Page 97 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 97
On Digital Exposures
Contemporary Art is the institutionalized network through which
the art of today presents itself to itself and to its interested audienc-
es all over the world (Smith, 2009: p. 241).
After a closer reading of the sentence cited above, which sounds as a sim-
ple and quite clear assertion, we cannot avoid paying attention to the figure
of replication in Smith’s expression, which postulates a double position of
art that “presents itself to itself”. Smith’s relatively discreet inference brings
forward a kind of a double bind, which determines a positioning of art
within the institutional framework that, in turn, makes art for what it is.
Double Exposure
Although he is not saying it, Smith actually points towards the notion of
exposure as Mieke Bal has conceived it more than a decade before Smith’s
text was published. The institutional network, with which Smith even on-
tologically identifies the very meaning of contemporary art, was originally
determined by the institution of museum. This is still the case even though
the museum has expanded in between to other spaces, especially signifi-
cantly into so-called virtual space. The triumph of the museum as the in-
stitution in the sphere of art is paralleled by some other such triumphs like
University in the area of education. However, historically and socially such
triumphs tend to have a transitional and mediating role. Therefore, for ex-
95
Contemporary Art is the institutionalized network through which
the art of today presents itself to itself and to its interested audienc-
es all over the world (Smith, 2009: p. 241).
After a closer reading of the sentence cited above, which sounds as a sim-
ple and quite clear assertion, we cannot avoid paying attention to the figure
of replication in Smith’s expression, which postulates a double position of
art that “presents itself to itself”. Smith’s relatively discreet inference brings
forward a kind of a double bind, which determines a positioning of art
within the institutional framework that, in turn, makes art for what it is.
Double Exposure
Although he is not saying it, Smith actually points towards the notion of
exposure as Mieke Bal has conceived it more than a decade before Smith’s
text was published. The institutional network, with which Smith even on-
tologically identifies the very meaning of contemporary art, was originally
determined by the institution of museum. This is still the case even though
the museum has expanded in between to other spaces, especially signifi-
cantly into so-called virtual space. The triumph of the museum as the in-
stitution in the sphere of art is paralleled by some other such triumphs like
University in the area of education. However, historically and socially such
triumphs tend to have a transitional and mediating role. Therefore, for ex-
95
