BOOK REVIEW

By Marc Christensen
6/14/00

Aesthetic hickey

Many magazines claim to cover the nebulous terrain of "digital culture," but few cover it with such a combination of breadth and aplomb as Artbyte. The current issue’s "virtual traveler" feature is a case in point: Rather than adopting a single PR-spun perspective (the Internet as holodeck), Artbyte investigates social and economic forces which are making real travel and real destinations, and the real money behind them, more virtual.

What do we experience while going somewhere? Five deliciously put-together articles pick apart travel as retail enterprise. The airport is a mall, and reading these articles is like sitting in on a corporate meeting where the agenda is you – the plan, to get you to purchase more without realizing it. Just as smart are articles that ask how tours and travel brochures immerse us in a mind-numbing hall of mirrors when we travel to places we think we already know. Welcome to the future.

Artbyte also goes beyond countercultural questioning to drop science on the digital edge of the Whitney Biennial, Issey Miyake, and the recent history of Super Bowl commercials. This is a magazine that can take both art and "ordinary culture" seriously, without playing the part of supercilious tour guide or dismissive radical on either front.

About the worst it gets is DJ Spooky’s rant on travel, sound mixing and free association, which is far and away a better read than most of his other writing. Artbyte also sent Kodwo Eshun to investigate the recent soundsculpture art spasm, and even as he asks important questions about what this art form is about, he credibly calls James Brown (yes, that JB) a minimalist.

Get this magazine. And if you don’t believe Eshun on JB, ask Derrick May to break it down for you again.

Marc Christensen writes about book for Metro Times.