On The Questions of New Media Art in Taiwan: An Approach from Science & Technology Studies

• Main Authors: CHANG, HAO-HSIN, 張顥馨
• Other Authors: LIN, HONG-JOHN
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/3t9mq8

碩士 === 國立臺北藝術大學 === 藝術跨域研究所 === 105 === Art has established various form of connection with Science & Technology (S&T) since the early 20th Century. An array of style, discourse, and corresponding aesthetics in representations have emerged as the result of the evolution from Media and Media Art to New Media and New Media Art in Taiwan since the 1980s. However, recent emerging artworks in New Media Art that are often presented as documents, or those that don’t interact with the audience indicate that the established category is facing an issue on its clarity and effectiveness. To construct the current boundaries and landscape of New Media Art, this study begins with analyzing the media, defining the category of Media Art and New Media Art, and understanding the transformation from Media Art to New Media Art. It further analyzes two sets of relationships, namely Media – New Media and Media Art – New Media Art, and identifies connections and differences between them. By combing through the history and aesthetic discussion of New Media Art, the study attempts to show that the aesthetic-based perspective of seeing has caused contradictions and ambiguities in the analysis of such category. Through post-medium theories by Rosalind Krauss and others, the study elaborates the ineffectiveness of the aesthetics is caused by the Greenbergian Techno - scientific medium specificity in New Media Art. In the contradicting definitions of bioart shows that the succession from medium-specific to non-medium specific approach to S&T has consequented in the paradoxical affection Art has towards S&T, which Art needs S&T for technical and instrumental support, but refuses to recognize and delve into the latter inclusively. The study argues that the paradox above could be explained by the texts of the debate between Nicolas Bourriaud and Claire Bishop, which pointed out the objectification of S&T by Art is resulted from the subjectification of Art itself. The study aims to provide an alternative structure for this long standing binary opposition by critically reviewing the divide between Art and S&T. Bruno Latour’s thoughts on the structure and mechanism of modernity provides an analytical foundation to formulate the solution to seam the divide. With an overview of the literatures on different approaches in Science Studies ranging from History and Philosophy of Science to STS, the study shows that the focus on the criteria of scientific knowledge production has shifted from normative logic to an experiment-centered one. This corresponds to the educational turn in contemporary art since 1990, where “laboratory” as metaphor symbolizes the concept of experiment as the key for practice-based research in art. In addition, with experimental system as the theoretical model, the study compares the commonalities and differneces of the methodology and process of production and characteristics of knowledge between artistic and scientific research, and argues that correlations between them is a potential foundation for both displines to transcend modernity. As for the uniqueness of artistic research and its knowledge from the scientific counterpart, the study pinpoints the inclusiveness the subject is to the unknown and reflectiveness to itself. The study concludes that an internal transformation would shift New Media Art into Art, Science, Technology (AST), a trans-disciplinary paradigm with abundant openness to explore.