Robert Sloon
media artist from South Africa
Detailed biography
JIP – JavaMuseum Interview
Work
title
ArtHeat
year of launch
2006
Short Description
ArtHeat is an ongoing blog project. Starting in 2006, ArtHeat responded to the lack of arts infrastructure, valuable criticism and discourse in South Africa, which is currently limited to two major art competitions, one website and one magazine, and very little funding all round. ArtHeat is an artistic intervention, using gossip, meanness, cheap shots and humour as its media. It parodies the structures of the South African artworld, while providing a forum for alternative artistic strategies and opinions. One of its most important aspects is its accessibility, via the Internet. This provides it with a large and unstructured audience. The content and comments posted to the site are uncensored, leading to a large amount of infighting, grudges, bitchiness and some criticism. Although ArtHeat is clearly a written word project, it explores the way that established traditions such as criticism and writing can become artworks.