Art and the Real-time Archive: Relocation, Remix, Response

Abstract

If Internet artists have recently relocated their work to galleries and museums, there has meanwhile been an increasing engagement on the part of gallery artists with the media. While these migrations are often discussed in aesthetic if not economic terms, this essay asks what such phenomena can tell us about the changing nature of subjectivity in relation to media and technology. Three main themes are introduced: the aura of information, inscription technologies, and the real-time archive. The themes extend across subsequent chapters addressing: the relocation of net art, the remix as an art method, and the capacity of the subject to respond to technology. !e idea that technologies alter subjects (produce subject-effects) plays a central role in the arguments advanced. Examples are drawn from both the author’s own art practice as well the practice of others, including Phil Collins and Steve McQueen. Theorists including Lewis Mumford and Bernard Stiegler are used to interpret the questions raised by this practice. It is concluded that relocation and remixing can respectively aid in the apprehension of subject-effects and support subjective autonomy.