Page 173 - The Black Box Book

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