Hi Bronac,

I've always believed in the truism "ars longa, vita brevis". You only really see what an artwork is in time.

Lev is right that some artworks become hopelessly outdated, or just of interest as an experiment - a record of a moment. But some are still highly relevant.

Now, in 2020, I'm seeing, thanks, in part, to COVID19, propositions like "TTTP (Technology To the People)" and "Teledildonics" become not simply provocations, but actual products. The idea that the homeless should accept payment by contactless credit card machine is "Big Issue" policy. The idea that you might use devices to have remote sex over the network has become standard operating procedure for sex workers in lockdown!

The digital artworks of the '90s were often forward-looking. But, for me, the ones that still resonate were consciously backward-looking as well, and often had a kind of wistful, critical quality. At the time I railed against works that I saw as little more than "product demonstrations". Some of them (I'll name nobody!) were very high profile, and had spectacular sponsorship and hype. Those works do now seem laughably dated and irrelevant - but even so, they may have been interesting experiments at the time.

All the best,

James
=====

On 21/09/2020 16:43, bronac ferran wrote:
Dear James

Fascinating, but inevitably some thoughts arise

I'd already been viewing Lev's cri de coeur as his Hamlet moment, or better still, his anthropophagic minute: Tupi or not Tupi, as our Brazilian forefathers warned us. How to breathe life into old stuff? To regurgitate the swallowed? To unearth the only recently buried? To undigest the consumed? To tikkik the contemporary back into the retro?

And why?

Oh why. The glamour of the nineties. A fin de millennial revival to distract us from wherever we are now: a reaping of those whirlwinds now that they have ceased to be gyres.

Ah-but.  Might we then tilt at digital windmills even further? Might certain long winded ramblings practiced so long on nettime channels find a place of solace in extensive articles in print about why the nineties mattered?
But that is only half the question.
The other bit missing is why Lev told us the truth about the matter? Was Hamlet mad, or simply grieving?

B

--
Bronaċ


On Mon, 21 Sep 2020 at 16:16, James Wallbank <ja...@lowtech.org <mailto:ja...@lowtech.org>> wrote:

    Hello Nettime!

    This conversation is simply *too* *interesting*!

    I'm a bit busy right now, but just want to register that I have
    loads of responses.

    What is "digital art"? Where is the boundary between digital art
    and art that engages with the digital?

    The artworks that I and my friends made in the mid 90s, under the
    banner "Redudant Technology Initiative" were always embodied in
    physical computers - they were installations and objects. If you
    make objects (as I do), you know that they change over time.

    Sometimes I think that the "prank", the "intervention" or the
    "interactive" that characterises much of how Lev describes digital
    art doesn't quite do this - it's more performative and of the
    moment. It isn't meant to have a presence over time.

    I think that the theme of RTI artworks was redemption, the
    reclamation of objects from the universal process of decay. Philip
    K Dick called this "kipplization". The tendency of all things to
    degenerate into trash. We used then ancient computers to make
    installations, in the knowledge that we were already working with
    the semi-functional, the antiquated, the obsolete. We weren't just
    advocating recycling, and exploring our software skills, we were
    also raging against entropy - the "accelerated decrepitude" of the
    digital age.

    That feeling of sadness, or tragedy  that Lev identifies was
    ALWAYS AN INTENDED PART OF THE WORK.

    Before making those artworks, one of my earliest "digital"
    installations was a complete list of identified computer viruses,
    painted in clear varnish onto 1m x 2m sheets of raw steel. (Eight
    of them, I think - maybe 10!). Visitors to the gallery were
    invited to spray the steel with corrosive liquid (water, salt and
    vinegar) which made the piece decay, and the image appear. (The
    varnish protected the virus names.) I knew that this process of
    decay was unstoppable. The piece would slowly rust into oblivion.

    Similarly, each time we exhibited the "Lowtech Videowall", we
    resisted careful packing and cleaning, so the installation
    (comprising 36 25-33mHz computers, and a powerful 66mHz server!)
    accumulated dents, scratches and grime. We conceded that it was
    legitimate to clean the screens.

    Now here's a thing. I have stored those artworks for the last 20
    years. They have become even more antiquated. The 486s that were,
    at the time, obsolete, have now become antique. The '80s styling
    of the cases has become fascinating in a way that it wasn't at the
    time. At the time, the Lowtech Video Wall was something of a
    demonstration of technical prowess. Should I show it again, it
    will be so again. The effort and skill required to revive
    30-year-old machines will be, if anything, greater than it was to
    repair and reuse them in the first place. Perhaps it's impossible,
    and entropy has already won.

    The rusting artwork I mentioned of is still in storage. Whether
    the list of virus names that was first applied to it is still
    legible, I don't know. All was predicted, and all has come to pass.

    If anyone ever wants to help me break open the digital pyramid, to
    exhume and reanimate the works for exhibition, I'd love to talk.

    Best regards,

    James
    =====

    On 17/09/2020 08:37, Geert Lovink wrote:
    URL or not but this is too good, and too important for nettimers,
    not to read and discuss. These very personal and relevant
    observations come from a public Facebook page and have been
    written by Lev Manovich (who is “feeling thoughtful” as the page
    indicates).

    —

    
https://m.facebook.com/668367315/posts/10159683846717316/?extid=fWYl63KjbcA3uqqm&d=n

    My anti-digital art manifesto / What do we feel when we look at
    the previous generations of electronic and computer technologies?
    1940s TV sets, 1960s mainframes, 1980s PCs, 1990s versions of
    Windows, or 2000s mobile phones? I feel "embarrassed. "Awkward."
    Almost "shameful." "Sad." And this is exactly the same feelings I
    have looking at 99% of digital art/computer art / new media
    art/media art created in previous decades. And I will feel the
    same when looking at the most cutting-edge art done today ("AI
    art," etc.) 5 years from now.

    If consumer products have "planned obsolescence," digital art
    created with the "latest" technology has its own "built-in
    obsolescence." //

    These feelings of sadness, disappointment,remorse, and
    embarrassment have been provoked especially this week as I am
    watching Ars Electronica programs every day. I start wondering -
    did I waste my whole life in the wrong field? It is very exciting
    to be at the "cutting edge", but the price you pay is heavy.
    After 30 years in this field, there are very few artworks I can
    show to my students without feeling embarrassed. While I remember
    why there were so important to us at the moment they were made,
    their low-resolution visuals and broken links can't inspire
    students. //

    The same is often true for the "content" of digital art. It's
    about "issues," "impact of X on Y", "critique of A", "a parody of
    B", "community of C" and so on. //

    It's almost never about our real everyday life and our humanity.
    Feelings. Passions. Looking at the world. Looking inside
    yourself. Falling in love. Breaking up. Questioning yourself.
    Searching for love, meaning, less alienated life.//

    After I watch Ars Electronica streams, I go to Netflix or switch
    on the TV, and it feels like fresh air. I see very well made
    films and TV series. Perfectly lighted, color graded, art directed.

    I see real people, not "ideas" and meaningless sounds of yet
    another "electronic music" performance, or yet another
    meaningless outputs of a neural network invented by brilliant
    scientists and badly misused by "artists."

    New media art never deals with human life, and this is why it
    does not enter museums. It's our fault. Don't blame curators or
    the "art world." Digital art is "anti-human art," and this is why
    it does not stay in history. //

    P.S. As always, I exaggerated a bit my point to provoke
    discussion - but not that much. This post does reflect my real
    feelings. Of course, some of these issues are complex - but after
    30 years in the field, I really do wonder what it was all about)

    P.P.S.

    The mystery of why some technology (and art made with them) has
    obsolescence and others do not - thinking about this for 25
    years. We are fascinated by 19th-century photographs or 1960s
    ones. They look beautiful, rich, full of emotions, and meanings.
    But video art from the 1980s-1990s looks simply terrible, you
    want to run away and forget that you ever saw this. Why first
    Apple computers look cool, cute, engaged? But art created on them
    does not? And so on. I still have not solved this question.

    Perhaps part of this has to be with the message that goes along
    with lots of tech art from the 1960s to today - and especially
    today. 19th or 20th-century photographs done by professional
    photographs or good amateurs do not come with utopian,
    pretentious, exaggerated, unrealistic, and hypocritical
    statements, the way lots of "progressive art" does today. Nor do
    their titles announce all latest tech processes used to create
    these photographs.

    --------------------
    Ars Electronica 2020:
    https://ars.electronica.art/keplersgardens/en/
    
<https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fars.electronica.art%2Fkeplersgardens%2Fen%2F&h=AT2w4OEuuoeVihKs5LjapuFkzEqtX9kuEBqihrvRbLxcuGHrMqRyRMepEAj7BPSSlqJg9BXKo7LkCG_hIaW69JvA5Kxej9OYXAGjkGNmEm3brgToON6XJYp7Et8r5tsIzkFwbrHkPa3zDVfvnsoo2zo5TMf5GxGjT83hCGKqrSbm>

    --------------------
    Video illustration: Japanese robot at Ars Electronica 2010 -
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmabKC1P51A
    
<https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DmmabKC1P51A&h=AT0ZZLvc7X9Tf8ucLLR-DUPF7ioMwdtdLBafjgz2Y_Fq9EBhcL-jiyga7ljPRHx0Quc6zpegRFbBFcgLw7VFffy0xT4s9Y_QZ1lFGsTgU2dNuph12NAxFyRRUwNZ0uai5yQJ3nDDib4h4xcmlL6vHlPXM27bHgOHtAZB67GwKbei>


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--
Bronaċ


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