[-empyre-] Process as paradigm

[Antoine Schmitt]

Hi all,

many threads already flowing in this very interesting forum, which are  
very tempting to react to...

First, here is a link to the live online demonstration of my work that  
is exhibited in the Process is Paradigm exhibition : Still Living (you  
will need Shockwave). So that you can have a live idea.

I personally think that processes are a very powerful material for  
artists, especially well suited to talk about the contemporary world,  
where objects and products tend to become services, flux agents and  
systems, where the world becomes more and more programmable due to the  
increasing fusion between bits, programs, atoms, dollars, people,  
information, genes, etc... And programming is the simplest way to  
create a process nowadays and at the same time a radically new  
material for artists, in the sense that it enables the creation of  
action as such, something that was not possible before. So, after  
having used the terms algorithmic art, process art, cybernetic art,  
system art, generative art, software art, I personaly like to use the  
term _programmed art_, which was coined during discussions of the very  
rich Transitoire Observable group about exactly this topic.

The conditional design approach is interesting, though I also don't  
resonate too much with the logic aspect (I prefer the term intention  
there, to speak about the role of the artist). I once introduced the  
term _aesthetics of the cause_ to talk about artworks where both the  
artist and the spectators focus on the cause of what is experienced,  
like in programmed art. The cause in the aristote sense : the cause of  
what happens, in a causal way. Which brings us back to the process as  
an artistic material, for which I have been a proselytizer for a long  
time, since I wrote drafts for a manifesto myself back in my early  
days in 1998, with a youthful energy and cumbersomeness ;)

I think that programming is a radically new artistic material in art  
history, because it allows the artist and the spectators to focus on  
_action_ as such. This gives us a brand new way to reflect on acting  
entities like humans and societies. This is also why life and nature  
are often subjects of programmed art, and why the bridges with  
political activism are so tempting. About this latter subject which  
has been brought up, I think that whether something is art or activism  
relates mainly to the context in which it is shown : the same work can  
be art in an art exhibition and a political action in a political  
rally or a public display.

Extending this train of thought, I think that programs and processes  
are a new creation material, but not only in the art field. I'm  
looking forward to experimenting programmed political pamphlets,  
programmed philosophical thesis. And I'm actually surprised not to  
have encountered many of them yet, like a real political virus for  
example, something that _really_ acts on reality.

One last point on the similarities between the art process and the  
scientific approach on a common material like processes : the  
intentions are clearly not the same. They are perpendicular or even  
opposite. Science wants to explain everything. Art wants to play with  
the distance between reality and its representation. Art plays with  
the cracks, science fills them up. The goals are different, even if  
the means look similar.

Jeez, I can't believe that I wrote such a long email, and with so many  
opinions in it. Must be because I'm writing from a plane to north  
america and I'm getting influenced by its rhetorical traditions... ;)  
But I must say that it is rare enough to be able to have discussions  
on what I believe is a radically new creation material in human  
history (no less). Thanks to Susanne and Lucas for allowing this.

Cheers !

++ as




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