The Share Festival Method for judging technology-art
The Share Festival Method
…for judging technology art.
by Bruce Sterling
In Share Festival in Torino, Italy, we showcase “technology art.” By this, we mean art that emerges from various objects, tools, products and services that exist and function technically, but aren’t commonly used to make art work.
We’re enthusiasts of this process. For years we’ve seen quite interesting, provocative, engaging art works emerging from all kinds of unlikely technical circumstances. In the long run — as a general principle — nothing humanity does can ever go untouched by art. One should be at ease with this basic aspect of the human condition, and even gently encourage that development.
But, of course it is problematic.
Technology is unstable, art is unstable, so “technology art” is unstable in multiplex ways. This instability accounts for Share Festival’s wide-spread, all-encompassing, ultra-tolerant interests in machine art, device art, kinetic art, installations, interactive installations, code art, net.art, motion graphics, design-fiction, augmentation, virtuality, peculiar ooze from Large Language Models, and even more — because we know there there will surely be more.
How can we possibly pick-and-choose among these highly variant kinds of artwork? We’re a “festival,” so what art do we display to our public?
After a couple of decades in the trenches, we have come up with our own pragmatic method for judging technology artwork. Since we are “Share Festival,” we think that our method should be shared.
1. We always receive extremely, radically various art-entries in response to our yearly “call for art.” As art jurors, can we comprehend what the artist offers? With a good faith effort, can we, the jury, understand what the artwork does, and what it is offering to the public?
If we can’t understand it — as veteran technology-art jurors — we wouldn’t declare that the art is “bad” in any way. We would simply judge that it’s not for us, and look elsewhere. In tech-art, there is always plenty of “elsewhere.”
2. It is physically possible for us to ship this work and install it in our venue? We may well admire it for the concept and the execution, but we are a festival with a budget and distinct resources. It’s our duty as jurors to organize a functional, practicable festival within our own town.
3. Will this artwork perform and function effectively? Can it run without breakdowns during the entirety of our show? There is no certain way to judge such technical likelihoods, especially for a truly unusual artwork which is one-of-a-kind. This is a judgement call. Estimating the “Mean Time Between Failures” of the artwork’s various components can be useful.
4. Does this work fit the curatorial theme of this year’s Share Festival? Is it a good match with our other chosen artworks?
5. Is it simply too dangerous for public display? We have never yet maimed our public here in Turin — but there’s no need to be timid, either. Machine art has a long tradition of a dramatic, aggressive, powerful look-and-feel.
6. Is there a strong concept in this work? Is it a good idea?
7. Does this work advance the general state of technology-art in some useful way? As tech-art jurors, we should be advancing the practice.
8. Is this the work of an artist whom we respect and want to support in their creative efforts? When we have the chance to do that service for artists, we should.
9. Is there a high level of design, craftsmanship, or engineering in this artwork? Is this done impressively well?
10. Is this a tech-art cliche’ that we’ve seen too often? An upgraded, reinvented wheel is still a wheel.
11. Seven years of age is the golden age of technology art. The seven year old is never the best judge of the merits of technology art, but if an artwork lacks some immediate, visceral appeal that can seize the imagination of a seven-year-old, you likely don’t need that work within the contest of a public festival. The seven-year-old is eager futurity, she is the general public’s pioneer.
A jury should have an odd number of people, so as to avoid tie-breaking. Pick some knowledgeable guest-jurors who know things you don’t know, so that you can learn something useful and edifying.
A tech-art festival generally gets far more entries than there are slots for available display, so the work of a jury is primarily about refusing the artworks. Some few will be accepted, but most must be refused. That refusal process needs to be brisk and efficient. It’s triage. The festival staff should do most of that work before the guest-jury assembles to contemplate some well-chosen finalists.
The jury should rate the works on a scale of one to five.
5. This may well be the best work in the festival. As a juror, you’d be pleased if this work was given a winner’s prize and some public money.
4. It’s quite good art. People should see it.
3. It’s all right. As art work, it would do.
2. It’s mediocre or worse.
1. As a juror, you don’t want it around. You feel disdain for it.
0. This is an emergency public-safety veto. You sincerely believe that this artwork might kill somebody or set fire to the venue. You vote zero only if you’re yanking the emergency-brake.
Finally, expect an 80/20 division in technology-art jury work. Selecting good work from among many works is the basic work of the art-world. However, selecting the “very best” work at the end of that process is a time-consuming, metaphysical debate. It demands some intellectual labor and some earnest, extensive discussion. Mere enumeration won’t do here; to decide on the best, the jury has to engage.
If this necessary debate is done well, though, every juror will leave this experience as a more knowledgeable, more aware, and better critic afterwards. The reward for doing it is the chance to do it again.
