weibel media art history genealogy

2008 The National Art Museum of China

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Synthetic times : media art China/ edited by Fan Di"an and Zhang Ga. p. cm .

Catalog of an exhibition held at the National Art Museum of China, June 10-July 3, 2008.

lncludes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-262-51226-8 lpbk: alk. paper) 1. Multimedia IArt)-China-Exhibitions . 2. Art and technology-China-Exhibitions. 3. Virtual reality in art-Exhibitions . 4. Art, Chinese-21 st century-Exhibitions. 1. Fan, Di"an . II. Zhang, Ga, 1963- III. Zhongguo mei shu guan .

N7345.65 .M85S96 2008 702.8' 10951-dc22

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ZHdK-MIZ (Zrich) Ar... . t~

N COMMITTEE

ORGANIZED BY The National Art Museum of China

CHAIR Fan Di'An

VICE-CHAIRS Qian Linxiang, Yang Bingyan, Ma Shulin

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR/CURATOR

Zhang Ga

PROJECT MANAGER/PRODUCER

LiZhenhua

ADVISORY BOARD Alex Adriaansens [V2_1nstitute for the Unstable Media, The Netherlands] Richard Castelli [Epidemie, France] Amanda Macdonald Crowley [eyebeam, United States] Kelli Dippte [Tate, United Kingdom] Andree Duchaine [le Groupe Molior, Canada] Barbara London [The Museum of Modern Art, United States] Lu Xiaobo [Academy of Artsand Design, Tsinghua University, China] Ma Gang [Central Academy of Fine Arts, China] Kirn Machan [Multimedia Art Asia Pacific, Australia] Alfred Rotert [European Media Art Festival, Germany] Annette Schindler [Plug-in, Switzerland] Gerfried Stocker [Ars Electronica, Austria) Mike Stubbs [Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, United Kingdom] Sven Travis [Parsons The New School for Design, United States] Peter Weibel [ZKM Center for Art and Media, Germany] Zhang Peili [China Academy of Fine Arts, China] Lisa Zhou [Shanghai eART Festival, China]

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A GENEALOGY OF MEDIA ART PETER WEIBEL

A. PAST AND PRESENT MEDIA ART

~ 1. Anti-illu5ion: Media Art in the 19605 and 19705 In 1969 an exhibition was held at the Whitney Museum of American Art with the significant title "Anti-Illusion: Proce-

dures/Materials," at which works of Carl Andre, Michael Asher, Lynda Benglis, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Steve Reich, Robert Ryman, Richard Serra, Michael Snow, Keith Sonnier, Richard Tuttle, and others were shown. This exhi-bition summed up an important tendency of the neo-avant-garde, in particular, of the media avant-garde (photo, film, and video]. The 1960s saw a paradigm change from illusion to anti-illusion. All the achievements of the avant-garde of the 1950s and 1960s drew on the development of materials of the particular medium and its dispositivs respectively apparatuses. The inner world of materials, from color to photographic paper, and the apparatus (from brush to cam-era] formed the directives for the development of processes. Processes of materials-whether of Lead, felt, fat, oil colors, water, ice, air, fire, earth, and so on-shaped the form and nonform of the picture or the sculpture. These processes of

materials replaced the work of art as a product. From avant-garde music, Fluxus and happenings through action art, body art and arte povera to land art, process art and concep-

tual art, artists have been testing the possibilities and options of materials, in order to create from these their ephemeral works. This obsession with materials not only went along with a refusal of illustration and representation but, more-over, was in general characterized by the gesture of the Enlightenment and anti-illusion. Avant-garde film and the avant-garde of electronic arts in particular proceeded from the "apparative" conditions and materiality of film, from the conditions of perception, of projection, of the movie theater, celluloid, and so on-and developed from these "structural film," "material film," and "expanded cinema" (Hollis Framp-ton, Tony Conrad, Paul Sharits, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Michael Snow, Peter Gidal, and myself, to name but a few]. Avant-garde film and with it media art, formed the vanguard, so to speak, of this avant-garde of anti-illusion; and it sub-sequently gained entry as well into the classical art forms of painting and sculpture in the 1960s.

The 1960s thus formed a watershed between the epoch and practice of illusion and the epoch and practice of anti-illusion. In the 1970s, the art of anti-illusion came to an end in the public consciousness, for in the 1980s the painting of illusion ruled the roost. Under the pressure of the mass media, which had developed into the central site for the generation of illusion, the avant-garde favored all the more

1. &t:t: 20ttt~60, 70.ftlY-li*Z:~ 1969.1f-. t#J~l!J t;Jtttt~tt~W- T -t-Jl~. f!:-i#ffi'JU~~:)(, "&. 4t'.l1t, .ttJf l#.!f'+" . Jl~o/Jlt!JT~~~HAndre). l'"J1t$(Asher). ;f.~]!_~(Benglis). ~]!_jljf-(Morris). ~f_ (Nauman). ~Jt(ReichL ~.t(RymanL *.:bI(Serra). ~*(Snow). ~ !E,$(Sonnier). :l;t# $(Tuttle) A {t-J 11= i o ~Jl~ ,~,~ T flr J1_ t;Jjt ~ -f-j: ~~~, Jtft~ :E.~1*- t;Jjt(:Jl fj, tfP~1t){f.J~~o 20-l!Hc6D.1f-1~Jl!3iET h\4f}'.JtJU&.41:f'.l1t{f.J-t-~1YHi{f.J~~o 20-l!Hc 505fP60.1f-1-t. :E. t;Jjt {t-J J'Jf tr ffe.~;/ijl~JGtlf !Jc1*-~1*-#!f4 at~:Jlbl f!: _i_~ I!/;-{f.J ~}l o ## {t-J ~ ;:-t!t-Ji!-, JA~~JU1t~~. !V-&I!Jc{f.J ~ tE-t!t-Ji!-(JAi~iiJ !!lH0;#L)};~- ~Jl:l5fl-tifflJt T-JJ-

~ o~~~~.~~.5$. ~~. ~~~* ~~.k. ##{f.Jit;~jfl-~ T M?imi ,!llM {t-J *~, ~~~:ltffe. T 111fJ {t-J ~~*~o ~~#t+~~J 1f:i5fl1~W- T 1f };-1!JIJ ft=~:J!t ~t;Jtt& oR:n.~. ~bl~~t;J!tHM, ~$Tfi~t;Jtt. 1*-t;JttfPt; * ~*~t;Jtt.:Jjflt;JjtfP~~t;Jjt, t;Jjt~fil-;fE~-~###~~~*~fP~tt

~' ~*~*~1ft!J1iJ!,f~~~~-~-~t;Jjtft=Jho~#~T##~~~~#~ fOOfP~~{f.Jtt~, ;:1*-~, ~#~~~IV-J-~MfP&.4l:t-:l1t*-=E~*~~o:E.t9 fP:E.tTt;7't~f!:~~~ft~~~ffe.~bl~~~~~~~~~Jl, ~&~~~~~ .

~~iit?!L, tfl7t~~-'f-, tlfl&Jf ~ 1rt?!L :#tfl~,,t)lt!J u~~ti!" ( "structural film" ). "tt#tf" ( "material film" )fP "~}llf,fj" ( "expanded cinema" ):ff]!_~ JIJ~

-f~(Hollis Frampton). :fG,% ,~d.l1:1t(Tony Conrad). %$ ~;fu#(Paul Sharits). ~ff- .. $$-f-fP1li:i!l! ..$$-f-(Steina and Woody Vasulka). ;t)t$ **(Michael Snow). :fbt1~ tJk$(Peter Gidal), :fbt1~ *1(Peter Weibel.)o ~IV-iJt , :E.tfjfP#f!:f'=!i~~1*-t; 7't# liil~ffe. r ~M :E.&.41:t-'.l1t~~ ~%*, * JLffit::tE20-tJt-gc6ot-1~$U~ r :!1tAM?imi 11JiM iEflt t;J!t*~-t!t-Jf ~ A:IW~o

A GENEALOGY OF MEDIA ART PETER WEIBEL

A. PAST AND PRESENT MEDIA ART

1. Anti-illu5ion: Media Art in the 19605 and 19705 In 1969 an exhibition was held at the Whitney Museum of American Art with the significant title "Anti-Illusion: Proce-dures/Materials," at which works of Carl Andre, Michael Asher, Lynda Benglis, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Steve Reich, Robert Ryman, Richard Serra, Michael Snow, Keith Sonnier, Richard Tuttle, and others were shown. This exhi-bition summed up an important tendency of the neo-avant-garde, in particular, of the media avant-garde [photo, film, and video]. The 1960s saw a paradigm change from illusion to anti-illusion. All the achievements of the avant-garde of the 1950s and 1960s drew on the development of materials of the particular medium and its dispositivs respectively apparatuses. The inner world of materials, from color to photographic paper, and the apparatus [from brush to cam-era) formed the directives for the development of processes. Processes of materials-whether of Lead, felt, fat, oil colors, water, ice, air, fire, earth, and so on-shaped the form and nonform of the picture or the sculpture. These processes of materials replaced the work of art as a product. From avant-garde music, Fluxus and happenings through action art, body art and arte povera to land art, process art and concep-

112

tual art, artists have been testing the possibilities and options of materials, in order to create from these their ephemeral works. This obsession with materials not only went along with a refusal of illustration and representation but, more-over, was in general characterized by the gesture of the Enlightenment and anti-illusion. Avant-garde film and the avant-garde of electronic arts in particular proceeded from the "apparative" conditions and materiality of film, from the conditions of perception, of projection, of the movie theater, celluloid, and so on-and developed from these "structural film," "material film," and "expanded cinema" [Hollis Framp-ton, Tony Conrad, Paul Sharits, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Michael Snow, Peter Gidal, and myself, to name but a fewl. Avant-garde film and with it media art, formed the vanguard, so to speak, of this avant-garde of anti-illusion; and it sub-sequently gained entry as well into the classical art forms of painting and sculpture in the 1960s.

The 1960s thus formed a watershed between the epoch and practice of illusion and the epoch and practice of anti-illusion. In the 1970s, the art of anti-illusion came to an end in the public consciousness, for in the 1980s the painting of illusion ruled the roost. Under the pressure of the mass media, which had developed into the central site for the generation of illusion, the avant-garde favored all the more

1. &tl'.it!:: 2011t~~60, 70$ftB(Jd;f$'f;~ 1969.if. . ~#JM~.oot:#.it~tt#-1J- r-~&'.l\t. !t-~~iJYJA;tx, "ffe.

v e h e m e n t l y d e s t r u c t i o n , d e c o n s t r u c t i o n , a n d a n t i - i l l u s i o n ,

t h e e x i t f r o m t h e p i c t u r e . W i t h t h e r e t u r n o f f i g u r a t i v e a n d

e x p r e s s i v e p a i n t i n g , i l l u s i o n t o o r e t u r n e d t o t h e r e a l m o f a r t .

T h e r e w a r d w a s m o m e n t o u s : t h e m a s s m e d i a , b e i n g i l l u -

s i o n m e d i a a s w e l l , p a s s i o n a t e l y a p p l a u d e d t h i s n e w p a i n t -

i n g a n d l a v i s h e d e x c e s s i v e c o v e r a g e o n t h i s p h e n o m e n o n .

T h e t a b l o i d s a n d i l l u s t r a t e d m a g a z i n e s t h a n k e d a r t t h a t t h e y

n o l a n g e r w e r e t h e s o l e p l a y e r s i n t h e t h e a t e r o f i l l u s i o n ,

a n d t h a t t h e a r t i s t h a d s h o w n h i m s e l f t o b e a f e l l o w a c t o r o n

t h e s a m e s t a g e . T h u s , t h e a r t o f t h e 2 0 t h c e n t u r y c a n b e

s q u e e z e d n o t o n l y i n t o t h e b i n a r y o p p o s i t i o n s o f f i g u r a t i v e

v e r s u s a b s t r a c t , m a t e r i a l v e r s u s n o n m a t e r i a l , r e p r e s e n t a -

t i o n a l v e r s u s n o n r e p r e s e n t a t i o n a l , b u t a l s o i n t o t h a t o f i l l u -

s i o n a n d a n t i - i l l u s i o n , i n w h i c h t h e a v a n t - g a r d e d e f i n e d i t s e l f

a s a n t i - i l l u s i o n a r y .

2 . A l l u s i o n : M e d i a A r t i n t h e 1 9 9 0 s

l t w a s t h e m e d i a a r t i s t s o f t h e 1 9 6 0 s a n d 1 9 7 0 s [ a v a n t - g a r d e

f i l m a n d v i d e o a r t l w h o w e r e m a i n l y r e s p o n s i b l e f o r t h e a n t i -

i l l u s i o n a r y m e n t a l i t y . A f t e r t h e i r b i t t e r e x p e r i e n c e t h a t t h e

r e t u r n o f t h e a r t o f i l l u s i o n i n 1 9 8 0 s p a i n t i n g p u s h e d t h e m t o

t h e s i d e l i n e s , m a r g i n a l i z e d t h e m , a n d i n m a n y c a s e s e v e n

w i p e d t h e m o u t , t h e y o u n g e r g e n e r a t i o n o f m e d i a a r t i s t s o f

t h e 1 9 9 0 s l e a r n e d t h e i r l e s s o n . T h e y p l a c e d t h e m s e l v e s n o t

i n t h e a n t i - i l l u s i o n a r y t r a d i t i o n o f t h e m e d i a a v a n t - g a r d e

[ b e c a u s e t h e y s a w i n t h i s t r a d i t i o n t h e c a u s e o f t h e a v a n t -

g a r d e " s f a i l u r e l b u t , r a t h e r , d i r e c t l y i n t h a t o f m a i n s t r e a m

i l l u s i o n - f o r e x a m p l e , o f H o l l y w o o d f i l m s o r m u s i c v i d e o s -

w h i c h t h e s e a r t i s t s t h e n a p p r o p r i a t e d o r d e c o n s t r u c t e d w i t h

t e c h n i q u e s t h e y t o o k f r o m t h e m e d i a a v a n t - g a r d e o f t h e

1 9 6 0 s a n d 1 9 7 0 s [ s l o w i n g d o w n o r a c c e l e r a t i n g s h o t s , a n d

s o o n - n a m e s l i k e P i p i l o t t i R i s t a n d D o u g l a s G o r d o n c o m e

t o m i n d l . T h i s t e n d e n c y t o w a r d i l l u s i o n i s t h e r e a l c a u s e o f

1 1 4

A G E N E A L O G Y O F M E D I A A R T

1 9 9 0 s m e d i a a r t " s n a r r a t i v e t r e n d - o f t h a t t r i u m p h o f t h e

e y e w h i c h p l a c e s i t s e l f a t t h e s e r v i c e o f t h e s t o r y t e l l e r . Y e t

i n s t a n c e s o f r e s o r t i n g t o t h e a v a n t - g a r d e a s w e l l a s t o f o r m s

o f t h e m a s s - e n t e r t a i n m e n t i n d u s t r y a r e s o n u m e r o u s a n d

m i x e d t h a t i t w o u l d b e w r o n g s i m p l y t o a s s i g n t h e y o u n g e r

g e n e r a t i o n t o t h e r e a l m o f t h e d r e a m f a c t o r y . P r e c i s e l y

t h r o u g h t h e m i x t u r e o f p r a c t i c e s o f n a r r a t i o n a n d i l l u s i o n ,

a s w e k n o w t h e m f r o m t h e m a s s m e d i a o f f i l m a n d t e l e v i -

s i o n f r o m p s y c h o d r a m a s t o t a l k s h o w s , w i t h t h e p r a c t i c e s o f

a n t i - i l l u s i o n a n d a n t i - n a r r a t i o n , a n e w p r a c t i c e h a s a r i s e n ;

i n t h e b e s t c a s e s w e w o u l d l i k e c a l l ' " a l l u s i o n . ' "

T h e m e d i a g e n e r a t i o n o f t h e 1 9 9 0 s a s s u m e s t h a t e v e r y

v i e w e r a l r e a d y h a s a l i b r a r y o f v i s u a l e x p e r i e n c e s , f e d b y t h e

m a s s m e d i a f r o m f i l m s t o b i l l b o a r d s , s t o r e d i n h i s h e a d .

T h e i r w o r k s d r a w o n t h i s v i s u a l c o n d i t i o n i n g d i r e c t l y o r i n d i -

r e c t l y . T h e y d o n ' t n e e d t o n a m e n a m e s , b e c a u s e t h e v i e w e r

k n o w s w h o i s m e a n t . T h e y n e e d o n l y b r i e f l y t o s u g g e s t t o p -

i c s , p l a c e s , s u b j e c t s , a n d t h e v i e w e r k n o w s w h a t i s b e i n g

s p o k e n o f . M e r e h i n t s , e x p l i c i t o r s y m b o l i c , e l l i p t i c a l o r c o n -

c e a l e d r e f e r e n c e s , a r e s u f f i c i e n t t o c h a r g e t h e i m a g e s w i t h

m e a n i n g a n d s i g n i f i c a n c e . L i t t l e i s m e n t i o n e d e x p l i c i t l y , a n d

t h e s t o r y i s s t i l l c o m p r e h e n s i b l e . T h i s u n i v e r s e o f m u l t i p l e

r e f e r e n c e s i s t h a t o f t h e f a m o u s p o s t m o d e r n i s m , f r o m

a r c h i t e c t u r e t o m u s i c , f r o m a r t t o f i l m . Q u e n t i n T a r a n t i n o " s

P u l p F i c t i o n [ 1 9 9 4 ) i s a c l a s s i c e x a m p l e o f t h e s e n u m e r o u s

r e f e r e n c e s t o t h e v i s u a l e x p e r i e n c e o f t h e f i l m - g o e r . T h e

c h a r m o f t h e s e r e f e r e n c e s i s t h a t t h e y f o r m a c o m m o n s e t

o f a s s u m p t i o n s p o s s e s s e d b o t h b y v i e w e r a n d a u t h o r . S u p -

p o s e i s t h e k e y w o r d o f t h e a e s t h e t i c o f a l l u s i o n . l t i s a s s u m e d ,

i t i s p r e s u p p o s e d , t h a t t h e v i e w e r k n o w s t h i s a n d t h a t .

A n a e s t h e t i c s o f t h e ' " g i v e n , ' " w h i c h a s s u m e s a n d p r e -

s u p p o s e s . h a s b e c o m e t h e c e n t r a l d o g m a o f a w h o l e v i s u a l

c u l t u r e . I n t h e p o s t m o d e r n u n i v e r s e o f a l l u s i o n , i t i s

J A w , 2 o 1 J H c 6 o - i t - 1 t ; # , ) { i r i ! l u l t ' . f : 1 1 9 s t 1 - \ ' ) f p f f e . i * ' . f : 1 1 i u l t s t 1 t W g 7 } 7 J < . w t 0 J u r 2 o - t ! H c 7 o

- i t - 1 - \ , { E - i \ . A ; t i J Z 9 = 1 , R . j t t ; * * J U r J ? : -~ ' l 2 S 1 ) { i : l l L \ . B O - i t - 1 - \ ) - ' 1 1 i u l t i * j t Wg~ @ j t : ~ i } t

~~~o*Aw~&~A~-'.f:~ltll9~~~f. {E~lgffinT, Elgt;;ft*fil~~f

~~-~Wg-~. t:~~ffe.-'.f:. ~JAOOll9~~~-lli*o ~-A~*~~ll9~lgW

~, '.f:~t:~W~T"t;ftll9~00o~){l'.f:~lt-~lg*Aw;){i:lt-~lg~~~#~

j l t " P P~'11j' : # - : x t J t # J J \ L l k ! f : t l l : I t o %#/Hll~!!!GfJJNOO 1 1 9 ~ ; t : x t f t ; ; f t ; f 'f~iM' ~ ) { i

~11'1/FW~:rt~'.f:~lt~~o/119~-*M*. t;;ft*1f1~~&~AT~1f1119~~. f f e , ) { i : f t

M-~~_llg#f&'l51'lli*o } } c l T i j , 20~icll9"t;ft:f1:X.Pf~~J;t

assumed of any viewer that s/he knows all the images, and the charm of the reaction lies in the reference to these images, in the deliberate disappointment of expectation, in the deliberate parallelism and conformity, or in the deliber-ate omissions and ellipses [see, for example, Pierre Huyghe's film L'Ellipse). This allusive technique permits the Scylla and Charybdis of illusion and anti-illusion, of narration and anti-narration, to be circumnavigated. The author can nar-rate, but through the allusive techniques [not naming names, of indirect references, or of covered-up identities] s/he can also rupture the narrative. The author can illustrate figura-tive and concrete scenes but, through the allusive tech-nique, also Lend them a degree of abstraction and unreality. The methods of allusion thus allow the artist to regulate the degree of narration and anti-narration, of figuration and abstraction. In this way it is possible to create works ani-mated by an incredible pleasure in storytelling, by an exces-sive urge to jump into the thick of a narrative plot, into the flesh of a story, and at the same time to make visible the bones of its structure and the grid of its script. The tech-niques of allusion permit stories about the state of the world-for example, by Gillian Wearing, Sam Taylor-Wood, Aernout Mik-that, at the same time, continue the anti-illu-sionary and conceptual tendency of the media avant-garde.

3. Scripted Method: Contemporary Media Art Contemporary media artists show the mass media as a part of the world and as a part of the eye and of the camera with which the world is viewed. The allusive eye tells of the media and of the world, and its artists tell of the world in other ways than do the mass media. These are dismayed views into, and dismayed images of, the global illusion of neolib-eralism. These are images of an art whose visual vocabu-

116

A GENEALOGY OF MEDIA ART

lary has a high degree of complexity. This complexity is the core of allusion. The danger of anti-illusory art was simplic-ity and tautology. The dangers of allusory art are complexity and mannerism, but never the flight from the world or the flight from the viewer. The allusive technique of narration in the visual media signifies a further development of the liter-ary plot and almost a break with it, with the literary struc-turing of a narrative. The visual narrative does not follow the arc and path of a verbal narrative. Nevertheless, the allusive narrative follows a script. lt could be said that the media art of the 1990s up to the present follows a script-is scripted. lt does not follow the plot of a story, though: a story is something other than a script. A script means rules or codes. There are today not just dress codes but also codes of behavior; not just a code of honor but, above all, codes of articulation. In the mass media, in politics, in TV news, we experience daily the subtleties and finesse of the code of articulation, how something is formulated. How something is said is more important than its content. The content is precisely how something is said and in what words. News is scripted , behavior is scripted: the world, especially politics, follows a script, an allusive script, where names are not mentioned, where references are indirect, where what is most important is not explicit, where information is con-cealed, where a great deal is merely assumed. This scripted world corresponds in art to the scripted method. An aes-thetics of assumption is supposed to uncover a world of assumption. The essence of allusive media art consists of offering the artist the possibility of rendering the script of the world recognizable through his own script. ldeally, the allusive eye should make the script of the world visible. ldeally, the allusive narrative should counter this script, or create better, truer, profounder narratives about the world.

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4. Reenactment and Reference lnstead of Representation in Actual Media Art Contemporary art is characterized by the fact that, after abstraction, which had neglected reference to object worlds, it established not a new concreteness but, rather, new ref-erences-on aesthetic, scientific, economic, and political systems. By using these systems as references, they become reference systems. Reference systems thus replace reality. Art refers lately to reference systems and is itself therefore becoming a reference system. One can assume that 20th-century art was influenced mainly by photography as a ref-erence system. We see that a technical medium is the primary source of reference when we want to follow up the old con-flict of paradigms. Warhol's or Richter's paintings refer to photographs, in particular to photographs from art history books or the mass media. Even sculpture refers to photog-raphy. And contemporary video art refers [as Pop Art did in the 1960s] to popular phenomena such as Hollywood films, newscasts, quiz shows, reality TV, and video clips-and is quite successful with it. The arts treat each other recipro-cally as reference systems. For this reason all arts are becoming media. This is the greatest success of media art. Reality is perceived in the mirror of reference systems, mass media, and the media of arts. A special case is the segment of acquiring reality in performing as in reenactment. This is the latest trend in media art. We all know that the real inci-dences, actions, or data in text or images are passed on by history. In a critical and educational position we know that verity and authenticity are lost by the transmission from the incident to its description or, in other words, by the transfer from reality to representation. History can be seen as a vast number of stories that are conducted, as it were, by the interests of the narrators; thus it is myth, fiction, illusion,

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simulation, construction, lie. When the images of history, which are saved and stored in photographs and films, are "retroced" into action, the lies of representation are dis-played as the truth of reality. Medial fiction is becoming authenticity because of retrocession. The conciliated, with all its defects, is becoming the truth of the immediate through performance. Contemporary media art thinks it can escape the complex world of media by stepping into the simple world of senses. By playing theater as if it was real-ity-and not expose reality as theater-media art described simulation as reality, but without fully knowing that it is still is a prisoner of simulation and the media world. A comple-ment to "reality TV" would be reality art. Reenactment means to get back to an illusion that pretends to be reality.

B. PRESENT AND FUTURE MEDIA ART

1. Techne-Episteme In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle [384-322 sc]. son of a Macedonian doctor and teacher to Alexander the Great, made his well-known distinction between techn.e [practical skills, craft and art] and episteme [cognition, knowledgel. Knowledge in its various forms [epistemel comprised rheto-ric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, dialectics, grammar, and music theory. These were reserved for the community of free citizens. Technical knowledge [techne) was a matter for the unliberated, for laborers and craftsmen [technites or banausosl. Aristotle made no attempt to disguise his con-tempt of craftwork [techne). He regarded the status of craftsmen as one bordering on slavery. For this reason, it was impossible to consider craftsmen as true citizens. Aris-totle expounded the view that the sons of "free" citizens

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should refrain from taking too great a part in useful activi- racy and oligarchy]. Hence, Aristotle produced a commen-ties that could drag them down to the level of the banausos surability of the aesthetic and social order. The hierarchy of because craftwork impeded the state of mind and common sense that free citizens required in order to exercise and apply virtue . In his opinion, the arts and crafts [techne] had a detrimental effect on the body's physical condition and robbed the mind of the respite it requires for sound reasoning. Thus, useful things ought to be taught only to the extent that they form the basis for higher things. Music is tobe listened to for pleasure by free adults, not to be played by them, for music-making has a hint of the lowly arts and crafts about it and is therefore an undignified activity for a free man. In other words, society requires people who would master a craft or trade [techne] as laborers or slaves, but only in the service of others-to help the latter experience pleasure, for exam-ple, or to allow them to carry out more sublime activities .

To understand this hierarchy of different forms of knowl-edge, it must be remembered that Aristotle was an advocate of dass rule rather than democracy. In his opinion, the rule of an individual [monarchy]. the rule of a few [aristocracyl, or the rule of the many [polity] were superior organizations of government which served the common good:

Misguided forms of government arise when tyranny replaces the monarchy, oligarchy the aristocracy and democracy the polity. For tyranny is an autocracy, an exclusive form of rule which is for the benefit of the sovereign, oligarchy a form of rule for the benefit of the rich and democracy one for the benefit of the poor. Yet no-one thinks of the benefit of all. ...

dass society served as the foundation for the hierarchy of the arts and sciences. The sciences [epistemel, ranging from arithmetic to rhetoric, were for free citizens; and the arts [technel. ranging from architecture and agriculture to painting and sculpture, were for the unliberated.

2. Artes liberales-Artes mechanicae The Romans adopted Aristotle's distinction but added one significant shift to it. lnstead of distinguishing between forms of knowledge and craft, between cognition and gen-eral knowledge or between the experts and the banausos, they now placed the Aristotelian distinction in the notion of the arts themselves. Episteme and techn.e became artes. The distinction between episteme and techn.e was replaced by the distinction between the artes Liberales and the artes mechanicae. The forms of knowledge ranging from arithme-tic to rhetoric became the artes liberales. The forms of craft that ranged from architecture to agriculture became the artes mechanicae. The commensurability of the aesthetic and social order continued to form the foundation of a hier-archy of the arts and artistic skills. What we know today as the sciences formed the artes Liberales of the past.

In Roman times, the study of the artes liberales formed the subject matter of a nonvocational higher education befitting the free citizen. This is why we speak of the liberal arts for the free citizen. The seven liberal arts [grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music theory, and astronomy] also formed the curriculum of the monastic and convent schools, and, from the 13th century, of the universi-

By proposing a mixture of polity and aristocracy, he ties. The artes mechanicae [architecture, painting, sculpture, sought to neutralize the dangers of the extremes [democ- and agriculture] continued tobe derided as banausoi technai

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or artes vulgares et sordidae for the unliberated, laborers, and slaves.

3. The Contest Between the Arts lt was not until the emergence and rise of the middle classes or bourgeoisie that painting, architecture, and sculpture were finally promoted to the ranks of the liberal arts (artes liberales]. Around 1500, architecture, sculpture, and paint-ing had an equal share in the emancipation of the fine arts [or artes mechanicae as they were known at the time]. The term paragone in art history refers to the "contest between the arts" which developed in the modern age. Soon the debate on the order of precedence of the arts began. Above all, painting and sculpture found themselves in direct com-petition with each other, as we see firstly in the writings of Leonardo da Vinci, who argued explicitly in favor of painting. While painting advanced its merits in terms of its illusionist qualities, its inventiveness and the possibilities it held for imitating nature through the means of perspective and color, sculpture referred to its multiple dimensionality, its haptic qualities and materiality. Painting, in the latter view, dealt merely with appearance, whereas sculpture actually embodied reality. The sculptor Turbolo expressed the argu-ment most succinctly in a letter to Benedetto Varchi in the 16th century: "lt seems to me that sculpture is how things actually are and that painting is a lie" ["A me mi pare La scul-tura sia La casa proprio, La pittura sia La bugia"]. Painting, for its part, derided sculpture as a dusty metier of the crafts-man, which did not even come close to the intellectual achievement of painting. Thus, painters used the old craft-work (techne) argument to disparage sculptors.

The old artes liberals, once the sciences, today have becorne painting, sculpture, and architecture, and in place

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of the old artes mechanicae we now have applied art and media art. Theory and science used to form the arts of the free citizens. The "mechanical" arts of the craftsman used to be the arts of the unliberated, the laborer, and the slave. This aesthetic division, which corresponds to the Greek seg-regation of the classes, has been translated into the value judgments we have of the arts" and the "media arts" today. We devalue media artists by regarding them as mere expo-nents of technical reproducibility limited to the horizons of a machine and by assigning primacy to painting as an anthro-pomorphic principle and/or form of production.

The scant regard accorded to productive crafts and trades in ancient times is now directed at automation and the machine. The place of the mechanical arts has been taken by the media . In principle, the difference between the artes liberales and the artes mechanicae resulted from the assumption that the one was regarded as an activity of the mind and the other as an activity of the body. The contempt felt for the work of the craftsman has been replaced by the contempt for machine- and media-generated production .

As a form of production generated by the human hand and guided by artistic intuition, painting nowadays has been assigned precedence over artworks that are produced or reproduced using technical means. Whereas original works of painting are in the service of the upper classes, the lower classes are fobbed oft with photographic reproductions of the famous originals (prints, postcards, and the likel. Even today, the ostracizing of the artes mechanicae continues to be felt in the case of artworks produced with the aid of elec-tronic media . A glance through contemporary books on art history reveals that media arts continue to be held in con-tempt. Right up to today, they have been unable to com-pletely shake oft the stigma attached to their origins from

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being associated with the practices of the unliberated and with the mechanical arts.

Thus, the Liberation of the so-called lower orders can be gauged from the processes of transformation, which the arts themselves underwent. However, the lower orders owed their emancipation less to the arts than to the natural sci-ences and the spirit of the Enlightenment, which wanted to release people from two forces of violence, forces of social coercion-that is, from the chains of disempowerment that had been forged by the nobility and the church-and from the power of nature. The natural sciences allied themselves with the mechanical arts in order to discover [with the help of instruments, devices, laboratories, technical skills, knowledge, and expertise] the laws of nature and to speed up the development of mechanisms that could master the forces of nature. One artistic movement such as Romanti-cism was certainly opposed to the Enlightenment; but oth-


Volume 7. The cream of the French Enlightenment, Voltaire, Rousseau, Condorcet, and Montesquieu gave the Encyclo-pedie its anticlerical and antiabsolutist character, the cen-terpiece of the democratic revolution.

D"Alembert [ 1717-1783] wrote the Oiscours preliminaire de l'Encyclopedie in 1751. He did so in the wake of Bacon, Newton, and locke . For him, mathematics and physics formed the foundation of all knowledge, including the theory of society. Neither religion nor biological organisms consti-tuted a basis for models of community life; instead, the spheres of ratio-reason-and the natural sciences served as a foil for the spheres of politics and art. But, above all, the Encyclopedie was the great service of Diderot, who focused his attention on the arts mecaniciens, the crafts, and on technology as the langue des arts. The sections Diderot wrote about the mechanical arts account for the largest part of the Encyclopedie. In his search for a systematic under-

ers joined forces with it to improve la condition humaine. standing of the mechanical arts he called for a debate on Today, we are in a similar position once again. The intention is for our fields of knowledge to be extended and driven for-ward through an alliance of the mechanical media arts with the natural sciences, and hence for platforms and practices of democratic processes to be created with the aid of new technologies and methods.

4. The Doctrine of the Encyclopedie From 1751 to 1780 Denis Diderot and his collaborator Jean le Rand D'Alembert published the thirty-five volumes of the Encyclopedie, au dictionnaire raisonnee des sciences, des arts et des metiers, the most significant editorial undertaking of the French Enlightenment-the 'opening chapter of the rev-olution," according to Robespierre-which was officially condemned by Pope Clemens XIII after the publication of

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the arts and the integration of the mechanical arts into the liberal arts and sciences. Diderot wanted to abolish the dis-tinction between the artes liberales and artes mechanicae as a device of class society; he wanted to change society by emancipating the mechanical arts . By improving the mechan-ical arts, he wanted to improve the social status of the citi-zen. In his opinion, the distinction between the free and the mechanical arts had degraded mankind. He was all for extending the field of the social protagonists, for a wide dis-tribution of knowledge and for the development of tools, machines, models, and instruments in the interests of prog-ress. He published the findings of his research in the Ency-clopedie in order to bring about a social transformation. Above all, he pinned his hopes for changing and improving society on the dissemination of knowledge about the

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mechanical arts. Technology, he believed, would help to restructure society. So it was not from the arts of painting and sculpture that he expected to see substantial contribu-tions to the development of a free society but, rather from the mechanical arts. Knowledge of the mechanical arts would Lead to a rational and fair society, just as we hope to find the same kind of society today in modern media arts and technologies such as the internet. Experimental poli-tics and experimental media art are supposed to support each other: in Diderot and in the agenda of the Enlighten-ment we find an interest in integrating the separate repre-sentational fields of science, art [the mechanical arts] and politics. The Enlightenment and Diderot regarded the mechanical arts, technology, and science as the foundation for enlightened politics.

5. The Equality of Materialsand Media A culture of material" emerged in the 1920s, especially in Russia where it revolved around Vladimir Tatlin. Tatlin linked the application of pieces of wood and paper in the Cubist pictures of Braque and Picasso to the tradition of materials used in Russian icons . Kurt Schwitters and the Bauhaus movement added both abstraction as a language of form and new materials to the field of painting. Consequently, the manifestos of the time called for the equality of all materi-als. This is why the most outstanding representatives of the 1920s avant-garde worked simultaneously as painters, sculptors, photographers, filmmakers, designers and archi-


equality among each of the artistic genres. Hence the first phase of media art centered on achieving the same artistic recognition for the media of photography and film as was enjoyed by the traditional media of painting and sculpture. In particular, much of the work du ring this phase was directed at exploring the idiosyncratic, media-specific [material-immanent] worlds of the relevant medium. In the case of photography at least, the battle for recognition as an artistic medium was won some 150 years after it had been invented. The same contest between the arts has also taken place with the newer media of video and digital art, because media works are attracting more attention than ever before at major international exhibitions. So, tentatively at least, we can speak of equality among all the media and genres.

6. The Postmedia Condition: The Script of Media As in the case of the old technical media of photography and film, the pivotal successes of the new technical media con-sisting of video and computer are not just that they launched new movements in art and created new media for expres-sion but , further, that they exerted a decisive influence on historical media such as painting and sculpture. To this extent, the new media were not only a new branch on the tree of art but actually transformed the tree of art itself. Here we have to distinguish between old technological media (photography and film] and new technological media [video and computers]. on the one hand, and the arts of painting and sculpture, on the other. Hitherto, the latter

tects. They developed a visual language that could be were not considered to be media at all; however, under the applied in universal contexts from panel paintings to archi- influence of the media, they came to be regarded as such, tecture or from a two-dimensional surface to a three- that is, as nontechnological old media. With the experiences dimensional space. In doing so, they laid the foundations for of the new media, we can afford to take a new Look at the old an end to the contest between the arts and to the start of media. With the practices of the new technological media,

126

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we can also embark on a fresh evaluation of the practices of the old, nontechnological media. In fact, we might even go so far as to say that the intrinsic success of the new media resides less in the fact that they have developed new forms and possibilities of art than in the fact that they have enabled us to establish new approaches to the old media of art-and, above all, have kept the latter alive by forcing them to undergo a process of radical transformation.

For example, after photography, emerged to rival the production of paintings that faithfully depict reality in line with our perceptions-and even had the audacity to promise [quite legitimately, as it turned out] that its depictions were far closer to reality, painting was eventually obliged to retreat from the representation of the world of objects after a fifty-year long struggle, and to concentrate on depicting its own idiosyncratic world [surface, form, color, and the properties of materials and technical devices from the frame to the canvasl. lts triumph in doing so is evidenced in the abstract painting of the first half of the 20th century. The fact that painting went back once more to creating pictures of the world of objects in the second half of the century (from Pop Art to photorealism] was a development that referred directly to photography. lf, in the world prior to photography, painting was based directly and immediately on representing the world of objects, then object-based painting after the invention of photography came to refer solely to the world of objects as it was depicted by photogra-phy, that is, to object-based and figurative photography.

However, it is not just the experiences with film and photography that have led to an exchange with painting : digital "painf' programs and the experience of working directly on the computer and the screen have given an unmistakably fresh impetus to painting. Significantly

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A GENEALOGY QF MEDIA ART

enough, they have also kicked oft a new form of computer-derived abstraction in painting . Yet it is not just the Western program of visual images that has changed through the influence of the technological media; the program of sculp-tures has obviously been transformed as well. We can rec-ognize the dominating influence of computer algorithms and 30 programs right down to the field of architecture. We could therefore be tempted to ask whether the effects of the new media on the old media have actually been more suc-cessful than the works of the new media themselves. The central movens and the central agendas of 20th-century art: the crisis of representation, the dissolution of the traditional notion of artwork, and the disappearance of the author-all these factors are due to the emergence of the new media. The radical turn toward the culture of reception, which occurred in the 20th century, the explosion of the visual in art and science, the pictorial turn [as well as the performa-tive turn], are all consequences of the new media .

All of the artistic disciplines have been transformed by the media. The impact of the media is universal. The media paradigm embraces all the arts . The computer's claim tobe a universal machine, as Alan Turing called his computer model in his 1937 paper "On Computable Numbers, " is being fulfilled by the media. Just as many scientists today dream of a computerized model of the universe, of a perfect presentation of the universe based on digital computations, artists today also dream of a computerized model of art, of a kind of art that can be completely created through digital computations. This computational way of thinking, the impacts and successes of which have already captured the entire world-for, of course, airports, factories, railway stations, shopping centers, hospitals, and so on would be helpless without computers or calculators-is now complemented

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by the parallel emergence of the "computational arts" (Heidegger] whose aim it also is to capture the entire world. And, indeed, the impacts and successes of the computa-tional arts, which we can observe follow precisely in the tra-dition we have just described : they, too, are transforming all the practices and forms of art. The computer, as it were, can simulate not only all forms and laws of the universe, not only the natural laws, but also the laws of form, and the forms and laws of the world of art. Creativity itself is a transfer program, an algorithm. From literature to architec-ture, from art to music, we are beginning to see more and more computer-aided transfer programs and instructions, control mechanisms, and guidelines for actions. The impact of the media is universal and for that reason all art is already postmedia art. Moreover, the universal machine, the com-puter, claims to be able to simulate all of the media. There-fore all art is postmedia art.

This postmedia condition, however, does not render superfluous the idiosyncratic worlds in the world of devices or the intrinsic properties of the media world. On the con-trary, the specificity and idiosyncratic worlds of the media are becoming increasingly differentiated. Total availability of specific media or of specific properties of the media, from painting to film, is only possible in the postmedia condition . For example, the computer is better at simulating and defin-ing a particular degree of granulation on a reel of 16mm film than a real film could ever achieve itself. The digital simulation of the notes of a flute sounds more Like a flute than the notes a flute player could ever coax out of a real flute. Likewise, the computer is even better at simulating the flickering of the writing if there is a tattered perforation on the reel of film than reality itself, and the same goes for the notes of a prepared piano. lt is only thanks to the post-

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media computer, the universal machine, that we can realize the abundance of possibilities that resides in the specificity of the media.

Nowadays, all art practice keeps to the script of the media and the rules of the media . This notion of the media comprises not only the old and new technical media, from photography to computers, but also the old analog media such as painting and sculpture, which have been trans-formed and influenced under the pressure of the technical media. This explains why we can rightly say that all art prac-tice keeps to the script of the media.

The art of the technical media- that is, art that has been produced with the aid of a device-constitutes the core of our media experience. This media experience has become the norm for all aesthetic experience. Thus, in art there is no longer anything beyond the media . No one can escape from the media. There is no longer any painting outside and beyond the media experience. There is no longer any sculp-ture outside and beyond the media experience. There is no longer any photography outside and beyond the media expe-rience. Those photographers who submit photographs to the digital media, and manipulate or enhance images on the computer screen which were originally taken by the cam-era, provide the most convincing and astounding photographic portraits; they are the most convincing and quintessential of all photographers. The photography of model and minia-ture worlds is a kind of physical modeling, a digital simula-tion technique .

This post-media condition is defined by two phases: [1] the equivalence of the media, and [2] the mixing of the media. The first phase was about achieving equivalence of the media, about establishing the same artistic recognition for new media-photography, film, video, digital art-as has

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been enjoyed by the traditional media, painting and sculp-ture. During this phase, all media, including painting and photography, made a special effort to explore the media-specific idiosyncratic worlds of the respective medium.

Painting has demonstrated the intrinsic value of paint, of flowing, dribbling, and trickling. Photography has dem-onstrated its ability to portray objects realistically. Film has demonstrated its narrative capacity. Video has demon-strated its critical subversion of the mass medium of televi-sion. Digitalart has demonstrated its powers of imagination in virtual worlds.

As far its epistemological and artistic value is concerned, this phase is more or less over. Fortunately, media specific-ity and media criticality have prevailed absolutely and com-pletely. The equivalence of the media, meaning its artistic equivalence and equal validity, has prevailed after success-ful attempt to chart the media-specific idiosyncratic worlds of the relevant medium, ranging from painting to video.

In an artistic and epistemological sense, the new sec-ond phase is about mixing the media-specific idiosyncratic worlds of the media.

Video, for example, triumphs with the narrative imagi-nation of film by using multiple projections instead of a sin-gle screen, and by telling a story from many perspectives at the same time rather than just from a single perspective. With the availability of new, large digital cameras and graph-ics programs, photography is inventing unseen, virtual worlds. Sculpture can consist of a photo or a videotape. An event captured in a photograph can be a sculpture, a text, or a picture. The behavior of an object and of a person cap-tured on a video or in a photograph can be a sculpture. Lan-guage can be a sculpture. Language on LED screens can be a painting, a book, and a sculpture. Video and computer

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installations can be a piece of literature, architecture, or a sculpture. Photography and video art, originally confined to two dimensions, receive spatial and sculptural dimensions in installations. Painting refers to photography or digital graphics programs and uses both. Graphics programs are often called "paint" programs because they refer to paint-ing. Film is proving to be increasingly dominant in a docu-mentary realism, which takes its critique of the mass media from video. The web supplies dialogs and texts for all of the media in its chat rooms. The entire reservoir of texts on the web can be used for the automatic control of texts, for the self-generative production of language worlds. But the web can also produce self-generative picture worlds, and texts on the web can serve as a foil for the script of actors in films and speakers in radio plays or for texts by poets or amateur writers. With an iPod, everyone can make their own radio program: "podcasting" instead of "broadcasting." With videocasting, everyone can make their own TV pro-gram. VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol] and IPTV (Internet Protocol Television] provide materials for everyone to create their own textual, aural, and visual installations using a range of media such as photography, video, or computer. The results, in turn, can be output as film, pieces of music, or as architecture.

This mixing of the media has led to extraordinarily major innovations in each of the media and in art. Thus, painting has come to life not by virtue of itself but, rather, through its referencing of other media. Video lives from film, film lives from literature, and sculpture lives from photog-raphy and video. They all live from digital, technical innova-tions. The secret code behind all these forms of art is the binary code of the computer, and the secret aesthetics con-sist of algorithmic rules and programs.

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133

~ ~ ~ '

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~ Consequently, this state of current art practice is best

referred to as the postmedia condition, because no single medium is dominant any longer; instead, all of the different media influence and determine each other. The set of all media forms a universal self-contained medium. This is the postmedia condition of the world of the media in the prac-tice of the arts today.

The ultimate effect of all this is to emancipate the observer, visitor, and user. In the postmedia condition, we experience the equality of the lay public, of the amateur, the philistine, the slave, and the subject. The very terms "user innovation" or "consumer-generated content'' bear witness to the birth of a new kind of democratic art in which every-one can participate. The platform for this participation is the internet, where everyone can post his or her texts, photos or videos. For the first time in history there is an "institution," a "space," and a "place" where the lay public can offer their works to others with the aid of media art but without the guardians of criteria. Until now, of course, these were all censured. There were only museums and other state-owned or private control zones where only legitimized art was exhibited. Now, though, the way is finally clear for illegiti-mate art. The contest of the arts is over, but the contest returns to its origins-to the relations between theory, sci-ence, and practice: art.

C. USER ART

1. Object, Use, lnstructions for Use At the beginning of the 20th century, modern art redefined the reference to reality or, rather, to representations of real-ity. Painting cut its ties with the reality of the object world; it

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became nonrepresentational and abstract [Kasimir Malevichl. On the other hand, the object banned from the picture reen-tered art as a real object [Marcel Duchampl. In painting, representation of the object world was prohibited, but the reality of the object world was welcome. Sculptors, too, ceased to represent the external world. The real object itself became sculpture.

The issue of the depicted object's practical value never came up as long as the object was only a picture. After all, the use of an object that was merely painted was, in reality, not possible. The question of use surfaced with the use of real objects in the art system. lf a sculpture is formed from a real, everyday object, then this can also be used as such. With his industrial readymades, Duchamp negated the use of his objects. The reversed urinal was not tobe used: Duch-amp presented it as an aesthetic object. The surrealists also rejected the usability of their aesthetic objects in order to stage their pure symbolic function . Brancusi, on the con-trary, saw his handmade sculptures as having a triple use function. A sculpture could also be a plinth for another sculpture or a stool to sit on. The stool, for its part, could be the podium for a sculpture as well as a sculpture itself, or a use object. The productivists around Alexander Rodchenko also expanded the concept of sculpture in 1920 by, for example, producing chairs to be used at a Workers' Club.

Along with the use objects came also instructions for use. Without instructions, most objects are unusable. The instructions for use became instructions for how to act for beholders, turning them into actors. Marcel Duchamp, for example, provided exact instructions for how to Look at a picture. With the usability of the aesthetic objects, the "user" also entered the picture. Later, the use object was even replaced by the instructions for use [instructions for how to

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135

act), which had always implicitly accompanied every object and every art object. In 1968, Franz Erhard Walther met this demand with his book Objekte, benutzen. The user took on a central role within the realm of art-the person who com-pletes the artwork, so to speak. As clearly shown by Erwin Wurm's "expanded media" concept of sculpture, the user, in dealing with the objects, brings about the existence and development of the art work. Following the beholders' revaluation as reflecting and creative subjects came their acceptance as actors. As Duchamp stated in 1957, "All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualification and thus adds his contribution to the creative act." 1 The receiver is an integral component in the creative act. The viewer becomes an artist; the consumer becomes producer.

2. New Music: Score and Performance The culture of musician [interpreterl has, meanwhile, achieved a special position in music. We simply have to replace the term "spectator" with "interpreter" and the term "artist'' with "composer" in Duchamp's formulation: "All in all, the creative act is not performed by the composer alone; the interpreter brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualification and thus adds his contribution to the creative act." The composer writes a score for piano, for example, but it is the pianist who first knows how to interpret and play this score and thereby realize the work. Composers write music: they write instructions for use for the piano, for example. The interpreter implements the instructions for use and produces the music. In this regard, the new music of the 1950s [Pierre Boulez, John Cage). which in particular

1. Marcel Duchamp, "The Creative Act," in Session an the Creative Act, Convention oftheAmerican Federation ofArts, Houston, Texas, April 1957 http://members.aol.com/mindwebart3/marcel.htm [accessed Novem-ber 13, 2007).

136


attended to the problems of the score and allowed the inter-preter great freedom, provided further important roots for the origins of user art.

"in 1957 New Music was the Center of all Arts Move-ments and Germany was the Center of the New Music," wrote Nam June Paik in 1999.2 In fact, the participatory trends in art intensified in the 1950s with the freedom of the interpreter with regard to a score that was often aleatory or consisted of direct instructions. In 1960, the composer La Monte Young wrote "Composition #7": "draw a straight line and follow it." In 1962, Nam June Paik wrote in his instruc-tions as music "Read-Music-Do it yourself-Answers to La Monte Young": "See your right eye with your Left eye."

Since Cage, the interpreter's freedom within the instructions of the score, chance, and uncertainty, have been important themes in New Music. Paik transferred this composition technique from the world of sounds into the world of pictures. In this transfer, the audience stepped into the place of the musician as interpreter or participant: '"As the next step toward more indeterminacy, 1 wanted to Let the audience [or congregation, in this case) act and play itself," Paik wrote in his 1962 essay "About the Exposition of Music." His video sculpture Participation TV [1963) allowed the audi-ence to change the pictures on a black-and-white television by means of a microphone and a signal amplifier-a key work for the subsequent decades of interactive media art. His work Random Access [1963) was composed of-with-tape recorders glued to the wall. Beholders, or users, could walk along with a mobile sound head and thereby generate their own music. They became, so to speak, a pianist navi-gating the soundtrack and did their own composing. The birth of media art and its participative trends did, in fact, result from the spirit of the music being made around 1960.3

2. Wulf Herzogenrath, ed., Nam June Paik: FluxusNideo [Bremen: Kun-sthalle Bremen, 1999]. dedication page. 3. Wulf Herzogenrath, oer ost-westliche Nomade," op. cit., see foot-note 1.

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Actionart [happenings, Fluxus, performance, and eventl was also influenced by musical problems in addition to sources from painting and literature. lt was John Cage's

students who had the idea to transfer the score as instruc-

tions to the interpreter, to the audience. In the transfer of

participatory principles from the acoustic to the visual arts,

it was the audience that moved to the center, as protagonist

of the artwork.

3. Action and Audience Participation In 1959, fluxus artist George Brecht, a student of John Cage, discovered "events," which were made up of mainly binary instructions. The famous 18 Happenings in 6 Parts [1959) from Altan Kaprow, from which the term happening arose, listed "lnstructions" for "a cast of participants." In 1961,

Yoko Ono began to formulate her performances as instruc-tions to the audience. In Cut Piece [1964). she challenged the audience to come onto the stage and cut oft her clothes. She transformed the art of instructions for the use of objects into the art of instructions for people .4 Wolf Vostell's hap-

pening YOU [ 1964) is a further example of replacing the art object by actions and instructions for how to act in Action Art. Vostell wrote, "basic idea: to confront the participants,

the audience, with the reasonability of life in a satire in the

form of a rehearsal of chaos / it is not important what 1 think-but instead, what the audience takes with them from processes and my image of them."

Challenging the audience to participate in the creation

of the artwork also played a major role in nouveau realisme . With Metamatics, Jean Tinguely's 1959 drawing machine, the audience could make their own drawings. In the exhibi-tion Feu a volonte [ 1961 l. Niki de Saint Phalle invited the audience to pick up a weapon and shoot at her assemblages.

4. Cf. Jon Hendricks, Yoko Ono: lnstructions for Paintings by Yoko Ono May 24. 7962 (Budapest: Galeria56, 1993].

138


Pierre Restany, nouveau realisme theorist, demanded in a

1971 working paper the "Actions-Spectacles," an "action

conjuncturelle: a temporary action, any kind of intervention with the audience, that aims at initiating their participation in several stages [passive, playful, active, co-creatingl."

Fluxus, happening, performance, and Nouveau Realisme

were not alone in discovering the participating beholder, co-player. and co-creator. As early as the 1950s, kinetic art and Op Art demanded the beholder's participation in the con-struction of the artwork. "We want to stir the beholder's

interest, to free him, to loosen him . We want his participa-

tion. We want to put him in a situation that sets him in

motion and makes him his own master. "5 The beholder has

to move to perceive the optical deceptions and phenomena of Op Art. The beholder is able to activate and change kinetic

objects and sculptures. The works enabled early forms of interactivity. Arte programmata [a term coined by Umberto Eco in 19621. which arose in the milieu of Op Art and kinetic art, emphasized the role of chance within a predetermined

program. Programmed sculptures and pictures emerged. Although these programs were not executed by computers,

they were nevertheless conceptual programs, manually and mechanically realized; as such, they can be considered key

precursors to computer art. The term algorithm embraces the instructions and

directions from the various genres of music and art. An algorithm is a strictly defined procedure, directions for how

to act, with finite elements and a determined succession,

which tells a machine or a person what to do. The machine follows a succession of digits and executes a program; a person follows Letters and symbols, whether for a cooking

recipe, a musical score, or the rules of a game. The intuitive

algorithms in the form of instructions for use and how to act

5. GRAY (Groupe de Recherche d"Art Visuel: Horacio Garcia-Rossi, Julio Le Parc, Frani;:ois Morellet, Francisco Sobrino, Joel Stein, Yvaral), in ""Stoppt die Kunst,'" Manifesto, 1965.

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139

became accepted in the arts in parallel with the develop-ment of computers, machine language, and their algorith-mic procedures. The Looppool 1.2 by Bastian Bttcher is an example of a user-oriented talking machine: a hyperpoetry duster with thirty-two interwoven rhythm and text frag-ments ornamentally depicted on a graphic surface. Viewers can influence the course of the text by using the toggle but-ton and thereby put together their own rap song without bringing the steady meter out of beat. Every user can become the author of a rap text.

4. Media Art and Audience Emancipation Through participatory practices, various art movements transformed the beholder into a user actively involved in the construction of the artwork, its design, content, and behav-ior. This change in direction toward the receiver became even more radical through the technical recording and broadcasting media-photography, television, video, com-puter, and Internet. Photography, as a democratic medium that allows everyone to photograph, sabotaged painting as an aristocratic medium and its cult of prominence. Begin-ning in 1971, Braco Dimitrijevic made a star of the casual passerby, whom he met by chance at a certain time at a cer-tain place, by eternalizing him or her on a huge banner in front of the building where they had met. In a series of fur-ther works, he erected memorials to average, anonymous people by naming streets after them, hanging their portraits in front of museums, or presenting their names prominently on building facades. In 1972, Jochen Gerz staged a similar emancipation of the anonymous person as antidote to pop-ular culture's and the art world's celebrity cults. He put up posters with the names of eight average people living on Rue Mouffetard in Paris, on the walls Lining their own street.

140


The audience participated in more than the production of the artwork: the audience was also declared as the artwork, or the star. The audience became the content. This was also the case with the video work Der Magische Spiegel [1970] from the group telewissen, in which normal people saw themselves for the first time on "television" [video, actually] in a closed-circuit installation. Video and computer technol-ogy elevated the participatory options to interactivity in the 1980s and 1990s.

5. The Emancipated Consumer as Artist : The Visitor as User Since 1960, the art world had anticipated and prepared for a change in consumer behavior. Artists handed over creativity to the beholder, giving him or her the rules of behavior. lnteractive artworks no longer exist autonomously; rather, they exist only through their use by the receiver, the user. The artist changed from a hero to a service worker, and the visitor from a passive consumer to a star. Today, millions of people exchange photos, texts, videos, and music on a daily basis through MySpace .com, Flickr.com, YouTube.com, and in virtual worlds such as Second Life, and via blogs. A newly structured space is emerging for the creative expression of millions of people. Beuys already declared that "everyone is an artist" in 1970. Everyday, millions of people find online platforms for communication, creativity, and art, beyond the authority of publishers, museums, galleries, newspapers, radio, television, and Hollywood, which traditionally decided on the production and distribution of works. The user becomes the producer, perhaps even the artist. The field of the actor has expanded: with the consumer as activist comes democratization of creativity and innovation . "User innovation" and "consumer-generated content'' influence

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n o t j u s t t h e w o r l d o f t h e m a s s m e d i a b u t a l s o t h e w o r l d o f

a r t . T h e f u t u r e ' s " c r e a t i v e i n d u s t r i e s " w i l l b e t h e e m a n c i -

p a t e d c o n s u m e r s a n d u s e r s . A r t , t o o , w i l l b e c o m e a " d e m o c -

r a t i z e d u s e r - c e n t e r e d i n n o v a t i o n s y s t e m . " A n e w , e m a n c i p a t e d

g e n e r a t i o n o f p r o d u c e r - c o n s u m e r s h a s f o r m e d o n t h e

i n t e r n e t : u s e r s w h o g e n e r a t e t h e i r o w n c o n t e n t a n d p r o -

g r a m s , e x c h a n g e t h e m a m o n g t h e m s e l v e s , a n d d i s t r i b u t e

t h e m f r e e l y o n l i n e .

U s e r a r t a d o p t s t h e s e s t r a t e g i e s f o r t h e a r t s y s t e m .

V i s i t o r s a s u s e r s g e n e r a t e c o n t e n t a n d p r o g r a m s i n t h e

m u s e u m ; t h e y e x c h a n g e t h e m a m o n g t h e m s e l v e s a n d d i s -

t r i b u t e t h e m f r e e l y o n l i n e a n d i n t h e m u s e u m . T h e m u s e u m

a n d t h e c l a s s i c a l a r t i s t a r e t h e p r o v i d e r s , s o t o s p e a k : t h e y

weibel media art history genealogy

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