[-empyre-] old media cycles to new: Signal Culture and Jason Bernagozzi

[Murat Nemet-Nejat]

Ben,

Let me start responding backwards:

"As I heard anecdotally, Ghery does not use computers in his creative
process, he draws and makes models. Others on the team are then left to
figure out how to realize it in reality, which indeed does require
computers. I don't know how much back and forth is involved between
physical constraints and Ghery's vision. The myth I heard was that he would
scrunch up a napkin into an abstract shape and tell his team to figure out
how to make it happen."

Years ago, I watched a documentary on Ghery. As I remember it, in it he
does work on the computer. Anyway, the principle remains the same.
Conceiving of a form with paper napkins, obviously, he was fully aware that
one had to use computers to build such building. Would he have dared to
conceive those designs, would his imaginations have gone there without it?

""As I suggested, in my view, the most interesting digital art is
conceptual, therefore, harder to commodify as fetish/prestige/inverstment
objects, except perhaps in public spaces."

Does this mean that digital art will never be accepted in contemporary art
because of its ephemeral character, and because contemporary art will
always be about objects that can be owned?"

No I don't mean that. Though as a historical fact it has usually been so, I
see no logical necessity for that. Perhaps, the mistake is associating
digital art with visual or plastic arts. One should regard it as being
closer to performance arts (dancing, rituals or even sports) where the
ephemeral is an inherent element.

""The major theme of a computer art, as I see it, must one way or another
confront this ambiguity, undercutting, blurring, making as un-transparent
as possible the transparency of virtual freedom."

This seems consistent with the notion of art as making the invisible
visible, or the implicit explicit. It could be argued that this is the
whole purpose of knowledge and objectivity, to cut through the illusion,
the subjective, the anecdote in order to expose the underlying reality that
is independent of context and point of view."

Yes, I agree with you, with one proviso:

"to see the wall we must hang a coat on it,

paintings continue the invisibility."


What I mean is that when the "illusion: is shared by a majority it creates
its own transparency. Breaking it results in a blur, "derangement of the
senses," "a coat hanging on a wall"-- what my friend David Chirot says,
"What hides in plain sight/site/cite."


"Now I'm reading your sense of "instability" differently. The instability
(over time) of digital representations is due to the sensitivity of those
representations to external conditions. Magnets, dropping, power surges all
have the potential to wipe out digital data. All representations (as
arrangements of matter and energy) by nature of their physicality are
sensitive to external conditions. The difference is in time-scale. There
seems to be a correlation between how slow the data is written and how
robust it is. It takes a long time to carve words into a rock, but it will
last a long time. It can still be erased by erosion, split by tree roots,
et cetera. The instability of digital representations are due to the
requirement that they are written very quickly."


It is interesting how we are struggling to define "instability." Its
meaning is elusive. What I mean by instability, in this case, is due to the
complexity of systems that algorithms enable us to build. Is it not true
that what may appear to be a "minor" mishap in a chain of connections may
have unforeseen, catastrophic consequences because almost everything
depends on everything else. This is already very clear in economics. Wasn't
the last financial meltdown an example of that? The failure of a relatively
"small" bank due to "synthetic" products (aka built on algorithms) brought
the whole system down? Does this not apply to other areas also?


Ben, don't you think a subversive digital art should be slow?


"
don't see the relation between stability and constraints, nor the link
between instability and systems. I consider stability as the lack of change
(again at a specific level of description and to some degree) over time.
Whether it changes or not, there are always constraints in a technology. *In
the case of computers, they are most often limited to binary
representation. While binary values can produce the illusion of continuous
values, there is an underlying constraint.* Computers have changed a lot,
but this binary aspect as remained nearly the same (except for very special
purpose quantum and analogue "computers"). These are constraints in the
technical system itself, and therefore "hard". There are also social and
cultural constraints on how technologies are used, but these are "soft" in
that its social convention (not technical details) that enforces them."


I am very interested to know how, in your view, binary representation
creates constraints? How does it affect/distort/amplify, you name it, our
experience of reality? You already touched on one point: that the
programer/computer assumes that the human brain can not distinguish
differences that occur above/or below a certain speed. Can you elaborate on
this or on other things in more general terms?


"Technical subversion could be modifying the technical system itself (e.g.
exposing film to light without a camera). Technical subversion may entail
cultural subversion because changing the technical system involves changing
the practices around its use (to some degree, at some level of
description)."


May Ray does exactly that in his Rayographs in the 1920's. I discuss one of
them in detail in *The Peripheral Space of Photography*.


Ciao,

Murat

On Sun, Feb 15, 2015 at 2:51 PM, B. Bogart <ben at ekran.org> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Murat,
>
> I was thinking about what you wrote and I've been wondering if we can
> think of subversion in both technical and cultural terms. Cultural
> subversion could be not adhering to the dominant practices around a
> technology (e.g. breaking the 180 degree rule, which is not highly
> subversive). Technical subversion could be modifying the technical system
> itself (e.g. exposing film to light without a camera). Technical subversion
> may entail cultural subversion because changing the technical system
> involves changing the practices around its use (to some degree, at some
> level of description). Cultural subversion may not involve any changes to
> the technical system itself. That being said, its also possible for the
> media (film) to stay stable in spite of technical changes (film ->
> digital). In these cases there is still stability at a high level of
> description.The following definition applies equally to analogue and
> digital cameras: A camera consists of a lens that focuses light on a
> light-sensitive area that results in the storage of a representational
> image.
>
> Film is stable in the sense that the poetics are defined by a set of
> largely stable practices. I think this stability is related to a historical
> stability in the technology itself. Technological stability is the result
> of a lack of change (to some degree, at some level of description) to the
> technological system (the arrangement of matter that constitutes the
> technology). At some level, every human artifact is cultural as it arises
> in a cultural context and is imbued with cultural values (e.g. that
> representation of images are worth-while at all).
>
> "In our world, computers are as "stable," in the sense of being
> here-to-stay, as film; but their all-pervasiveness of use deprives them of
> limits in the sense we are talking about. That makes them in the culture
> sense--the sense that is relevant here--unstable (a system). My question
> related to that instability."
>
> I don't see the relation between stability and constraints, nor the link
> between instability and systems. I consider stability as the lack of change
> (again at a specific level of description and to some degree) over time.
> Whether it changes or not, there are always constraints in a technology. In
> the case of computers, they are most often limited to binary
> representation. While binary values can produce the illusion of continuous
> values, there is an underlying constraint. Computers have changed a lot,
> but this binary aspect as remained nearly the same (except for very special
> purpose quantum and analogue "computers"). These are constraints in the
> technical system itself, and therefore "hard". There are also social and
> cultural constraints on how technologies are used, but these are "soft" in
> that its social convention (not technical details) that enforces them.
>
> At the cultural level and centered on the notion of the "end-user", I can
> see how one could consider computers as unstable in that there does not
> seem to be a stable set of practices around all their uses. At the same
> time, the process of programming computers is relatively stable, despite
> the fact that computers are used in such broad contexts. So we have a set
> of unstable end-user practices around a computer, but simultaneously the
> set of largely stable programmer practices around the very same machine.
>
> A system is a set of components that interact. They need not be symbolic.
> A wind-mill is a system, is it symbolic? A person using a hammer to hit a
> nail is a system of a person, a hammer, a nail, and a thing the nail is
> hammered into, is that symbolic? I can see how these systems could be
> re-framed as representational: A wind-mill represents the wind-speed in the
> speed at which grain is ground; a nail's depth represents the degree of
> force applied to the hammer. This is all just simple causation. I'm not
> sure we can reduce symbolic representation to causation.
>
> "The computer user's continuous anxiety about losing one's files and
> necessity to keep multiple copies (each one equally unstable) point to this
> ambiguity."
>
> Now I'm reading your sense of "instability" differently. The instability
> (over time) of digital representations is due to the sensitivity of those
> representations to external conditions. Magnets, dropping, power surges all
> have the potential to wipe out digital data. All representations (as
> arrangements of matter and energy) by nature of their physicality are
> sensitive to external conditions. The difference is in time-scale. There
> seems to be a correlation between how slow the data is written and how
> robust it is. It takes a long time to carve words into a rock, but it will
> last a long time. It can still be erased by erosion, split by tree roots,
> et cetera. The instability of digital representations are due to the
> requirement that they are written very quickly.
>
> "The major theme of a computer art, as I see it, must one way or another
> confront this ambiguity, undercutting, blurring, making as un-transparent
> as possible the transparency of virtual freedom."
>
> This seems consistent with the notion of art as making the invisible
> visible, or the implicit explicit. It could be argued that this is the
> whole purpose of knowledge and objectivity, to cut through the illusion,
> the subjective, the anecdote in order to expose the underlying reality that
> is independent of context and point of view.
>
> "As I suggested, in my view, the most interesting digital art is
> conceptual, therefore, harder to commodify as fetish/prestige/inverstment
> objects, except perhaps in public spaces."
>
> Does this mean that digital art will never be accepted in contemporary art
> because of its ephemeral character, and because contemporary art will
> always be about objects that can be owned?
>
> As I heard anecdotally, Ghery does not use computers in his creative
> process, he draws and makes models. Others on the team are then left to
> figure out how to realize it in reality, which indeed does require
> computers. I don't know how much back and forth is involved between
> physical constraints and Ghery's vision. The myth I heard was that he would
> scrunch up a napkin into an abstract shape and tell his team to figure out
> how to make it happen.
>
> Ben
>
>
> On 15-02-14 12:11 PM, Murat Nemet-Nejat wrote:
>
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> "I think this has a lot less to do
>> with the actual technology and more to do with the cultural practises
>> that constrain its use.}
>>
>> Ben,
>>
>> Isn't "subverting" itself a cultural activity? Can it occur in the
>> abstract, outside culture. Your concept of "stability," as far as I can
>> see, is a cultural concept. It implies certain limits, delineations,
>> conditions to its use. In our world, computers are as "stable," in the
>> sense of being here-to-stay, as film; but their all-pervasiveness of use
>> deprives them of limits in the sense we are talking about. That makes
>> them in the culture sense--the sense that is relevant here--unstable (a
>> system). My question related to that instability.
>>
>> "I think you are speaking more about the cultural practises (filming,
>> viewing, etc.) that formed around the 'original' technology (e.g. film
>> cameras, celluloid, etc.). Film stays film only because the cultural
>> practises that have become dominant stay (somewhat) the same, despite
>> the underlying technology changing significantly"
>>
>> As I described above, that's exactly what I am talking about.
>>
>> "Another interesting question is why computers are so general. I expect
>> it's because they allow very complex relationships between abstract
>> symbols."
>>
>> "allow very complex relationships between abstract symbols": is that not
>> what a system is? In the last few weeks, I happened to have seen two
>> movies relating to Turing, "The Imitation Machine" and a "pseudo"
>> documentary based "on his papers, reports," etc.. Both focus on his
>> being gay and his mistreatment because of that. They also focus on his
>> decoding machine. In that short period during the war, the machine was
>> stable, a "tool" to decode the enigma machine. No one was aware of at
>> that time the systematic/conceptual/philosophical revolution that tool
>> potentially implied. That transformation, a mental metamorphosis, is
>> amazing.It alters our, the society's relationship to time and space. It
>> diminishes drastically our experience of friction and gravity that
>> resist human aspirations, creating an almost euphoric sense of freedom.
>> But that freedom is as strongly illusionary because a) algorithmic
>> system are extremely unstable (that lack of friction works both ways);
>> b) as the film /Matrix/ shows, that "gravitationless" universe creates,
>> "exists in" a parallel, virtual world. The gravity and friction of the
>> physical world is unaltered. And we as human beings exist in this world
>> and are subject to its vagaries. The computer user's continuous anxiety
>> about losing one's files and necessity to keep _multiple_ copies (each
>>
>> one equally unstable) point to this ambiguity. The major theme of a
>> computer art, as I see it, must one way or another confront this
>> ambiguity, undercutting, blurring, making as un-transparent as possible
>> the transparency of virtual freedom.
>>
>> "> In other words, don't you have to achieve a certain amount of
>>
>>> invisibility to function as an artist?
>>>
>>
>> This seems related to representational vs nonrepresentational arts.
>> Indeed invisibility is highly useful in creation the illusion of
>> objectivity, but is this the aim of all artists? From my M.Sc. Thesis,
>> MAM was my thesis project, Memory Association Machine
>> (http://www.ekran.org/ben/wp/2007/self-other-organizing-structure-1-2007/
>> )"
>>
>> the "invisibilty I am talking about is not that of objectivity. I was
>> referring to the invisiblity of the work itself. To the degree that the
>> computer universe is so vast, the visibilty of a sub-system becomes more
>> difficult.
>>
>> "What do you think of the difficulty
>> in electronic media arts acceptance within dominant contemporary art?
>> Robotics, electronics, video, etc. all started around the same time in
>> the 1960s, so why is video more accepted as contemporary art? I would
>> argue that the stability and dominance of practises that made video a
>> medium (rather than just electrical technology applied in an art
>> context) allowed it to be more accepted, partially because of the
>> stability of the practises, and also because of the industrial support
>> of video being used outside of art. Perhaps "electronic media art" is
>> not a media at all, as it lacks the kind of dominance and stability in
>> practises around it of video."
>>
>> I am not sure if the video art is unrecognized in the art world. To the
>> extent it is, two ideas come to mind. At least initially, the video was
>> seen potentially as democratizing film making, being a cheaper, simpler
>> way of making films. That may have something to do with its earlier
>> establishment as a medium. Gradually, people began to see that the video
>> image is different from the film image, each having its own
>> characteristics, its pluses and minuses, making them potentially
>> distinguishable media of art. Second, in our time art is a commodity
>> fetching amazing prices. As I suggested, in my view, the most
>> interesting digital art is conceptual, therefore, harder to commodify as
>> fetish/prestige/inverstment objects, except perhaps in public spaces.
>> Multiple museums do show digital works, often as installations, a less
>> "stable," less permanent form.
>>
>> Architecture is incredibly affected by computers. Many visual forms
>> buildings take now (Frank Ghery's work being I think a prime example)
>> would have been impossible before the advent of computers.
>>
>> Ciao,
>> Murat
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 9:16 PM, B. Bogart <ben at ekran.org
>> <mailto:ben at ekran.org>> wrote:
>>
>>     ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>     Thanks for your close reading Murat, I'll respond inline...
>>
>>     On 15-02-11 11:04 AM, Murat Nemet-Nejat wrote:
>>      > <snip> as I see it, there is a contradiction in your analysis when
>>     > applied to computers as a tool. Film has a well defined place in
>>     > society. One either goes to the theatre or sits in front of TV or
>>     > your lap top or your cell phone, you name it, to watch it. But
>>     > computers as tools are all pervasive, affecting every activity of
>>     > human behavior. It is no wonder the term "ecology" has entered the
>>     > language in relation to digital tools. Your idea seems to fit when
>>     > working against a language/style/convention within an industry; but
>>     > how can you do so when the tool in question is not really a tool;
>>     > but a technological system of thought, of calculation (algorithm, as
>>     > I see it, is not a tool but a system) that has incredibly
>>     > promiscuous areas of application? Don't you constantly have to
>>     > create "sub-sytems" to isolate yourself, to gain some air to perform
>>     > your subverting act?
>>
>>     Indeed you are right that computers are highly general in a way that a
>>     hammer may not be. I think there are two issues here, the first is the
>>     sense of a tool as existing for a specific purpose vs a tool being
>>     general purpose. The second is the granularity of the description,
>> i.e.
>>     most tools are made by, or composed of, other tools (that is tools as
>>     systems). I'll begin with generalism. I think this has a lot less to
>> do
>>     with the actual technology and more to do with the cultural practises
>>     that constrain its use. A hammer is meant to hit nails, but it could
>>     also be used to kill someone, or pull up weeds (with the claw), or
>> even
>>     test for studs in a wall. The affordances of the design of the hammer
>>     certainly facilitate particular use, but in my examples above those
>> same
>>     affordances are perfectly suitable for other uses not intended by the
>>     designer. I think of tools as any arrangement of matter or energy that
>>     has utility in a particular use context, the degree of generality does
>>     not change the toolness of the tool. All tools are systems because
>> they
>>     are meant to create relations, at least between the user and the
>> world.
>>
>>     Thus, I think its not the technology in isolation that determines
>>     generality, but the interaction between the technology and the context
>>     of its use. Film is both a set of technologies and a media. When you
>>     speak of it being presented in a living-room, a theatre, or on a
>> phone,
>>     I think you are speaking more about the cultural practises (filming,
>>     viewing, etc.) that formed around the 'original' technology (e.g. film
>>     cameras, celluloid, etc.). Film stays film only because the cultural
>>     practises that have become dominant stay (somewhat) the same, despite
>>     the underlying technology changing significantly.
>>
>>     Then there is the question of granularity, where we tend to consider a
>>     set of technologies as a unified whole, even though it's composed of
>>     individual components. A hammer is made of the head and the handle,
>> and
>>     each offers different affordances and potential uses. The head on its
>>     own may be good enough for pulling weeds, but not very suitable for
>>     hammering nails. A 'film' camera is composed of a lens, and a sensor,
>>     and a number of processors that deal with transforming the raw
>>     information from the sensor into a sequence of images.
>>
>>     Indeed everything has become a computer, from cars to house-hold
>>     appliances. Each provides its own physical affordances to emphasize
>>     particular use, but the underlying technology is more general.
>>
>>     Another interesting question is why computers are so general. I expect
>>     it's because they allow very complex relationships between abstract
>>     symbols.
>>
>>     > In other words, don't you have to achieve a certain amount of
>>     > invisibility to function as an artist?
>>
>>     This seems related to representational vs nonrepresentational arts.
>>     Indeed invisibility is highly useful in creation the illusion of
>>     objectivity, but is this the aim of all artists? From my M.Sc. Thesis,
>>     MAM was my thesis project, Memory Association Machine
>>     (http://www.ekran.org/ben/wp/2007/self-other-organizing-
>> structure-1-2007/):
>>
>>     "For a time I considered my interest in the system acting beyond my
>>     intentions as a removal of myself — a removal of my intention from the
>>     system. In this attempt I was instituting software mechanisms that
>> more
>>     deeply ingrained my intention in MAM. This removal was an attempt to
>>     remove my "hand" from the work. My intention shifted from the design
>> of
>>     the system’s external properties to the design of the interface
>> between
>>     the context and the system. This effort moved to a different level,
>>     rather than removed, my influence over the system."
>>
>>      > As usual, a brilliant post. Thank you. By the way, my essay /The
>>      > Peripheral Space of Photography/ deals exactly with how photography
>>     > gradually realized, achieved its own independence in its early years
>>     >  as a medium against the onslaught of experts, "art critics" who saw
>>     >  it as a weaker sister of painting, consequently, as a medium of
>>      > representation. These presumptions never died down. /The Peripheral
>>      > Space/ is an extended review (later published as a book) of The
>>     > Metropolitan Museum exhibition "The Waking Dream" on the first
>>     > hundred years of photography. The curators of this exhibition
>> heavily
>>     > framed almost every one of several hundred amazing photographs in
>> it.
>>     > My essay discusses how these frames undercut and go against the
>>     > nature of the experience one has looking at them. The essay
>> discusses
>>     > what that experience is and how it defines the nature of photography
>>      > as an independent medium totally different from paint. <snip>
>>
>>     Thank you for your kind words Murat. What do you think of the
>> difficulty
>>     in electronic media arts acceptance within dominant contemporary art?
>>     Robotics, electronics, video, etc. all started around the same time in
>>     the 1960s, so why is video more accepted as contemporary art? I would
>>     argue that the stability and dominance of practises that made video a
>>     medium (rather than just electrical technology applied in an art
>>     context) allowed it to be more accepted, partially because of the
>>     stability of the practises, and also because of the industrial support
>>     of video being used outside of art. Perhaps "electronic media art" is
>>     not a media at all, as it lacks the kind of dominance and stability in
>>     practises around it of video.
>>
>>     Ben
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     empyre forum
>>     empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>>     <mailto:empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>
>>     http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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