I get the impression that nowadays in art, like in any other cultural branch, be it
politics, the humanities or the different fields of social research, the
emphasis is on the feasible. This happens surely because a growing awareness
of interdependence, not just on strategic but also on
ecological or economic terms, prevents the majority from seeking refuge in
any utopias - utopias here understood as thought models or theories deriving
from the renaissance scheme of the ideal city "utopia": the isolated
beautiful form opposed to the chaotic conditions of the environment,
"projected" not only in terms of time but also in self-displacement...
Instead inter-texturality, networking and shallow hierarchies prevail and
any form of missionary effort seems quite of place and out of structure.
Handling and not transforming (or converting) is the theme of a period which
is, sometimes more, sometimes less intensely occupied with the re-modeling
of the self through the self(and not through a Z. Stardust-Saviour...): an
errand, non-completable because it is anomic I guess, and an uncomfortable
place and time for the artist and his job-profile shaped after the heroic
prototype of the lone fighter, the ranger, the missionary or the
stormtrooping cavalry ("The James Gang rides again"...). Escapists like the
late disciples of the "avant-garde" find their natural limits in the
economical net, which somehow paradoxically forces them into a regular job
in order to maintain the outsider status. (Now, what exactly would you like
to do Mr. Baudelaire?). This is no calamity and maybe not even a development
exclusively typical for just this period. The ongoing process of
integration, the disappearance of an
"outside", the obvious
need to reflect on media not just as means to transport a message but at least as an
"informing" part of communication somehow necessarily requires a re-thinking
of the status of the artist's job and work, or, less ambitious, thoughts on
how at least some of his abilities can/could be coordinated with a situation
that does not call for the autonomous work and its maker. Now if the
outsider status is no issue, should we and how should we try to get inside?
Presuming "in" is the place of common denominator and we'd make it there we
found ourselves in the "middle", the place desperately sought after,
discussed and defended by marketing strategies and political parties...
Leaving aside the question whether artists would be the most wanted
personnel in this realm and whether the comforts to be found there comfort
the artists personae - we could ponder on advantages and disadvantages and
on probabilities of whether and how instruments that somehow dismember can
also help to build... or we could swap to the realm of metaphors...
which, as this text deals with art and music, leads us to a consideration of
the realm of sound and its spatial manifestations. Back in the early 80s,
when we still went to see rock concerts my friend used to say - lets go to
the back, the best sound is in front of the mixing desk. Well, trivial... no
big wonder at least, because the mixer or sound
engineer in the back of the hall is the
kybernos, the navigator in the flood of sound, the invisible
(remember Bentham) ear, that hears all and directs the course of hearing
that all others have to take... The invisibility of his control coincides
with the invisibility of the two PA towers left and right of the stage -
their stereo equivalent in symmetry with his ears... (and, of course, the
distribution of the spatial sound effects: while the listener is fastened to
his standpoint or seat, the sound moves in effigy...) A clear and simple
setting and pretty effective in regard to the satisfaction of the average
listener and, of course, the average organizer. The system itself moves
(from city to city) and the listeners move (in and out with an interruption
of, maybe, two hours...), a mostly enjoyable overlapping of motions and
emotions. Nevertheless this approach to effectively distribute sound depends
on the ability of certain PR-contexts to channel and select the interest of
the listener: a certain number of listeners has to be interested , i.e. fed
into the acceptation of a certain music-style or branch. (this is no special
edition of a conspiracy theory... I don't believe that consumers of
different styles in music are seduced or forced into a choiceless
consumer-trap - decision is on the side of the consumer, well, it's just a
bit directed...
- anyway...). Now let's imagine this
kind of chanellisation and selection is
out of date (or just can't be accomplished anymore) we
enter the age of non-directedness.
One space/music-metaphor for this, I imagine, could look like a circle,
about 300ft wide, consisting of stages with bands (maybe about 20 of them in
all) each with their own amplification. Between the stages in/outlets of the
same size through which the audience moves into the inner ring. In the
center of the ring where everybody can move freely, a mixing desk,
revolvable in regard to which segment of the sound ring has to be
controlled. Let's suppose all bands do a fairly good job, meaning they
perform professionally, in a comparable dynamic range, they play more or
less mainstream pieces and they do this all at the same time. Even if he
intended to, the engineer at the mixing desk would be having a hard time
figuring who's playing what and how to actually set the controls - because,
of course, all the other bands' sounds interfere and overlap. Impossible to
discern the single voice of one instrument and even less chance to control
special effects like delay or headroom... But basically there is no need to
approach the matter from that side anyway... unable to actually pull the
puppet strings of the single voice/instrument the navigator in the eye of
the storm has to take care of his position rather than projecting directions
for others. Because the desk now becomes something like an instrument of a
second degree - meaning, in order to discover its function and possibilities
under the given conditions the mixer has to start to experiment. Perhaps
he'd begin to change the volume of all sounds with comparable pitch, or
raise or lower the level of sounds that have the same dynamics. Maybe he'
start to produce dropouts in more or less rhythmical patterns or silence
passages that have a common sonic quality. Or he'd even switch on radical
high- or low-pass filters to just let certain sections of the sound spectrum
prevail. In general: instead of controlling singularities, he would surely
start to summarize controls and effects in a way that would allow for an
approach to introduce difference instead of reaching a similarity with a
preconceived sound-ideal. In other words: while accepting the diversity of
the general sonic "background" or source, he'd start to shift levels, which
more or less control the presence of sound, its spatial and time-based
influence in the momentary flux of sound. What would his
feedback be like?
As there would be just summarized effects the causes would have to be looked
at less directly as in the usual relation which links one voice with one
fader: maybe - instead of actually listening to the changing of the sound
profiles, our navigator would start to watch the movement of the audience in
the circle. Perhaps he'd discover densities, an amassing of people in
certain areas or more or less quick shifts in response to either musical or
other causes...
The mixer would surely be tempted to read such movements or
shifts as an effect of his alterations of sound: a thinning out of the
audience in response to dynamics, rapid movements correlating with
rhythmical irritations etc... "Sound" in this view would therefore no more
be readable as a sonic phenomenon, but rather as a medium, which effects
another medium. (Of course the general cacophony of the bands could still be
treated as music and even handled in the conventional way - but, I think,
the effects in regard to a change or the creation of difference wouldn't be
that interesting...).
Why this complicated and rather awkward metaphor?... I'm using it, because
it's quite difficult to find a fitting example of how to describe the change
taking place when shifting the emphasis from artworks that are supposed to
prolong the preconceived paths of object-oriented work to a class or
artworks that are designed to take part in interactive settings. When trying
to describe this change, we (I?) have to consider several points which
somehow mark or accompany this change. Firstly, object-orientedness doesn't
just occur in the usual way to produce "pieces" - be it a painting, a
sculpture, a theater play, or a music-piece. It is also part of the
identifying mechanism at work in every language: trying to deal with
"non-objectified" relations with the help of words thus bears the risk of
constant paradoxy. Meaning, the tool we use here (me writing, you reading)
is a biased one. Secondly, my "music" metaphor indicates the problem one has
to conceive of and to imagine a "non-directed" space. It suffers from the
fact that such a space is simply unimaginable - therefore my example seeks
refuge in a radial multiplication of the central perspective pattern (the
mixer or navigator in the seat of the king, the bands on stage quoting the
renaissance idea of total representation... I know all this is far fetched
and poorly discussed... nevertheless...). We simply can't just imagine a
"non-directed" space as such. Thirdly, and most important, the sheer
impossibility of accepting the necessity for art that engages in relation
(or in-betweens, so to speak) might stem from our general difficulty in
dealing with what I'd call "non-objectified relations". Because we live in
what one could call the "age of the obvious" - things or relations which do
not "appear", i.e. imprint a shaped, configured image on some surface,
tend to pass as non-existent. (somehow logical this also seems to influence our
perception of "time" - the idea of progress or some steady flow in the
advancement of or in time is exchanged with a notion of a kaleidoscope
succession of more or less independent "appearances"). In consequence our
perceptive apparatus (or "interest") is trained to "grab" visual bits
and pieces from a so-called outside, rather than to establish an ecological,
two-sided relation: a projective measure that favours response instead of
exchange.
In short, works of art that require some discursive interest, position
themselves in open, tendentially non- or multi-hierarchical spaces and deal
with "invisible" relations which meet conditions that most of the
addressed or concerned will not be too familiar with.
Somehow understandably, to overcome or out-maneuver this reluctance or
reservedness seems to pose one of the more interesting challenges for some
contemporary artists - because where there is
opposition, awarding results can at least be suspected or hoped for...
Returning to the sound circle metaphor I now try to name and discuss certain
points that (I find) generally characterize works in the field on "inters":
interactive, intermedia, interdisciplinary etc...
They seek to locate themselves in a middle position - in contrast to a
projected "outside". Like with the mixer/engineer/navigator in my example
the emphasis is not on being exposed on the fringes, but on being integrated
in a net of conditions that transform and can be transformed. This
necessarily results not just in a change of position but also in a change of
material background or context. As the material background-condition
consists of a general overflow, the basic question is not what to select (as
a material), but what to actually select as a selective measure or method.
It is about the careful choice of a tool, happening in the context of
self-reflection.
As there is no projective frame the work should be able to navigate (or, in
a motion of exchange, be subject to mutual navigation). Similar to my
"mixer"
example, the result of the artistic action is not just an "output"
but a motion, which can cope with its effects or its feedback. This doesn't
necessarily mean a factual movement (although this is imaginable as well
...) of the respective work, but rather a state which allows "process" of
the effects of its effects and also to direct, to re-work or to transform
materials which enter the process from more or less related or parallel
processes.
Basically, I guess, such works realize and establish an equilibrium within
the movement they originate from or direct, rather than to potentially
display or act out idsiosycrasies within their contexts or environments.
Time thus moves into the focus of attention: because all action that
re-integrates feedback (like in my navigator -example the flow of the
audience becomes data for a change of input) has to maintain a multileveled
relation to its timing and being timed. Unlike in a usual music piece a
played sound becomes a past event (which may reverberate just in the memory
of the single listener) the networked piece, whichever medium it is using,
will have to consider both: a present input will influence a past which
returns as relevant information to this present - or projective measures,
supposed to direct the further development of the structure will be informed
or corrected by the (so called) past... In general: the interactive piece or
work bears features, which one usually identifies with "strategy". The
communicative impetus, usually subliminal in artworks, returns as a form of
interactive playground, which surrounds the course of the work like a halo,
both in terms of time and space.
It is inevitable to talk about such interactive or intermediary works in
quite abstract terminology (like I do here...) - also because the media used
by such works are abstracted from the artistic materials. Neither does this
mean they are restricted just to common materials nor that artistic
materials (such as paint or a piano sound...) are off limits. It just means
that the focus is directed toward an in-between; these works can swap
materials and media, or transgress from one to the next - not in the sense
of a progression on different carriers, but as a translation that also
transforms.
As they are neither restricted to a certain object status nor to a specific
time frame or schedule, such works tend to seek the open: placing themselves
in the public sphere, be it by selecting and directing their position in the
context of media or - as material manifestations - by taking shape as
(mostly temporal) installations in public space.
Due to necessary brevity, this overview must suffice, although several more
features could be discussed... - nevertheless, I guess, the direction of my
thoughts can be sensed: to locate art (and its works) in the realm of the
feasible (to return to the beginning of my text) means to actually let art
take part in social processes, by letting it take shape as (a kind of) a
process itself.
Just one more thought. One may generally argue against my position that the
idea to transform the "whole" (or at least a larger realm of the so-called
context) by an "implant" bears similarities to the idea of the
"Gesamtkunstwerk" (total artwork) - in an inverted form. Just like the
Gesamtkunstwerk, which combined all art-forms in one powerful vision,
intended to transubstantiate and revive the surrounding shallowness of life
from an art-religious core, one could say, the "intervening" artwork also
ventures to regard art not just as art but as a means to transform reality
(whatever that is...) and therefore states the possibility of an influential
(and maybe meaningful) connection between the symbolic and the real: a
transformation of sorts. In regard to the possibility of transformation, I
would have to admit, that this is partly the case. Although, I think, the
decisive difference lies in the fact that the intervening work is not a
timeless matter which just causes change but one which also undergoes and
experiences it.
April 21st, 2001