Interview with Jonah Brucker-Cohen (03/05/09 – ?)

1. How would you define de art made with the new media? What would distinguish it with the traditional supports?
New media art usually takes on two distinct sensibilities or categorizations. The first type of art that could be considered new media art is art that was "made" using digital technology such as editing a film using digital editing tools, building a website that represents and supports some form of real-world project or idea, or forms of print output that were designed using a computer. In my opinion, those types of art are more like "artifacts" of the digital age rather than "media art". The second categorization of media art is art that uses the medium of computers and digital technology to comment on this culture and the technology and users that support it. This is the type of media art that is most interesting to me, and the type that my work falls into if you were to assign it a category.

There are some topics, like interaction, inmersion, virtual-real, that are usually associated with the new media art. Do you agree with these?


2. Which societies do you consider have a deeper performance with the new media art? Which artists do you feel are more representative?

As far as societies engaged with media art, I would say mainly those that have access to the technologies that support its creation and those that feel comfortable enough in a world of media practice and engagement on an everyday basis. As far as artist, probably those that can easily integrate their practice seamlessly with the technology to the point that they are actually building projects that might be useable by others, whether it is software or hardware.

So we are talking about USA, Japan, Finland… We would say the that new media art is produced mostly by the developed countries?


3. Do you know peruvian artists that you think are interesting in this field?

I'm not very familiar with many Peruvian new media artists.


4. How do you perceive the interaction between the digital works and the different publics?
Media art that has some form of interactive component can integrate well with the public, and even "artifact" media arts can integrate with the public. This is evident with feature films that are 3D animated, for instance since they have an immediate audience that can exist in the millions, depending on the amount of theaters or other forms of media that the films can inhabit.

What kind of interaction are you referring? I mean, we can’t manipulate the Shrek movie like we do in a videogame…


5. What is the role of the visual arts schools in your place? Do you feel there are educational programs according to the needs of our society?

Media art education is rapidly growing across the world. What might have begun with a small group of programs and professors, has blossomed into a large international community of makers and artists. The main reason behind this is that technology and the software needed to create artwork has become very cheap and even free so that it is an easy form of media for people to get access to on a large scale. The schools often teach the technology, but the best schools teach techniques and strategies of how to integrate new media into an art practice through either treating the final product as an artifact or as a comment on the medium itself. So I would say that schools have a key role in instilling forms and methods of dealing with media art practice which allows for students to often choose a path in which to follow, or for students to invent new forms of representation of the arts.

Do you feel studying new media arts would still be necessary in a school? Since the technology changes so fast, people tend to learn by themselves a lot of subjects and tricks, through internet mostly…