Page 33 - The Black Box Book

D I G I T A L C UR A TI N G Tedone refers to ‘networked co-curation’ as a distributed, decentralized,
1
collaborative, networked, and performative process and practice of online
The discourse surrounding the curation of contemporary media curation and provides some examples of such practice. She mentions the
art is strongly shaped by the environment in which it is realized (digital work by artist Arthur Jafa, Love is the message, the message is death
network environment) and the artistic medium (digital technologies). (2016), or the online project curated by Zhang Ga, We=Link: Ten Easy
The environment and medium largely determine thinking not only about Pieces (2020). (Tedone, in her chapter of this publication) To underline
the production but also the distribution and presentation of art, as a cu- the shift in attention of the networked co-curation “from ‘what’ is pro-
ratorial practice is closely linked to technological and social and cultural duced and exhibited to ‘ how’ it is performed”, Dekker and Tedone (2019)
developments. From this environment, represented by artists, theorists, analyze the curatorial and artistic projects #exstrange: a curatorial
and curators, the conceptual field that defines the discourse emerged in intervention on eBay (where curators Marialaura Ghidini and Rebekah
the thinking about strategies and methods of mediating digital art. Modrak appropriated in 2017 the commercial, auction-based platform
eBay) and Harm van den Dorpel’s DeliNear.Info (2014), an experimental
CURATORIAL DIGITAL DIVIDE space situated in-between ‘a sketchbook, a social platform, and an archive’
Gaia Tedone (2019, 2020) situates the term ‘digital divide’ (which in (Dekker 2015). While curatorial activity within the framework of networked
the context of the social sciences signifies unequal access to technolo- co-curation heavily relies on digital tools and networked infrastructure,
gies and network infrastructures, and which art critic Claire Bishop (2012) both projects represent “forms of creativity that emerge as the result of
borrowed to think about the relationship between new technologies and unpredicted encounters on online platforms [and] show how online curation
contemporary art, understanding new media as a subfield of contempo- is performed ‘ in’ and ‘through’ human and technical objects, relations and
rary art, albeit with its discourse and network of distribution) in the milieu interactions”. (Dekker & Tedone, 2019) As a critical ‘operational strategy’
of curatorial practice. (Tedone, 2019) She asserts that the ‘digital divide’ and ‘theoretical concept’, networked co-curation could be well suited to
contributes to the polarization of the position of new media art curators “ become a method for producing cultural differentiation and valorization
and contemporary art curators. The digital divide of curatorial practice, under the current state of privatization, corporatization and commodifi-
Tedone argues, is both a condition and a response to many factors: cation of the Web”. (Dekker & Tedone, 2019)

“First, the networked infrastructure and level of digital literacy which CURATING ONLINE/CURATING ON THE WEB
curators rely upon and have access to when conducting their pro- Marialaura Ghidini distinguishes between the terms ‘curating online’
jects and activities. Second, the different theoretical references and and ‘curating on the web’ (2019), considering ‘curating on the web’ as
historical genealogies that make up the fields’ intellectual discours- a subset of ‘curating online’ in that she understands ‘curating on
es. Third, the different market dynamics which have an impact on the web’ as a site-specific approach, for exhibitions realized in a web-
the circulation of artworks and their sales, as well as the employabil- based environment. Namely, this perspective enables new ways of pro-
ity of curators inside both the academic and the museums’ sectors.” ducing and displaying digital art. Also, according to Ghidini, “‘curating on
(Tedone, 2020) the web’ is, at its core, responding to the characteristics of the web me-
dium, its tools and interfaces”. (Ghidini, 2019) Ghidini (2019) believes that
NETWORKED CO-CURATION the testing of the networked environment and its research has enabled
Developments in the practice of collective and network curating have the emergence of online spaces for the mediation of artworks: “with
contributed to a shift of the curatorial agency from online curation to the mass use of the web, exhibitions have evolved from spaces displaying
‘networked co-curation.’ (Dekker, ed., 2021). At the time when an enormous web-specific art to platforms that nurture its production and different ways
variability of constellations formed by “a collision of different interests driv- of engaging audiences” (Ghidini, 2019, p. 4) Concerning this situation,
en by economic, cultural, and socio-political agendas” and the emergence she finds it beneficial in the process of ‘curating on the web’ to think of
of new relations consisting of “ human and machinic agents, objects and the platform as an open-ended and grass-roots process rather than
practices, [...] a curator needs to take into account a complex interrelated a set of objects and a space that “focuses on a certain kind of cultural
network of dependencies and contexts that are often invisible or incom- practice”. (Goriunova, 2012)
prehensible to most people. In such a scenario online curation becomes
‘networked co-curation’ and shifts the attention from ‘what’ is produced
to ‘ how’ it is performed under the socio-technical conditions and relations 1 Further analysis of the term available in Tedone, G. (2019). Curating
The Networked Image: Circulation, Commodification, Computation. PhD
that characterize the current state of the Web”. (Dekker & Tedone, 2019) Diss. London South Bank University.

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