infobong.com

A few days ago, I picked up what I thought was the latest issue of Afterimage, which is a journal about media arts. I used to read it back when I thought I was going into the media arts field, but I found it interesting, but a little disappointing. It focused a little too heavily on the nuts-and-bolts of working in the arts.

This issue was different. Flipping through at the newstand, I found many more articles about politics and issues in art, so I picked it up. The editors note said that the magazine was relaunching to provide more coverage on issues like media literacy, video art, new technologies, and "the intersections of text and image." The product is a pretty good magazine for someone like me with interests in both media studies and media-making.

In particular, I enjoyed the interview with Steve Kurtz, the cofounder of Critical Art Ensemble and SUNY-Buffalo prof facing federal charges for keeping biomaterials he was using in a piece. (Prentiss and I saw Kurtz speak at last year's Parallax View, and I quite enjoyed his talk.) In the interview, Kurtz talks about his background and the formation of CAE. I found one description of his experience of graduate school thought-provoking:

The words "concrete cultural practices" stood out in my mind, and I think helped me clarify some of my frustrations with graduate school. I really enjoy discussing and critiquing media and its influence on culture, but I do feel like I would engage in more concrete cultural practices, making art or media or trouble. This is hardly an original thought, but writing for professors and peers hardly seems like an effective or, at least, efficient means of acting on my interests. It does seem, too, that either academic culture or my particular situation discourages praxis. I had to choose between doing research and doing art, and the compartmentalization between cultural studies and cultural production limits crossover.