Coded Cultures Between New Media Arts and Production Cultures

Abstract

coded cultures is a process we as 5uper.net started in 2004, initially to address our self defined aim to display media cultures that work in the context of art. Apart from the necessarily apparent mediacy (which we thought is important in regard to those interested in contemporary art) we also wanted to bridge the gap of current technological, sociological and artistic questions by mapping subcultures of ≫art with media≪ as well as ≫art that reflects on media≪ (Reck, 2002). Especially since the term media art had (and still has) a quite broad context of works and processes, we did not want to narrow it, but even enlarge it with the term coded cultures in order to also include cultures, that would not put their work in the context of art. This melange of works with technological, media related structures of (self) organization were brought together at a single place where a mixture of exhibition and symposia, workshops and concerts took place in an experimental setting. The approach was (and still is) to display ≫actants≪ (Latour, 1987/2005) and not objects: since works in the fields of new media arts are intertwined with the creator(s) and their cultural background, the whole context has to be made an issue.