No Media 2022
Curated by: Lisa Gwilliam & Ray Sweeten
With special thanks to Kristin Lucas and Microscope Gallery for their support on this project.
We are pleased to announce the launch of No Media, a curated collection of browser-based artworks that do not use pre-existing video/image/audio files. In this first installment of No Media, we have assembled works from a group of ten artists, representing a wide range of practices and perspectives. Through encounters with the browser, the work raises questions regarding the state of the digital medium and culture at large.
It's easy to get caught up in the endless possibilities of what can, or should, be made with technology. We began this project with the idea of setting material limitations on the digital space in order to challenge our reliance on media files as a way to structure internet-based work. By excluding media files, we want to make any resulting audio/visual experience the product of an engagement with material that is specific and unique to browsers and to digital media itself. These digital materials may include JavaScript, HyperText, CSS, in a word, code. By reducing the primacy of media files in the creative process, our goal is to begin to approach browser-based work and internet art from a simple but fundamentally different perspective, and to perhaps allow alternate questions to surface.
In the process of organizing this online exhibition, a number of important discussions emerged amongst the group which are worth mentioning here as context for the current lineup and to point to areas deserving of further exploration here on the No Media platform:
- What is the substance of our digital interactions in the absence of audio, image, or video files which signify a specific type of experience and obscure the underlying structures and processes we are consuming?
- What are the real-world implications of relying on media files as a mode of communication? Can we in some small way reduce our internet-based carbon footprint by removing media files altogether, reducing the heavy bandwidth and server/streaming resources they predicate, even as we understand that energy consumption at the 'end-user' device is still at issue?
- Is there a space for people who require accessibility features to utilize technology to engage with internet-based art?
- Is it possible to create works that embody our human experiences while refraining from fetishizing aesthetics and technologies?
It is our hope that the work we present here at No Media now and in the coming years will begin to explore answers to these and many other questions relating to how we engage with digital mediums as artists.