Sunday, June 8, 2008
Curatorial Project
Paul Cezanne, Plain by Mont Sainte-Victoire
1882-1885
Window Onto A Floating World
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References:
[1] Becks-Malorny, U. (2001) Paul Cezanne 1839 - 1906 Taschen Germany p. 46
[2] Gell, A. (1998) Art And Agency- An Anthropological Theory Claredon Press, Oxford p. 244
[3] Becks-Malorny, U. pp. 47 - 48
[4] Colebrook, C. (2006) Deleuze: A Guide for the Perplexed Continuum, London.
p. 99
[5] Ramande, B.(2007) Kakemono Tate Online (web article): [http://www.tate.org.uk/intermediaart/entry15411.shtm]
[6] Smith, L.,V. Harris & T. Clark (1990) ‘The Art Of Ukiyo-e” in Japanese Art Masterpieces In The British Museum, London, British Museum Publications, p. 199
Bibliography:
1882-1885
Window Onto A Floating WorldIn the late nineteenth-century, French Post-Impressionist Paul Cezanne (1839 – 1973) sought to revisit the way in which he translated the landscape he saw before him onto canvas. His innovations were instrumental in transforming modes of representation for subsequent artists. Unlike the Impressionists, Cezanne was less concerned with capturing “a moment” in nature and more interested in penetrating deep into the heart of it to give life to that which was enduring and constant. He wanted to explore and understand the essence of the things in nature he depicted; ‘their inherent and eternal form.’[1] It is in Cezanne’s numerous representations of Mont Sainte-Victoire that best illustrate his departure from the Impressionist school of thought towards Cubism. Photographic analysis taken at the vantage points from where Cezanne painted Mont Sainte-Victoire indicate these works show more perspectives of the mountain than is possible to be seen from any one point. In effect, these paintings show Cezanne’s period of interaction with the mountain over time as he moved around and absorbed its size and shape from different angles. Cezanne’s depictions of the landscape were thus a culmination of many perspectives synthesized into one image - the result of attempting to represent exhaustively on a flat surface all aspects of what he had seen in three-dimensions. In Alfred Gell’s opinion, Mont Sainte Victoire is revealed as documentation of a process, a movement of duration, rather than as simply a ‘thing’ in world.[2] After his study of Mont Sainte Victoire, Cezanne’s art became defined by a series of forms and colours, without any attention paid to depicting a linear perspective. Instead, recession was suggested by the overlapping of certain forms within the painting and Cezanne’s pre-Cubism came to influence the generation of collage and assemblage art practices.
The series of artworks chosen for Window Onto A Floating World parallel Cezanne’s departure from traditional structures of space and form in their individual examinations of landscapes and scenes from nature, in which the process of their coming-to-being is made apparent through their digital and online realisation. The artists selected all display an interest in adapting paper based art practices, namely painting and collage, into a computational medium for display and interaction online. These artists have all retained varying degrees of a hand-made, low-tech and painterly feel when translating their works into a digital format. Each artwork exhibited intersects in some way with Cezanne’s innovative fashioning of the landscape. Modern art is defined by a constant rejection of representational ideal (towards abstraction) and an ongoing investigation into seeking out what it is that defines art. These online landscapes continue on in that tradition, in the way in which they seek to investigate theories, styles and modes of representation in a digital environment.
Ezra Johnson’s three artworks’, Fall, Undercover and High And Low were created for a web-based project in April of 2008 at the DIA Art Foundation in New York. The series entitled Wrestling with the Blob Beast was comprised of sixteen animated screen-savers, each one available to be downloaded free of charge from the DIA site.
Undercover presents to the viewer a night scene comprised of a vast area of dark moonlit water, with a cityscape across the horizon underneath a purple black starry sky, reminiscent of Van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888). In fact, the way in which the paint strokes have retained their broad and gestural form in Johnson's works resemble Van Gogh’s painterly approach to depicting nature. Undercover incorporates a glistening and shimmering backdrop for the animation of a cardboard cut-out style tug-boat, which makes its way across the dark deep sea in the foreground repeatedly for as long as the animation is played. A sense of movement is created in the artwork through the animated manipulation of what resembles the interplay of glistening sections of painted collage on top of each other. However, as traditional collage is fixed, instead through the flash animation programme they are able to remain in constant rotation with each other, thus giving birth to movement indicated by mimicking the effect of the moon glistening against turbulent waters. The use of animation in Johnson’s works extends the shortcoming of traditional painting in its inability to adequately convey nature’s transitory atmospheric and weather effects. Cezanne limited himself to describing the inherent essence of nature’s forms, as opposed to exterior influences upon the forms for this very reason.
Johnson’s High and Low captures that which Cezanne saw was an impossibility in painting – the movement of transitory effects of light. The main feature of this intimate night-time cityscape comprised of a dark cardboard cut-out style building is the amazing display of light above in the night sky. Johnson’s virtual aurora borealis undulates an floats in a way one would expect to see such a display in reality. In this way, Johnson’s screensavers can be seen as indexes to the prototype of both the impressionist and post-impressionist landscape - this work could be viewed as an effort to bring the two movements together by attempting to reconcile their differences through digital means. The process that went into the production of Johnson’s art is evidenced through the way in which traditional painting and collage practices are changed and revolutionised by their new digital context.
Cezanne once said to his friend and painter, Emile Bernard that it is the process of reforming - which a painter carries out as a result of his own personal way of seeing things - that gives new interest to the depiction of nature. The nature of this process meant that the end result was always going to be something that no one had ever seen before, something other than reality.[3] The works of Qubo Gas (collective of French artists Jean-François Ablézot, Morgan Dimnet and Laura Henno) are dynamic digital animations comprised of abstracted elements influenced by forms found in nature, which come together to transform the landscape into an imaginary or a dream-like vision. Deleuze saw that the separation of art from the actual (“life as it is actualised”) caused it to have the power to open up the virtual.[4] The works by this French collective take everyday common art forms and practices and redescribe them to offer an alternative vision or sensation to everyday life and traditional representational art. These digital works do not rely on perceiving subject or representing the world as being constituted by systematic and structured hierarchies or laws to instead remind the viewer of the expressive potential inherent within all the elements of life. This is conveyed not only from within the life of the works themselves, but also through Qubo Gas’ belief in the expressive potential of digital technologies for the creation of art.
The work Escargot Couleurs is a music video for a song of the same name by Belgian computer-pop-rock band, Pet Scratch Land. Like Johnson’s screensavers, this work is comprised of painted, collage and graphic aspects resembling elements from nature and landscapes, but which are arranged in a much more disorderly fashion. The animation begins with the digital generation of simple amorphous shapes that over the course of the video are transformed and sometimes subsumed by more complex and dynamic elements, including “cut-out” photographs of trees. The work is constantly in movement with the individual forms bouncing frenetically off each other. There often is no central point of action. Instead the forms move in a chaotic and irregular fashion, producing an image similar to microorganisms or bacteria multiplying. Again, as with traditional collage, an overlapping of forms suggests an element of depth. In parts, the animation enables elements of the work to enlarge and reduce, giving the impression that they are coming towards or receding from the viewer. The virtual world that is opened up and explored before the viewer supports Pet Scratch Land’s soundtrack, which is in itself an avant-garde melange of unconventional and experimental computerised sound.
Animation, collage and sound are aspects explored in a more immersive manner in Watercouleur Park (2007). This work relies upon interaction with the viewer for is complete realisation. Simple and childlike drawings or ‘doodles’ of both generic representations of nature and specific objects, such as trees, flowers, clouds, and stars have been made in pencil, felt-tip and watercolour and subsequently cropped into individual pieces and then digitised and put into a database from which the programme runs. Each time the artwork is launched these ‘collage’ pieces are generated at random to create a new landscape. The resulting effect looks very much like a child’s hanging paper-mobile. Each individual collage piece retains its flat two-dimensional nature in the artwork, but the software programme on which it is running has been coded to allow the parts to suspend and not be fixed to any one point. The collage parts move as free agents floating around the screen and have the ability to overlap in the ‘space’ defined within the programme. Sometimes the collage pieces that are generated are transparent, which allows for the overlapped pieces behind to be seen and further creates the illusion of depth. This ‘space’ can be explored as the beholder is invited to rotate, modify and change the point of view of the layered collage pieces. The beholder, or activator, becomes linked to the life of the work, temporarily immersed in the artificial landscape through the window of their computer browser. Their manipulations are emphasised by the generation of specific noises, which further links the viewer to the evolution and realisation of the work in each manifestation.
Art Critic Benedict Ramade has likened Qubo Gas’ artworks to Japanese landscapes produced in the genre of “ukiyo-e” (produced between the seventeenth and twentieth-centuries), which translates in English as “pictures of the floating world”.[5] Similar to the works' of Cezanne, landscapes that were made in the genre of ‘ukiyo-e’ traditionally would have little special depth and variation for seasonal atmosphere (prior to the 1830’s), exemplified in works by renown artist of the Edo period, Katushika Hokusai (1760–1849). [6] Quo Gas’ Uki-Yo (2004) is a work that takes its name from the genre but conversely is formally quite distinct from landscapes made in the ukiyo-e tradition. The landscape-forms in this new media work are completely computer-processed; they are generated by an algorithm (based upon a Japanese Haiku) which dictates the works continuous evolution, reproduction and eventual destruction. Uki-Yo is the result of culmination of collage studies and computer based drawings, as evident from the multiple preliminary sketches of the work. The hand-made tradition of collage has in this work been transmuted into a completely digital form and given a new context, but still retains its two-dimensionality and strongly resembles its hand-made precedent. In an abstract manner this work seeks to convey within a single frame/window the lifecycle or process of nature – birth, life and death - in a way traditional landscape painting could not adequately achieve.
Window Onto A Floating World is an exhibition that celebrates artworks that re-visit in a digital medium paper based art traditions, focusing upon works that depict aspects of nature and landscape. In their own way, each work could be viewed in relation to Cezanne's refashioning of the landscape in the way they are dominantly characterised by the use of a series of colours and forms, which in a digital medium create floating vibrant worlds for our interaction through the window of our computer browser. The mixture of media and technologies in these works create a picture of the world that Cezanne saw as an impossible task for painting - the capturing of movement and momentary effects. The artists in this exhibition respond to this, each offering an alternative extension of that which Cezanne was so troubled yet inspired by - the changing world around us.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As my proposal includes a work that is not web-based (Uki-Yo, by Qubo Gas) when conceiving of this exhibition I decided that it would be best experienced in an actual space, as opposed to being strictly online. This would mean that I would need to borrow Uki-Yo from Qubo Gas in order to display it. However, seeing as the work is a computer programme, I could ask for the artists to lend me a digital copy that would be projected from the computer onto the wall. This would then indicate to the public the process of the generation of the digital work. The work would run perpetually for the duration of the show. In researching and writing this essay, the only reproduction I have seen of Escargot Couleurs is from YouTube. I would also ask to borrow a better quality version of this video clip. This too is not strictly an internet art work, but it was chosen, as was Uk-Yo as an contextual comparison as a work from Qubo Gas' oeuvre. As all of the works chosen display a mixture of media and show cross-over of formal and technical boundaries, I feel justified in making the decision to include these works.
Below is a diagram of how I would stage the other works in this exhibition. I would propose to have the works in a circular space. The computers (iMacs, 24-inch screens) in the middle would display the three screensaver works by Ezra Johnson. The viewers would be able to activate all three screensavers on each computer. I would want to maintain the part they play in the generation of the work, instead of simply displaying it without necessitating their interaction.
Watercouleur Park would also be projected onto the wall opposite the door, but only at the instigation of a visitor who would approach the computer with projector attached, and launch the work. To stop cross-over of the music from Escargot Couleurs, I would attach personal headphones to the computer playing Watercouleur, which would also make the experience more immersive for that participant.
1: Uki-Yo
2: Watercouleur Park
3: Escargot Couleurs
4, 5, 6: Fall, Undercover, High and Low
The series of artworks chosen for Window Onto A Floating World parallel Cezanne’s departure from traditional structures of space and form in their individual examinations of landscapes and scenes from nature, in which the process of their coming-to-being is made apparent through their digital and online realisation. The artists selected all display an interest in adapting paper based art practices, namely painting and collage, into a computational medium for display and interaction online. These artists have all retained varying degrees of a hand-made, low-tech and painterly feel when translating their works into a digital format. Each artwork exhibited intersects in some way with Cezanne’s innovative fashioning of the landscape. Modern art is defined by a constant rejection of representational ideal (towards abstraction) and an ongoing investigation into seeking out what it is that defines art. These online landscapes continue on in that tradition, in the way in which they seek to investigate theories, styles and modes of representation in a digital environment.
Ezra Johnson’s three artworks’, Fall, Undercover and High And Low were created for a web-based project in April of 2008 at the DIA Art Foundation in New York. The series entitled Wrestling with the Blob Beast was comprised of sixteen animated screen-savers, each one available to be downloaded free of charge from the DIA site.
Ezra Johnson, Fall 2008
Fall is a multi-media work that is composed of a hand-painted backdrop of large orange and brown autumnal trees against a bright blue sky. The trees have been painted from a low perspective giving the impression that the viewer of the work is looking up towards their towering tops in the sky. Johnson has digitised this painting and incorporated it into a flash animation programme where the still image is brought to life by a series of single leaves which appear to fall and float from the tops of the trees, starting small and increasing in size as they spiral down, as if towards to viewers face. The leaves are like elements of collage that have been given life through the animation software. No longer do collage elements have to be stuck and fixed onto the canvas - in this software they have been coded to float and give the impression of a three-dimensional space in which their action takes place. Collage is given new expressivity through its digitisation.
Fall is a multi-media work that is composed of a hand-painted backdrop of large orange and brown autumnal trees against a bright blue sky. The trees have been painted from a low perspective giving the impression that the viewer of the work is looking up towards their towering tops in the sky. Johnson has digitised this painting and incorporated it into a flash animation programme where the still image is brought to life by a series of single leaves which appear to fall and float from the tops of the trees, starting small and increasing in size as they spiral down, as if towards to viewers face. The leaves are like elements of collage that have been given life through the animation software. No longer do collage elements have to be stuck and fixed onto the canvas - in this software they have been coded to float and give the impression of a three-dimensional space in which their action takes place. Collage is given new expressivity through its digitisation.Ezra Johnson, Undercover 2008 & Vincent Van Gogh, Starry Night Over the Rhone 1888
Undercover presents to the viewer a night scene comprised of a vast area of dark moonlit water, with a cityscape across the horizon underneath a purple black starry sky, reminiscent of Van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888). In fact, the way in which the paint strokes have retained their broad and gestural form in Johnson's works resemble Van Gogh’s painterly approach to depicting nature. Undercover incorporates a glistening and shimmering backdrop for the animation of a cardboard cut-out style tug-boat, which makes its way across the dark deep sea in the foreground repeatedly for as long as the animation is played. A sense of movement is created in the artwork through the animated manipulation of what resembles the interplay of glistening sections of painted collage on top of each other. However, as traditional collage is fixed, instead through the flash animation programme they are able to remain in constant rotation with each other, thus giving birth to movement indicated by mimicking the effect of the moon glistening against turbulent waters. The use of animation in Johnson’s works extends the shortcoming of traditional painting in its inability to adequately convey nature’s transitory atmospheric and weather effects. Cezanne limited himself to describing the inherent essence of nature’s forms, as opposed to exterior influences upon the forms for this very reason. Ezra Johnson High and Low 2008
Johnson’s High and Low captures that which Cezanne saw was an impossibility in painting – the movement of transitory effects of light. The main feature of this intimate night-time cityscape comprised of a dark cardboard cut-out style building is the amazing display of light above in the night sky. Johnson’s virtual aurora borealis undulates an floats in a way one would expect to see such a display in reality. In this way, Johnson’s screensavers can be seen as indexes to the prototype of both the impressionist and post-impressionist landscape - this work could be viewed as an effort to bring the two movements together by attempting to reconcile their differences through digital means. The process that went into the production of Johnson’s art is evidenced through the way in which traditional painting and collage practices are changed and revolutionised by their new digital context.Cezanne once said to his friend and painter, Emile Bernard that it is the process of reforming - which a painter carries out as a result of his own personal way of seeing things - that gives new interest to the depiction of nature. The nature of this process meant that the end result was always going to be something that no one had ever seen before, something other than reality.[3] The works of Qubo Gas (collective of French artists Jean-François Ablézot, Morgan Dimnet and Laura Henno) are dynamic digital animations comprised of abstracted elements influenced by forms found in nature, which come together to transform the landscape into an imaginary or a dream-like vision. Deleuze saw that the separation of art from the actual (“life as it is actualised”) caused it to have the power to open up the virtual.[4] The works by this French collective take everyday common art forms and practices and redescribe them to offer an alternative vision or sensation to everyday life and traditional representational art. These digital works do not rely on perceiving subject or representing the world as being constituted by systematic and structured hierarchies or laws to instead remind the viewer of the expressive potential inherent within all the elements of life. This is conveyed not only from within the life of the works themselves, but also through Qubo Gas’ belief in the expressive potential of digital technologies for the creation of art.
The work Escargot Couleurs is a music video for a song of the same name by Belgian computer-pop-rock band, Pet Scratch Land. Like Johnson’s screensavers, this work is comprised of painted, collage and graphic aspects resembling elements from nature and landscapes, but which are arranged in a much more disorderly fashion. The animation begins with the digital generation of simple amorphous shapes that over the course of the video are transformed and sometimes subsumed by more complex and dynamic elements, including “cut-out” photographs of trees. The work is constantly in movement with the individual forms bouncing frenetically off each other. There often is no central point of action. Instead the forms move in a chaotic and irregular fashion, producing an image similar to microorganisms or bacteria multiplying. Again, as with traditional collage, an overlapping of forms suggests an element of depth. In parts, the animation enables elements of the work to enlarge and reduce, giving the impression that they are coming towards or receding from the viewer. The virtual world that is opened up and explored before the viewer supports Pet Scratch Land’s soundtrack, which is in itself an avant-garde melange of unconventional and experimental computerised sound.
Qubo Gas, Watercouleur Park 2007
Animation, collage and sound are aspects explored in a more immersive manner in Watercouleur Park (2007). This work relies upon interaction with the viewer for is complete realisation. Simple and childlike drawings or ‘doodles’ of both generic representations of nature and specific objects, such as trees, flowers, clouds, and stars have been made in pencil, felt-tip and watercolour and subsequently cropped into individual pieces and then digitised and put into a database from which the programme runs. Each time the artwork is launched these ‘collage’ pieces are generated at random to create a new landscape. The resulting effect looks very much like a child’s hanging paper-mobile. Each individual collage piece retains its flat two-dimensional nature in the artwork, but the software programme on which it is running has been coded to allow the parts to suspend and not be fixed to any one point. The collage parts move as free agents floating around the screen and have the ability to overlap in the ‘space’ defined within the programme. Sometimes the collage pieces that are generated are transparent, which allows for the overlapped pieces behind to be seen and further creates the illusion of depth. This ‘space’ can be explored as the beholder is invited to rotate, modify and change the point of view of the layered collage pieces. The beholder, or activator, becomes linked to the life of the work, temporarily immersed in the artificial landscape through the window of their computer browser. Their manipulations are emphasised by the generation of specific noises, which further links the viewer to the evolution and realisation of the work in each manifestation. Qubo Gas Uki-Yo 2004
Katushika Hokusai Dawn at Izawa in Kai Province 1831-1834
Art Critic Benedict Ramade has likened Qubo Gas’ artworks to Japanese landscapes produced in the genre of “ukiyo-e” (produced between the seventeenth and twentieth-centuries), which translates in English as “pictures of the floating world”.[5] Similar to the works' of Cezanne, landscapes that were made in the genre of ‘ukiyo-e’ traditionally would have little special depth and variation for seasonal atmosphere (prior to the 1830’s), exemplified in works by renown artist of the Edo period, Katushika Hokusai (1760–1849). [6] Quo Gas’ Uki-Yo (2004) is a work that takes its name from the genre but conversely is formally quite distinct from landscapes made in the ukiyo-e tradition. The landscape-forms in this new media work are completely computer-processed; they are generated by an algorithm (based upon a Japanese Haiku) which dictates the works continuous evolution, reproduction and eventual destruction. Uki-Yo is the result of culmination of collage studies and computer based drawings, as evident from the multiple preliminary sketches of the work. The hand-made tradition of collage has in this work been transmuted into a completely digital form and given a new context, but still retains its two-dimensionality and strongly resembles its hand-made precedent. In an abstract manner this work seeks to convey within a single frame/window the lifecycle or process of nature – birth, life and death - in a way traditional landscape painting could not adequately achieve.Window Onto A Floating World is an exhibition that celebrates artworks that re-visit in a digital medium paper based art traditions, focusing upon works that depict aspects of nature and landscape. In their own way, each work could be viewed in relation to Cezanne's refashioning of the landscape in the way they are dominantly characterised by the use of a series of colours and forms, which in a digital medium create floating vibrant worlds for our interaction through the window of our computer browser. The mixture of media and technologies in these works create a picture of the world that Cezanne saw as an impossible task for painting - the capturing of movement and momentary effects. The artists in this exhibition respond to this, each offering an alternative extension of that which Cezanne was so troubled yet inspired by - the changing world around us.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As my proposal includes a work that is not web-based (Uki-Yo, by Qubo Gas) when conceiving of this exhibition I decided that it would be best experienced in an actual space, as opposed to being strictly online. This would mean that I would need to borrow Uki-Yo from Qubo Gas in order to display it. However, seeing as the work is a computer programme, I could ask for the artists to lend me a digital copy that would be projected from the computer onto the wall. This would then indicate to the public the process of the generation of the digital work. The work would run perpetually for the duration of the show. In researching and writing this essay, the only reproduction I have seen of Escargot Couleurs is from YouTube. I would also ask to borrow a better quality version of this video clip. This too is not strictly an internet art work, but it was chosen, as was Uk-Yo as an contextual comparison as a work from Qubo Gas' oeuvre. As all of the works chosen display a mixture of media and show cross-over of formal and technical boundaries, I feel justified in making the decision to include these works.
Below is a diagram of how I would stage the other works in this exhibition. I would propose to have the works in a circular space. The computers (iMacs, 24-inch screens) in the middle would display the three screensaver works by Ezra Johnson. The viewers would be able to activate all three screensavers on each computer. I would want to maintain the part they play in the generation of the work, instead of simply displaying it without necessitating their interaction.
Watercouleur Park would also be projected onto the wall opposite the door, but only at the instigation of a visitor who would approach the computer with projector attached, and launch the work. To stop cross-over of the music from Escargot Couleurs, I would attach personal headphones to the computer playing Watercouleur, which would also make the experience more immersive for that participant.
1: Uki-Yo
2: Watercouleur Park
3: Escargot Couleurs
4, 5, 6: Fall, Undercover, High and Low
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References:
[1] Becks-Malorny, U. (2001) Paul Cezanne 1839 - 1906 Taschen Germany p. 46
[2] Gell, A. (1998) Art And Agency- An Anthropological Theory Claredon Press, Oxford p. 244
[3] Becks-Malorny, U. pp. 47 - 48
[4] Colebrook, C. (2006) Deleuze: A Guide for the Perplexed Continuum, London.
p. 99
[5] Ramande, B.(2007) Kakemono Tate Online (web article): [http://www.tate.org.uk/intermediaart/entry15411.shtm]
[6] Smith, L.,V. Harris & T. Clark (1990) ‘The Art Of Ukiyo-e” in Japanese Art Masterpieces In The British Museum, London, British Museum Publications, p. 199
Bibliography:
- Becks-Malorny, Ulrike (2001) Paul Cezanne 1839 - 1906 Taschen, Germany
- Boundas, Constantin & Dorothea Olkowski (1994) Gilles Deleuze and the Theatre of Philosophy Routledge, New York
- Colebrook, Claire (2006) Deleuze: A Guide for the Perplexed Continuum, London
- Gell, Alfred (1998) Art And Agency- An Anthropological Theory Claredon Press, Oxford
- Ramande, Benedict (2007) Kakemono Tate Online (web article): [http://www.tate.org.uk/intermediaart/entry15411.shtm ]
- Smith, Lawrence, Victor Harris & Timothy Clark (1990) ‘The Art Of Ukiyo-e” in Japanese Art Masterpieces In The British Museum, London, British Museum Publications.
- ‘Qubo Gas Presentation’ PDF – [Accessed online http://www.qubogas.com/]
- “DIA ANNOUNCES NEW WEB-BASED PROJECT BY ARTIST EZRA JOHNSON” http://www.diacenter.org/dia/press/johnson.html
- Uki-Yo’ http://www.galerieannebarrault.com/qubogas/qubogas_ukiENG.html
- Ezra Johnson screensavers: http://www.diaart.org/johnson/screensavers.html
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Tate in Space
I know that I have blogged about outer-space before but for some reason I keep coming across space related works and this was too interesting not to share.
In finding this website I was very surprised to learn that the Tate had decided their next exhibition site was going be space. This seemed completely ludicrous and I was really fascinated but highly critical of the whole thing. According to the site, the central concept for the programme is to explore new ways in which 'Tate in Space can extend the visitor experience and engage existing and new audiences in a broad range of spatial experience.' From the website:
In finding this website I was very surprised to learn that the Tate had decided their next exhibition site was going be space. This seemed completely ludicrous and I was really fascinated but highly critical of the whole thing. According to the site, the central concept for the programme is to explore new ways in which 'Tate in Space can extend the visitor experience and engage existing and new audiences in a broad range of spatial experience.' From the website:
In order to fulfill their mission to extend access to British and International modern and contemporary art, the Tate Trustees have been considering for some time how they could find new dimensions to Tate's work. They have therefore determined that the next Tate site should be in space. At this stage a number of practical aspects of the project are being tested and an early pre-opening programme is being taken forward. This will clearly continue the Tate tradition of innovation and exploration, and provide a radical new location for the display of the Collection and for educational projects. We are very pleased to announce the launch online of our Tate in Space programme. (Sandy Nairne, Former Director of National Programmes, Tate 2002)
I took this site completely at face value initially, really thinking that although it seemed absurd the Tate was going to launch a space museum. When public institutions - especially museums which are in the service of educating the public - tell me something new, I am most probably always going to believe them in good faith. The Tate in Space site is presented like any other ordinary page from Tate Online, and the information presented in it does not hint at it being a ruse, other than some of it sounds far-fetched. But then again, so does a spacecraft landing on Mars. Eventually I found a link to the essay by Paul Bonaventura, Floating Worlds which exposed that Tate in Space is actually an Internet artwork, by artist Susan Collins.
Had I just been surfing the web without my critical thinking hat on, I wouldn't have picked up on this. In fact, to be honest, I went for days thinking that Tate is Space was real, it wasn't until I went back and couldn't find the site that I discovered it was a net art work. The original site for this project is not linked to from the Tate Online homepage, but it has now been indexed in the Net Art section of their site. http://www.tate.org.uk/netart/tateinspace/
The level to which Susan Collins has supported this ruse in trying to make it seem as believable as possible is certainly worth a mention. The site explains that in 2002 the Tate launched a satellite into space which orbits the earth "at a velocity of 7.67 km/sec approximately 400km from earth in a polar to polar low earth orbit." There is also a chart which informs visitors to the site of where and when one should look to see the satellite in the sky, and, there is apparently a webcam which plays footage captured from said satellite, which looks pretty BS to me, which is probably because it is. The information about how to use the webcam goes into such detail that in reading it you almost forget that this whole thing is a fiction - but is it really? I really can't figure it out, and because there is so much information on the sites, it's all quite confusing. Take a look for yourself.
The level to which Susan Collins has supported this ruse in trying to make it seem as believable as possible is certainly worth a mention. The site explains that in 2002 the Tate launched a satellite into space which orbits the earth "at a velocity of 7.67 km/sec approximately 400km from earth in a polar to polar low earth orbit." There is also a chart which informs visitors to the site of where and when one should look to see the satellite in the sky, and, there is apparently a webcam which plays footage captured from said satellite, which looks pretty BS to me, which is probably because it is. The information about how to use the webcam goes into such detail that in reading it you almost forget that this whole thing is a fiction - but is it really? I really can't figure it out, and because there is so much information on the sites, it's all quite confusing. Take a look for yourself.
Friday, May 16, 2008
World Offset: pledge to reduce your carbon footprint
Having a look through Rhizome's Artbase I came across this work that really caught my interest. I've been thinking a lot recently about how I can reduce my carbon footprint, and similarly some of my friends and family are becoming more aware of how greatly their daily routines negatively impact the environment and are now actively trying to reduce this through developing alternative behaviours such as not relying on their car as primary means of transport, composting food scraps, recycling more materials and turning off appliances when they are not in use. I try really hard to stick by this, and have to admit sometimes I do falter. I get the whole "climate-change is bigger than us, there's nothing we can really do, and my measly contribution means nothing" attitude once and a while and then I realise that's a completely stupid way to look at it - I'd feel horribly guilty if I didn't at least try to make an effort.So I was very interested to find this web-art project that explores this very notion of the futility and necessity of an individual reducing their carbon emissions by conserving energy. World Offset is a project that asks people to make a conscious promise to change their behaviours and make their contribution to the environment by asking participants to abide by a series of eco-friendly statements. At the end a figure is generated of how many pounds of carbon a person will save if they abide by the promises made. An example of 2 promises -
- I promise to turn off and unplug my home computer when not in use this year. Savings: 250 lbs per year, 0.7 lbs per day. Source: stopglobalwarming.org
- I promise to take two minutes off my regular showering time [1-7] days this week. If you are able to take 2 minutes off of your daily hot shower then you can save 342 lbs of carbon per year. Assumes an average hot showering time of 8 minutes. Savings: 0.94 lbs per day. Source: thegreenguide.com
The goal of the project is to make people aware that buying ecologically friendly products isn't enough to make a significant impact against climate change, and in fact making a conscious decision to reduce energy consumption produces a real carbon offset that can make a difference. The website informs that "the average American generates about 15,000 pounds of carbon dioxide every year from personal transportation, home energy use and from the energy used to produce all of the products and services used." So the projects aim is to have enough people pledged to the cause to offset the carbon emissions of at least one American, which seems like an absolutely futile amount seeing as there are over 303,000,000 citizens in America. Although, so far the website has only 102 pledgers and 20, 2344.93 pounds of carbon saved. In the face of futility the project advocates [http://worldoffset.org/futility/]:
We must work toward a wider, societal transition to a low carbon economy, whileI totally agree! The project invites individuals who have decided to make a difference to calculate their personal offset and then engages then into a community of other people who have made the same pledge in order to see, with their powers combined (GO PLANET!), just what kind of difference they can make together. The website extols the 20, 2344.93 pounds saved have been pledged by "good people" who have made personal sacrifices for a greater good.
simultaneously taking direst responsibility for reducing our personal emissions.
The project itself was launched at the opening of the EcoAesthetics exhibition at the TAG centre in The Hague in March 2008. This exhibition challenged visitors to consider eco-related issues "in different and inspiring ways." The displayed works showed alternatives and solutions by "fusing visionary art and technology."
The World Offset project contributed a digital visualisation of designed by the project's mastermind Tiffany Holmes. She terms it an 'eco-visualization', which the website describes as "the creative practice of making numeric environmental data visible and understandable through imaging, sound or animation." Holmes' stated goal for the eco-visualization is the promotion of environmental awareness and to make the data that indicates and charts this awareness accessible to a wider audience.
The visualisation is a moving collage of spinning discs that are made up of photos of every-day technologies that are designed to enhance our lives that consume energy, such as hair-dryers, cars and aeroplanes. The World Offset sites explains that when the first 75,000 of carbon are promised trees will replace the hair dyers. The 15, 000 pound mark was met on March 22, during the exhibition opening. It further states that "more than half a million pounds of carbon must be offset to fully “green” [out] the animation."The visualisation was projected onto a large screen monitor from the Internet where is in perpetual motion. This project asks people to come together and make real life promises in order to enact any kind of significant change. This project will only work if one abides by the promises they make. If they cheat, they are not only cheating themselves but also the community they have become involved in, and the world affected by climate change. If the participant starts wavering from their commitment they can go to the website to see how many more people have pledged which may re-invigorate their interest and make them potentially pledge more promises. The visualisation acts as a visual metaphor to convey exactly how much their commitment to the cause makes a real-life impact. Being able to see results in this way and knowing that other people are also joining in may just make an individuals choice to do what they can seem a little less futile.
THE POWER IS YOURS!
[It occurs to me know that the reliance on energy-sucking technologies, such as Internet-linked computers, and high-def flat screen monitors to convey this message may be a little ironic, but there is a sort of disclaimer on the website which states "...you cannot unplug my computer and I cannot unplug yours but maybe there is a compromise and it begins now. Promise for real to cut your carbon footprint by some tiny amount then look here". The project wouldn't be able to exist without relying on some sort of link to energy consuming technology, so - does the altruism of the project outweigh the negative impact it creates through a reliance upon technology upon the environment? I think an expression of concern is warranted and it needs to be put out there in some manner, just remember to turn your computer off at night.] Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Carlo Zanni - "The Possible Ties Between Illness And Success"
For my first essay I explored the relationship that exists between conceptual art and Internet art, looking specifically at how Internet artist Casey Reas appropriated Sol LeWitt's wall drawing instructions and translated them into a computational code for implementation in software. Reas' was interested in LeWitt's theory that the idea or concept behind the work should be the artists primary concern. In each manifestation of the wall drawing instructions the outcome will differ, depending upon a number of variables; the size of the wall, the paints used, the nature of the wall and the skill of the artist. Reas saw this effect also translated into his Software Structures project. The browser type, the Internet speed, the size of the screen, the power of the computer's processor and the type of software used all mediate the artwork's concept. The concept of the artwork, however, remains the same throughout every implementation. Thus, in LeWitt's terms, "the idea becomes the machine that makes art."*It seems that Reas isn't the only net artist to be influenced by the above maxim. Italian born artist Carlo Zanni is also interested in concepts being the central and necessary mechanisms behind the production of works of art. His works attempt "...to reflect my sense of the times we are living in. These works confront themes such as real time/real life; fiction/information; social economy/special effects; isolation/public identity."* One such work is Zanni's cinematic production The Possible Ties Between Illness And Success (2006). The work is a one-minute video that plays over the Internet - in fact the nature of the Internet is a very necessary and important component that literally helps to create the work. The amount of people viewing The Possible Ties at any one time and each of those peoples IP addresses, locations, and date and time of access is turned into data to be run through a software programme which works to subtly change aspects of the film. All of the variants created in the process of accessing the work online contribute to the final appearance of the work, in a similar way experienced by Reas and LeWitt's works. So, the movie is transformed and manipulated by it's Internet audience, who become important collaborators in the realisation of the piece.
The narrative of the short film is set in a bedroom and is centered around a young man who is sick and lying in bed, and a woman who enters the room to comfort him. When the site is visited by any Internet user, their individual data is collected by Google Analytics and sent to the server that hosts the film. The data is then used as a tool to fill the body of the young sick man with dots that look like a rash. The nature and location of the rash on the body depends upon the number of visitors and the location from where they are accessing the site.
In the act of a viewer accessing and watching the movie the data provided by their computer is gathered and stored, and then used in the re-editing of the film. The new version of the film (in which the narrative remains the same, but the character's degree of sickness changes) is then uploaded so the next viewers can watch the movie, which will differ in appearance depending on the data collected by the server. The interactive nature of this work is pretty amazing and like the Radio Astronomy project (talked about in an earlier blog) distorts one's concept of space and time. That I can sit at home and look at the site, thereby changing the nature of the film in a very specific and unique way is something that can only be facilitated by the Internet, and this is a work that is completely aware of and depends on this ability - the work is characterised by this necessary co-dependency.
The movie is no longer in production - the last manipulation was made on July 2007. Up until then, two versions were stored every day, but only one was archived per week. You can still download these older versions to view for those who are interested in the history of the project.
The title of the work refers to the Zanni's manic-depressive disorder, yet his success as an artist, and is directly influenced by the book Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and The Artistic Temperament by Psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison. I am really interested in the title as a statement and the works underlying concept (not unlike a set of instructions for a wall drawing). It occurs to me now that the works' success fundamentally relies upon a viewer's choice to access and view it online; a decision which in turn impacts upon the well-being of the male character, thereby providing another 'possible tie' between success and illness. Perhaps it is not immediately obvious to the viewer that in an eerie kind of way, we are what's wrong with the male character - it is the viewers "who provide the closing element of the story: the illness itself."* In this sense, the statement and concept 'the possible ties of success and illness' is, as in Sol LeWitt's terms, "the machine that makes the art." It's complex and tricky work and I like it.
Texts used:
* LeWitt, Sol ‘Paragraphs on Conceptual Art’ in Artforum Summer 1967, Special Issue, Vol. V, No. 10, pp. 79-83, June 1967, New York
* 'Bio' : http://www.zanni.org/
* Waelder, Pau The Possible Ties Between Illness And Success [March 2007]
Monday, May 5, 2008
'Ten Myths About Internet Art'
(plus a whole lot of digression)Ten Myths about Internet Art
Myth 1: A miniature medium
Myth 2: An arcane subculture
Myth 3: Expensive & esoteric
Myth 4: The Digital Divide
Myth 5: Internet art=Web art
Myth 6: A form of Web design
Myth 7: A form of innovation
Myth 8: Uncollectible
Myth 9: No economic value
Myth 10: A solitary experience
[From essay Ten Myths About Internet Art by John Ippolito - 2002]
John F. Simon Unfolding Object (2002) [From essay Ten Myths About Internet Art by John Ippolito - 2002]
Anyway, the two lonely most recent works that are on the site are the sort that necessitate your interaction for their full realisation - these are John F. Simon's Unfolding Object, and Mark Napier's net.flag. I really enjoyed net.flag, which is a programme wherein you can design a flag by copying and pasting different parts of world flags - my creation this one on the left. While Simon and Napier's works are interesting, I have to say they are both pretty dated - but then again we have advanced technologically in terms of software quality quite a bit since 2002. I can't help but feel that the Guggenheim Museum has kind of let itself down here, I mean there's a lot of awesome net artist out there doing great stuff, and a number of contemporary art museums have inaugurated net-portals for net artists to submit their works. Take for instance the Whitney Museum's ARTPORT- which incidentally is very easily found from the homepage. But again, I've just been looking at that, and while there are a few more than a handful of works their latest commissioned work Screening Circle by Andy Deck was launched more than 2 years ago on March 22nd 2006! The Tate also has a net art portal, it's latest work is Watercouleur Park by French artists group Qubo Gas, launched in March 2007 - so still a year ago. By the way, this work is totally RAD! Still, I wonder why there hasn't been any new commissions for over a year. I wonder if Rhizome's ArtBase has filled that need for net artists to have an online venue or forum to host their works and prefer that to a museum's site? This warrants further investigation I think.
When I sat down this evening to blog I didn't intend to rant on like I have - I really just wanted to share the Ippolito's Ten Myths essay which I found quite enlightening. Ippolito has explained in detail, for those interested, the history of Internet art (as he sees it) and tried to distill any misconceptions of misgivings people might have about Internet art. I found it useful to read as it explains and discusses in easy language theories and opinions on Internet art. I'm sure some of it could be contested, but so can any writing about any type/style or indeed history of art.
I was interested to read about the range of different types of Internet art, created by the exploitation of many different types of online protocol, such as "email art, peer-to-peer instant messengering, video-conference software, MP3 audio files, and text-only environments like MUDs and MOOS." Just reading about this has lead me to think more broadly about net-art practice which helps me in trying to figure out the types of art works I want to include in my curatorial project.
Finally, something interesting I just found under Myth # 8 Uncollectible:
I've had a look at this site just in case the site makes mention of any other net artists working as a part of this interesting initiative, but it seems pretty evident to me that there's been no new activity since 2004. It doesn't seem to be a terribly proactive campaign - maybe they thought they were getting a bit a head of themselves in 2004 with worrying about the obsolescence of ephemeral technology. Who knows, I could be completely wrong, but you'd think it there was initiative was still initiating they'd keep their website up to date with all the exciting new things they are doing. I'll have to keep a watch on it - no RSS feed on this site.
I was interested to read about the range of different types of Internet art, created by the exploitation of many different types of online protocol, such as "email art, peer-to-peer instant messengering, video-conference software, MP3 audio files, and text-only environments like MUDs and MOOS." Just reading about this has lead me to think more broadly about net-art practice which helps me in trying to figure out the types of art works I want to include in my curatorial project.
Finally, something interesting I just found under Myth # 8 Uncollectible:
"...the Guggenheim is bringing a particularly long-term vision to collecting online art, acquiring commissions directly into its permanent collection alongside painting and sculpture rather than into ancillary special Internet art collections as other museums have done."The section further explains that this approach has seen the Guggenheim put net art works into something they call the Variable Media Initiative - put together to in preparation for "the obsolescence of ephemeral technology by encouraging artists to envision the possible acceptable forms their work might take in the future." The initiative enables this by working to pair artists with museum and media consultants (not sure what they are) to "provoke comparison of artworks created in ephemeral mediums." For example, this comparison, which I think is slightly tenuous and warrants sharing: Felix Gonzalez-Torres' Untitled (Public Opinion) & Napier's net.flag project from above. I know comparison they are trying to make is less about similarity in appearance and more about their ephemeral nature, but they do look quite strange next to each other.
I've had a look at this site just in case the site makes mention of any other net artists working as a part of this interesting initiative, but it seems pretty evident to me that there's been no new activity since 2004. It doesn't seem to be a terribly proactive campaign - maybe they thought they were getting a bit a head of themselves in 2004 with worrying about the obsolescence of ephemeral technology. Who knows, I could be completely wrong, but you'd think it there was initiative was still initiating they'd keep their website up to date with all the exciting new things they are doing. I'll have to keep a watch on it - no RSS feed on this site.
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