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One year after the Brussels' exhibition Holy Fire. Art of the Digital Age, Yves Bernard from iMAL and Domenico Quaranta curate a show that, once again, puts a magnifying lens on new media art pieces that have found a place on the contemporary art market. Titled KIOSK. Artifacts of a Post-Digital Age, their exhibition was one of the highlights of STRP, an art & tech festival which closed last Monday in Eindhoven (NL).
Just like Holy Fire paid an homage to Bruce Sterling's 1996 sci-fi novel, KIOSK alludes to Kiosk, a more recent novel about a Serbian wounded veteran who runs a kiosk where he sells the products of 'the fabricator', a rapid prototyping machine that creates cult objects for a niche of consumers. The title of the show plays therefore with the "collectible" nature of the artworks exhibited. Most of the pieces deserve a write-up but i selected only a few of them. Starting with works that playfully drive viewers back and forth through the digital and the analog worlds.
Jim Campbell is one of those rare artists whose works are at ease with both the media art crowd and those who've never heard of its existence. Case in point with Home Movie. This curtain of 300 LEDs transforms film footage into an abstract and blurry pixilated imagery that is turned away from the viewer, toward the wall. Yet, because of its ability to interpret abstract data and "fill in" the gaps in the information needed to complete an idea, the brain of visitors reconstructs a moving image.
Erwin Driessens and Maria Verstappen's sculptures provide another engaging take on the theme of the transition from digital to analog. A computer program uses artificial evolution to grow very detailed bronze sculptures that represent virtual mathematical models. The purpose of each growth is to generate by cell division from a single cell a detailed form that can be materialised. On the basis of selection and mutation a code is gradually developed that best fulfills this "fitness" criterion and thus yields a workable form. The virtual designs become tangible artefacts through 3D printing techniques.
Sakurako Shimizu must be the only jewelry maker who makes accessories that would delight both the girls and their geekiest boyfriends. Her creations laser-cuts digital icons into jewels. The 1981 ATARI Ring is a man's ring featuring a precise cast of the original Atari computer chip out of 18 karat gold; the Waveform Series is the laser-cut shapes of the waveform of the sound in sound editing software environment. The sounds are human sound such as yawn, atchoum, giggle, wow, and the sound of church bell.
Siebren Versteeg's software art taps into online data streams and news feeds and visualizes them in the style of corporate brands that pervade information. Dynamic Ribbon Device transforms the real time world news feed from press agency AP news into Coke's white typography that slowly passes through a red plasma screen covered by the same droplets you'd find on a can of soda fresh from the fridge.
Grid Distortion, by Marius Watz, is a series of laser cut plywoods showing orderly grids that have been gradually distorted until the lines cracked and bent. Under pressure, the two dimensions become three, the lattice looking like bubbles as they emerge towards the viewer.
Mark Napier has created algorithms that read The Old Testament as if it were a stream of zeroes and ones. The artwork, called Sacred Code, literally translates the stream of bits into motion: two calligraphic marks, one black and one white, chase one another in a seemingly endless dance on screen, leaving behind faint trails. In the process, a binary world is represented as a cloud of shifting shades of gray. The work is presented on a wood podium as if it were only waiting for a priest to come and read out loud the digital Bible to the congregation.
Somewhat different from the other pieces, Björn Schülke Supersonic #2 looks like a mysterious navel from outer-space and indeed emits the kind of low frequency sounds often associated with '50s science-fiction movies. The dark glossy object houses a theremin which responds to the proximity of a viewer, emitting a range of bass frequency notes. Da video: More images over here and on Malicy flickr set. |
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I've never had any interest in football (that's soccer for you, American friendz.) Never ever. I come from a country that never won any championship (and if they ever did, i still don't care), i find men in shorts a rather pathetic affair and i just don't get sport on tv anyway. There's been only one exception to the rule until last week and it was Eric Cantona. Check out his famous kung fu kick and seagull morale, especially the seagull: But to be honest with you, i had never heard of him until he started doing commercials on tv. And hop! Another one. Isn't he wonderful? They don't do men like this anymore, do they? Last week my interest in football woke up. I went to the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (NL) to see Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait. Most of you have probably seen the film. It's out in DVD and was touring film theatres and art museums a couple of years ago. I only saw it last week and i doubt i'll get to see anything better in a long time. It might sound cheesy but just watching the trailer brings tears in my eyes: Artists Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno had 17 cameras follow Zinédine Zidane on 23 April 2005, during a match between Spanish clubs Real Madrid and Villarreal in Madrid. Gordon and Parreno made a montage of all these recordings, forming a 90-minute long video portrait of Zidane. In the installation, they show this compilation alongside the full length broadcast of the game. If you're anywhere in the area of Eindhoven, you know where to spend one hour and a half of your precious time. City of Sound (him again!) reviewed the movie with more depth, understanding and intelligence that i ever will so i'll leave you in his capable hands. |
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Funny how i am always reluctant to spend one hour and a half in a train to check out some exhibitions in Milan but would not think twice about taking the plane to Barcelona or Valencia and have a short(-ish) train ride on top of that just to go to Castellon. I've never really toured Castellon. I have no idea whether there is a castle, i never visited the Gothic Concatedral de Santa Maria, i was told the beach is pretty neat but never saw it, not even from afar. All i come to see is EACC. Opened ten years ago, the Espai d'art contemporani de Castelló / Castellon's Contemporary Art Space initially focused its mission on the debate and the diffusion of recent artistic practices through a program of thematic exhibitions and activities that include music, cinema and workshops. EACC doesn't take its location in a city most of us had never heard of as an excuse to explore only the hackneyed and revel in safe names. Its programme is edgy, inspired and adventurous. Recently they had a retrospective of John Cage's work. The next show will be dedicated to the one of the few artists who saved the last edition of Documenta for me: Saâdane Afif.
A few weeks ago, EACC opened Are You Experienced?, a series of three installations by Ann Veronica Janssens. Sometimes described as 'sensorial environments', 'immaterial sculptures' and 'spatial abstractions', her installations are the result of a carefully-studied transformation of the space. Each of them uses different strategies to play with visitors' perception.
The night of the opening, people were queuing in front of a big translucid box installed on the esplanade in front of the EACC. Vapour was escaping from the door each time someone would get in or out of the container. It's the Blue, Red and Yellow pavilion, a proposal consisting of a volume built with metal whose polycarbonate walls form cells covered by transparent films in blue, red and yellow. But no one tells you that. You get inside the tank and wonder what is happening around you. Bodies get lost in the mist, voices are lowered, you walk carefully through a dense coloured mist that changes hue according to your position. You can hardly distinguish your own hand, let alone the shadowy outlines of other people. They simply vanish. The only things that seem to be tangible are light and colours.
Inside EACC, Janssens designed two side-specific and apparently minimalist interventions: one based on sound and the other on light. Colours, visual light and sound effects, are combined to both re-purpose the architecture of the space and appeal to visitors' senses.
As the artist herself has said, the situations she creates are not reducible to (more or less spectacular) formal effects "but must be perceived in a context that could be considered political. They occur, for the most part, in a public space without imposing a fixed form or being directly prehensile. They are ephemeral sculptures whose action consists of being dispersed in a given space, infiltrating this space rather than imposing upon it. In effect, I investigate the permeability of contexts (architectural/social/cultural/political) even as I propose a form of deconstruction that fragments our perception of these contexts".
Using only intangible means - humidity, sound and light, fleshed out with colour or softened by mist - the artist manages to shape the spectacular, to give borders and boundaries to the awe-inspiring.
Ann Veronica Janssens interviewed by Michel François. On view at the EACC until March 29, 2009. |
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I doubt there are many people in the room who have never heard of VernissageTV. The online channel covers in a very professional and surprisingly fast and elegant way the opening receptions (vernissages) of exhibitions and events and i'm grateful to them for that. I profess an intense dislike for vernissages where people seemed to be more passionate about tepid wine and showing off their mere presence than about the artworks on show.... but that doesn't mean i'm not curious about vernissages. VTV also covers performances, artists talks, interviews artists, architects and designers. Although he was super busy working on their VTV turns 1000 event, Heinrich Schmidt managed to find some time to answer my questions: Vernissage TV is covering the cultural scene almost all over the world. Who forms the core of Vernissage TV? How much of the work do you cover yourself? Do you have collaborators all over the world? How does one collaborate with you? Karolina, Geoff and I form the core of VernissageTV. Karolina is mainly in charge of the financial side of the project and communications, Geoff takes care of the website programming and I'm doing the filming, editing, etc. The three of us cover the most part of the work, but we also have collaborators in Berlin, Munich, and Paris. If someone is interested in collaborating, we send her or him information about the project and check whether we fit together. Then we make a test run with an opening we agree upon to cover and if that was successful, the collaborators work more independently. Do you 'curate' the videos? For example would you consider bypassing a major exhibition of a world-renowed artist just because you do not like his or her work? Or do you give more space to young talents in the hope that the visibility you give them will boast their career? What we select is based on intuition. We always say that chance is our best friend. Sometimes we are attracted by a big name, sometimes by an interesting exhibition concept, and sometimes we just run into an opening. If we cover a world-renowned artist, that doesn't mean that we like his or her work - and vice versa. And a somewhat related question: One of Vernissage TV's main section is No Comment. Aren't you tempted to be polemical, critical, take a stand? Isn't it irresistible sometimes? Oh yes! Sometimes it's really hard to resist taking a stand. We are not seldom polemic (or enthusiastic) when we drive home after a show. But one of the core concepts of VernissageTV is to stand back and let the audience build their own opinion. That's why people love VernissageTV and we won't deceive them. What do you think is your place in the contemporary art press? Have you ever found that you get less attention and regard from PR offices because you are 'only' an online media? Do you see an evolution in the credit and respect given to online media? Apart from two funny experiences we are happy with the regard we get from PR offices. Two years ago we wanted to cover an exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt which was declined because they said that they had an exclusive deal with another internet tv station. And last year we weren't allowed to cover the Murakami show in Frankfurt, because they only wanted national media. But I love such experiences, because they tell a lot about the art industry. Rewarding material for my novel I intend to write when I'm 95 years old. But you are right, we get more attention now than when we started, but I assume this is partly due to the fact that more people know us now. I also saw that some museums actively encourage bloggers to cover their shows, so I think there is an evolution.
Can you name us 5 videos which, for some reason, have played an important part in the history of Vernissage TV? Could you tell us why? The most important one is definitively the very first one, when we filmed the Zaha Hadid exhibition at the Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel. The experience was such a good one that we thought it would be a great idea to do this more often. Without this video, VernissageTV would never have happened. The second one, Christoph Büchel's show at the Kunsthalle Basel added to this because it was such fun to film this labyrinth he installed there - one had to climb a ladder, creep through holes. With this video, we got addicted. Equally important, because it was the next step, was the coverage of the art fair FIAC in Paris because it was the first location outside Basel. Jonathan Meese's exhibition at Deichtorhallen in Hamburg was one of the largest shows we covered until then. We filmed the exhibition as well as the play Kokain for which Meese did the stage design, and the after show party. That was great fun and everything went so well that it gave us a lot more confidence in our work. Video number 5 is our video number 1000. I'm not a fan of numbers, but when I look back, I can't help to be a little bit proud of it. I only wish I had a little more time to re-watch the videos. That's why we decided to do this non-stop online-screening to celebrate our 1000th video - increases the chance that I'm able to have a look at the videos again... What is the typical process of a Vernissage TV video? Where do you start, how much preparation and editing is necessary, etc. After we have decided to cover a show we think about the equipment we use: small or big camera, tripod or not, external mic or not - it depends on whether we shoot a video for our Interview or our No Comment series, on how much equipment we are able or willing to carry. When we stay at a location for several days, like in New York or Berlin, the planning of the schedule begins weeks ahead and is very time consuming - and sometimes the whole schedule gets messed up because we decide on site to cover other or additional events. As for the editing: This can take an hour or several days. When we film, we try to edit in our heads already. For openings, this sometimes works surprisingly well and then we don't have too much work with the editing. For larger exhibitions or performances, like Doug Aitken's Sonic Happening at 303 Gallery it's far more complicated because you have to bring across the atmosphere of an hour of performance to 8 minutes: where do you set the transitions of music and image. This is especially challenging if you have only one camera and not an additional B-roll. But if the result is good, then these are the most rewarding videos.
May i have a photo of your working space for publication? If the answer is yes, do you have any comment about your office (too cluttered? too small? feng-shui designed?) Our office in Basel: just perfect. It's in an old house (built in 1386) on the bank of the river Rhine. It's pretty relaxing to watch the barges passing by slowly. We love it. We have built a second office in a small town near Basel, which we will use as studio and space for video screenings. It's totally different from the one in Basel city, made of fair-faced concrete and glass and designed by Austrian architects gernergernerplus. Thanks Heinrich! Image on the homepage Harburg Art Channel: Jonathan Meese, Mama Johnny , Deichtorhallen Hamburg. |
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I would usually not write about monographies but nothing feels better than breaking my own rules today: the first book is starring blackletter also known as Fraktur or Gothic type, the second one is dedicated to the paintings of Miltos Manetas.
Publisher Princeton Architectural Press says: Blackletter also known as Fraktur or Gothic type was commonly used throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. By the end of the Renaissance it had mostly been replaced by the typeface Latin Antiqua. The use of Blackletter type became taboo in Germany after World War II because it was incorrectly associated with the Nazis who actually banned its use in 1941 because it was falsely believed to be a Jewish invention. Revelations about the true history and meaning of Blackletter type have resulted in a resurgence in usage by graphic designers. (...) Fraktur Mon Amour reproduces 300 variations of Blackletter fonts ranging from historical fonts to contemporary reinventions in a sensuous beautifully crafted hot-pink prayer book-style catalog that is destined to become a fetish object for designers and type enthusiasts. Each Blackletter font is presented on a full page along with its complete alphabet date of origin the name of its designer and its original foundry. On the facing page is a composition created from that font that explores the subversive beauty of this unique typeface. In addition 137 of these fonts--including four created exclusively for this book--are collected on an enclosed CD (Mac and PC) for free private and restricted commercial use. Fraktur Mon Amour is the winner of several awards including the Type Directors Club of New York's 2007 Award for Typographic Excellence.
Who knew that fonts could have such fascinating lives? I believe this book has received a huge echo in design blogs but as it is the most elegantly and skilfully designed book i have received in 2008, i thought it deserved a few more words here. Closed it looks like a bible. Open it and you get over 700 pages of pure pink font porn. My expertise and talent at discussing fonts being extremely limited i'll end with a video flip through the book:
Publisher Johan & Levi Editore writes: In his work Manetas acts as an observer of this daily phenomenon. At times he works from a 'subjective' angle, bearing witness to both our total involvement in technology, and the sense of alienation that comes from interacting with machines. Other times he takes a 'bird's eye view' to draw attention to the gestures, often underestimated or taken for granted in daily life, that man performs on machine, in a world which is lacking in concrete 'actions/ that point up to what is going on. Echoing Baudelaire's famous 'Painter of Modern Life', Manetas, as an observer of the contemporary world, is part of a time-honoured tradition in art> the practice of depicting man and the elements which represent modernity in the era in question has been a prerogative of the Impressionists, the Realists and the exponents of New Objectivity, not to mention the paintings of Post-Revolutionary Russia, where 'modern' meant 'industrial.'
Joysticks and joypads, plugs, keyboards and routers, a shoe lost among cables, a pair of feet emerging behind an open laptop, videocassettes, websites and girls watching intensely at a computer screen. Miltos Manetas hands a thought-provoking mirror to the gadgets blogs, tech magazines and even new media art exhibitions. The soft-coloured canvases reminds us that we are not merely 'users' 'interacting' with 'devices', but people absorbed in activities which might still appear as trivial to some but are nevertheless essential to our new human equilibrium. The introduction essay is penned by the only media theorist and guru who is as flamboyant as Manetas himself: Lev Manovich.
Image on the homepage part of Judith Schalansky's fraktur set. Related stories: Superneen world and Book review: Hand Job: A Catalog of Type. |
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The year draws to an end and so is rhizome's fund raising campaign. I guess most of you know the fantastic work they are doing every single day to promote and support technology-based art. Culture tends to suffer more than many other fields in tougher times (but please feel free to disagree and prove me wrong), so please consider donating $25 or more. They will undoubtedly give it back to you in many forms.
Next on the list is Turbulence. They made it more pleasant to send the money in the right place by offering you the possibility to buy artworks by Jason Freeman, Yury Gitman, Michael Takeo Magruder, Michael Mandiberg, Mouchette, Preemptive Media, and Jody Zellen. Paddy Johnson, the smart, inspiring and invaluable art blogger of the US scene is also launching an end of the year Fundraiser. May i encourage you to write me if you think i should add an organization to this tiny list? Image on the homepage by Dante Busquets, an extremely talented photographer i met last month in Sao Paulo. |
