''ASPECT'' was a biannual
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
magazine showcasing
new media art
New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of electronic media technologies, comprising virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video games, robotics, 3D pri ...
.
The magazine was headquartered in
Boston, Mass
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...
.
[ It ended publication with the issue 21 in 2013.
''ASPECT'' was notable for being one of the first DVD-based chronicles of time-based media. ''ASPECT''’s DVD format offered artists using ]installation art
Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...
, performance art
Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
, animation, sound, and visual techniques a way for their work to be recorded and distributed to the greater art community. Each submission had an audio commentary by an expert in the field, and each issue is identified by a common theme.
The publication was used largely as an educational tool, but was also available for subscriptions and for purchase in art museums like the Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
and The New Museum
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
History
The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New S ...
. ''ASPECT'' provided those working in new media art
New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of electronic media technologies, comprising virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video games, robotics, 3D pri ...
with access to their contemporaries’ work and grants them a critical take on the work to help contextualize it within the larger art world
The art world comprises everyone involved in producing, commissioning, presenting, preserving, promoting, chronicling, criticizing, buying and selling fine art. It is recognized that there are many art worlds, defined either by location or alte ...
.
Since its founding in 2003, ''ASPECT'' published several volumes, each one featuring 5-10 artists and addressing a specific theme. Past themes included: "Artists of the Boston Cyberarts Festival", "Artists of the West Coast", "The Artist as Content", "Text and Language", "Joie de Vivre", "On Location", "Personas and Personalities", "Rural", "Early Works", and "Performance".
In addition to the biannual magazine, ''ASPECT'' occasionally created and distributed other DVDs of a single artist's work, which lend outside of the periodical format. Past features include monographs of Douglas Weathersby's "Environmental Services: Projects for TV" and "The Art and Films of Lynn Hershman Leeson
Lynn Hershman Leeson (née Lynn Lester Hershman; born 1941) is a multimedia American artist and filmmaker. Her work combines art with social commentary, particularly on the relationship between people and technology. Leeson is a pioneer in new med ...
."
In October 2006 ''ASPECT'' released ''The Tipping Point'', a documentary of a large-scale collaboration that chronicles the lives of four artists living in South Boston as they create an interdisciplinary interactive artwork based on their own health narratives.
History
''ASPECT'' was founded in 2003 by artist and educator Michael Mittelman. The mission of the publication was to distribute and archive works of time-based art. Each issue highlighted artists working in new or experimental media, whose works are best documented in video or sound. ''ASPECT'' began when Mittelman was frustrated with the lack of teaching materials available in the field of Interrelated Media. After meeting with leading curators such as George Fifield, director of the Boston Cyberarts Festival
The Boston Cyberarts Festival used to be the largest festival of digital art, performance and film created using new technology in the USA. Around 22,000 people attended the festival in 2007 where they witnessed the work of over 200 artists fro ...
, and Bill Arning, curator at the List Visual Arts Center, led Michael to the conclusion that curators and artists would gladly participate in a DVD publication of their work, and Volume 1: Artists of the Boston Cyberarts Festival was born. Rooted in its mission of distributing and archiving art that was best documented in video and/or sound, ''ASPECT'' became one of the most well-established and respected DVD magazine in its field, having featured over 50 works and artists in its four-year history.
In November 2006 ''ASPECT'' was honored by the Photographic Resource Center in Boston, MA as part of an exhibition celebrating their 30th anniversary.“PRC/POV Photography Now and The Next 30 years."
/ref> It ceased publication in April 2013.
References
External links
Official website
{{italic title
2003 establishments in Massachusetts
2013 disestablishments in Massachusetts
Biannual magazines published in the United States
Defunct magazines published in the United States
DVD magazines
Magazines established in 2003
Magazines disestablished in 2013
Magazines published in Boston
Online magazines published in the United States