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Data mining, the ultimate tool to make emerge patterns and information from a shapeless mass of data, is increasingly used in a wide range of fields, including marketing, surveillance, fraud detection, scientific discovery and even human resources (in this case to help companies assess the value of each employee.)
What would happen if the system could be hijacked and geared towards what could be called Antidatamining? Stock Overflow, an exhibition and series of conferences, proposed by French collective RYBN at Imal in Brussels, takes data mining on a ride to lay bare various socio-economic phenomena.
The main agents of economy (companies, groups and holdings, stock exchanges, banks and investment funds) as well as their interactions (capital relationships, geographic deployments, structuralization on market places) are digested by data mining softwares and given a simple, elegant, yet uncompromising face with the help of a series of visualizations.
As the press material explains: The work is based exclusively on Internet recoverable data. Internet is then compared to a gigantic database, a "datawarehouse". The type of recovered data are : geographical, ecological, social, economic, financial and geopolitical. Data are stored in a large database, then processed using DM genetic algorithms. This method allows to establish several « meaningful » - or particularly important - cross correlations. The wide range of used datas, defines the project's multiple investigation fields, including sociological, geopolitical and economic fields. The multiple extent of this project requires various multifolded skills from external contributors : artists, programmers, economists, journalists, cartographers... Meetings, exchanges and collective work, feed the project - confronting it to many several thinking systems - and allow to engage a transverse analysis, going beyond specialized fields. The exhibition is surprisingly accessible. Not only did the artists make sure that the visualizations are comprehensible without having to resort to any additional caption or leaflet, they are also hanging around the exhibition space should you have any question. Apart from the projections of the visualizations, a series of screens display the online chats that experts of finance from around the world are having right here right now. The live chatrooms give the whole project a surprisingly human and almost tangible dimension. The best moment to visit the exhibition is probably during one of the series of lectures that have been scheduled throughout the exhibition. Upcoming lectures - which you can follow online: More images of the exhibition, the talks and the opening night: Stock Overflow RyBN iMAL KRN and Stock Overflow. |
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Why a biennial in Brussels in 2008? Lazy answer: because every country has an art biennial so why shouldn't Belgium have one? Lengthier answer: The a first reason is geographical: Brussels is positioned in the deeply urbanized region encompassing a large part of North-Western Europe which Rem Koolhaas calls the Hollocore. As AMO explains: While Europe was once the birthplace of the metropolis, the future of the modern city is now being defined in the developing world. (...) Where the cities in the developing world explode into bigger, less containable metropolitan areas, urban Europe is in a state of entropy. No longer energized by growth, cities and towns drift off into a muddle of provincial sameness, leaving an urban vacuum. But, of course, modernity abhors a vacuum, and an infinite multiplicity of new forms of urbanity emerges to take the place of what has become redundant. The HOLLOCORE© is emblematic of Europe's new urbanity -- the amorphous super-region that links Brussels, Amsterdam, and the Ruhr Valley is urban Europe's non-event: it houses 32 Million inhabitants or 9% of Europe's population, yet has no city larger than one million inhabitants. Two thirds of its population lives in cities smaller then 200,000 inhabitants -- in places no one has ever heard of.
This contemporary urban landscape is a territorial metaphor of the European project: with no dominant cultural identity, devoid of a major city center and with no overarching governance. A second motivation for the event is the birthday of Brussels Expo '58, which closed its doors almost exactly 50 years before the Brussels Biennial opened. For many people the Expo '58 introduced the notion of 'modernity.'
Despite all its claims to be a truly multi-cultural and international city, Brussels cannot abstract itself from the national context. Which brings me to the third reason for the Biennial: as with all things Belgian, there is a political purpose (the event is "An initiative of the Flemish Community"). But that's a long story that passionates only the most Belgians among us and i must admit that my inability to take a clear stand puts me in the shoes of a second-class Belgian.
The two main venues for the Biennale 're-use' modernity. One is the ex-Post Sorting Centre which re-opened exclusively for the Biennial. The second one was a depressing corridor inside the Anneessens metro station. I might seen to grumble and snivel but i actually liked that biennial a lot. It was surprising, bold and intelligent if a little bit too much on the shambles side.
The start of my visit was fairly bleak. The first exhibition i saw at the ex-Post Sorting Centre was Once is Nothing, made of 'physically absent' artworks. Not that this would put me off, i managed to enjoy the Sao Paulo Biennial after all. Once is Nothing is based on a previous show, 'Individual Systems' part of the 2003 edition of the Venice Biennale . Devoid of any art piece, the room is nevertheless supposed to be 'full of memories and history.' The exhibition is a pertinent comment on the impossibility to replicate exactly one exhibition and on the pointless demand for innovation that characterizes most art biennials.
Things got seriously interesting further on with the Taller Popular de Serigrafia (Popular Silkscreen Workshop), a collective of artists and designers born with the protest movements in the wake of Argentina's economic collapse of December 2001. TPS is part of a long history weaving political activism and graphic arts in Latin America (the collective's name is inspired by the early 20th century Taller de Gráfica Popular in Mexico).
TPS uses silk-screen printing as an affordable type of art to react quickly to political events and collaborate with different social movements. While they take part in acts and demonstrations they draw images on the clothes of the street protesters, create billboards, murals, posters and leaflets. Not only does TPS turn their works into an instrument of social struggle, they also make an act of creativity out of their protests as their creations are preserved after their original use and collected outside of the revolutionary context.
Annette Kelm's series Prefabricated Houses investigates the history of prefab houses, as developed from the late 19th century to the 1930s in Germany. The clichéd 'Swiss' chalets and 'Swedish' villas were designed by different architects and mass produced by factories during a time of housing shortage. The houses were affordable and could be dismantled without too much time nor effort. Intrigued by the high level of ornamentation displayed on each house, Kelm's photographs reveal a transition of industry and craft, functionality and fashion. By bringing together the notion of ready-made sculpture with the utopian ideals of modernist architecture, perhaps Kelm is suggesting the changed, if not compromised, contemporary position of both (via.)
One of the most formidable works on show was the 18,5 m long scale-model 'Vipcity' by Luc Deleu. The architect and urbanist has been working on a half-visionary half-utopian concept of 'Unadapted City' for some 12 years. Since living on the planet earth has become problematic due to a lack of space, urban spaces ought to be used in a more polyvalent manner. Deleu accordingly proposes an interconnected building activity that pervades the entire city and is aimed at offering the greatest possible freedom to individual initiatives at the micro level. The proposed volumes are the result of a study of the necessary surface and infrastructure: an adequate number of cinemas have been planned, but they can also be used as sports hall, mushroom farm or accommodation for hamadryas baboons (no, i don't know either what the baboons are doing here.)
As the lots were sold a story gradually unfolded. The story is set partly in the village of Belgium, Wisconsin and features The Indian, the tiny economist and Wally Hope. Wally Hope refers to a man who became an icon of freedom in the mid-70ties. After the auction it emerges that The Crying of Potential Estate is also the mediated version of the above auction. It was screened live from a mini TV-studio Potential Estate had set up in the basement gallery. In fact all visitors present on the evening of the auction shift position from extras in the film to actors playing the role of accomplices to a long-drawn murder. Potential Estate will offer the film The Crying of Potential Estate as a Gift to the Village of Belgium, WI (USA). The Gift, certified by an attorney at law, will be made possible by a number of private shareholders.
There is much more to say about the Biennale, how i discovered the stunning work of Juliaan Schillemans and how i finally managed to see (and like) Letter to Leopold, Extra City's contribution to the Biennial. See also Pierre Clemens' video about the Brussels Biennial. My flickr set. The Brussels Biennial runs until January 4, 2009. |
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While in Brussels a few days ago, i made a beeline for the Bozar to see an exhibition with a very promising title: Decolonizing Architecture. The show was way better and more subtle than i could have imagined from a superficial reading of its description.
Decolonizing Architecture, a research undertaken by architects Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti and architect and theorist Eyal Weizman, throws architecture into the arms of burning social and political issues and uses the discipline to explore possible scenarios that could emerge from a partial-or complete -evacuation of Israeli colonies and military bases. Recognizing that Israeli colonies and military bases are amongst the most excruciating instruments of domination, the project assumes that a viable approach to the issue of their appropriation is to be found not only in the professional language of architecture and planning but rather in inaugurating an "arena of speculation" that incorporates varied cultural and political perspectives through the participation of a multiplicity of individuals and organizations. How could the architecture of Israel domination be reused, recycled or re-inhabited by Palestinians?
The two most common approaches adopted when dealing with evacuated colonial architecture are either destruction or re-use. Destruction is often regarded as a mean to achieve 'liberation' from an architecture that acts as an instrument of domination and control. Making tabula rasa is never as simple as it seems, destruction generates desolation and environmental damage that may last for decades. As the project reminds us, when Israel evacuated the Gaza settlements in 2005, 3,000 homes were destroyed. One of the outcomes of the destruction was a million and a half tons of toxic rubble that poisoned the ground and water aquifers.
Re-use is the strategy adopted by many post-colonial governments. They would simply recycle the infrastructures for their own needs of administration, establishing a sense of continuity rather than of rupture and change: colonial villas are inhabited by new financial elites and palaces by political ones, while the evacuated military and police installations of colonial armies, as well as their prisons, are reused by the governments that replaced them.
Is there any strategy left? Yes, there is subversion which speculates on the use of colonial architecture for purposes other than those they were designed to perform. The key principle is to reorient the destructive potential of the occupation's built spaces to other aims. Given the scale of Israeli construction in Palestine, and the need for housing, all three approaches may need to be adopted simultaneously. Some areas of settlements will be destroyed, some reused and others subverted. The Decolonizing Architecture project does not aim to present a single, unified architectural solution, but rather "fragments of possibility".
The exhibition exemplifies the architects proposals and thoughts in two case studies: the settlement of P'sagot, a hill near Ramallah that dominates the Palestinian area and the abandonned military camp of Oush Grab, near Bethleem. While the first project is an imagined set of scenarios, the second is a real battleground between Palestinians who want to turn it into a public park and Israeli settlers who try to claim it, heavily armed and escorted by the Israeli army. You can get more details either in the PDF of the exhibition booklet or on the website of the project. Decolonizing Architecture is running at the Bozar in Brussels until January 4, 2008. |
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The Brussels Biennial has opened its first edition a few weeks ago. The programme is good. A bit severe but really good. However, the whole experience is laborious. The first venue we visited was so cold i almost took no picture afraid as i was to remove my gloves (Brussels i love you and that derelict Post Sorting Center was charming but if you can't afford to heat the place do consider to biennial us in the Summer next time, ok?) The second one was remarkably well hidden. Number three was a bit gloomy and the fourth venue was indicated on the Biennial map as 'the Central Station', easy peasy to locate the station but this is a big train station and where the artworks to see actually were remains a mystery to me. It will be my pleasure to moan and curse in another post but let's focus this one on an art piece that got my attention.
At the beginning of 2001 Silke Wagner bought a Volkswagen-van. During one year, the artist drove her Bürgersteig (Pavement) project to three German cities. Her budget for the project was left at the disposal of local socio-political groups to customize the vehicle according to their needs and set up various projects in public. The third stop of the van was Frankfurt am Main. There, Wagner cooperated with the Hanau activist group kein mensch ist illegal (no-one is illegal) to comment on the practice of deporting refugees and immigrants living illegally in Germany and examine it in the framework of the process of European integration (see Lufthansa Deportation Class brochure). Lufthansa is deeply involved in the deportation process. Germany deports between 30,000 and 35,000 people each year and more than one third are taking off from Frankfurt, making it the country number one airport for deportation.
The van was repainted to resemble a Lufthansa van marked with the words "Deportation Class". Different events were carried out in the bus, focusing on the deportation of refugees carried out with the help by the German airline: protests, handling of information leaflets, performances in the street, at the airport but also at a major cultural event such as the Frankfurt Book Fair. The only feature of the project brought to Brussels is the onboard radio that broadcasts the audio documentation of the project. Lufthansa sued the artist to obtain that they stopped using the van but the airline company lost its case. The Brussels Biennial runs until January 4, 2009. |
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I felt no particular urge to see It's not only Rock 'n' Roll, Baby!, an exhibition which reconsiders personalities of today's rock'n roll scene in the context of their work as visual artists. I don't like rock. But then i was in Brussels and had just read that the show was curated by Jérôme Sans, the co-founder and ex-co-director of what remains my favourite art center on earth, the Palais de Tokyo, and the current director of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. He also happens to have his own rock band, Liquid Architecture.
It's not only Rock 'n' Roll, Baby!, or 'how the voice of rock emerged in the visual arts', is crammed with big names (so i was told but i make a point of not knowing anything about rock, i don't like it, did i mention that already?): Patti Smith, Brian Eno, Chicks on Speed, Fischerspooner, Devendra Banhart, Pete Doherty (i know that one, he used to date Kate Moss)... There's some 20 of them brought together under the same roof, not to give a concert, but to showcase their installations, drawings, collages, paintings, sculptures or videos.
The good aspect of starting a visit with a grumpy attitude is that you can only have good surprises. I ended up liking the exhibition, despite the fact that part of the works on show correspond too much to the idea i had of what could be rock 'n' roll art, basically a bit of trash here and there, what looks like blood smudged over canvas, some provocative sexy installations that wouldn't impress your granny, etc. Don't expect to see portraits of Mick Jagger by Andy Warhol or the banana on the cover of a Velvet Underground LP in the gallery, you're in for a fresh and very contemporary treat. Now the goodies: Miss Kittin's graphic design-powered paintings.
Bent Van Looy, lead singer of Das Pop's dark acrylics. Apparently Brian Eno told the artist: 'Your paintings are the only other stuff I like'. Who am i to call into question his taste?
The gem of the exhibition is it's catalog (available at actar and on amazon USA and UK), conceived as a 'half-book, half-rock magazine'. Grrrrrreat graphic design, interviews, essays, loads of photos. Gorgeous.
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Take two persons whose work in the media art field i've been admiring for years. Have their minds communicate for more than a couple of minutes. What is going to happen?
Yves Bernard is the director of iMAL (interactive Media Art Laboratory), a space dedicated to contemporary artistic and cultural practices emerging from the fusion of computer, telecommunication, network and media. iMAL is the only space that doesn't put the Belgian french-speaking community i come from to total shame. The presence and recognition of media art varies from country to country but nowhere are these differences as tangible as in Belgium: while Flanders supports media art generously and dynamically for years, the rest of the country believes that media art equals video art. The work of Yves and his team is admired way beyond our national borders but strives to get the attention it deserves in the french-speaking community. Domenico Quaranta is an art critic and curator living in Brescia, a small-ish city of Northern Italy. He shrugs when i tell him that one day he'll rule over the art world but that's because i have more faith in his brilliant writings, impeccable taste and broad culture than he does.
Yves and Domenico took the opportunity offered by Art Brussels, the international contemporary art fair which closed yesterday, to get the eyes of the contemporary art world set onto digital art. With more passion and talent than real budget they curated and organized Holy Fire. Art of the Digital Age, an impressive exhibition featuring the kind of digital artworks susceptible to convince the contemporary art world that digital art should get the place and understanding it deserves in the contemporary art panorama. To be honest, i needed such exhibition. Last Summer i realized that i was getting a much more fruitful and satisfying art experience at the Venice Biennale than at Ars Electronica. Media art often suffers from faddism and from a series of misunderstandings. For example, i can't count the number of times i heard someone (or seen an exhibition) confuse "something weird done with technology" with media art.
No such risk here. The quality of most of the works on show at iMAL is outstanding. The exhibition counts more than 20 pieces, i'll just highlight a handful of them: After a year long immersion in World of Warcraft, Eddo Stern translated the legends, obsessions and symbols of the subculture he had experienced into his art practice. With Emoticon, Stern uses icons and emoticons from online forums to crown and dress a synthetic goddess - herself an icon - which smiles, pouts, frowns, cries and expresses the other emotions at her command in the most languorous way.
For their participation at the Venice Biennale in 2001, Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org turned a virus Biennale.py into a work of art and spread it from the Slovenian Pavilion on the opening day of the exhibition. The Perpetual Self Dis/Infecting Machine features the Biennale.py virus. Trapped into a computer devoid of any connection to a network, the virus does its best to spread its wings and start its contagious process, but the machine fights back and submits it to a disinfection process. The power game is repeated again and again. Ad vitam eternam.
Reface [Portrait Sequencer], by Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman, is a video mash-up that composes endless combinations of visitors' faces. The installation records and remixes brief video slices of its viewers' mouths, eyes and brows. Even if visitors move in front of the display the system will line up their face. The images recorded are "edited" by the participants' own eye blinks. Blinking also triggers the display to advance to the next set of face combinations.
Oh, yes! at this point is should also note that in an attempt to explore how new media art, bypassing all the stereotypes connected with its presumed immateriality and difficulties of maintenance, was able to enter the art market, the works on show at Holy Fire come from galleries and collections from around the world (USA, Europe, Russia). Strangely, the "romantic" idea that to be a valuable artist you have to starve, drink yourself blind with absinthe and die alone in your chambre de bonne is still very much alive and kicking. Holy Fire shows that it doesn't have to be the case for media artist by choosing to exhibit only collectible new media artworks already on the art market, in the form of traditional media (prints, videos, sculptures) or customized new media objects. The art market offers new sources of income for new media artists. Up to now, these have been limited - when they exist - to public funding from institutions and governments, sometimes dictated by politics. An art market can help develop a new economy through direct relations between artists and art consumers, confirming the artists' social role and the support of the people who are increasingly looking for something different from mass-produced digital gadgets.
More images from the exhibition. To investigate the theme explored by Holy Fire: you can either have a look at the discussion about Holy Fire on rhizome and get your hands on the catalog of the exhibition which features opiniated contributions from many protagonists of the media art world. Even better you can give your view by collaborating to aminima study about the new media art market.
Holy Fire (yes, the title is inspired by one of Bruce Sterling's books) is on view at iMAL (google map), Brussels through April 30, 2008. Related: walking around Chelsea, A conversation about exhibiting and selling digital fine art. |
