The Representation Problem on the Web:
On-line Presence versus Web Representation @ http://moma.org

Genco Gulan interviews Barbara London* @ Moma, 30 March 2000 
    

"We met with Barbara London at Moma’s office building. Her room was full of videos and images and the walls were covered from the floor to the ceiling. In between all those images I remember a Michael Jackson poster. We had set a thirty minute appointment with Ms London so I immediately began asking questions. My questions mostly referred to the Moma web site and I tried to clarify the terminology."

As we have discussed via e-mail, I was working on the representation problem of the web hence Moma’s site was a good example for my study. It contained both online projects and web presentation of the Moma collection. Again Barbara London was a good choice because she curates on site video exhibitions and she works on on-line representations for her research.   

My first question was about the definition she used on the dot.jp site “media art”.  
I basically asked what she means with that term. She answered that she did not like the term “new media” but she used the term “media art” to refer to a broad range of electronic arts. She explained in detail by giving examples from the Japanese artists.   

In the “Sayonara” section of the dot.jp on page 1, she wrote that;  
“This generation of artists has turned the old McLuhan adage that “the medium is the message” right on its head, because the new message is: “the medium is irrelevant.” 

When I asked about what she thinks about “web art,” she said that, like video and performance had experienced an undefined emergence period so does the web art.

Then I moved to the term “revolution” which I tried to build this essay on. I reminded her that she had used the term revolution in her article at the dot.jp website in the “Sayonara” section. She said that she used the term for the specific case of Japan and not for the overall media art. She basically said that, she was referring to the evolution of the electronic arts in Japan and its effects on the conservative or hierarchical Japanese cast system.

She argued that with the new change the artists have more freedom for self expression. It was interesting because she used the term hierarchy twice. First to describe the old Japanese cast system then when describing Moma’s bureaucratic structure while she was trying to explain why they do not have a department for new media.   

In the Sayonara section of the dot.jp on page 4, she wrote that "Media art is simply too dynamic to be slowed by institutional inertia.” 

When I asked about what she thinks about “web art,” she said that, like video and performance had experienced an undefined emergence period so does the web art. It was an exciting time then and it is now for web art. She said that they have lived through such moments in the history of performance art that for example “they (the performers) were coming to the lobby of Moma and spitting blood on the floor.”   

I jump back to the top of the Moma site and ask about the web representations. Under the title of ‘on line projects’ it was written: “This page presents diverse sub sites that were created or co-produced for MoMA.org. These projects explore some of the properties and possibilities of the Web, such as interactivity, motion and sound.“  

She explained that the Moma site has multiple functions, one of which is the public relations. And they were using the site more heavily for this purpose.