Microblog é arte?
Interessante artigo de Tom Sherman, publicado no IDC e replicado no Networked_Performance, com o título “are microcommunications an art form?”, nos faz pensar sobre o uso de SMS, MSN e microblogs como Jaiku ou Twitter.
Vejam trechos abaixo e leiam o texto na íntegra:
“The 21st century is awash with messaging. Instant messaging, text messaging, voice messaging, email and social-networking profiles with digital photos and video galore… Messages are traded in real time and left all over the place to be picked up later. Messages are signals that confirm and reaffirm one’s presence. I send messages daily, hourly, periodically and relentlessly; therefore, I exist, and control the way I’m perceived, to a certain extent.
Microcommunication technologies adorn our bodies. This gear augments our senses and teleports our appearance. Where are you now? I’m over here. I feel like getting a bite to eat. I’m all dressed up and looking for action. Listen to me. Check out my new look. I’m completely up to date. I’m wired and I smell good.
(…)
The early 21st century is a time of collapsing boundaries: between disciplines and roles, between nations and societies, between corporations and institutions and networks. Art and life are no longer easily differentiated categories of experience. Great masses of individuals across the globe are acting like artists, composing and grooming self-portraits and building their own social sculptures on MySpace, Facebook and YouTube. Locative technologies, mobile telephony and computing, including GPS, encourage the exploration of landscape and reports from the road. Digital photography and streaming video pour into riptides of voice and text messaging.
A lot of this social-networking activity involves simply using micro-telecommunications technology, wireless transceivers, to develop identity/security blankets, a way of fighting against the crushing void and lonely vacuum of urban life. Artists have always sought attention for similar selfish, survivalist reasons. For those who choose to fortify their identities through social discourse, there are plenty of good socio-political reasons to send messages, such as collapsing civil liberties and environmental devastation. Networks are a dream come true for activists of all stripes.
(…)
Today, personal messaging is our primary mode of communication. Messaging is the act of going public with a thought or image or video stream instantly, hourly, daily—a kind of thinking out loud or speaking in media. Marshall McLuhan predicted a return to orality with the introduction of electronic, speed-of-light modes of communication. How much fun would it be to bring McLuhan back to life and hand him an iPhone!? Today’s digital, electronic orality is practised across a full range of media.
The act of writing a novel, or spending a year improvising in a studio before bringing out a suite of paintings for a public exhibition, or pulling together the resources to make a feature film, is a different kind of communication: perhaps Messaging with a very large capital M! With these more deeply considered, more substantial compositions, value is created by concentrating thought and action into a self-critical, rigorous process of refinement and selection, leading to releases of greater complexity, density and scale. Surely a work of art and a phone call made to order a pizza are not the same kind of message. As storm after storm of raw messaging rages and howls, maybe the public’s hunger for considered, seasoned releases of well-cooked art will increase and deepen, and traditionally respected art activities, no matter how arcane (or perhaps the more arcane the better), will be appreciated and devoured by people with a natural immunity to psychologically and socially addictive messaging behaviour?
(…)
Can personal messaging, the quick and dirty, fragmented messaging that is inseparable from daily life, be considered an art form? The easiest argument against ordinary messaging as an art form involves lack of quality. Most of the millions of messages issued everyday are inconsequential and inane. Then there is the broader doubt about whether something so common has any value. People are quick to point out that while there may be millions of passionate, intelligent, creative people authoring messages, freshening up self-portraits, defining social scenes and highlighting landscapes and locales on MySpace, Facebook or YouTube, how can anyone find exemplary individuals amid the clamour and roar of the networks? How would we identify and enhance the profile of truly remarkable artists without institutions like galleries and museums and their gatekeepers—the critics, curators and dedicated audiences supporting these institutions? Can important innovators and role models emerge in cultures dominated by inclusive, indiscriminate networks? Networks to date haven’t functioned like galleries and museums, catalogues or magazines. And don’t these massive social networks engineer psychological and social conformity through their software templates? (…)”
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