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

[B. Bogart]

Hi Murat,

I'm not sure how this thread will shift in light of this weeks
discussion, so I'll be brief (as much as possible) and pull out a few
salient points.

Regarding the notion that mainstream contemporary art ignores new media
because of ephemeral quality, you said:

> 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.

Interesting. This makes me wonder about the economic viability of
performance vs plastic arts. I would not be surprised if this is another
technical cycle, where software is a service, then a product, and now a
service again.

> 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."

I agree. One interpretation of McLuhan's "the media is the message" is
that the emphasis on the message necessarily depends on transparency,
and that the media itself (as a veiled system of representation) is more
significant than the message that is carried within it. This seems well
aligned with my TEDx talk (http://youtu.be/xYtt8qSwJws).

In terms of instability, I entirely see your point that complexity leads
to increasing potential for error, and those errors can have unexpected
consequences because of complexity. The rate of change certainly
contributes to increasing chances for error. This rate of change means
that we depend on technologies before we realize what the implication
are, and we change technologies before we even get good at using the
"obsolete" ones:
http://www.ekran.org/ben/wp/2013/virtuosity-and-stability-in-technology/

Thus, I think that all technological innovation should be "slow" in
order for us to better understand implications and also achieve
virtuosic performance. I think we should equally emphasize the need for
novelty with the need for testing. Right now we just throw new
technologies out there without taking testing (socially, technically,
economically) really seriously. It seems all technologies are in a
perpetual state of incompleteness.

Murat, I'll think about your comments on constraint and binary
representations and see if they fit into future discussions. I think
this message is long enough!

Ben


On 15-02-15 09:33 PM, Murat Nemet-Nejat wrote:
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> 
> 
> 
> 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 
> <mailto: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/
>
>
> 
<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> <mailto: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/
>
>
> 
<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 
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