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Abstract

Installation

h|u|m|b|o|t

Screenshot: H|U|M|B|O|T installation, 'net condition',

Zentrum fr Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany,

1999-2000 with a team of hackers, datatects, artists and

architects assembled by Philip Pocock.

An Aesthetics of Participation ratherthan Consumption.

There are risks involved, of course, facing

cybercinemastrategies. If an author usurps his or

her authorship, sharing authority over the

production of media with audiences, as

unpredictable as human nature is. Applying dated

aesthetic criteria stamped by an imperative of

passive audience consumption, cybercinema cannot

be measured. The value added by a radical, and in

some ways ancient, rebalancing of consumption and

production, unfolding a new participatory

aesthetic into a consumptive one, has far too few

precedents of its own in technological media.

Critics must rewind to pre-literate,

pre-technolgical, oral and corporeal cultures, to

imagine a set of criteria which may be applied to

measure the value of a aesthetic rebalancing

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consumption and production by all participants,

authors and audiences alike.

H|U|M|B|O|T audiences may passively trace previous

interactors on the site, or lean forward and

participate themselves. If the dramaturgy falls

short due to an ingrained aesthetic based purelyon consumption of our media, at least, a message

encouraging individual involvement in the

production of global culture is being delivered,

along with lyrical and informational cybercinema.

It may seem chaotic, just too many interactions,

but essentially interactivity by individuals in

the consensual creation of content (form and

meaning) is as crucial a tool to ensure personal

freedom and human rights as voting. There is only

an active vote, and although it may seem lost in

an ocean of votes, it does have meaning. Toproduce rather than consume political leaders may

be not much more important in the unfolding

century, as producing rather than consuming our

media

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