An Alpha Revisionist Manifesto: Concept White Paper

Abstract

In the technological sector, the first development stage of a product is known as 'Alpha' phase. The essay posits that techno-industrial culture and the production of technological art have been superimposed to the point where artists are often indistinguishable from commercial entities trying to sell the next hype-laden device. This is also true in the case of intangible on-line art, as market and institutional forces rematerialize net and other forms of screen-based art. The combination of hype and the temporal constraints of development and production result in a milieu where professed claims seldom live up to the final product. The cycle of promotion of the 'Next Big Thing,' whether art, data, or consumer object, outstrips any possibility for finished products to keep pace with expectations raised by the 'Alpha' and 'Beta' prerelease stages. The result is an inordinate degree of media attention focused on ideas that are barely out of conceptual stages or 'Alpha Revision,' so that conceptual artists of the informational milieu must become engaged in the high-speed production of concept proposals, or 'Alpha Revisionist' works.

(With thanks to Blackhawk)

In the technological sector, the 'Alpha' phase of a product refers to its first development stage, frequently little more than a fully developed idea in the process of implementation. It is followed by the 'Beta' stage, which is the final consumer testing that precedes release of a product (software, hardware, etc.) to the public. This sequence is an industrial tradition that includes such New World cultural icons as Detroit's concept cars, but a promise of progress is no longer enough for technological society. We are now in a period of the Alpha Revision.

In previous decades, such as the 1950s, development was closely guarded, with peeks of or brief glimpses at objects-in-progress, only to climax in the glorious debut of the newest Philco television, Chevrolet automobile, or latest motion picture. In the past, the industrial production culture guarded its developing projects closely. The need for primacy in the promotion of ideas and products in the increasingly accelerated culture of the 80s and 90s technological markets became ever more pronounced, and required announcements to be made while concepts were in the 'Beta' stage. The marketing of a product or concept increasingly moved back in the development arc, and in the age of early to mid post-W.W.II American consumerism, the prevalent timeframe was that of the final testing phases. In contrast to this, the current technological culture is one that feeds on hype and diminished expectations of the actual product, even more so than the hype associated with 1960s American prototype concept cars.

History was once a prime driver of society. Artistic and philosophical movements, including the Renaissance, Neoclassicism, Neoplatonism, and even strains of 20th Century Revisionism look and have looked to the past to revitalize the present and strategize the future. However, at the turn of the second millennium, society's expectations shift progressively further into the future. McLuhan mused that modern artists live in the present [1], creating a visionary aura around them while mainstream society locates itself within a frame of reference that is largely based upon the past, both recent and distant. Technological society is driven by this form of 'present-futurism,' and while the present is the focus of McLuhan's thesis, popular expectations create a perceived 'future' that also increases in its speculative nature as the event horizon of contingent events becomes even more distant in time. Conversely, history is hopelessly ephemeral as on-line archives are far more impermanent —in terms of their need for perpetual refreshing—than their more physical counterparts. As history degrades, and the future becomes more divorced from any possible link to the present, the current day becomes uninspiring, and it takes far too long for speculative projects to get out of Beta. The acceleration of culture demands the consumption of ideas at their peak of freshness, instead of waiting two years from Microsoft's announcement of the X-Box until delivery of the physical object. So, to insure primacy of the idea in the...