[-empyre-] incompatible research practices - week 01 - from functionaries to programmers (and then some tricks for handling the incommensurable)

Tue Feb 7 09:45:36 EST 2012

Hi Gabriel, and César, and all,

Thank you Gabriel for inviting me here.  As a way into the maelstrom that is my artistic & theory practice, you might want to visit my rarely, if richly, updated blog. 
http://gratfortech.blogspot.com
and a recent project
http://i-mine.org

I think Marcus started things off in an interesting way, because, not only did I hear Prof. Zielinski completely differently, I can't imagine he would say something like 'the present does not exist'.  pending the publishing online of the video recording of the talk on the tm website, we will have to try to recollect.

Zielinksi was speaking in the context of a critique of the recent rise in popularity of what is called media archaeology, I think he said something like "now (our disproportional interest in) the past and the future are squeezing the present ever narrower."  He saw this economically, "it is an economical problem to generate the present and the future out of the past" (this quote I took from my notes)

With media archaeology in fashion, many a career, artistic and otherwise are made.  But, to my mind we need to look carefully at this from both (pace Becker) a Flusserian and a McLuhanian position. Of course the obvious McLuhan tetradic interpretation is that we are culturally going through massive "Retrieval" where what Stiegler calls 'Grammatisation' (http://arsindustrialis.org/node/2937)  (more or less analogous to literacy for McLuhan and Flusser) has become so pervasive, or even, through light speed grammars of digital code, 'overheated', that there is a powerful new interest in particularly the sensual holism of precursor technologies, especially their aesthetics, but also their stories.  Media Archaeology is thus really a fashion, something inordinately hyped to sell more books, music, clothes, etc...  The past is being colonized, mined...  Meanwhile, Zielinski is always (if he still uses the label)  explicitly not a media archaeologist but a Media (an)archaeologist, a practice which has been increasingly one of biographing the anarchic margins of western thought and knowledge. 

The present may be becoming for many, less present, less accessible, but is still very much immanent, indeed it is the only thing we ever really have.

best
Baruch

On Feb 6, 2012, at 6:25 PM, César Baio wrote:

> Hello all, 
> 
> I would like to thank Gabriel for the invitation and to say that I am very happy to participate in this debate space. 
> 
> As Grabriel placed in the introduction, my interdisciplinary training has much connection with the matters that I am interested. Although I have an audiovisual background, my first area of study was the electronics, and I think that today this has much influence on what I have written and on my experimental projects. 
> 
> In the Transmediale in/compatible research, for example, I presented one part of my dissertation in which I try to think of relations between the methods used in technology and procedures used by artists working with art and technology. I believe it is possible to identify a series of tensions in the confluence of these two areas. Among other issues, I'm interested in if and how artistic practice can reformulate the concept of technology making their production and use more accessible, how are different (and ambiguous) the strategies that the artist uses to deal with automation, the fetish and the power of technology, as experience in technical areas of certain artists can transform the artistic production and the aesthetic aspects of the technologies. 
> 
> Like I said before, these issues have a strong link with my own trajectory, my way of thinking and my sensibility. I think that is what has led me to get closed to the theories of some philosophers such as Flusser. 
> 
> Well this is just a beginning... 
> 
> Best regards, 
> 
> Cesar Baio
> 
> 
> 
> > From: gabriel.menotti at gmail.com
> > Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2012 06:57:13 +0000
> > To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > Subject: [-empyre-] incompatible research practices - week 01 - from functionaries to programmers (and then some tricks for handling the incommensurable)
> > 
> > Hello, all!
> > 
> > It is a pleasure to bring to the Internet the discussion about
> > research practices started in the previous days during the
> > Transmediale festival. The first participants for the month share a
> > filmmaking background, as well as a long-term interest in the writings
> > of Vilém Flusser and a personal engagement with art production. It
> > will be interesting to see how these common points of departure might
> > result in two very different approaches to academic investigation.
> > 
> > In the paragraphs below, a bit more info about our guests.
> > 
> > *César Baio*
> > 
> > Artist and researcher, Cesar Baio has a background in electronics, art
> > and audiovisual. He has developed his master's and PhD’s research at
> > the Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC/SP) with a research
> > internship at the Vilém Flusser Archive at the Berlin University of
> > the Arts (UDK). He address issues related to the technical image and
> > dispositifs of mediation in art. These issues have been elaborated
> > also poetically in interactive installations, urban interventions and
> > video.
> > 
> > *Baruch Gottlieb*
> > 
> > Baruch Gottlieb is a Canadian artist and researcher living in Berlin.
> > Trained as a filmmaker, his work theoretically, speculatively and
> > practically explores ground principles of the materiality of digital
> > media, the materiality with which all digital media may be made,
> > taking many diverse and convergent forms, such as: permanent and
> > ephemeral public installations, stage and public performance, writing
> > and video.
> > 
> > Welcome! =)
> > 
> > Best!
> > Menotti
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre

Baruch Gottlieb ::: Digital Archive Project
in/compatible // transmediale 2012, 31 Jan - 5 Feb 2012 // transmediale.de

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