I began writing this post less than an hour after getting rejected for an arts fellowship I applied to. To avoid this being a gripe or rant Iāve captured my initial thoughts that were top of mind but then Iāve waited a couple hours before finishing writing this to make sure itās tempered with more expansive and generous thoughts.
In todayās case, like most things I apply to, the rejection email did not provide any feedback guidance so I am speculating without having a ton of data. As part of the application process I had met with the org director, so I have at least some knowledge that I was a good fit, and based on some research, I believe the issue was the classic one Iāve dealt with a number of times: is my artwork contextualized as fine art like sculpture, painting, poetry? Or is it not?
To be clear, there were likely dozens of applications for this fellowship and far less accepted. I could have had a weaker application, or not fit their needs. Or many other reasons. And since they provide no feedback on the app I do not know why I was rejected. I also think itās normal and okay to go through this process. I shouldnāt be accepted to a fellowship just because I think I was a good applicant! Thatās for them to decide. But based on a hunch I am wondering this time if itās because I present as a āmedia artistā with currently many game arts projects that are experimental narrative works but to someone that hasnāt thought much about games as medium, it might look like any old generic video game to them. Or else too out-of-the-box, too not traditionally art for them. And when that feeling happens - itās common! - I start to ruminate. Thus this blog post.
Letās start with self-identification as an artist. Iām trying to write about the phenomenon that most of us working with a computer to make our art are seen as outside of traditional fine arts media. Iām encompassing those working on the computer primarily to make their art who may identify as āmedia artistsā, ānew media artistā, working in āgame artsā, ādigital artā, ācomputational artā and many other related terms. Or weāre just āartists.ā My bio on my website says āartistā for example. And this is absolutely not a new issue, and not even necessarily different from similar boundaries thrown up between fine art versus craft for example, or anywhere folks patrol the edges of discipline.
Straight up, for artists working in digital media, some see our work as outside of the bounds of art shown in mainstream arts settings. This isnāt confined to the domain of residency/fellowship/grants but of course at all levels. I have a MFA from a āDesign Media Artsā graduate program at UCLA, which is housed within its art school but considered separate from its Arts MFA, with different professors and cohort of students artificially kept apart even when our actual art production looks very similar. This came up for example when I was unable to take a class with institutional critique artist Andrea Fraser. How did THAT become fine art for a MFA but game arts hasnāt yet? Is it because games largely wanted to be accepted as mainstream, but critique by its nature did not, even while being exhibited within them before becoming appropriated as another product for display and sale at commercial galleries?
Rather than answer this, Iāll describe how years ago I got fired up and co-created the Babycastles untitled-in-residency program. I found financial support through outside donors to pay our selected artists through that program. We made the residency as open as possible, and helped applicants step through the application process. Of course, there was the same problem of 120+ applicants for maybe 6 or 7 open spots, but we put in over a dozen hours of work reviewing applications, provided feedback, alternative funding/grant info, and other opportunities for exhibiting work or taking free workshops. And let me pause here and say a traditional media artist like a sculptor or poet not working digitally in any way may have had difficulty being accepted, though I believe we did accept at least one farmer/zinester. We were looking to sweep in those working on and around the digital/art boundaries, especially with an overlap in experimental game arts, because we saw a need to support this type of artist and build a stronger community. It was extremely effective, and Iām proud of our work doing it.
In the art collective Iāve been part of for a decade Iād like to think we blur and break boundaries, but Iām probably biased and overlooking where these may lie. We have sculptors, installation artists, parade-makers, musicians, hackers building solar-powered sound installations, interactive artists, social-engaged public art practice, a ālight artistā, performance artists, and more. Yes, we have poets too! And ceramicists! I donāt feel āotherā or un-welcome there. Weāre all interdisciplinary and open to thinking expansively. In addition to blurring or discarding the boundaries of medium or genre we also blur and problematize authorship. In my tenure review one of the anonymous reviewers noted that it was hard to judge this collaborative work from a peer review lens, and so they skipped reviewing it!
Some of the most successful artists working in computational or digital media that I know, in terms of mainstream art careers, are those that have been able to present their work as solidly within the arts. Over a decade ago as I was moving from socially-engaged art practice, itself also an arts discipline on the margins, into game arts and interactive or computational art, I was advised by an artist colleague who was the chair of an Ivy League schoolās art department not to work with game engines, code-based art and the like. He himself was making institutional critique work, socially-engaged public art, but then there was always a sellable output: large photographs and sculpture documenting or about the social engagement. His work didnāt move me. But it was institutionally supported. And how. It was packaged, exhibited and sold. He was by many measures a success.
This artist told me explicitly my work as a media artist wouldnāt be accepted by the mainstream art community. And why turn my back on that? The conversation ticked me off. Itās been over a decade and I still think about it. Iām a tenured professor in a new media department, at a school I enjoy, with great students and faculty. But I revisit this conversation periodically.
A few paragraphs up I did the tapdance explaining how at my art community we blur boundaries and kumbaya interdisciplinarity, but if Iām being real I feel pretty negative about a majority of institutionally-supported mainstream art. Itās why I initially moved toward this exciting fuzzy interdiciplinary, emergent, experimental realm of media art, and why I continue to mostly find it āhomeā today. In the mid-2010s as I was getting more and more turned off by appropriation of soft sculpture, a new relational aesthetics, and the turn from activist art and social practice to creative placemaking I moved away from it. Sure, artists have to eat. They want an audience, community, and ideally some public recognition. But I thought much of the work under the loose social practice umbrella had lost its power, its bite. This was about the time when I began learning to program, making experimental games. It also coincides around the time of the publication of Anna Anthropyās Rise of the Videogame Zinesters, a powerhouse of a book that kickstarted a whole new generation of experimental game makers wielding a young medium - stretching, breaking, and deconstructing the form of games, disrupting their recent hardening into the province solely of professional AAA games and the new professional āindieā game movement.
I would be lying if I didnāt admit to some of the advantages of being both within and outside of the mainstream art community, whatever that may mean. My colleagues and I often like this position: we are related to the mainstream arts but have some distance from it. We flirt with it, sometimes situate within it when it serves us, but we also flit away or scrape off parts we donāt align with. Sometimes it works in our favor, and sometimes not. In addition to the negatively read idea that those of us with various technical skills (coding, 3d modeling, video editing, web design) must not be real artists, thereās also the notion that working in games is more of a medium of entertainment than a medium like opera (or theater or film!) that encompasses a full spectrum of disciplines and opportunities for creative expression, from sound design, narrative, staging, lighting, soundtrack/music, experiments in time, and interaction.
I donāt have a call to action here. Iām just thinking out loud and reacting, disappointed when I feel like my work is not visibly accepted within the art canon, then reminding myself how pulling away from the center has also served the work and our spirit.
And should I be complaining? At this point Iāve received a lot of support over the years, and worked with others to build our own networks of support and community. In fact, itās probably one of the strongest things Iāve been doing. As Iāve been part of the field for so long Iāve been an active organizer and helped to build out support for many others, from organizing conferences, bringing in guest artists to my institutions, raising funding for artist spaces, mentoring and hiring younger artists, teaching and organizing free professional and artist skill workshops, documenting and archiving alternative artist communities, and collaborating with people in a range of backgrounds and experiences. And teaching a new generation of students skills, history, while trying to tell alternative and forgotton histories and add critical perspectives - through pedagogy and through my podcast. And I havenāt even gotten to the part about building new tools for creative expression, for fun, for use, and as a form of expression and empowerment.
Iām leaving aside for today a discussion on the limitations of media art as a useful term, along with the various fields of media production in the fine arts, experimental game arts and the like. As well, itās useful to reflect on the problems of organizing around specific technology, on its use as a gimmick or a tool of capitalist production. These are important critiques and discussion points. And some of this Iāve picked up for collaborative communal response, using the framework of permacomputing to consider some of the environmental and social costs and considerations of our tools and media ecosystem.
But I think I will pause for now. I started this post with something like a gripe or rant, reflected on my medium and place within the arts, then ended in a space of empowerment, and pointed to critique and ongoing considerations and a community of practice. Seems like the right way to end it here for now! And then pick myself up, apply to more opportunities, and to build more support in community, and with friends.