Robert Adrian X Turns 80 – “In any case, it’s all about thetelephone”

Artist Robert Adrian X already began dealing with the phenomenon of computer userslinking up in networks over 30 years ago in “The World in 24 Hours.” Now, ArsElectronica is showcasing this seminal 1982 work as a fitting way of congratulating theartist, leading-edge thinker, media art pioneer, telecommunications artist, painter andsculptor on the occasion of his 80th birthday on February 22. Manuela Naveau, acurator and project manager at Ars Electronica, had an opportunity in late 2013 inVienna to sit down for a chat with the Canadian artist together with his partner HeidiGrundmann, arguably the most prominent developer and promoter of radio art inAustria.

On Simultaneity in “Electronic Space”

I wanted to know more about the time in which it couldn’t yet be taken for granted thateveryone simply knew what the word networking [in the sense of connecting withother people via computers] means. What do networking and the internet refer tohere? “In any case, it’s all about the telephone,” Robert Adrian X stated right at thestart of our chat. The development of the telephone—whereby, for the first time,transmitter and receiver functioned simultaneously—was the genesis of the internet.And even in the 1970s and early ‘80s, there were still other terms to designate this—people referred to telecommunications and to electronic space. We were aware thatthere existed something like the internet (see ARPANET 1969), even if we didn’t have aclear conception of how it worked or what an influence it would be exerting on our

culture in general. We knew that this was no longer a matter of communicating with asingle party like in a telephone conversation; that you could be in contact with severalpeople at the same time. But what did this simultaneity actually mean in an invisiblereality? Does it exert an influence on our worldview and, if so, how does it influence ustoday?

Photo: Sepp Schaffler

When Linz Got Linked Up in a Network with Other Cities

Amidst fascination with such questions, Ars Electronica Linz commissioned RobertAdrian X to conceive and produce “The World in 24 Hours.” From 12 Noon onSeptember 27, 1982 until 12 Noon the next day, 15 cities worldwide wereinterconnected in conjunction with the Ars Electronica Festival. The point was to jointlyexplore this new electronic space with the help of the telecommunications mediaavailable at the time. The idea was to simultaneously utilize five telephone lines (threeof which ultimately proved to be functional as planned). During this 24-hour period,participants could send artistic statements and also exchange coordination informationvia telephone, FAX, slow-scan television (SSTV) and ARTBOX, the internationalcomputer mailbox system (initiated by Robert Adrian X and subsequently dubbedARTEX – The Artists’ Electronic Exchange Program), which was based on a conferencesystem developed by the I.P.Sharp (IPSA) company. The salient criteria were that therespective technologies had to be more or less accessible, relatively affordable, simpleto use, and could be implemented in a way that was acceptable to Austria’s Post andTelegraph Administration.

ARTEX – A Network for Artists

“The World in 24 Hours” wasn’t the first live telecommunications project. It was, infact, based on experiences that artists such as Douglas Davis and Nam June Paik hadalready gained in the 1970s in telematic projects via satellite. And there had alreadybeen computer telecommunications projects—for instance, Bill Bartlett’s “Interplay” inToronto in 1979, and The Artist’s Use of Telecommunications Conference in 1980 atSFMOMA, which Robert Adrian X had been involved in. Indeed, the experiences gainedin these projects were precisely what inspired Robert Adrian X to collaborate with BillBartlett in 1980 to develop ARTEX. The two artists, neither of whom was affiliated witha university, had to line up access to the equipment and networks on their own, as wellas, often, privately raise no small amount of funding. Enthused by the idea ofcommunicating with other artists worldwide, Robert Adrian X collaborated withGottfried Bach, then an IPSA manager in Vienna, on an economical, user-friendly e-mail program for artists. In 1980, this went down in history as one of the first onlineplatforms or, more precisely, a user group for artists.

“Right for the outset, my principle was to set up a network that wassimultaneously a communications web and a medium for the exchange ofideas.”

In the 1990s, this would be referred to as a chat room; today, we’d call it a social mediaplatform for artists. Nevertheless, in the ‘80s, a term hadn’t emerged yet to designatethis new form of networking. 30 to 35 artists and researchers were listed on ARTEX.And Robert Adrian X intuitively knew that as soon as access to the new electronicspace became available, this would also bring about changes—which he wanted toexplore in “The World in 24 Hours.”

Photo: Sepp Schaffler

When you turn off the machine, the space disappears

Robert Adrian X: “In the late 1970s, you suddenly felt that the whole power structurehad shifted into electronic systems, and thus into electronic space. I mean, as soon asthe machines are switched on, the FAX system functions, computer communicationworks, these companies come into existence. The companies exist only in this virtualspace. Only if the machines are switched on, if the electronic system establishesconnections, then and only then does Volkswagen, for example, exist. Otherwise, if themachines aren’t running, they’re just a bunch of smaller or larger factories.”

“But all the money, everything runs via invisible networks. And artists who workwith the network can make at least part of this network visible. After all, it’sclear that art is a visual affair. If you enter a network and do art in it, you have todisplay something there.”

“This was the concept of communications sculpture. This means that, for mepersonally, ‘The World in 24 Hours’ was a piece of sculpture. You’re not just creatingthe space. No, this is a matter of a sculptural problem: space, spatial manipulation, thedepiction of space, etc. And in these systems, if two people exchange a work of artwith one another on the telephone, then this space constitutes a work of art, asculpture, as long as the machine is on. When you turn off the machine, the spacedisappears, and then the work of art is gone too. Just like Volkswagen is gone.”

An Experience for Everyone

But Robert Adrian X didn’t want this initial experience of being linked up in a network tobe the exclusive purview of companies and institutions. Although he had no directaccess to universities—to say nothing of the military—he wanted to open thetechnology up to people and especially artists, who were to be given the opportunityto gain experience and to discover a form of translation, of visualization of somethingthat had begun to emerge in the realm of the invisible. In answer to my question of theextent to which this space is determined by the devices themselves or by the humanbeings behind the apparatuses, Robert Adrian X gave an account of a very personalexperience:

“I had this on my wall for a long time, this headline on the front page ofthe Kronenzeitung [Austria’s leading tabloid] a few years ago during the [soccer] WorldCup, I believe it was in Japan: Six Billion in Front of the Screen! And suddenly you hadthis image in mind: 6,000,000,000 people watching the same telecast. Not just all ofthem watching TV; they’re all seeing the same image at the same time. And this wasthe moment when this space suddenly became clear to me—everyone sitting inapproximately the same position, watching the same picture. And then, all at once, you

had terms with which to grasp this media space.”

Images of a Surveillance Camera in the Living Room

Robert Adrian X had already begun dealing with the significance of these new,electronically implemented spaces at an early stage of his artistic career—for instance,a 1981 live intervention entitled Surveillance/Überwachung in which he maneuveredimages captured by a surveillance camera installed in the Karlsplatz subway station indowntown Vienna into Austrians’ living rooms, where they appeared live on June 16,1981 during the 6-10 PM time slot among the ORF – Austrian Broadcasting Company’sregularly scheduled programming. Asked about precisely where opening things up tothe general public in this way had been positioned on his agenda, Robert Adrian X said:

“The most important thing was that artists had struggled to gain access to themedia. But the point wasn’t reaching a mass audience; this was a matter of themedium, a confrontation with the medium in and of itself. Thus, the essencewas media critique within the media.”

Heidi Grundmann added her thoughts about “The World in 24 Hours.” “And this type ofproject didn’t have anything to do with the audience either. The point was: you wereeither a participant or you weren’t. After all, there’s nothing to see. There’s noperformance, no communication. This process of mutual exchange engenderedsomething that can’t be called a work, since it’s actually a matter of the dissolution ofboth the work and of the author. And that alone dictates that there can’t be anaudience either.”

Photo: Sepp Schaffler

One of the World’s First Collaborative Writing Projects

“The World in 24 Hours” has garnered a place in the historiography of media art asone of the world’s first collaborative writing projects in the electronic sphere. It’s alsolikely to have been the first project in which the global network of amateur radiooperators was involved. Asked how he sees his contribution to media art history andhow the collaboration with ham radio operators proceeded, Robert Adrian X declinedcomment and provided an account that concluded with a wink of the eye:

“In my opinion, Roy Ascott’s 1983 work “La Plissure du Texte” was the firstcollaborative writing project. But since ARTEX already existed for “The World in 24Hours,” you can regard it as a writing project because it constituted ongoing writtencommunication via ARTEX—thus, a 24-hour-long chat, so to speak. And the thingabout amateur radio is that hams are basically prohibited from exchanging information.You’re not even allowed to report how the weather is. And no one’s allowed to listen into a transmission, not even the ham’s own wife. Generally speaking, the only devicesthat are permitted to be hooked up are those that the telecommunications agency canmonitor. This means that when a device is authorized, the agency has to have one too.So the authorization process can take a while. We ultimately received a license for“3rd Party Participation,” a hookup in the public sphere in accordance with theregulations governing amateur radio as a sort of immaterial, de minimis exception. Sothen, we finally were provided with a definition of art: Art is negligible.” Robert Adrian Xchuckled while lighting another cigarette.

Photo: Sepp Schaffler

A Technology Developed for Institutions and Firms

In retrospect, the artist pointed out that the project had been beset by a few additionalproblems: 1) only “industrialized, capitalist” countries could take part, 2) the high costsof the telephone transmission, 3) the necessity that the network of artists bereconstituted for each project, and 4) the trend towards institutionalization of accessby artists to telematic systems. Robert Adrian X wrote in 1989, and thus seven yearsafter the project had been produced, that the assumptions upon which “The World in24 Hours” had been based proved to be “naïve.” (Adrian X, Robert, ElektronischerRaum, in: Kunstforum International. Im Netz der Systeme, Bd. 103, 1989) He noted thatthe costs incurred for the purpose of data transmission did not drop as had beenassumed. Although the equipment to produce the data developed rapidly and thequantity of data got bigger and bigger, the costs of telephone transmissionnevertheless rose. In 1989, he also wrote about a sort of powerlessness that overcamehim and his fellow artists and that had to do with the closed nature of the systems.

“One quickly realized that the technology—with the exception of electronicgames and the entertainment sector—was developed for the ‘corporate user’—that is, for institutions and firms.”

Robert Adrian X went on: “Individual users are excluded from the development of newtechnologies because they have no precisely definable needs, so it’s simply assumedthat their interests are served by firms that, in turn, are interested in marketing spinoffsof complex technologies, and prefer to satisfy existing needs than to play a role in thedevelopment of potential alternative directions in electronic technologies. If there’s anychance at all to develop new technologies by means of which private users can makesensible use of electronic systems in order to exercise their right to genuinelyparticipate in the development of this electronic world, then we have to take advantageof this opportunity at a very early stage. Now, it’s probably already too late to changethe direction of the planning and development, but we can at least attempt to discoverways in which we can enable human content to flow into the commercial-military worldfloating amidst this electronic space.”

Over the course of this interview with the artist, it emerged that Robert Adrian X stillmaintains his very critical attitude towards seemingly open systems, and calls intoquestion the internet as we know it today. In the early ‘90s, it was by no means certain“that the Post [Austria’s state telephone service provider] would ever relinquish itsmonopoly and the internet would even be permitted. After all, the internet alreadyexisted then, but it was accessible only by the military and universities. It eventuallywas opened up beginning in 1994, but it functioned totally differently than we hadhoped. After all, in 1994-95, we had the feeling that we had a system that was open tothe world, but we were quickly disabused of that notion over the next five years. Whatcame of it was a totally commercialized, and thus closed, system.”

“Nobody knows what it’s all about”

In response to my final question concerning how we’ll be dealing with our more or lessnewly networked reality in the years to come, the artist stated:

“Nobody knows what it’s all about. You can’t analyze the past and extrapolatethe trajectory into the future. Hegel has nothing to say about this, since youcan’t trust people who’ve never used a telephone. This simultaneity we havenow, this is totally new. And the devices are getting increasingly invisible, justlike the internet itself is invisible. And it’s simply difficult for us to theoreticallydeal with this situation.”

“We still think like we did in the Industrial Age, like in an industrial society, in amechanical world in which things intermesh like gears. Back then, it was a matter ofspeed, but that’s not the point anymore. Speed is a conception from another day andage, since there’s no longer anything that moves in these systems. There are nosequences any more. Cause and effect, these clear terms we have—they don’tfunction exactly the same way they used to. We have to reconceptualize this today.The beauty of this is also what’s problematic about it: it all looks the same; but inside,everything has changed.”