In his short article “Constructive Instability” Thomas Elsaesser explores the interconnections between modern interactive media, such as YouTube, avant-garde art techniques, and complex biological systems; in particular he delves into the idea that interactive media has blurred the lines between art, technology, and life due to it’s unpredictability and potential for random growth. Len Manovich explores a related topic in “The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life”, looking into the customizability of sites like YouTube, and how the ways in which people choose to arrange various things together can constitute art itself.
While both article offer a related view of YouTube as an unpredictable system there is a clear divergence in how the authors believe the site became unpredictable. Elsaesser sees the site as an organism unto itself, which has grown past the expectations of its creators into something new and nearly unstoppable. Control of this being is no longer entirely in anybody’s hands, and it will take whatever direction it wishes to take. Manovich offers the contrary view that these sites are under the direct control of the public, which creates the morphological nature of the sites by mixing and matching all of the options and offerings creating by the professionals. Instead of being an uncontrollable juggernaut that threatens to swallow art if artist don’t keep up, Manovich sees YouTube and related sites are a fertile ground for new art methods to appear from the nearly limitless possibilities of mixing and matching.
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