Medium: material or technical means of artistic expression
- media
is the plural form of medium.
- the dictionary defines media as all the communication devices and channels of communication used to reach mass audiences.
- first use of media in 1927, perhaps abstracted from mass media (1923, a technical term in advertising), pl. of medium in particular when useed as an "intermediate agency," or a ‘carrier’ a sense first found c.1600.
- the physical nature of any given thing and its relationship to its environment determines the way it works or operates. This lecture will give a brief reminder of what we are as a species and what are our physical and mental limitations. It will then propose that all human attempts to construct media are attempts to extend beyond our physical and mental limitations and that each media we develop has its own limitations and strengths, which we need to understand if we are to make the most of what each media offers.
MEDIA SPECIFICITY IN THE FINE ART WORLD
- the dictionary defines media as all the communication devices and channels of communication used to reach mass audiences.
- first use of media in 1927, perhaps abstracted from mass media (1923, a technical term in advertising), pl. of medium in particular when useed as an "intermediate agency," or a ‘carrier’ a sense first found c.1600.
- the physical nature of any given thing and its relationship to its environment determines the way it works or operates. This lecture will give a brief reminder of what we are as a species and what are our physical and mental limitations. It will then propose that all human attempts to construct media are attempts to extend beyond our physical and mental limitations and that each media we develop has its own limitations and strengths, which we need to understand if we are to make the most of what each media offers.
- EDWARD TUFTE
- powerpoint = more difficult to communicate with an audience
- encourages speakers to create ultra-short slides
- our
medium specificity is that we are biological creatures. Organic in nature, we
have a close genetic connection to the animal world.
- medium
specificity is the view that the media associated with a given art form (both
its material components and the processes by which they are exploited) entail specific possibilities for and
constraints on representation and expression, and this provides a normative
framework for what artists working in that art form ought to attempt.
An
artwork, in order to be successful, needs to adhere to the specific stylistic
properties of its own medium.
“Gotthold
Ephraim Lessing 1776
Medium/media specificity is a
term used in aesthetics and art criticism.
MEDIA SPECIFICITY IN THE FINE ART WORLD
- Michael
Fried 1966 essay "Art and Objecthood"
is an attack on minimalist art for producing effects that do not derive from
within the work itself, but instead are dependent on the viewer's relationship
with the object. This, he insists, "is now the negation of art"
(Fried, 1967)
PHOTOGRAPHY
- the
concept of medium-specificity has had a profound impact on photography. In its
early history, photography struggled to establish itself as a legitimate art
form. Theorists devised a justification for the art of photography that
positioned it against its competitor, painting. Art photographers such as
Stieglitz, Weston, and Strand argued that in order for photography to be taken
seriously, it must operate only according to its own capabilities: it must not
aspire to imitate the aesthetics or materials of painting. The art of
photography became defined on strictly medium-specific terms.
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