AMS GROUP B Network

Tampere Group B Response for Warrick B (Medium)

This is what Amsterdam challenged us

Perhaps this hypothetical performance was recorded for archival purposes, now the digital media (a derivative of medium) is the medium for a new host of spectators to receive the performance.

http://www.new.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=5330092731&oid=20958116280


According to Plato words medium will make the performance a copy of copy, thus less than ideal and loses its original value. Walter Benjamin says that in this way it loses its ''aura". The digital media archive, while perhaps currently the best archival method for performance available, still does not do justice to capturing the initial "aura" of the live performance.

AMS Group B Challenge (Medium) for TAM B

Which arm belongs to Venus de Milo?

We are responding to the definition of medium [3. Physical material or form used by artist, composer, etc.] by juxtaposing it with "a particular form of storage for digitized information, such as magnetic tape or discs" (definition for medium found in New Oxford American Dictionary).

Using the example of theatre and performance, we find that scripts and performances can be mediums for storage and archiving; however, once a performance ends--once the curtains fall--it is irrevocably lost. Performance is a medium for communication between actor/director and spectator/audience, but the medium is lost when the performance ends. Perhaps this hypothetical performance was recorded for archival purposes, now the digital media (a derivative of medium) is the medium for a new host of spectators to receive the performance.

We find that medium for performance and art is quite vast, while the word medium is simultaneously quite limited when referring to storage. Yet this is the same word...

If an artist sculpts with the medium of clay, but no one is there to look at it (to receive the performance or image), is clay still a medium?