Summary – Media Art Zones – but where’s the Media?

By Anna Munster

Munster, A 2006, ‘Media art zones - but where’s the media?’ in N Bullock & R Keehan (eds), Zones of Contact 2006 Biennale of Sydney, Artspace Visual Arts Centre Ltd, Sydney, pp.55-60.

Munster opens the essay by stating two common attitudes towards international biennales and festivals opined in American art journals: firstly that these exhibitions tend to be ‘dreary and politically correct’ aimed more at teaching than aesthetics and secondly that often viewers have to endure sitting through boring media art.

Munster asserts that these art writers are missing out engaging with contemporary media art and pans across to the Sydney biennale 2006 to examine this aspect in more detail. This biennale for Munster has brought Sydney up to date with ‘a far-reaching swathe of international artists’ as well as the ‘increasingly centre stage position’ that media arts has gained since early 2000s which Sydney hitherto was not exposed to or engaged with. Munster defines her view of media work as ‘providing reflexive and critical relations to media and media technologies’ as it has done since its development in the 1950s. She observes how audiences of the opening weekend of the Sydney Biennale did not seem to suffer from the ‘fatigue or often touted perplexity’ associated with technological art and affirms this by exploring eight new media works in a discursive framework of the biennale and new media as a whole.

Rafael Lozano Hemmer

Homographies (2006)

Munster praises Rafael Lozano Hemmer’s ‘sophisticated, interactive ‘artwork Homographies (2006) for being reflexive of the ‘myths, powers and functioning of the media machine’ by ‘denaturalising the relations and connections between people, technologies and representation’. Munster then explores media works by Shilpa Gupta, Sebastian Diaz Morales, The Atlas Group, and Ruti Sela & Maayan Amir and crediting these works for turning ‘the media machine ‘ inside out and fragmenting it instead of feeding it. She states specific ways that these works subvert and confound typical consumption and viewing of mainstream media through the very conventions of this new media causing reflexivity and critical thinking towards truth and representation. Munster states that the biennale exhibited ‘a sufficient degree of representation’ in new media arts yet suggest this biennale could ‘go further in exploring the experimental frontiers of these practices’.

Munster then critiques certain curatorial decisions and placements of works which, for Munster, fell short of their potential for creating engaging dialogue for example in the case of Japanese artists Muneteru’s The Rotators (2004-6) and Tabaimo’s hanabi-ra (2003). She also critiques the Sydney Biennale’s venues for display of media works exploring shortcomings within the physical spaces of exhibition as well as commenting on the placement of media arts on the periphery instead of the ‘big gun venues’. Munster concludes by suggesting that the biennale should venture into the untapped territory of online forums such as blogs, chats and video conferencing as alternative venues allowing for connection and engagement with younger artists and audiences and existing ‘networks and users engaged in debate and production of and about art’. This would enable a more dynamic engagement with new media arts in Australia and make it an ‘integral and constitutive element of future Sydney Biennales’.

This was an interesting read 8 years later and after visiting the 2014 Sydney Biennale where new media arts was the most prevalent element in my experience. It would be fascinating to see Anna Munster's take on this most recent biennale. For me personally I found in general the artwork at 2014 Biennale on the high end spectrum of professional production and articulation. Yet I experience a reticence and hesitance to use it within my own practice knowing that I am lacking in expertise and equipment yet wowed by what is possible.