on.

Geek Feminism Wiki

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/

Geek Feminism Wiki

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/

Moritz Stefaner: Gender Balance (2013)

Syreeta McFadden: Teaching the

camera to see my skin

Syreeta McFadden: Teaching the

camera to see my skin

Greg Dorsainville: DataFaces.net

Greg Dorsainville: DataFaces.net

Greg Dorsainville: DataFaces.net

CONCLUSION: BE NICE AND THINK.

The tendency to expect those who are being
discriminated against to speak up tends to silence them.
Worse, it creates further stereotypes (the silly Trekkie
fanboy, the clingy boyfriend, the always-angry feminist)
Acknowledging ones own bias is not admitting fault
or guilt, its being honest. It also allows you to ask
questions in other to learn from others.
To quote a good friend of mine, you can be the best. Or the worst.

AND NOW BACK TO YOUR SCHEDULED

PROGRAMMING.

IMPLICITLY SUBTITLED
Things I Didnt Know About The Art World,
But Really Wish Someone Had Told Me
Ask Me Anything About Art, Love And
Money
I Wanted To Be An Artist But All I Got Was
This Lousy Career (Ok, I stole that one from Nate Lowman)
How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To
Love Art World Capitalism
Why Art School Is A Ponzi Scheme

DISCLAIMER: YOUR MILEAGE MIGHT VARY

The following is a random mix of somewhat provable
facts and highly subjective opinions, framed as
polemical provocations in the tradition of the Devils
Advocate.
Depending on your own experience, you may find my
analysis to be nave, cynical or unreasonable. I can live
with that.
I apologize in advance if the following is overly didactic.
Everyone has an opinion about art, yet the real-world
mechanisms of the art world are not widely understood.

HI, IM MARIUS AND IM AN ARTIST

I never went to art school.
I dropped out of Computer Science studies without
earning a degree, making my bones in the world of
graphic design and dotcom silliness.
I decided to cross over and pursue art full-time
somewhat late (age 30.) As a self-taught digital artist
and ex-designer, I am a twice outsider.

My work

ART: THE BASICS

First things first:
Being an artist is a job, not a hobby. Not all artists make
art full-time, but that does not make them hobbyists.
Art is a type of labor, artworks are commodities.
As such, the production and dissemination of art is
governed by the rules of the market it is created and
sold in.
Yet the vast majority of art consumers (i.e. lay
audiences) are largely ignorant of the mechanics of the
art world.

ART VS. DESIGN?

The divide between art and design is more vague than
ever, yet remains all too real.
Utilitarian function is no longer a signifier of design.
Design fiction? Design Art? Similarly: Social /
discursive /relational art? Water wells in Africa as art
project? Embrace the weirdness.
Nevertheless, mutual skepticism makes crossing over
problematic.

ART IS NOT DESIGN, IS NOT ART.

Art is not design, and vice versa. This is not a question of
relative value or even content, it is simply a question of
markets and context.
Whether a project is art or design can no be determined
from its style, form or content. The only practical
differentiation is found by looking at which market a given
project was created for, and what kind of discourse it is
placed within.
Ps. Art is not implicitly better than design in any way, in many ways quite the
opposite. So stop apologizing, already.

DEFINING ART
A few conceivable, non-exclusive options:
A practice of self-initiated creative expression, possibly
based on certain physical tools of production and
material constraints, or defined through non-material
means, such as conceptual, social, discursive and
performative devices
A form of experiential research and knowledge
production, unrestricted by academic or scientific
conventions, often dealing with irrational aspects of the
human experience

DEFINING ART
The production and trade of low-volume luxury goods
in a true gray market economy, valued according to
artificially manipulated parameters (fame, scarcity,
exclusive access)
A social party game, played either for kicks (free booze)
or keeps (social status)
Art is anything sold in the art market
(a personal favorite, origin sadly unknown)

HELLO, ART WORLD!

The art world is a rigged game, played by ill-defined
rules that benefit the very few. (That 1% idea again.)
The art market is exponentially hierarchical, displaying
an inverse long tail logic. Unless youre at the top, you
have little leverage.
The hierarchy consists of a series of bottlenecks and
taste makers: Curators, critics + art bloggers,
gallerists, opening the doors to galleries, art fairs,
museums, biennials.

HELLO, ART WORLD!

Crucial concept: Scarcity.
Applies to art objects as value indicator (sold as uniques,
editions or multiples)
Also applies to resources within the art world itself: From
grant-based funding to access to exhibition opportunities.
(Consider the ever-diminshing ratio of artists to galleries,
museums and collectors)

REALITY CHECK: ARTISTS

Plentiful and eminently replaceable population, marked by
rapid turn-over.
Dismal 5-year survival rates. Most artists quit. Most art is
never collected.
To be successful, artists must juggle making (preferably
great) work, courting curators and gallerists, taking care
of business.
Artists must also diversify activities to provide multiple
revenue streams. Simple survival is often the order of the
day.

DIGITAL ART IN A CONTEMPORARY

ART WORLD
Digital art is doing just awesome, thanks. But even
though the quality of work is higher than ever, digital
art remains marginal from an art world perspective.
Dedicated digital art galleries remain few in number,
although some galleries include digital artists in their
rosters.
Digital work is rarely seen in fairs or at auctions, even
less so in biennials or museums.

DIGITAL ART IN A CONTEMPORARY

ART WORLD
Digital art often relies on a specialized vocabulary and
theoretical concepts, derived largely from technological
concerns. This is an alienating factor when digital art
attempts to cross over into contemporary art.
Domenico Quaranta (loose paraphrase): Digital art had
a date wtih contemporary art, but showed up wearing
the wrong outfit.

DIGITAL ART MYTHS

Myth: There are no great works of digital art.
Myth: Digital art is uncritical eye candy.
Myth: Digital art cant be collected.
Myth: Digital art is only concerned with novelty, and has
no history.

DIGITAL ART MYTHS

Myth: Digital art is concerned with technology itself.
(False: Plenty of digital art deals with abstraction and
code-based extensions of painting / drawing practices)
Myth: Digital art is primarily screen-based.
(False: Some of the most successful digital artworks
employ physical artifacts to overcome the computer /
audience separation. Also: Digital fabrication.)

LESS MONEY, MO PROBLEMS

Survival as a digital artist is a constant challenge.
In Europe arts funding has historically enabled a vibrant
scene based on a festival model. Festivals are not always
great art spaces, but do allow for large-scale projects.
In the US, there are no festivals and little funding.
Hence, digital art is rarely seen on a large scale.
Consequence: Major brain drain from the art scene to
the creative coding / agency world.

LESS MONEY, MO PROBLEMS

Given the difficulties digital artists face in accessing the
mainstream art market, alternative funding models are
needed.
Promising developments: Crowd-funding, online direct
sales. However: These come with their own challenges.
However: Art world frowns on direct sales. Going back
to a gallery model might not be possible.

CLOUDS Kickstarter

Nervous System shop

Nervous System shop

Adam Harvey: Privacy Gift Shop

http://privacygiftshop.com

Adam Harvey: Privacy Gift Shop

http://privacygiftshop.com

Paddle8.com (online auction house)

Phillips de Pury subsidiary

s[edition]
http://seditionart.com

DIGITAL ART: BEST PRACTICES

In 2010 I co-curated the exhibition Abstrakt Abstrakt
- The Systemized World with Eno Henze for the NODE
Festival in Frankfurt.
Shown at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, Abstrakt
abstrakt presented works that exemplify some of the
unique forms that digital art can take - as well as
occasional commentary on the digital itself.
In all (false) modesty, in my opinion this exhibition
represents a kind of best practices of digital art mature works investigating new experiences related to
computational logic, w/o the banality of novelty.

Abstrakt Abstrakt - The Systemized World

Curators: Eno Henze, Marius Watz
NODE10, Frankfurter Kunstverein

Brandon Morse: Achilles

Ben Fry / Fathom - All Streets

Ben Fry / Fathom - All Streets

John Powers - Gods Comic (Fat Bastard)

John Powers - Gods Comic (Fat Bastard)

Ralf Baecker - The Conversation

Robert Hodgin - Sketches

SOFTlab - (n)arcissus

SOFTlab - (n)arcissus

Zimoun - 175 prepared DC

motors, filler wire 1.0 mm

Zimoun - 175 prepared DC

motors, filler wire 1.0 mm

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!

Marius Watz is:
marius@mariuswatz.com
@mariuswatz
http://mariuswatz.com
http://www.generatorx.no
http://workshop.evolutionzone.com
http://flickr.com/photos/watz