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February 2, 2009
The first issue of altfotonet.org is up, though s2art is calling it the first issue. It was curated by s2art from the concrete canvas Flickr group. This image of mine was included in the exhibition:
Gary Sauer-Thompson, concrete and shadow, Adelaide, 2008
However, the altfotonet Flickr stream is going well, and the blog is now up and running. So is the work selected from theconcrete canvas an e-zine or an e-exhibition? It is unclear at this stage. Both forms of publication are a mixture of picture and text and no doubt, the differences between these forms, will eventually be sorted through. I'm inclined to think of the concrete canvas body of work in terms of an e-exhibition at this stage.
More importantly, what we have here is an example of low budget DIY creative activity that is outside the normal cultural life that is dominated by the conservative mainstream major institutions in a digitally networked world, since it bypasses the traditional way that creative visual activity has been produced. It is a niche culture in the arts marketplace and there has been a democratization of curation.
There are many pockets or niches of contemporary DIY and experimental digital art (including comics, graphic novels, films video art, music, photography) as the market has fragmented and the art galleries/museums are no longer the gatekeepers--the channel through which culture passes---as Lost At E Minor attests. This is a portal into a different contemporary creative world ------eg., photographers.
This counter network outside those of the dominant networks of the established cultural institutions is a rhizomatic world of connectivity.What we have is a more haptic 'on the ground' local mapping of connections. The frame is not a boundary per se as it opens to the world outside.
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The concrete canvas e-exhibition looks good. Is the blog post on the exhibition an art review?