Page 172 - The Black Box Book

C OVI D -1 9 AS A G R E AT
EQUALIZER: REALITY OR MYTH?
The spread of COVID-19 at the beginning of the year 2020, put
the whole world in a position of forced pause. For a short moment,
the global pandemic presented itself as a great equalizer, forcing people
across various geographies to reconsider and change their habits and
behaviors. However, the social and economic costs of the pandemic did
not spread evenly across the globe. Vulnerable people and communities
were hit harder, and pre-existing social inequalities were reinforced. In this
context, technology played a double role, acting as a social glue among
geographically dislocated communities and people, whilst also render-
ing more palpable the so-called digital divide – a term which is used in
the social sciences to refer to the gap between the information ‘haves’
and ‘have-nots’ and, more generally, to uneven access to technology and
network infrastructures.
The pandemic has also emphasized another digital divide,
the one between contemporary art and new media art. Claire Bishop used
the term in 2012 (Bishop, 2012) to suggest that the overlaps between
the fields of contemporary art and new media are rare and she presented
the latter as a niche and specialized subfield of the former, with its own
discourse, star system and network of distribution. Her opinion was widely
criticized by new media advocates, who refuted the subordinate distinction
of new media art to mainstream contemporary art and reacted against
the proposition that code is alien to human perception. However, the fierce
tone of the debate testified to the fact that these two fields indeed rely
upon different systems of reference and cultural paradigms. A few years
later, Bishop revised her argument in a book essay to include some of
her later reflections on the subject. She chose a provoking title for her
essay Sweeping, dumb and aggressively ignorant!: revisiting ‘Digital Divide’
(Bishop in Cornell & Halter, 2015), which she borrowed from a comment
written in response to her original article.
As I have argued elsewhere (Tedone, 2019), the digital divide, orig-
inally diagnosed by Bishop in relation to the critical receptions of new
media art, has also translated into curatorial practice, contributing to
polarizing the positions of new media curators and contemporary art cu-
rators. This digital divide of curatorial practices can be understood both
as a condition and a response to a number of different factors. First,
the networked infrastructure and level of digital literacy which curators rely
upon and have access to when conducting their projects and activities.
Second, the different theoretical references and historical genealogies
that make up the fields’ intellectual discourses. Third, the different market
dynamics which have an impact on the circulation of artworks and their
sales, as well as the employability of curators inside both the academic
and the museums’ sectors.
Although this curatorial digital divide affects the so-called interna-
tional art world globally, it can be more easily detected in those coun-
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tries in which there is a lack of public funding and institutional framing
for digital practices, and more generally a low level of digital literacy. For
instance, Italy, which is the vantage point from which my observations
take place, represents an interesting case in point in this respect. Whilst
there is a small but vibrant community and network of practitioners when
it comes to new media art, the institutional representation of new media
art is sparse, which is reflected also in the absence of the work position of
the digital art curator inside museums and galleries – a profession which
is still largely unrecognized in the art and cultural sector. Consequently,
the relationship between art and digital technology tends to be framed
under the umbrella of “art communication” instead of, for example, digital
programming; thus, the range of activities that involve anything digital in-
side the museums falls into the job description of “social media manager”.
Beyond the idiosyncrasies of the Italian context, I want to argue
more generally that the pandemic has paradoxically even scaled up
the divide between the modes of curating of contemporary art and digital
art, by causing a forced migration online of those mainstream contempo-
rary art institutions which, up until that moment, had neglected the Web
as a site of cultural production. Conversely, the new media art commu-
nity reacted to the frantic and often banal online exhibitions and cultural
events acceleration by quitting their online activities for a while to take
a pause for reflection.
ONLINE OR NOTHING: THE CONTROVERSY
In the mainstream media the pandemic was described as an
opportunity for the digital renaissance of the art sector, as a new era of
digitalization of culture. For example, Laura Feinstein wrote the following
statement in The Guardian published on the 8th of April 2020:
“The pandemic, incredibly, is ushering in a golden age of virtual
media, making good on the initial promise of digital, while offering
new life and unprecedented access to some of the world’s cultural
touchstones, some previously financially or physically inaccessible.
While the world has never felt more physically isolated, digital media
have offered a bridge, as well as an exciting range of experiences.”
(Feinstein, 2020)
One needs to consider the set of examples the author used in support of
her argument to fully understand my skepticism about this claim. More
specifically, she used examples drawn from the mainstream contempo-
rary art world to support her argument. Thus, for instance, the devel-
opment of Online Viewing Rooms (OVR) in art fairs, such as Art Basel;
or, of podcast series such as the one developed by the prestigious
David Zwirner Gallery in New York. However, the article fails to ac-
knowledge that there is a whole history of art practices intersecting
with the development and application of networked and web technol-
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