On December 19th, EZTV in collaboration with Crazy Space Gallery, hosted a panel discussion by four major digital art pioneers- David Em, Tony Longson, Michael Wright and panel moderator Paul Brown. THis was part of an exhibition called "Hacking the Timeline- a non-definative history of digital art". Because of the success of this panel, EZTV will make Hacking the Timeline an on-going series, curating exhibitions, staging panel discusisons and videotaping interviews with digital pioneers. These events will take place at EZTV and other venues.
Below is the mainfesto Michael Masucci wrote for the series opening:
"The past fifty years have seen the creation, advancement and proliferation of digital and electronic artists' tools, whose emergence has forced a new vocabulary that is as different from the "artspeak" of contemporary museum culture as dance vocabulary is different from the nomenclature of theater. Long before the mass popularization of Photoshop and desktop video, artists have experimented with both high- and low-tech solutions to the creation of digital art, often inventing new applications in the process. Concurrent with these innovations has been the development of an alternative exhibition venue system, centered in the eighties and early nineties in Los Angeles at EZTV (www.eztvmedia.com). This exhibition presents a survey of some of the major artists associated with this community-based movement.The ability to document this history through a variety of media and ephemera has allowed for the possibility of a self-directed timeline, which, in addition to recognizing the contributions of the core digital pioneers, also takes into account the divergent and disenfranchised elements of contemporary computer and hacker culture.Some initial academic attempts to define a historical timeline have been flawed in a variety of ways, from excluding key figures and developments in the timeline, to ignoring the enormous contributions of alternative spaces in fostering a wider acceptance of digital and electronic art. In addition to the work usually seen in (and embraced) by museums, galleries, universities, and other "digerati"-type institutions, artists from rave and hip-hop culture, computer hackers, agitprop theorists and other digital dropouts have been paving as significant a historical path as their more mainstream counterparts. Several of the artists in this exhibition have already been acknowledged as critically forceful pioneers and advocates in the timeline, while others are emerging into more widespread critical acceptance. In any case, each of these artists is clearly making a difference in the general awareness of digital art as the most important advancement in contemporary visual culture".
Below is the mainfesto Michael Masucci wrote for the series opening:
"The past fifty years have seen the creation, advancement and proliferation of digital and electronic artists' tools, whose emergence has forced a new vocabulary that is as different from the "artspeak" of contemporary museum culture as dance vocabulary is different from the nomenclature of theater. Long before the mass popularization of Photoshop and desktop video, artists have experimented with both high- and low-tech solutions to the creation of digital art, often inventing new applications in the process. Concurrent with these innovations has been the development of an alternative exhibition venue system, centered in the eighties and early nineties in Los Angeles at EZTV (www.eztvmedia.com). This exhibition presents a survey of some of the major artists associated with this community-based movement.The ability to document this history through a variety of media and ephemera has allowed for the possibility of a self-directed timeline, which, in addition to recognizing the contributions of the core digital pioneers, also takes into account the divergent and disenfranchised elements of contemporary computer and hacker culture.Some initial academic attempts to define a historical timeline have been flawed in a variety of ways, from excluding key figures and developments in the timeline, to ignoring the enormous contributions of alternative spaces in fostering a wider acceptance of digital and electronic art. In addition to the work usually seen in (and embraced) by museums, galleries, universities, and other "digerati"-type institutions, artists from rave and hip-hop culture, computer hackers, agitprop theorists and other digital dropouts have been paving as significant a historical path as their more mainstream counterparts. Several of the artists in this exhibition have already been acknowledged as critically forceful pioneers and advocates in the timeline, while others are emerging into more widespread critical acceptance. In any case, each of these artists is clearly making a difference in the general awareness of digital art as the most important advancement in contemporary visual culture".