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From Collectivate Course Wikis
The term culture industry was coined by Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895-1973) who argued that popular culture is like a factory producing standardised cultural goods to manipulate the masses into passivity. [Wikipedia http://www.wikipedia.org ]. The terminology has more recently been co-opted by bureaucracies, businesses and educational institutions, which the UK department for culture, media and sport, as one such example, describe as “those industries which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property”. If this is the case are artists and particularly those working with contemporary technologies now merely functionaries in this new growth industry?
In an interview with Steve Dietz, I suggested that working with communities is a way to put art back into culture, when the art is embedded in culture and society rather than simply commenting on it. It is a way to ensure that art functions as an imaginative space of society. Fundamental to that is providing a space in which artists and audiences can contribute and participate in the development of new work. Dietz responded that this very concept is native to new media. For artists who work with interactive technologies audience participation and even collaboration is key to the success of the work - without it the work fails. [“Be-coming Community” Interview with Steve Dietz, Arte Contemporaneo, Spain, February 2005]
So what is the role of the curator in a collaborative cultural endeavor? I would suggest that fundamental to this function is process -- in which curators, artists and audiences contribute and participate and in which an exhibition, performance or event is experienced as moment in a cultural journey. The curator or curators can act as facilitators, perhaps even catalysts on that journey; and debate, dialogue and the exchange of ideas is critical to that process.
About Amanda McDonald Crowley: Amanda McDonald Crowley is the Executive Director of Eyebeam art and technology center in New York. Amanda recently relocated from her native Australia where she had been based while working national and throughout Europe and Asia as an arts producer, facilitator, researcher and curator specializing in creating new media and contemporary art programs that encourage cross disciplinary practice, collaboration and exchange. Positions she has held include serving served as the Executive Producer of the 2004 International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA2004), developing the event from concept to major conferences, exhibitions, performances, concerts and site specific installations on a ferry in the Baltic Sea and locations in Estonia and Finland; Associate Director for Adelaide Festival 2002; and Director of the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT), an organization with a national brief to foster links between the arts, sciences and new technology.