Thomas Hirschhorn interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Thomas Boutoux ed., Hans Ulrich Obrist: Interviews volume 1, Milan: Charta, 2003, pp.393-400.
Scientic method, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 21st September 2009. 22nd September 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/Scientific_method
Hans Ulrich Obrist’s interview with Thomas Hirschhorn presents an artist confident with his artistic strategy and the function of his art. Art is utilitarian. I’m interested in the value of this approach considering the confusing nature of the purpose of art.
Hirschhorn states the function of art for himself directly: “art is a tool to learn about the world, a tool to engage with reality, and a tool to experience the time I live in” (Boutoux ed., 397). With the keyword being tool, art could be seen as a means to an end, something to be used to gain knowledge. I wonder is art loses its autonomy under this approach? The tool is not the result at the end of a process but what is used to reach that result. The catalogue as a tool for the “distribution of ideas, positions and manifestos, not [for] the form and design” (396) performs part of this function for Hirschhorn.
The concept of art as a tool shares similarities to the scientific method which is “a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge” (en.wikipedia.org). This is interesting considering the proposed site of Hirschhorn’s “Kiosk” project. In some ways he is aligning art as a research field with science: “I wanted to confront the researchers and scientists at the Institute with artistic and literary concerns” (Boutoux ed., 397).
My initial response is to question the validity of “artistic and literary concerns” in comparison to the field of scientific research. How effective are they as tools to learn about the world and what type of knowledge do they grant us? Postmodern contributions to philosophy have sought to align all fields of human knowledge on equal terms after western history has traditionally privileged scientific knowledge gained through empirical methods. Perhaps it is useful to reconsider my initial response. Hirschhorn has designed a “confrontation” to no doubt incite these questions. Like his view on the art catalogue, “It should provide space to raise questions, not try to convince me of the work’s validity” (396).
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The Trickster and Urban Gaming
Fisher, Jean, "Towards a Metaphysics of Shit," in Documenta 11 Platorm 5 The Catalog, Ostfildern-Ruit: Hajte Cantz, 2002, pp. 63-70.
"Be My Controller, opening up the urban, button by button." Neural, Issue 30, Summer 2008, pp. 40-41
In this essay Jean Fisher presents the trickster as a strategy for the “repossession of a language of subjective agency” (63). Among arts many perceived functions is the agent of change that resists hegemonic power to bring about positive change. As a writer on contemporary art Fisher asks if art can perform this function which is a question I think many artists ask themselves. I remain fairly cynical on the matter. In saying that there is an art project that comes to mind when reading Fisher’s essay that I think relates to the trickster in interesting ways.
Fisher writes that to gain subjective agency an individual must “reclaim a sense off authority to act and to have action matter” (65). The actions of the trickster aim to play with power structures through humour and subversion. Another way she puts it is “gaming with the language of the institution” (69). I particularly like that one.
The Ludic Society project “Objects of Desire” stages a game in public space as a way of navigating the rigid structure of the city through the adoption of game rules. “Players” wander a city environment searching for tagged boxes using a Nintendo DS controller. The idea is that by following strict game rules viewers can unlearn the institutionally accepted rules of that urban space. The framework of a game, which is primarily designed for play and fun, gives the subject agency in that space with an interactive alternative. While the strategy of Fisher’s trickster seems to be rule-less injecting an oppositional rule set into a space is another way of acting out a social change. Interestingly, there is not much freedom of movement within the rule set which can result in a distancing of responsibility from ones actions. Following game instructions becomes an excuse or defence for behaviour that breaks social rules which can be liberating in its own right.
"Be My Controller, opening up the urban, button by button." Neural, Issue 30, Summer 2008, pp. 40-41
In this essay Jean Fisher presents the trickster as a strategy for the “repossession of a language of subjective agency” (63). Among arts many perceived functions is the agent of change that resists hegemonic power to bring about positive change. As a writer on contemporary art Fisher asks if art can perform this function which is a question I think many artists ask themselves. I remain fairly cynical on the matter. In saying that there is an art project that comes to mind when reading Fisher’s essay that I think relates to the trickster in interesting ways.
Fisher writes that to gain subjective agency an individual must “reclaim a sense off authority to act and to have action matter” (65). The actions of the trickster aim to play with power structures through humour and subversion. Another way she puts it is “gaming with the language of the institution” (69). I particularly like that one.
The Ludic Society project “Objects of Desire” stages a game in public space as a way of navigating the rigid structure of the city through the adoption of game rules. “Players” wander a city environment searching for tagged boxes using a Nintendo DS controller. The idea is that by following strict game rules viewers can unlearn the institutionally accepted rules of that urban space. The framework of a game, which is primarily designed for play and fun, gives the subject agency in that space with an interactive alternative. While the strategy of Fisher’s trickster seems to be rule-less injecting an oppositional rule set into a space is another way of acting out a social change. Interestingly, there is not much freedom of movement within the rule set which can result in a distancing of responsibility from ones actions. Following game instructions becomes an excuse or defence for behaviour that breaks social rules which can be liberating in its own right.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Benjamin and New Media Reproduction
Benjamin, Walter, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", reprinted in Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas Kellner ed.s, Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks, Oxford: Blackwell, 2001, pp. 48-70.
Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2001
Metadata. Webopedia. 2 March 2006. 26 August 2009. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/m/metadata.html
One of the many strands Walter Benjamin discusses in his influential 1935 essay concerns the effects of reproduction on the historical testimony and authenticity of the art work (51). Early 20th Century modes of production included print technologies, for example lithography, and also sound recording, photography and film. For Benjamin “even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be” (50). The unique experience is determined by the objects historical testimony. An implication of this is that “traces of the [original] can be revealed only by chemical and physical analyses which are impossible to perform on a reproduction” (50).
Reading Benjamin’s essay in the context of a contemporary digital culture I find it interesting to compare this process of historical tracing to the properties of a new media artwork and the data it consists of. As digitally stored information an image, sound file, video, web page, application, or text contains embedded metadata which provides context for the data. It can describe “when and by whom a particular set of data was collected” (webopedia.com). This data can trace the history of a new media object and is easily accessed through the properties of the object.
For a new media artwork produced by computer technology its history is embedded by automated processes performed by the computer. Subsequently any direct copies made (not transcoded) will also contain this metadata and be indistinguishable from the original. The laboured process of physical and chemical analysis has been replaced by a few button clicks and the reading of file properties via a computer interface.
Lev Manovich makes a relevant point in relation to the use of computer technology and new media objects in contemporary society in that it is characterised by “loss of data, degradation and noise” (54). While in principle copies are indistinguishable in quality ease of distribution and access means lossy compression is a required technique in reducing the digital size of data (54). The compression of images, audio and video for distribution on the internet or feature length films compressed for DVD all involve a loss of quality from the original source files. In this respect the reproduction of new media has not differed greatly from how Benjamin saw reproduction in his time. It continues to be utilised for widespread distribution in culture which requires a practical loss of quality.
Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2001
Metadata. Webopedia. 2 March 2006. 26 August 2009. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/m/metadata.html
One of the many strands Walter Benjamin discusses in his influential 1935 essay concerns the effects of reproduction on the historical testimony and authenticity of the art work (51). Early 20th Century modes of production included print technologies, for example lithography, and also sound recording, photography and film. For Benjamin “even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be” (50). The unique experience is determined by the objects historical testimony. An implication of this is that “traces of the [original] can be revealed only by chemical and physical analyses which are impossible to perform on a reproduction” (50).
Reading Benjamin’s essay in the context of a contemporary digital culture I find it interesting to compare this process of historical tracing to the properties of a new media artwork and the data it consists of. As digitally stored information an image, sound file, video, web page, application, or text contains embedded metadata which provides context for the data. It can describe “when and by whom a particular set of data was collected” (webopedia.com). This data can trace the history of a new media object and is easily accessed through the properties of the object.
For a new media artwork produced by computer technology its history is embedded by automated processes performed by the computer. Subsequently any direct copies made (not transcoded) will also contain this metadata and be indistinguishable from the original. The laboured process of physical and chemical analysis has been replaced by a few button clicks and the reading of file properties via a computer interface.
Lev Manovich makes a relevant point in relation to the use of computer technology and new media objects in contemporary society in that it is characterised by “loss of data, degradation and noise” (54). While in principle copies are indistinguishable in quality ease of distribution and access means lossy compression is a required technique in reducing the digital size of data (54). The compression of images, audio and video for distribution on the internet or feature length films compressed for DVD all involve a loss of quality from the original source files. In this respect the reproduction of new media has not differed greatly from how Benjamin saw reproduction in his time. It continues to be utilised for widespread distribution in culture which requires a practical loss of quality.
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