Interview with 2016 Digital Arts Writing Awards Recipient, Christiane Paul

Christiane Paul received the $40,000 award ($30,000 award plus the opportunity for a $10,000 project grant) for an established arts writer in the U.S. who has made significant contributions to writing about digital art. Christiane Paul is Adjunct Curator of New Media Arts at the Whitney Museum of American Art and Associate Professor and Associate Dean in the School of Media Studies at The New School, New York City. Her work – including her recently published book A Companion to Digital Art – aims to historically bridge diverse communities in the field while placing digital art in a larger art historical context. She has authored and edited four books and written more than 100 articles that have been published in anthologies and magazines such as Artforum, Frieze and Artpulse.

THOMA FOUNDATION: When and why did you begin writing about digital art, and why has it been important for you to contribute to scholarship in the field?

CHRISTIANE PAUL: After having researched and written on hypertext in the late 1980s, I became immersed in digital arts writing around the time the World Wide Web launched. I co-founded the print and online newsletter (and later magazine) intelligent agent to chronicle and explore the use of digital media in arts and education, which had been catapulted to a new level in the networked environment of the Web. Since then digital technologies have kept developing at a rapid pace, and it has been important to me to follow the evolution of digital arts along with new and rejuvenated platforms, from the social media landscape to apps and augmented reality to new levels of virtual reality. The current so-called post-digital condition — characterized by both a widespread familiarity with digital technologies and their increasing embeddedness in the material world — has once again brought about new understandings of art and its materiality and circulation, which are fascinating to follow.

THOMA FOUNDATION: Who are some of your influences (thinkers, writers, artists, educators, etc.)?

CHRISTIANE: My writing has always been inspired by all the artists whose work in the field of digital art I have been following and researching through the decades. My thinking about digital arts has also been informed by the many writers who have critically explored media and culture, from earlier philosophers such as Vilém Flusser to the many digital media theorists who have made invaluable contributions to the field, among them Sean Cubitt, Mary Flanagan, Alex Galloway, N. Katherine Hayles, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, and McKenzie Wark. Hito Steyerl’s work and writing, in particular, has been a huge influence in thinking through the aesthetics and cultural implications of contemporary digital image culture.

THOMA FOUNDATION: What kinds of programs would you like to see supported in the field?

CHRISTIANE: There has been growing support for the field of digital art on all levels — from its research and presentation to conservation — in the past couple of decades, in particular. I would like to see programs or grants devoted to the conservation of digital works that are not in institutional collections, as well as programs that familiarize arts audiences with the history and aesthetics of digital arts. One of the downsides of the hype surrounding the post-digital is that it claims an increasingly familiarity with the digital, which makes it easy to forget that familiarity does not necessarily entail a deep understanding.

THOMA FOUNDATION: Briefly describe your current writing projects and/or those you anticipate beginning or completing in the next year?

CHRISTIANE: Upcoming writing projects are a catalogue essay for an exhibition on the “post-digital” at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki in 2017 and a text for a monograph on Rafaël Rozendaal’s work. I am also very interested in current AI-based computer vision softwares that make aesthetic choices or enhance patterns and plan to research their aesthetic bias and use in digital art.

THOMA FOUNDATION: How do you anticipate this award will impact your career and work?

CHRISTIANE: The award will have an enormous impact on my career and work. In the short term it allows me to take a one-semester leave from my academic position to focus on writing without having to worry about financial support. In addition, the recognition of my contribution to the fields of arts writing through the award is an enormous motivator that inspires me to take on new writing projects and subjects.

THOMA FOUNDATION: What would assist you in moving your current projects and/or ideas forward?

CHRISTIANE: The Thoma Foundation’s 2016 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art provides the most important assistance in moving forward for me — it gives me financial support that allows me to take time off from other obligations and pursue writing.

Read more about the 2016 Arts Writing Awards recipients.