Dear ASPECT friends:
After ten years, twenty-six DVDs and the published works of over 200 artists, the staff and board of ASPECT have decided to stop publishing our DVD periodical. Looking back on what we have accomplished, it is no understatement to say that we took on the art world and changed the way it looks at new media art.
When ASPECT published our first DVD in 2003 there were few, if any, dedicated new media programs at the graduate or undergraduate level in the world. Youtube and Facebook did not yet exist. At that time the idea of getting video directly from artists and publishing it for the use and consumption of universities, students and other artists was considered impossible. A DVD periodical was an unknown idea, and it took several years to educate the public as to the potential of such a format.
Today, new media art programs exist at universities around the world. Many artists publish their work on their own website or on video sharing services. Video art is a much more accepted and understood medium, and the broader genre of new media art has been accepted and integrated into galleries, museums and academia. However, the concept of pairing primary source material and critical analysis in the same publication remains unique to ASPECT.
The world has changed around us and accepted the genre, format and approach that ASPECT has been highlighting. Therefore it is time for us to say thank you to all the artists who have contributed their work, the commentators who have lent their time and expertise, and the staff and volunteers over the years who have made this publication possible.
Bill Arning, director of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and a renowned expert on new media who was involved with ASPECT from its beginnings recalls, “When ASPECT started there was great confusion about how art lovers and students were to experience time-based artworks, with no clearly defined distribution systems in place. ASPECT’s vision was to put DVDs directly into the hands of eager viewers until the art world mechanisms could catch up to what the best artists were making. I am proud to have been part of this history.”
In Spring 2013, we will be publishing our final release, Volume 21: A Good Place to Stop. We hope you have enjoyed ASPECT over the past ten years, and will continue to use our disks and online resources for years to come.
Thank you.
Michael Mittelman
Founder
V19: Communication
As tools of communication evolve, so does language itself. While globalization expands our notion of community and networked culture shrinks the boundaries between public and private, the strategies through which we communicate are thrown into question. In light of this questioning, Volume 19 features works that address language and communication as their primary subjects and tools.
V18: Export China
In recent decades, China has undergone massive social, economic and cultural change, altering its citizens’ view of the world and themselves. China’s artists have rapidly absorbed and reinterpreted the pluralistic styles of Western art, using them to translate the unique realities of life in contemporary China. In turn, many Western artists interested in the play between the individual and society have turned their attention to China as a complex and often culturally loaded subject.
OPEN CALL DUE APRIL 1, 2012
ASPECT: The Chronicle of New Media Art, a biannual DVD publication, is currently accepting submissions of time-based work for V20: THE CINEMATIC.
New genres of artmaking are heavily informed by the cultural, formal, and theoretical issues surrounding popular cinema. We seek works that explore the complex relationship between cinema and new media. We will review installation, video, performance, sound and any other work best documented in time-based format.
We are excited to announce the launch of the ASPECT app for the iPad. This new system allows you to gain access to the entire ASPECT collection on your iPad at an inexpensive flat rate. An invaluable educational tool, the app functions as a unique primary source textbook of new media art. Search and browse the entire ASPECT catalogue and create your own playlists of time-based artwork. Purchase access for one day, a semester, or an entire year for yourself or your students.
Now available for purchase online!
ASPECT-EZ Volumes 1 & 2: Strangely Funny & Failure are now available on a single DVD, featuring over 25 works in video, new media, and performance art. ASPECT-EZ is an ongoing series of exhibitions, events and limited-run DVDs showcasing work from emerging artists.
ASPECT-EZ is a new series of events and DVD publications coordinated by ASPECT to provide support for emerging artists. These events will be under the auspices of the curatorial team at ASPECT, and produced by young interns and guest organizers. Deja Vu is the fourth installment of ASPECT-EZ. For this volume we are seeking time-based works that explore repetition, ritual, nostalgia, found footage, or time in general.
V17: Hi-Tech
Volume 17: Hi-Tech features ten artists working at the intersection of new ideas in art and technology. Its release follows Volume 16: Lo-Tech, and the two function not as a timeline of emerging technologies in art, but as two poles between which most new media artists find themselves working today.
Volume 16: Lo-tech presents nine artists who work with basic, or in some cases antiquated technology, either as an aesthetic or technical choice. As the rate of technological advancement increases, nostalgia for fleeting technologies swells. The term lo-tech also describes modern techniques and equipment that are no longer cutting-edge. Today’s innovative technology is tomorrow’s lo-tech with the accompanying cultural and psychological references, connotations, and baggage.
In these works, bodies cooperate with electricity to transmit signals, stickers function as pixels, plastic letters and water work wonders, video is addressed as construction paper, anthropomorphic shrimp roam the streets, home movies are transformed, an homage is paid to an iconic drumbreak, the mechanics of the view camera are exploited, and neighbors engage through video.
Featuring work by:
• Shannon Castleman, with commentary by Weng Choy Lee
• Matthew Gamber, with commentary by Amani Olu
• Hotel Modern, with commentary by John Bell
• Jeff Kolar, with commentary by Meredith Kooi
This work is an excerpt. The full work will appear on V.17 Hi-tech.
• LoVid, with commentary by Ed Halter
• Linda Price-Sneddon, with commentary by Nick Capasso
• Joshua Rosenstock, with commentary by Wayne Marshall
• Tore Terrassi, with commentary by Benjamin Lima
• TheGreenEyl, with commentary by Peter Hall
We are pleased to announce the release of ASPECT Volume 15: Influence & Reference. For the purposes of publishing in ASPECT, the definition of New Media is anything better documented with a video camera than a still camera. However, the broader definition of New Media is still vigorously debated. At ASPECT we believe that there are two definitive qualities of this genre of art: that the materials are in a constant state of flux and evolution, and that artists practicing within this field tend to find their inspiration outside the art world.
