media art. strategies of presentation, mediation and dissemination

New technologies of art produce new

forms of presentation and reception.

Since video art emerged in the late

1960s, media art has become a vital

part of international museum coll

ections. How can these artworks be

made accessible beyond their temporal

visibility in eXhibition contexts? Which

strategies of documentation exceed the

aesthetic deficits of traditional reproduc

tion techniques as still images? »Present

Continuous Past[s]« provides a state of

the art insight into current discourses

on de-centralized models for the disse

mination ofmedia artworks. Combining

the views of international artists, scho

lars, curators, and distributors, the book

reflects on the demand for a broader ac

cessibility of media art in the context of

research and academic teaching.

Ammann

Bippus / Mollmann

Christ

Daniels

Del Favero / Brown / Shaw / Weibel

Flach

Fleischmann / Strauss

Foeling

Frohne

Fromme / Fauconnier

Guiton

Haustein

Rosenbach

Rutten

Schieren

Zippay

ISBN 978-3-211-25468-4

I II I9 783211 254684

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»P~esent Continuous

Past [s ]« Medi a A.r t .

St.rategies of P.resen-

tation, Mediation and

DisseminationEdited by Ursula Frohne, Mona Schieren, Jean-Francois Guiton

Schriftenreihe 02

der Hochschule fur Kunste

University of the Arts Bremen

SpringerWienNewYork

Dan Graham, Present Continuous Past(s), 1974,at Otis Art Institute Gallery, September 1975.

I

I

»Present Continous Past[s]« Media Art. 8 9

Preface 11 09 Hans D. Christ

Stan Douglas, »Win, Place or Show«.

124

Introduction 13

10 Dennis Del Favero Neil Brown I Jeffrey Shaw I Peter Weibel 132

T_Visionarium: the aesthetic transcription of televisual databases01 Ursula Frohne

The Artwork as Temporal Form. Giving Access to the Historicity,

Context and Discursiveness of Media Art

22

11 Jean-Francois Guiton

www.guiton.de

142

03 Sabine Flach

08 Katharina Ammann

Dan Graham's Designs for Video Presentations:

Art, Commentary and Solution

07 Dieter Daniels

Before and after video art - Television as a subject and

material for art around 1963, and a glance at net art

since the 1990s

222

202

212

196

190

174

162

150

Biographies

Bart Rutten

»How to deliver what is asked«

Selected bibliography

Photo credits

Rens Fromme I Sandra Fauconnier

Capturing Unstable Media Arts - A formal model for

describing and preserving aspects of electronic Media Art

Lori Zip pay

The Digital Mystique: Video Art, Aura and Access

Rudolf Frieling

Database and Context Artistic Strategies within a Dynamic

Field of Action

15

16

14

13 Monika Fleischmann Wolfgang Strauss

On the Development of netzspannung.org - An Online Archive and

Transfer Instrument for Communicating Digital Art and Culture

12

46

36

74

82

62

96

112

Elke Bippus I Dirck Mollmann

Montage and Image Environments: Narrative Forms in

Contemporary Video Art

Mona Schieren

Media storage. On Documenting and Archiving Media Art

Lydia Haustein

Global Icons

»Withdrawal as an Artform« - Between Withdrawal and Presentation

- The Body in the Media Arts

Ulrike Rosenbach

Thirty Years of Media Art by Ulrike Rosenbach - Experience

in Mediation and Reproduction

05

04

02

06

Preface. 10 11

P!'eface

The publication presented here, »Present Continuous Past[s] Media Art. Strategies of

Presentation, Mediation and Dissemination« emerged from a public symposium held in 2004

at the University o/the Arts in Bremen in col1aboration with the International University

Bremen. Included are the papers presented on the occasion of this event, supplemented

by contributions that were later commissioned to expand the thematic scope and deepen

specific aspects that arose during the conference discussions or evolved later in entailing

debates fol1owing the event.

It was the project's goal to create a forum for an exchange between artists, theorists,

curators, and experts from international distribution services to stimulate a discourse

on questions of preservation, documentation, access, and education, as well as on the

dissemination of media art and the unique challenges it has presented in the field of art for

the past four decades.

This initiative was made possible thanks to the institutional and personal support of

the many people involved in the successful launching of the symposium in Bremen and its

subsequent publication. We wish to express deep appreciation to the authors who graciously

contributed their essays to this volume. Our sincere gratitude goes to the University o/the

Arts Bremen and the International University Bremen whose substantial financial support

and organizational infrastructures made the conference and this publication possible.

Special thanks are dedicated to Prof Peter Rautmann's and Markus Wortmann's enduring

trust in the projects' successful emergence. Furthermore we wish to extend our gratitude

to the Filmbiiro, Bremen, specifically to Klaus Becker for supporting the symposium and

its publication, as well as to The MARS Exploratory Media Lab represented by Monika

Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss for additional financial backup of the book. Final1y

the editors wish to acknowledge the translators' engagement and the editorial assistance

by Kathryn Gentzke and Jorg Meyer, as well as th'e numerous individuals who worked

behind the scenes and contributed to the exhibition and the publication with their valued

professionalism and congenial spirit.

Ursula Frohne Mona Schieren Jean-Franqois Guiton

Intcoduction. 12 13

Int~oduction

»Thece is no visual image that is not moce and moce tightly gcipped,

even in its essential, cadical withdcawal, inside an audiovisual oc

scciptovisual (_) image that envelops it, and it is in this context

that the existence of something that still cesembles act is at stake

today. (_) We have gone beyond the image, to a nameless mixtuce, a

discoucse-image, if you like, oc a sound-image (,Son-Image<, Godacd

calls it), whose ficst side is occupied by television and second side

by the computec, in ouc all-pucpose machine society.«

Raymond Bellour1

Art practices and their perception have changed significantly since the emergence of new

media. For over two decades, the white cube has oscillated with its reversal as a black box.

While visitors have become used to the fact that galleries ubiquitously turn into projection

spaces, enjoying the perceptual experience inside the formerly static museum displays,

academia has only just begun to discover these new audio-visual horizons as fields of

research and methodological discourse. Cinematic, interactive and broadcast formats,

multi-media installations and internet platforms not only set new challenges in terms of

preservation and adequate storage to collectors and museum professionals, but also appear

as a new species within the wider field of scholarship and teaching at universities and

academies.

Traditional visual art genres, such as paIntIng or photography, are retrievable via

reproductions in print media. Screenshots or installation documentation photographs,

however, do not provide a viewer with an adequate impression ofworks, which are based on

moving images and/or variable projection levels. For the proper reception ofvideo and media

art, it is essential to have access to the works' >synergetic( features without the annihilation

of their aesthetic complexity by insufficient documentation techniques. Therefore artists,

curators, scholars and distribution experts need to develop new perspectives and discuss

the necessary methods to make time-based, acoustic, and installation techniques of video

and multi-media art accessible to long term scholarly discourse. Problems arising from

this debate entail numerous questions: Are models of decentralized mediation conceivable

outside of the established distribution systems ofvideo and media artworks that do not play

1 Raymond Bellour, quoted by Timothy Druckrey,.Preface«, in: Martin Rieser and Andrea Zapp leds.l. NewScreen Media. Cinema / Art / Narrative, London: BritishFilm Institute, 2000, pp. XXI-XXIV, XXII.

Introduction.

off legitimate research interests against artists' justified claims for economic gratification?

And how could new methods of documentation and dissemination, for example on the

Internet, contribute to a more liberal access to the (so-far) closed-circuit system of

established formulas for the mediation of multi-media artworks, in order to create a wider

frame ofreference via new visualization techniques?

These questions were debated among other issues at an international symposium, held in the

spring of2004 at the University ofArt in Bremen. As intentionally reflected in the adapted

title from Dan Graham's seminal video-feedback installation »Present Continuous Past(s)«,

the conference discussions crystallized around three main aspects, namely the relation ofthe

artists' intention to the faithful presentation and preservation of multi-media artw0rks for

possible future re-presentations, the specific reception conditions that these works require

as much in their gallery displays as under the conditions ofpost-exhibition documentation

(particularly in anticipation offuture presentations), and finally - as implicitly reflected in

all of these aspects - the philosophical dimensions of media art's historicity.

Media art's >becoming-of-age< has generally caused more concern and has led to more useful

strategic initiatives within the museum context than in the academic field of art history.

During the past decade, museum professionals have established veritable documentation

systems to insure faithful re-installations of complex and increasingly expensive media

artworks. All of these productive attempts to acquire the necessary technological expertise

to professionalize the procedures for the installation of new media artworks among gallery

and museum staff, have resulted in a reliable infrastructure that allows for >authentic<

(re-)presentations of artworks defined by moving images, diverse and complex electronic

components and non-stable media constellations. These efforts have created international

standards for loan and exhibition procedures inside the traditional institutional frames

and are certainly an indispensable precondition also for the scholarly reception of the

pertaining works.

However, the existing institutional and pragmatic conservation guidelines prove

insufficient for academic research and in-depth theoretical reflections on this expanding

and increasingly important field of contemporary art production. To explore the influential

effects of these works on today's aesthetic and visual culture, a wider frame of access

to documentary audio-visual material is required, since the measures for conservation

often serve more to preserve the respective works' rising market value instead of defining

their artistic significance in a historical perspective. While the professional know-how

14 15

for lavish media art installations has thus significantly widened, the problem of a faithful

documentation for viewers who have not been present at the site of a work's >original<

presentation continues to be neglected by all parties involved in the display, preservation

and market presence of these artworks. Established initiatives are mostly concerned with

the operational level of media art's technical support and the importance of >authenticity<

concerning its aesthetic effect. However, such efforts will not secure access to these works'

for scholarly research dedicated to an analysis of the central aspects of their medial, material

and narrative significance. Essential aesthetic and narrative features remain >invisible< and

tend to disappear into oblivion, once media artworks have been dismantled and moved to

the museum storage. For a close analysis and theoretical reflection of this large segment

of the contemporary art production, it is crucial to create flexible methods for a coherent

and vital documentation along the presentational logic and aesthetic specificity in order to

enable media artworks' transfer from the temporal spectacle of their novelty and >immediate<

reception to the long-term >memory< of academic research and theoretical discourse.

Moreover, the limited, albeit technologically increasing possibilities to view and analyze

the synergetic quality of a large body of multi-media works since the 1960s has created a

void within the knowledge and recognition ofa wide field of the historical (technologically

and aesthetically shaped) predecessors ofcontemporary art. This growing epistemological

gap may be the reason for a comparatively meager amount of scholarship on moving image

artworks from their emergence to their more complex features of the present. In turn, this

relative absence ofacademic scholarship and theoretical writing on a major characteristic of

20th and 21st-centuries' aesthetic developments, suggests the all-too often connoted notion

that the ephemeral quality of these works may be a symptom of the transitory role that they

have supposedly played for the development of art, as some art historians claim, due to the

losses ofvaluable source material that could prove otherwise. 2 Obviously, such disqualifying

conclusions (also intended to exonerate the negligence to-date within this field of research)

stand in contrast to the aesthetic and cultural significance that video and multi-media works

have acquired in the present-day reception ofa growing art audience. 3 Aesthetic shifts and

their technological circumstances, as an example the transformation of the art practice

from monitor-works to projected images, still find - with rare exceptions - only incidental

mentioning in periodical survey publications on 20th century art. Therefore, contemporary

scholarship tends to underestimate the aesthetic relevance of media art as a major step in

the transformation of presentation modes. Regardless of the fact that today's art students

and contemporary artists often experience successful careers without much knowledge of

2 The historical dimension of at least 40 decades of videoas a medium of art has only recently found considerationand systematic documentation as a basis for futurescholarly reviewing of the material. A first approach to

this task of archiving and publicizing central works fromvideo and multi-media art has been taken by the initiativemedien_kunscnetz at the ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany. Seewww.medienkunstnetz.de.

3 It has only been since the beginning of the 21st centurythat the history of film, video and multi-media experimentswithin the field of art have found a broader reflection inexhibitions, reconstructing and reflecting on landmark presentations of media art. Among these X-Screen, filmische

Installationen und Aktionen der Sechziger- und Siebzigerjahre, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung ludwig Wien.2004; Ulrike Groos, Barbara Hess, Ursula Wevers leds.),Ready to Shoot. Fernsehgalerie Gerry Schum/videogalerieschum, exh. cat., Cologne, 2003 .

Introduction.

their historical predecessors, it is nevertheless indispensable to contextualize current works

within the phenomenology of pictorial practices in the face of a fast changing scenario of

new visualization technologies in contemporary art and visual culture.

Against this backdrop, the here presented volume widens the perspective from the

conference's initial thematic focus on video art to the challenges of an increasingly

heterogeneous aesthetic of multi-media elements and their installation paradigms. Since

the initiation of video as a medium of art in the mid-1960s until today a wide scope of

media art practices has developed. It encompasses dialogues with neighboring media such

as television, fi 1m, performance, and the Internet in diverse constellations with an emergent

aesthetic vocabulary, characterized by intermedia, interactive and hybrid presentational

forms. The book emphasizes the historical phase of media art's emergence as a starting

point and as an impulse to retrospectively recognize the problematic of insufficient audio

visual representation and as a catalyst to accommodate these works' ephemeral quality

as a precondition for the development of systematic and technologically state-of-the-art

documentation. On the one hand the contributions presented in this publication take

stock of media art's status within scholarly discourse, while on the other, they direct the

debate to the methodological problems of coping with the diagnosed formal and thematic

desiderata occurring in new media art practices. Therefore, the selection ofessays combines

theoretical reflections on the structural complexity and the cultural-(historical) experience

ofmedia artworks with exemplary studies of their installation history. These contributions

are supplemented by artists' comments on their documentation systems and publication

methods, providing insights into archival structures and publication models for unstable

media artworks. Furthermore, the volume contains extensive information on the genesis

and policies ofdistribution services for media art, and features several innovative research

projects as well as their experimental efforts to create new storage facilities with open

access retrieval systems.

A variety of case studies from different fields of expertise are framed by reflections on the

formal characteristics ofephemeral art forms and their inherent- ifnot intended -problematic

resistance to the common aesthetic economy of static representation. Exploring the body

space-and-time relations of Bruce Nauman's early conceptual sculptures, videotapes and

video-feedback installations, Sabine Flach situates the phenomenon of withdrawal and

concealment as an essential characteristic of artistic practices within art and media history

since the 1960s. Her essay theorizes the epistemological and representational challenge as

16 17

set by these works' performative aesthetic. In a close-reading ofDan Graham's installation

»Present Continuous Past(s)«, Ursula Frohne analyses the thematic and metaphorical

elements condensed in the formal setting of this early video-feedback piece that inspired

the conference's conceptual orientation inasmuch as Dan Graham's work emphasizes the

always already fragmented >presence< of an artwork in relation to its historical >morphing<

over time in varying presentation contexts or cultural situations. The spatially defined and

performed temporality of this artwork is a central element of its meaning production that

has ethical and social implications. The work's accessibility is a central pre-condition for

its re-enactment by the recipients and thus for its continuous emergence over time.

There is a discussion onfthe historical >becoming< ofmedia art and its specific context

of installation practices, which typically change over periods of time - due e.g. to different

spatial conditions. These changes are often also influenced by technological developments

and artists' decisions to alter installations at different venues - the need for historical

reconstructions of seminal works' metamorphoses defines new tasks for art historians and

requires new skills and research methods. With an exemplary investigation ofDan Graham's

designs for video presentations, Katharina Ammann discusses the problem of retrieving

visual references of earlier presentation modes. Her essay pin-points the >erosions< in art

history's memory as previous presentation modes of media artworks have sparsely been

documented, which complicates historical reconstructions for a systematic analysis of their

genesis. Central factors, relevant for a faithful documentation ofthe exhibition history include

the degree of technological sophistication, the interaction between curatorial precision and

artists' intentions as well as various interacting components that continue to shape a work

with an open structure at different venues. These aspects need to be reflected when criteria

are developed for the historical documentation ofmedia installations. Katharina Ammann's

pledge from an art historian's point ofview is supplemented by an in-depth characterization

ofthe complex installation details required for the presentation ofStan Douglas' installation

»Win, Place or Show« (1998). Granting insight into the hands-on experience of a curator,

Hans D. Christ characterizes the close correlations between the narrative structure and the

technical components of this formally as well as technologically sophisticated work. It is

discussed here as a revealing example for the scope of the visual, spatial, dramaturgical

and technological complexity of today's media artworks and their demands to carry out

properly all technical impl ications, to achieve the aesthetic aspirations of the artist. The

role of those »things that [m) ideally aL'e not the object of observation, but

L'atheL' functional elements of its effect«, is emphasized in this essay. Moreover,

the fulfillment of the specific requirements as an indispensable precondition for a faithful

Introduction.

mediation ofan artwork's content, puts into question all institutional attempts to standardize

the technological apparatus and installation modes for the presentation of media art.

As implied by this discourse, the faithful reconstruction ofmedia art is also part of the

artists' responsibility by means of providing instructions and dossiers for their technical

implementation. Artists like Ulrike Rosenbach and Jean-Franl;ois Guiton have been

working with video and multi-media installation for several decades. Their contributions

refer to the Internet both as a tool for the documentation ofartists' ceuvres and as a platform

to highlight the characteristic features of individual works. Both being protagonists of

first- and second-generation media artists, Ulrike Rosenbach and Jean-Franr;ois Guiton

take different approaches to the Internet as an archival information platform that allows

for a variety of presentations to reveal heterogeneous components of multi-media works

within a poly-dimensional complementary commenting structure, including biographical

notes, set-up instructions, screen-shots, full-length (or excerpts of) video sequences and

documentation material of audio-visual installations.

The history of technology seems to intersect with the history of art when historical

reconstructions ofvideo art's emergence and its multi-media successors are at stake. Dieter

Daniels discusses the methodological problem ofcategorizing the inter-media condition of

early video works around 1963, when TV was the referential and crystallization medium

for many of the early experiments in art, based on recording and broadcasting technologies.

Terms like )video art< therefore only have an auxiliary function and neither a strictly

differentiating nor a genre-specific meaning. Artists' practices often anticipate the historical

moment of a new technology's introduction, before it is made accessible for public usage.

This aspect continues to be relevant for net art as an art practice less concerned with the

creation of )media works<, than with a critique of the Internet and its commercialization.

According to Dieter Daniels »the question of the extent to which such art can

be documented is not restricted to the work as such, but would actually

have to reflect on the context of the medium at this time and on its social

functions. «

The claim for considerations of the contextual conditions and commentary function

of media art's emergence does not, however, dispense the necessity for a thorough analysis

of the visual text, its content and its technological applications. Elke Bippus and Dirck

M611mann emphasize the necessity of an in-depth formal analysis of video works in a

discursive reflection on montage techniques used in contemporary music clips. Relating the

production process to the historically inspired visual effects and the usage offound footage

to the semantic level, both authors come to the conclusion that the support ofcomputational

technologies by »automated dissection of videos into samples« could be a source

18 19

ofcentral information for the reconstruction of the production process and a useful tool for

the distinction of visual units, facilitating a theorization of complex editing structures and

further contributing to the interpretation of the visual text in video works.

The principle reproducibility of video material comprises opportunities but at the same

time produces problems concerning the status of the )original<, authorship, and conceptual

authenticity. What are the options for a fruitful interaction between the intended medial

structure of an artwork and a copy version presented by a meta-medium in order to offer

a comprehensive documentation? How can a documentary infrastructure for scholarly

research render transformations - that e.g. installation artworks are inevitably subjected to

when partially or fully reproduced as a one-channel surrogate version - comprehensible for

the viewer by revealing the historical process ofchanging components at various exhibition

sites? Particularly media art is often presented in immersive projection spaces. In which way

does the relation between the artist's intention and the viewers' reception change when a

multiple-channel video installation is made retrievable as surrogate version on the computer?

Which archival systems are adequate to accommodate the heterogenous conditions of media

artworks and to what extend does an archive's own dynamic define the features of its content

and accessibility? Adressing these questions, Mona Schieren investigates the institutional

power constellations that define archival structures and undertakes a critical accentuation of

the chances and limitations that need to be equally considered. In reflection ofthe iMediathek

project launched by the University of the Arts Bremen, she discusses the prerequisites for

the establishment of a functional Internet platform featuring media artworks for teaching

and research purposes. The central goal of such efforts is »to network the various in

itiatives, thereby creating the foundations for differentiated research«,

allowing for the productive and flexible emergence of )cross-links< not only among the

content of the archival material, but also among diverse institutional structures.

The idea of a picture archive also concerns Lydia Haustein's reflection on the

transformations of images in the process of global migration via diverse medial exchange

practices. Her project »Global lcons« approaches the problem of »contempoL'acy image

communication« from two directions: it references, on the one hand, historically and

methodologically, Aby Warburg's iconological studies as a fruitful trans-cultural technique

of tracing significant features of collective memory storage and transfer; while on the

other hand, her project explores contemporary visual culture as a dynamic system of

effects defined by information and communication technologies, subjecting iconic images

through new technologies to global circulation, (temporary) erasure, recycling, re-coding

and re-staging in changing contexts and with shifting meanings. Assuming that »cultural

Introduction.

contacts are more intensive and short-lived, superficial, and fundamental

than ever«, the conditions of a picture economy are reflected in the development ofa new

kind of picture atlas, that is organized like an open network, mapping and tracking the

dissemination and transformation of >iconic thinking< in contemporary visual culture. As

also suggested in the epitaph by Raymond Bellour, the »Global Icons«-project explores the

system ofcultural asynchronicity and realizes the power of digital images to »re -structure

)reality ( and reverse global image scenarios«, which are central charact~risticsof

visual culture and reality construction that could likewise legitimate more liberal conditions

for accessible research copies of ephemeral art forms.

Internet-presentations are booming as public platforms for artists' works. Such decentralized

forms ofpublication counteract in principle the close-circuit ofa monopolizing art system.

In the »era of image exchange«, artists themselves are increasingly using the channels of

dissemination for their own means of data processing and publication. Rudolf Frieling

further develops this aspect, by situating artistic strategies ofdata col1ecting and circulation

models within the >dynamic field< of referencing techniques and global network structures

in general. The potential of the database for »aesthetic and philosophical concepts of

transposition and ascription« is reflected from a different angle in Dennis del Favero, Neil

Brown, Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel's contribution, featuring the artistic and scientific

concept of T- Visionarium as an interactive televisual database. Activated through a

dialogue with the viewer who can select visual material under specific thematic categories,

T- Visionarium's principle concept of interactive narrative formations serves in this context

also as a model for expanded database configurations for moving image archives that could

be implemented on the Internet.

A concrete example of a functioning and accessible Online archive combining

teaching and learning modules, is introduced by Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang

Strauss. Launched in 2001, netzspannung.org was initiated as a platform for the staging of

»media events, art productions and intermedia i'esearch«. As a result ofnumerous

col1aborations with major research institutions, netzspannung.org now offers access to a

wide range oflive broadcast video documentations of conferences and presentations given

by renowned artists and academics, addressing central aspects ofcontemporary media and

visual culture.

Furthermore, the definition ofquality parameters and filter mechanisms concerning the

inclusion and exclusion of material in archives and databases is not only left to the users,

but also channeled by distribution services and their specific selection criteria. Lori Zippay

_ director of Electronic Arts Intermix, once a pioneering initiative in New York and today

20 21

one of the leading resources for the distribution and preservation ofmedia art dating back to

[97 [ - discusses the historical implications and current conditions of media art distribution

policies with particular emphasis on the alternative political roots of video art and raises a

wide scope ofquestions including the production ofvideo editions, interactive Web projects

and the potential of the medium's reproducible status, »The fluid ecology and economy

of video ai't, with its shifting fOi'ms and technologies, embi'aces contexts

ranging fi'om commercial venues to collective practices on the Internet«,is

Lori Zippay's diagnosis of the diversity, that distribution and conservation institutions have

to cope with in order to fulfill the conditions of video art's intermedia characteristics from

its experimental beginnings to its sophisticated concepts of the present.

Transcendent forms and presentation paradigms require dynamic solutions ofmediation

to accommodate the ephemeral qualities and formal richness, as Rens Fromme and Sandra

Fauconnier address in an expanded view on the description, (Online) presentation and

preservation facilities for »unstable media arts«. Their contribution is based on a case

study being conducted at V2_ in Rotterdam since 2001. It is dedicated to the development

of an innovative formal model to capture electronic media art activities in several levels

of detail. This effort combines the thorough documentation of the physical properties of

electronic concepts with in-depth interpretations of the environments in which electronic

art functions, including the complexity of reception modes and social processes of human

to-machine, human-to-human, and machine-to-machine interactions, From his experience

as a curator at the Netherlands Media Art Institute, Bart Rutten further elaborates on the

challenges of administering media art's diversity in archival structures and collections to

ensure its >visibility< for a broader public and future research, in recognition ofthe problem

that the dynamics of new media developments wil1 always »i'efashion oldei' media and

the ways in which older media refashion themselves to answei' the challenge

of the media«.'

All ofthe considerations and questions assembled in this book could be summarized as being

led by the impulse that already motivated Aby Warburg to pursue his ambitious project of

a »Picture Atlas«, being »less interested in finding a smooth solution, than in

sti'essing a new pi'oblem«.5 In this sense we are hoping that this volume will stimulate

a lively discussion among practitioners and theorists, museum experts and distribution

professionals, artists and scholars to overcome the technological and ideological barriers

in order to develop joint future-perspectives,

The Editors

, Bart Rutten quoted this phrase from J. D. Bolter andR. Grusin, Remediation. Understanding New Media,Cambridge, MIT Press, 1999, see also Bart Rutten, "Howto deliver what is asked«, in this volume, pp 196 - 201.

5 The here quoted phrase by Aby Warburg is a citation,taken from an extended published version of Lydia

Haustein's essay "Globallcons«.

Ursula Frohne. 22 23

•• The ethical work is that of Saying J:'atheJ:' than the Said. ,,1 Emmanuel Levinas

and Discu~siveness of Media A~t

FiguJ:'e 01Dan Graham,Present,Continuous,Past(sl. 1974,installationdrawing....

=-

3 Although I am aware of the problematic term .mediaart< and the need to differentiate agrowing variety ofmulti-media and trans-medial practices that are usuallysubsumed under this category, the here given frame isnot the place to discuss and accommodate this structuralheterogeneity. For aproductive approach to theorize thisaspect see Gregor Stemmrich, ..Zwischen Bild und demVisuellen / Between the Image and the Visual«, in GeorgEiben, Videonale 10, Cologne: Verlag der BuchhandlungWalther Konig, 2005, pp. 37 - 59.

'.

In exploring these aspects, I will reveal how Dan Graham's video-feedback installation

in fact functions as a theorization in practice of the continual interruption of the

>completeness< of an artwork. The clearly defined structure, and at the same time, open

constellation of Graham's mise-en-scene, enhances the artwork's temporality in principle

by way of its dependence on the re-enactment of the viewer. Hence it functions according

to a conceptual economy that literally shows >the work at work< in a continuous state of

emergence, as is connoted by its equally framing as expansive title »Present Continuous

Past(s)«. Instead of pleading for the exclusively >in-situ<-experience of such works, I will

argue that comprehensive reproduction techniques via video documentation would not only

complement installation drawings or photographic views of the particular presentation

and conservation necessities for media art, but also logically interact with the ephemeral

economy ofthese works that inherently take on different readings, depending on the varying

venues, and more radically undergo a process of >morphing< over a period oftime. Compared

to the traditional genres, media art and its installations, with their flow of images and (often

non-linear) narrative imperatives, prompt the spectator's expectation to recognize that only

a fragment of the work can ever be extracted, due to its procedural aesthetic and its changing

University Press, 1991, p. 11. Also cited by Miriam Bankovsky...AThread of Knots: Jacques Derrida's Homage toEmmanuel Levinas' Ethical Reminder«, in: InvisibleCulture, 2004, pp. 1- 15, p. 3i1ast viewed May 27, 20051.2 Several essays in this volume are contributions ofrepresentatives of major distribution services for videoand media art. It is not my argument's intention to criticizetheir excellent initiatives to offer and establish anonprofit infrastructure for artists, museums and abroaderaudience. Instead, the experience of these projectsshould enter the discourse on the possibilities of furtherdevelopment and future models of reproduction techniquesfor multi-media art.

Oerrida, ..At This Very Moment In His Work Here I am«,trans. Ruben Berezdivin in Robert Bernasconi and SimonCritchley leds.I, Re-reading Levinas, Bloomington: Indiana

1 This phrase from Emmanuel Levinas has been discussedby Jacques Oerrida as the .ethical imperative< to make theego and the work accessible to the Other. See Jacques

In the first place I will characterize the status quo of the current situation and explore the

logic ofthe comparably restrictive accessibility to moving image reproductions ofmedia art.

Why are art books with reproductions of virtually all canonized paintings and sculptures

available for reasonable prices, while affordable DVDs with artist's films and videos are still

exceptional in museum stores? In a second step I will theorize the ideological dimension

of these distribution politics that internationally regulate the visibility of media art. I will

refer in this context to Dan Graham's landmark installation »Present Continuous Past(s)«

as a pure, albeit eloquent example of the way multi-media artworks - quite opposite to

an economy of uniqueness and rarity - structurally and thematically pay homage to the

continual interruption of the artwork's >completeness< and foster the dis-illusion of the

viewers' expectations of an immediacy provided by the anticipated aesthetic experience.

Giving Access to the Histo~icity, Context

The visibility of media art - single channel works as well as multi-media installations - is

usually tied to the context ofa museum or a specific exhibition presentation. Comprehensive

and affordable documentations of media artworks are rarely accessible outside of temporal

gallery or museum displays, apart from a few distribution services offering more or less

broad selections of historical and contemporary films and video material.2 This relative

limitation of access to the complex dimensions of media art, for which book reproduction

does not constitute a representational substitution as in the case of the more traditional art

genres, in effect creates a blind spot for the aesthetic and phenomenological experience ofa

significant segment of art reception since the mid-20th century. In my paper, I will address

the problems of media art's3 retrospective comprehension when it is bound to the >here-and

now<-experience of its mostly temporal display. I intend to explore two central questions

emerging from this practice in order to show that the implications of the common receptive

framework are not only suggesting the exclusiveness of the primordial phenomenological

experience ofmedia art, but also effectively resist the establishment ofa productive relation

to its own historicity by privileging the incidental display as the >auratic< moment of the

work's true character.

The A~two~k as Tempo~al Fo~m

01 Ursula Frohne. The Artwork as Temporal Form.

quality in different spatial contexts. These structural characteristics, further emphasized by

the presentation ofaudio-visual material in loops or repetitive cycles, inscribe the Deleuzian

form of >difference< and >repetition< into the aesthetic features of media art.

Media A~t in Pe~spective

While a veritable system of visualization has been available for the documentation

of painting, sculpture, photography and installation art through more or less brilliant

reproductions in books, catalogues and digital databanks, these forms of re-presentation

offer insufficient approaches for a recall of the aesthetic characteristics of media art's

mostly moving images. Sequential reproductions of a series of stills have been in use to

overcome such representational limitations. But apart from the obvious suppression of

the phenomenological principle of movement, media art's features are obviously more

challenging and complex in their tendency of withdrawal from common documentation

practices via still images. It is usually left to the descriptive eloquence of the catalogue

authors and from thereon to the readers' imagination to achieve a transparent and revealing

mediation ofthe visual language and acoustic effects, including editing, fading, slow-motion,

zoom, electronic animation, audio modulation, music, voiceover and the principal structure

of the interaction between image sequences and audio footage. In spite of today's wide

range of available and applied reproduction techniques for moving images, the reception

possibilities, visualizing the imminent medial conditions of video or multi-media art,

still remain mostly restricted to time- and site-specific display constellations, namely to

exhibition set-ups, collection displays and festival presentations.

Having acquired a central function ofmediation, the catalogue as the prevailing reproduction

medium has emerged from the exhibition event as a useful byproduct. Organized like

books, catalogues have surpassed the exclusive role of the original that art historians once

considered to be their primary source of research. With a paradigm shift beginning with the

era ofModernism and moreover emphasized within post-modern thought, the art historian's

noble task to study the >original< in museums and archives has given way to a more and

more book orientated scholarship, paying increasing attention to the discursive context of

the artwork's emergence and its reception history, than to its material appearance. As a

result of this development, the exhibition catalogue has become the central medium of art

reception, not only featuring the work in high-quality color illustrations, but also resuming

the latest scholarly discourse as the vital context of its lifespan.

24 25

Following the structure of a book, the reproductions in an exhibition catalogue are usually

accompanied by explanations concerning the history, provenience, and iconography of the

illustrated works, all relevant information for the exegesis ofits status and for the interpretation

of its meaning. Embedded in a comprehensive apparatus of technical data and comments,

the reproduced artwork is presented within its discursive field, which is thematically or

monographically organized and marks its context of reception and mediation. This form of

commented representation has proved as an efficient and predicative documentation practice

for the traditional genres of art. For media art, this representational frame is however only

functional in an approximating way, provided that one has seen the work once in its staged

version - within the exhibition or via (rarely available) video-documentation. One has to

be informed about the visual and acoustic characteristics of a (multi) media artwork and

connect one's recollections of the key sequences with their static illustrations. Video, and

broadly speaking, media art in general, resists a qualitative mediation through traditional

reproduction techniques, as can be seen in diverse publications from the past two decades;

extensive commentaries can hardly compensate for this phenomenological loss.

Figure 02Tracy Emin.Why I NeverBecame a Dancer.1995. Videostillswith installationdescription fromthe catalogue fastforward. Media ArtSammlung Goetz120041

As a remarkable exception within this spectrum oflimited approaches to the documentation

ofmedia art, RudolfFrieling's and Dieter Daniels' two-volume publication »Medien Kunst

Aktion« and »Medien Kunst lnteraktion« provides a useful alternative. These volumes give

access via CD-ROMs to exemplary sequences of moving image works, supplementing the

book's contextual comments with short audio-visual excerpts oflandmark media artworks.4

Examples like these make the limitations of traditional reproduction techniques even

4 See Dieter Daniels and Rudolf Frieling leds.1. MedienKunst Aktion and Medien Kunst Interaktion. both ViennaINew York. 1997 and 2000. Further examples of art editions trying to develop alternative modes of reproductionare the Art IntAct Journal. 1- 5IDstfildern-Ruit: Cantz.1994 - 1999} conceptually developed by Jeffrey Shaw andpublished by the ZKM ICenter for Art and Media Karlsruhe

between 1994 and 1999 or Dennis del Favero and JeffreyShaw leds.l. Dislocations. published in collaboration between the ZKM ICenter for Art and Media Karlsruhe andand The Centre for Interactive Cinema Research. Collegeof Fine Arts. University of New South Wales. Sydney.Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz. 2001.


more visible. Although screenshots of key sequences from videotapes and multi-media

installations fulfill their indispensable reference function in the anthologies of art, the

essential aesthetic criteria of media art, for example its specific relation to time and space,

cannot even approximately be communicated through still images in conventional book

or catalogue reproductions. (The increasingly common CD-ROM or DVD supplements

to art books unfortunately have not motivated artists and curators to include sequences of

moving images; instead these media often only replicate the information already given in

the catalogue.)

On the other hand, one has to acknowledge that copies ofvideotapes or DVDs, which might

be available via the mentioned distribution services, often lack further contextual information

that the commenting texts in conventional art catalogues provide. The documentary function

of such reproduction copies does not compensate for the lack of supplementary contextual

information. Media art's sparing economy of representational techniques seem to suggest

that it can do without >depictions< of its specific aesthetic appearance, while videotapes

and DVDs produced as copies for distribution often come without any comment about

the emergent context or the works' exhibition and reception history. Quite different from

commercial movie releases on DVD, offering plenty of background information given

through interviews with the movie director, actors or special effect designers, DVD

productions featuring artworks rarely make use of this potential in order to include, for

example, artist comments, installation views ofpresent and ofprevious displays, or glimpses

of other relevant works to convey a vital impression of its emergent context.

In contrast to the ever-expanding availability of DVD-versions of commercial movies

shortly after their theatre release, the majority of art videos or DVDs available through

distribution services is barely affordable, and therefore only allows for limited access to

the existing material outside of institutional collection structures. (Singular exceptions,

only confirming this status quo are, for example, an edition of Eija-Liisa Ahtila's »most

prominent« videos or Matthew Barney's »Cremaster Cycle« on DVD.) Due to this limited

access policy, many videotapes, particularly the historic works, are often only known

even by the leading authorities in the field through iconic screenshots, since these have

been canonized by their repetitive reprint, due to the lack of access to alternative views.

Costly copyright conditions ensure that copies of media artworks are almost exclusively

fed into the system of exhibition projects that increasingly feature media art, and have

adequate funding at their disposal to purchase display copies. In the context of academic

teaching and research with much lower acquisition budgets, such copies are however, rarely

26 27

affordable. Although the justified price politics for the distribution conditions of media art

and specifically videotapes is not to be criticized here - particularly not since these works

are traditionally disadvantaged on the art market by their higher production and installation

costs - the question must be raised as to how, and specifically what kind of artistically and

economically tenable options should be developed to create an expanded framework for the

reception of media art - in retrospective and for future works as well.

The problem of media art's mediation is however not to be reduced to an aesthetic

imperviousness. The principle lack of illustrative representational forms of media art

produces a serious void in the academic discursive field with long-term consequences. It

creates an >Unproductive< exclusiveness whereby the demand for accurate reproduction

fails to acknowledge the continuous emergence of a media artwork within space and time.

Reproduction citations, showing selected excerpts or sequences of media artworks, add to

the structural richness of a work, inasmuch as the work's structure morphs over time in

changing venues. Without adequate audio-visual material, the analysis of moving images

and the development of their specific language - still a challenge to the vocabulary of art

historians - cannot be shaped and integrated into the curricular field ofvision at universities

and academies. Although a boom ofexhibitions and Biennials feature media art extensively

in catalogue publications and emphasize its central role in contemporary discourse, in-depth

research of its visual language and aesthetic characteristics remains an exception in the field

of academic art history. This shadow existence of media art within the circles of scholarly

debate certainly will not deceive its historical relevance at the beginning of the 21st century

in principle. However, the common, albeit mostly speculative, research relation to media

art, often not going beyond a merely iconographic reading of a work's visual features, still

require a wide variety of moving image documentations in order to allow for comparative

readings ofthe audio-visual and spatial constellations ofmedia art, with the aim to establish

its art historical relevance within the broader scholarly reception.

This void also exists in the more practically orientated art academies, which have all

responded to the current media developments with the integration of new study programs

during the past decade, where curricular majors in time-based media are offered. The lack

of illustrative examples serving to systematically represent the already 40-year-Iong phase

of media art's emergence in its diverse manifestations and aesthetic potentials are also

highlighted in the context of teaching this emerging field of study. Particularly because

today's art students naturally work with electronic media, they must be given the chance

to widen their horizons contemporarily, and also historically, by studying the works of


current and previous generations of media artists.

With all ofthese aspects in view, the question arises as to how self-referential practices

in the realm of artistic work can be taken to complete fruition in the sense of offering

a pragmatic >re-viewing< for the analysis of media artworks, as well as the creation of

periodical and thematic clusters ofthese works. Which technical re-presentation forms offer

the adequate preconditions, ultimately giving access to media art via conceptually defined

documentary surrogate versions? Which artistic approaches legitimize and sketch out ways,

to >re-produce< the aesthetic characteristics of media art in its changing articulations also

within a historical perspective? What kind of>picture - positing< techniques [Bildsetzung]

(Dieter Mersch) could assimilate the historical display and reception contexts ofthe first and

second generation ofmedia artworks by new forms ofdocumentation? These considerations

do not anticipate a propagation of the demands for unlimited multiplication and wild

dissemination in the service of a pedagogical mission, but the making-visible of excerpted

image sequences used as an instrument for phenomenological re-call and scholarly analysis.

Without entering into a debate about the pros and cons ofmerely pragmatic solutions, I want

to investigate the theoretical and conceptual implications that aesthetically justify a greater

creativity in the application of reproduction techniques, as a rhetorical tool that ultimately

enhances these works' afterlife.

The Work at Work: Present Continuous Past[s[

By combining Dan Graham's early conceptual framing of the new found potential ofvideo

technology a a medium of art in »Present Continuous Past(s)« (1974) with the demands

addressed previously for extended reproduction forms and circulation conditions of media

art, I will attempt to initiate a parallel reading of the discursive possibilities of artistic and

documentary recording techniques. Graham's method of reflecting the effective relation

of visual reproduction and re-presentation in a temporally and spatially graduated field of

reference points can be regarded as a metaphor for the expanded discursive field, which

is generated in a similar way by Graham's setting that operates with the documentary re

working of artistic video elements by uniting the aesthetic characteristics and historical

conditions of its emergence in a kind of experimental synopsis.

As structurally contained in the terminological graduation of the temporal levels, the

title of Dan Graham's early video installation, »Present Continuous Past(s)«, points to

the procedural suspension that occurs between actuality and historicity, within which the

positioning of art is continuously taking shape. It is telling in the title's composition that

the present anticipates the past, thus the beholder's attention is directed from the artwork's

28 29

presence to its historical state - a condensed relation between temporal levels that also lends

this title its suitability as a programmatic reference point for this book and its preceding

conference.

Graham's emphasis of the spectator's role in the given constellation verifies the central

function of witnessing, which grants the work its actualized presence. Mediated by the

mirroring effect, which is echoed in the time-delayed video-feedback, the experience of

historicity is thematically addressed as a principle for the reception of art. Within the act

of continuous reconstructions between the >now< and >then< - represented in the video

footage by showing the slightly earlier documented moment - the historicity of the aesthetic

experience takes its shape. Therefore, Graham's installation can be read as initiating a

discourse on expanded conditions for the reception of media art, inasmuch as it translates

traditional presentational forms of art, shaped by the demand for its autonomy, into a

communicative system ofa continuous >re-framing< and >re-viewing< where hi toricity and

actuality dialectically connect through the structure of the artwork.

Figure 03 Photo showing installation of DanGraham's Present Continuous Past(s) at exhibitionproject. Kunsthalle Cologne. 1974

In order to clarify this complex comparison, I will briefly summarize the functional setting

of»Present Continuous Past(s)«, by quoting Grahams own illuminating description of the

piece: »The mirrors reflect the present time. The video camera tapes what

is immediately in front of it and the entire reflection on the opposite

mirrored wall.

The image seen by the camera (reflecting everything in the room) appears 8

seconds later in the video monitor (via tape delay placed between the video

recorder which is recording and a second video recorder which is playing

the recording back).

If a viewer's body does not directly obscure the lens' view of the facing

mirror the camera is taping the reflection if the room and the reflected

image of the monitor (which shows the time recorded 8 seconds previously

UNIVERSITYOF BRISTOL

U::, P,Q. '


reflected from the mirror). A person viewing the monitor sees both the

image of himself, 8 seconds ago, and what was reflected on the mirror from

the monitor, 8 seconds ago of himself which is 16 seconds in the past (as

the camera view of 8 seconds prior was playing back on the monitor 8 se

conds ago and this was reflected on the mirror along with the then present

reflection of the viewer). An infinite regress of time continuums within

time continuums (always separated by 8 seconds intervals) within time con

tinuums is created.

The mirror at right-angles to the other mirror-wall and to the monitor-wall

gives a present-time view of the installation as if observed from an 'ob

jective' vantage exterior to the viewer's subjective experience and to the

mechanism which produces the piece's perceptual effect. It simply reflects

(statically) present time.«5

As apparent in this short sketch of the visual reproduction levels in »Present Continuous

Past(s)«, the central problem of representation is bound - as much in a literal as in a figurative

sense - to the category of >reflection<. I want to emphasize this aspect in order to mirror

the question of the legitimacy of reproductions of media art and their dissemination in my

further elaborations.

Through mimetic methods, the work is transformed into a different form of mediation,

as illustrated in the experimental mise-en-scene of Graham's installation. This also holds

true for the reproduction of a painting, which leaves its impression on the art recipient,

and more so on the scholarly viewer, not as the actual work of art, but as its referent. 6

Analogous to this relation, adequate mimetic and medial reproduction forms of media art

are legitimate, in the sense that they stand in as exemplary >as-if-versions<, making the

work accessible to reception on a meta-level. In Grahams installation, the use of video

technique indirectly initiates a reflection on the role of video as an appropriate medium

for digital reproductions of sequential imagery. It is undisputed that a work, once created

as an aesthetic formula, transforms through the methodology of its reception, as well as

by its entrance into the discourse of art. Becoming part of this expanded constellation,

the artwork always coexists in a surrogate version, which remains likewise liminal and

problematic. However, precisely because the work transforms via reproduction into a

problematic category, it contains an unrecognized potential for multiple >re-visions< of the

>original<. According to the Derridean notion of the trace, the doubling or excerpting of the

primordial phenomenological experience initiates a >re-reading< from a different viewpoint.

30 31

This differentiating practice of reproduction acknowledges the >alterity< already inherent in

the original experience, claimed by the status of the >original<, because the historical process

itself transforms the context, thus transforming the aesthetic experience, and reception of

the artwork over a period of time.

Within this temporal condition of the artwork also lies an ethical dimension as indicated

in the epitaph at the beginning of this text. The reproduction of a work is motivated by the

ethical imperative »to seek the forgotten primordial phenomenological expe

rience of the Other's irreducible singularity,« as Miriam Bankowsky writes

in her reflections on Derrida's Homage to Emmanuel Levinas' »Ethical Reminder«.7 As a

form of >re-creation<, one could consider the copy in Bankowsky's words »as a ) trace (

of the lost encounter. «8 In its manifestation as a reproduction, the work engenders a

»reconfiguration in time«, and by doing so reconfigures »the dimensions of the

work« in time. 9 Inasmuch as »the ethical work is that of the Saying rather

than the Said, «10 the opening of the Other within a work, via >repetition as alteration< or

differentiating reproductions, is not to be regarded as a deformation of its original features,

rather it counteracts an exclusive economy of oblivion.

Figure 04 Dan Graham, Present ContinuousPastls), 1974

The here cited installation by Dan Graham thematically refers to the liminal zone where

art and commentary coincide through the viewer's reflective re-creation. Continual stages

ofmorphing and dislocation ensure the work's progress over time and its reaffirmation in

present time as asserted in Graham's comment. The figure of the reflected participant who

moves through Graham's installation mirrors moreover the role of the practicing artist and

the historical process of the ongoing interpretation of art, which develops in a continuous

dialogue with art's own innovative transformations of form and content.

5 See Dan Graham. Video Architecture Television.Writings on Video and Video Works 1970 - 1978. edited byBenjamin H.D. Buchloh, Halifax and New York: The Press ofthe Nova Scotia College of Art & Design and New York Uni·

versity Press, 1979, p. 71emphasis as in the original version).6 The medial transformation through reproductionmethods has historically been an accepted method todisseminate canonical artworks to a larger public. Before

the photographic era, engravings and lithographs ofprominent paintings circulated, not in the least devaluatingthe )original" but rather enhancing its attraction. Thiseffect remained relevant up until the present day, whereinmuseums and private collections make their works accessible on websites and in merchandise articles to stimulate

potential visitors to see the work at its physical site.7 See Miriam Bankowsky, "A Thread of Knots ... ", las innote 11, p. 10.8 Ibid.9 Ibid.. p. 12.10 Ibid. p. 3

01 Ursula Frohne. The Artwork as Temporal Form. 32 33

Figure 05 Dan Graham, Performer-Audience-Mirror, 1977.Performance 1978, Video Free America, San Francisco, C.A.

Dan Graham is an artist who has engaged himself regularly in the concept ofthe }comment<

as he has shown explicitly in his performances, some of which he has re-staged, until

recently, on various occasions.11 Influenced by structuralist and deconstructive theory,

Graham claims his works emerge from an atmosphere of constant commentary and

evaluation, and that they transform through this process. Therefore, they have no meaning

outside of this constellation of continuous discourse. The legitimization of an art form

that requires an explanatory process, and thus is also comprised by it, is one of the major

achievements ofthe art tendencies ofthe 1960s and 1970s, Appropriately, the meanings that

we attribute to works ofart mediate themselves, through a multiplicity ofcomments, against

the background ofour contemporary understanding, and continuously articulate themselves

anew, shaped by their changing interpretation and (historical) context. The inevitability of

the comment becomes a quality when the discursive context discovers new and actualized

reference points, As emphasized in the order of Graham's installation, the artistic }original<

continues to re-shape itself along the }originality< ofthe referencing comments. In Jacques

Derrida's vocabulary, the comment is regarded as something inherent to the work, something

that virtually even anticipates its experience and reception. With this understanding, the

possibi lity ofa commented and commenting practice via reproductions ofmedia art becomes

CEuvrel involves amorphing of the work as it progressestemporally inasmuch as it accepts within itself the traceof the Other such that it no longer remains the Same.« SeeMiriam Bankowsky, »A Thread of Knots ...«,Ias in note11, p. 10.

13 On Grahams video architectures see also KatharinaAmmann's essay »Dan Graham's Designs for Video Presentations« in this volume, pp. 112 - 123.14 In his paper »Media Art Net - a paradigm for media artmediation», first presented at the here published »PresentContinuous Past(s)« conference in Bremen, GregorStemmrich points out that the delay·sequence equates theperception time of the human brain when processing visualinformation. See http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/sourcetext/156/ lIast viewed June 2, 20051.

In this sense, Dan Graham's presentational sub-architectures for the viewing ofvideotapes

offer a physical and figurative form for the }re-framing< ofvideos produced by other artists.

His »Viewing Architectures for Videoworks«, change the context of reception, and as such,

expand their discursive field. Such mediating architectures - similar to Graham's mirror

pavilions and concept for a transparent cinema architecture both creating interactive and

oscillating communication fields - function like an interface, granting access, in this case

to selections of videotapes, allowing for various re-combinations in the process ofviewing

within an open archival structure. 13

a desirable dimension, precisely because it contributes to the (re-)framing ofthe discursive

field, within which the category of the artwork re-articulates and re-Iegitimizes itself in a

continuous process of self-reflection.12

The use ofvideo technology for the manipulation of the replay-time of the recorded footage

in Graham's installation is applied as a method for the }visualization< and clarification

of reception phenomena, which in turn, can be regarded as establishing a model for the

possibility ofknowledge transmission through technological reproduction methods. 14 Thus

one could say that by documentary re-presentation, the representational forms emerging in

Figure 06 Dan Graham, New Design for ShowingVideos, 1995, Collection Generali Foundation, Vienna

both, work as creation Icreation) - in similarity to ouvrage- and work as 'activity' (travaifl. As activity, the work takestime. Finally, we have the ethical Work ICEuvre, capitalized)of which we have been speaking: the work of looping andof knotting. The ethical Work is work in both senses: asactivity and product. As travail (the activity of workingin time) the ethical Work seeks to 're-discover', as if onecould, the always already lost primordial phenomenological experience of the face-to-face Ian encounter which isnot within our time, but, strangely, 'will have been). Theethical Work as creation (created construct) takes form asa 'trace' of the lost encounter. Using Levinas's vocabulary,we would say that CEuvre is the trace of the Saying in theSaid. Using Derrida's vocabulary, we would say that CEuvreis 'knotted' into the thread of the work, The emergence ofthe trace, then, is an emergence of diffeence in time. Wecan see, then, that the implications of the ethical Work (as

12 Miriam Bankowsky further reflects on the character ofthe work in Derrida's sense. She explains: »First we have'work, correlating with the French word ouvrage (emphasizes by the authorl: a construct or product of work such asa book, apainting, a gift of thanks or even, a decision. Onecould say, that ouvrage names the final result (completedat amoment in time) of the activity of awriter, artist. orpolitician, for example. We have, also, 'work', as oeuvre:

11 Graham's interest in the constitutional role of thecomment in the artwork has become part of severalperformances that he has staged and re-staged betweenthe 1970s and the present. A good example. available onvideotape, is »Performer/Audience/Mirror«, October 1995at the Generali Foundation in Vienna. See Dan GrahamVideo/Architecture/Performance, exh. cat. with videotape,Generali Foundation, Vienna, 1995.


the artwork as aesthetic >effects< transform into a comprehensible reading of the perceptual

processes. The monitor representing the monitor representing the monitor realizes not

only the endless regress or the spatial mise-en-abyme, but also the temporal process of

reception in general, and by that indicates a historical dimension, which is structurally

engrained in the artwork's genesis itself. An infinite past is >re-Iocated< in the vanishing

point of the spectator's perspective. At the same time the notion of a static and immobile

>here-and-now< is withdrawn from the empirical flow of time and - in repetition via the

video-feedback transformed to an alienated impression - reinserted into the perception

of time. The beholder perceives this as a referential >now<, which in the words of Walter

Benjamin »is the presence, in which he himself writes history. «15

If we assume, according to Maurizio Lazzarato's media-philosophical approach, that video

works, as »crystallizations (syntheses) of time«, not only give aesthetic shape and

expression to the theme oftime within art, but that they also underlie, like any other artwork,

a temporality, which is subsequently the theme of the re-presentation of this art form and

its individual artistic contributions, a unique time-spatial dimension is established in the

documentary version ofa media artwork which functions as a reference point to an ongoing

process ofre-interpretation.16 In Dan Graham's installation this epistemological dimension

is connected to the performative role of the beholder, who continuously re-activates the

>here-and-now< in the time and space of the installation. The continual re-representation

via video feedback records and equally initiates the act of reflection on the medial condition

of the aesthetic experience in spite of its anticipated immediacy.

»Present Continuous Past(s)« is thus a practical and critical allegory for a suggested

aesthetic >timelessness< of the artwork. Graham's installation hereby not only historicizes

the institutional space, but also the institution ofthe artwork itself by uncovering its pretence

of representing a timeless category. His experimental setting contradicts the idea of art as

a >neutral< aesthetic concept, which is of course confirmed by the institutional frame of

its conservation and displayY It is exactly the procedural form of media art that always

already inscribes a historical dimension into its aesthetic form, as Dan Graham comments:

»A premise of 1960s ,Modernist. art was to present as immediacy - as pure

phenomenological consciousness without the contamination of historical or

other a priori meaning. The world could be experienced as pure presence,

self-sufficient and without memory. Each privileged present-time situation

34 35

was to be totally unique or new. My video timed-delay installations and

performance designs use this ,modernist. notion of phenomenological im

mediacy, foregrounding an awareness of the presence of the viewer's own

perceptual process, while at the same moment they critique it by showing

the impossibility of locating a pure present tense.«18

Figure 07 Dan Graham. PublicSpace / Two Audiences-2. 1976.Installation »Ambiente«. VeniceBiennale. 1976. Collection Herbert,Gent. Belgium

This evident historicity of the media condition in principle also reveals a sociological

dimension. This is revealed mainly in the way it continues to include the spectator's position

as a changing viewpoint and by the way it transforms the perception and positioning of the

artwork itself. In this sense, diverse and extensive approaches to media art reproduction offer

veritable chances of re-viewing and re-covering their aesthetic characteristics. Similar to

perspectival representation, excerpts and citations ofaudio-visual sequences can reference

an imaginary dimension as a legitimate vanishing point that opens up new reflective spaces

for media art.

15 See Walter Benjamin. »Theses on the Philosophy ofHistory«. in Walter Benjamin. Illuminations. New York:Schocken Books. 1969. p. 262. as quoted by Thierry deDuve. »Dan Graham and the Critique of Artistic Autonomy«.in: Marianne Brouwer. Dan Graham. Works 1965 - 2000.DOsseldorf: Richter Verlag. 2001. pp. 49 - 66. p. 56,

16 See Maurizio Lazzaratos. Videophilosophie. Berlin:b_books.2002,17 On Graham's behavioural approach in revealing therelational context of the artwork in the course of a performance see Thierry de Duve. »Dan Graham and the Critiqueof Artistic Autonomy«.las in note 10).

18 See Dan Graham. »Performance: End of the 60s«. in:Alexander Alberro led.). Two-Way Mirror Power. SelectedWritings by Dan Graham on His Art, Cambridge. MA.: TheMIT Press. 1999. p. 144.

Ulrike Rosenbach.

Thi~ty Yea~s of Media A~t by Ul~ike Rosenbach

- Expe~ience in Mediation and Rep~oduction.

Figure 01 Guerrilla Figure 02 Camera

Figure 03 Machine

36 37

02 Ulrike Rosenbach. Thirty Years of Media Arts.38 39

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02 Ulrike Rosenbach. Thirty Years of Media Arts. 40 41

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46 47Sabine Flach.

»Withd~awal as an A~tfo~m« Between With-

d~awal and P~esentation The Body In the

Media A~ts

- - - constitutin elements essentially inherent to the work of art. Shifting the

be regarded a~ I g Iment and lack, and aesthetically locating them within theelements ofwtthdrawa ,concea . h can no longer

k f art lastinaly alters the characterizations of these phenomena. t ey

. .wor 0 , "wa of a media-technological or an extra-artistic analysIs; rather It

be grasped solely by y.. ponents of the artistic work itself that must first beis the structural and constltutmg com

specified.

»Withdrawal as an Artform« is the title of a short textual piece Bruce Nauman1 published

in the magazine Artfarum in 1970.2 The piece takes meticulous stock of the qualities

and attributes characterizing his works; keywords include >sensory manipulation<,

>amplification<, >sensory overload (fatigue)<, )withdrawal<, and )deniak3

On the basis ofthe, initially cited, characteristics Bruce Nauman uses to describe his work,

this study proposes a new approach to phenomena of withdrawal and of concealment in

an artistic work.

The two procedures will be analyzed not so much in an extra-artistic context or

against the backdrop of general media technology evolution informing the work of art;

rather withdrawal, concealment, lack will gain autonomy in the aesthetic process, and will

This attitude does not seem entirely new, particularly not in view of the development of the

arts in and since the 1960's: if one were to set out on a search for the material of aesthetic

practice in contemporary art, the outcome of such a quest might best be encapsulated

in the felicitous phrase "The DemateL'ialization of the AL't Object«. This was the

programmatic title under which Lucy Lippard subsumed, in 1973, the various artistic

developments since the mid-sixties, i.e. movements whose common feature was - regardless

of their different manifestations - their renunciation of the classical concept ofart.4 On the

one hand dematerialization or absence implied an artistic practice whose intention suggested

that such works might elude the claims of the - presumably corrupt - art market, or else that

the withdrawal from the art market might result in the re-politicization ofartistic practice.5

On the other hand, characterizing art as a dematerial phenomenon clearly made reference to

the technical media, which - according to this idea - were to foster the development of the

arts towards a massive )ontological deniak 6 Moreover the supposed consumerist attitude

towards a flood of images, cited in a tiresomely uncontemplated fashion, is countered by

an artistic practice whose critical reflection of the complex relationship of image, copy,

perception, and the world is viewed as a mere attitude of refusal to the image, and which

is therefore ascribed a self-destructive iconoclasm.?

rapidly adopted new tendencies such as Conceptual Art,even the projected politicizing of artlsliC practice cametrue only tendentially, as Lippard noted herself at theend of her study. In an epilogue, which she composedonly three years later, she conceded that »hopes that,conceptual artc would be able to avoid the general commercialization, the destructively ,progresslvecapproachof modernism were for the most part unfounded. [....1themajor conceptualists are selling work for substantial ~umshere and in Europe; they are represented in the world smost prestigious galleries. cc Lippard stressed thisfactonce more in the catalogue Reconsidering the. Object ofArt 1965 -1975. Ann Goldstein and Anne Rorcmer (eds.l.Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 1995. '"6 Cf. Ulrike Lehmann, Peter Weibelleds). Asthetlk derAbsenz: 8ilder zwischen Anwesenheit and Abwesenhel!.Munich/8erlin: Klinekhardt &8iermann, 1994. For thethesis of ontological withdrawal see p. 7.

01 Bruce Nauman. »Space under my Chair cc .Figure1968

denial. ,withdrawalc(as in the title of Nauman's originalIwill take the place of both ideas in this English version of

the article. . . f4 Some general tendencies towards the ephememallon aartistic creation occurred as early as in the work of AllanKaprow. His tightly structured happenings opened up thespace between installation and performance. and therebycreated asphere one might describe as a performatlve environment. Hence Kaprow already marked the place of the'Betweenc.whose transitory state was to become of greatimportance for the process of artistic practice in general.5 »1 think the art world is probably gOing to be able toabsorb conceptual art as another ,movementcand not paytoo much attention to it. The art establishment dependsso greatly on objects which can be bought and sold thatIdon't expect it to do much about an art that IS opposedto the prevailing systems. cc (Lucy Lippard, SIX Years: TheDematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 ~ 1972: NewYork: Praeger Publishers Inc.. 1973, pp. 7- 81lippard shopes were not fulfilled; on the contrary, the art market

. I . N uman's work, manifests itself primarily as the radical specification of

:~:~~::~;a~el~ali:ingas something a thing as ob~ect p~eac~:e~~~Sni:t:~~~e:~::h~:;::t~::~it in a meanina-constitutive fashIOn: the surroun mg s . b W'/l m

S Un~er My Chair« from 1968 (Figure 01). Parting from a statement Y . I e

;e >~:aa:i:g, according to which, for example, to represent a chair one should not pamt the

3 Translator"s note: The concepts of 'withdrawalc and,denialc from Nauman's piece »Withdrawal as an Artformccwere both rendered as 'Entzugc in the German version. onwhich this article is based. While including instances of

1 For more details on Bruce Nauman cf.: Sabine Flach.Kerper-Szenarien: Zum Verhaltnis von Bild and Kerper inVideoinstallationen. Munich: Fink Verlag 2003.2 Bruce Nauman cited from Artforum 9. no. 4.1970. p. 44.

'-

03 Sabine Flach. Withd~awl as an A~tfo~m.48 49

Figu['e 02 Bruce Nauman. "Wax Impressions of the Knees of Five Famous Artists«. 1966

Nauman extensively uses this materialized empty space as a withdrawal strategy for

representing the body (Figu['e 02). In castings, life castings, and body prints - such as »Wax

Impressions of the Knees of Five Famous Artists« from 1966 - the body is represented

in performance, a context wherein people are engagedin actions and movements making a less spectaculardemand on the body and in which skill is hard to locate(p. 267) [ ..I The alternatives that were explored now areobvious; stand, walk, run, eat. carry bricks. show movies,or move or be moved by some thing rather than oneself.Ip. 269) [.] The execution of each movement conveys asense of unhurried control. The body is weighty withoutbeing completely relaxed. What is seen is acontrol thatseems geared to the actua/time it takes the actual weightof the body to go through the prescribed motions [•. ] thedemands made on the body's lactual) energy resourcesappear to be commensurate with the task - be it gettingup from the floor, raising an arm, tilting the pelvis, etc. [•. ]The movements are not mimetic, so they do not remind oneof such actions, but Ilike to think that in their manner ofexecution they have the factual quality of such actions.«Ip 2701lYvonne Rainer, "A Quasi Survey of Some ,Minimalist Tendencies< in the Quantitatively Minimal DanceActivities Midst the Plethora, or Analysis of Trio A«, inGregory Battcock led.), Minimal Art. A Critical Anthology,London: studio Vista, 1968, pp 263 - 273 13. Emphases inthe original.) The body is regarded as an artificial means,through which statements about space relationships canbe made. These movements are extensions with which theexpanse of the space can be fathomed, with the positionof the body serving as the marker of locations.

you read books. So the films and some of the pieces that Idid after that for videotapes were specifically about doingexercises in balance. I thought of them as dance problemswithout being a dancer, being interested in the kinds oftension that arise when you try to balance and can't. Ordo something lor a long time and get tired.« Bruce Naumanin an interview with Willoughby Sharp, "Interview withBruce Nauman,« in Janet Kraynak led.) Please PayAttention Please: Bruce Nauman's Words. Writings andInterviews, Cambridge, MA, 2003, pp.133-154, p.142.The interview was first published in Avalanche 2. 1971.The tension the body generates not only ties back into theexperience of purely physical activity through movement.rather its actual execution becomes more of a quality ofthe space. The execution of simple. stereotypical routineactivities is not in itself an artistic action, but it becomesone in conjunction with a spatial experience, which - de·pending on the activity - is always different. By physicallyconcentrating on the Minimal structure of the happeningas an artificial action, different spatial qualities may be unfolded and may thereby be experienced in a performativeartistic action. This is where the similarity of the goals ofvideographic performances of the time, and explicitly ofNauman's work, with those of experimental dance becom·es evident. Parting from the rejection of classical balletas an out-dated means of artistic expression the dancerand choreographer Yvonne Rainer described the analogieswhich--due to the changed artistic mission of executingthe relationship between body and space- exist betweendance and the fine arts: "What is perhaps unprecedentedin the short history of the modern dance is the close correspondence between concurrent developments in danceand the plastic arts.« Ip. 264) For Rainer this results in newconcepts of dance: "The display of technical virtuosityand the display of the dancer's specialized body no longermakes any sense. Dancers have been driven to search foran alternative context that allows for a more matter-offact, more concrete, more banal quality of physical being

mostly by way ofmarking it as missing. While the surrounding space is realized, the matter

marking it through its form is itself absent. The emphasis on the bodily trace makes this

loss of presence apparent; a fissure, it turns into a boundary, marks a bodily contour and

thereby the indented spot as its legacy. This procedure marks the transitory state caused

by this process.

Inherent to this artistic procedure is a processuality, which makes the inscribing ofthe

body visible; what is shown is the execution ofa touch, visible in the loss, i.e. the absence of

the body after its imprinting.a In this particular artistic practice it is not so much the object

itself that is of interest, but gestures whose transmissions visualize what happens within

the piece of art and which make it possible to give absence a shape.9

How then can this form of artistic practice, in this study exemplified by Bruce

Nauman, be situated more precisely in art history and media history, so that we can analyze

the phenomena of withdrawal and concealment respectively?

because of its absence, is a feature of the performativearts as well. Both artistic modes highlight the structureof movements as well as the position of the body withinthe space. In their systematic execution of possiblemovements these performances subject the body to aconceptional structure. These repetitive action structuresinforming Nauman's performances find their counterpartin experimental dance exercises by Merce Cunningham,Simone Forti, Trisha Brown, Ann Halprin. or even MeredithMonk, whose consciously reduced plots not only affordedthem anew artistic means of expression with regardto classical dance but who strove to achieve a reducedbodily objecthood by using a concentrated and Minimalistgesticulatory vocabulary. Bruce Nauman described the

influence experimental dance exerted on the actionist artof the 60's and on his own work situation, as follows:"Well, the first time I really talked to anybody about bodyawareness was in the summer of 1968. Meredith Monkwas in San Francisco. She had thought about or seen someof my work and recognized it. [...J You do exercises, youhave certain kinds of awarenesses that you don't have if

chair itself but rather the space between its parts, Nauman does not show objects as such

but turns the work of art into a reflection on remainders, on negative space, so to speak.

Concerning the question of representability this form of representation asserts a

crucial artistic stance: not the objects themselves achieve and constitute meanino bute,

rather marginalities and absences do, in this concrete case in the sense of a dividino linee

between the actual object and the surrounding space. It is this line that designates that which

is being withdrawn, and thereby creates the very contour which in its precision renders the

withdrawal or the concealment at all visible.

7 Ibid. For the thesis on iconoclasm see p. 9.

a Concerning body prints cf. Georges Didi-Huberman.Ahnlichkeit and Beruhrung: Archaologie, Anachronismusund die Modernitat des Abdrucks. Cologne: DuMont.1997. On the relationship between the absent body andthe surrounding space cf. Sabine Flach. Kiirper-Szenarien.2003 las in note 1). in particular the chapter "Kiirper imraumlichen Vollzug«. pp. 59 - 73.

9 This situationist gesture of the artistic work may be

tied directly to the body and to the gesture taking place.and therefore corresponds immediately to the relationshipof the body to the space. i.e. the kinesthetic relationsof the work. These performative activities particularly'underscore the studio situation of the artist. Lucy Lipparddescribed this situation as "The studio is again becominga study«. These works of art were strongly influenced byexperimental and innovative works of modern dance. Notonly does the reductionist vocabulary of modern dancetheater communicate with that of the Minimalist object.but the emphasis on the always missing or marginalizedbody, which achieves its expressive force precisely

03 Sabine Flach. Withd~awl as an A~tfo~m.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -50 51

Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig. 1996, p. B5.)13 Cf. Hubert Klocker: "Gestus und Dbjekt. Befreiung alsAktion: Eine europaische Komponente performativer Kunst",in Paul Schimmel (ed.l: out of actions. Zwischen Performanceund Dbiekt 1949 -1979. German edition ed. by Peter Noever/MAK, Los Angeles/Dstfildern-Ruit: Cantz, 1998, p. 160.14 Rosalind Krauss, "The Cultural Logic of the Late Capitalist Museum", in: Rosalind Krauss et al. leds.l. October:The Second Decade 1986-1996. Cambridge. MA: The MITPress 1997. pp. 427 - 441,432 -433.15 For basics with regard to the following remarks cf.:

Sabine Flach, Georg Christoph Tholen (eds.l. Mimetische Differenzen: Vom Spielraum der Medien zwischenAbbildung and Nachbildung, Kassel: Kassel UniversityPress. 2002.

The phenomena of withdrawal and concealment have persistently figured as constituting

elements of Nauman's artistic practice, even more so with the application of media

technologies, video technology in particular.15

work ofart evolved away from a product into a process, which will subsequently constitute

the work ofart itself. Implicitly the work of art comes with a certain reductionism resulting

in the dematerialization of artistic practice. Thereby contingent aspects of the context are

more and more clearly integrated.

This indicates that a decisive shift in artistic practice has been accomplished, for

it is the body that becomes a new, henceforth ineludible category of the work of art. In

consequence the artistic work becomes a phenomenological event, with attention focused

on the conditions of perception. The bodily perception of an artistic piece as well as what

is happening within a space are important parameters for this.

Perception is a process, composed of event fragments, of observations of movements,

which may prompt the bodily identification with that change. The performativity of the

artistic work becomes crucial and centers on an active subject radically distinct from

traditioned subjects of artistic experience. Rosalind Krauss was aware of this change as

well: "Neithe~ the old Ca~tesian subject no~ the teaditional biog~aphical

subject. the minimalist subject l-l is a subject ~adically contingent on

the conditions of the spatial field. a subject who cohe~es. but only p~o-

t· 14visionally and moment-by-moment. in the act of pe~cep lon.«

As the conditions ofperception have become the subject of the artistic work, the context

has seen a shift, since by using the body the themes of the work of art find their direct

translation in their execution. This >engaging< of the body as execution of the artistic work

is an experience of aesthetic totality, insofar as the quality of its presence is of importance,

The body is integrated into sequential structures, which transform the conventions of art.

12 The association of aspects of presence with corporeal·ity dominating these works by Nauman provided someorientation within the radicalized principles derived fromMinimal Art. Dan Graham has a similarly concrete grasp ofBruce Nauman's works; "Nauman turned to himself as thebody of the work: himself. his lits) own literal informingsubject matter.. The body information is the medium;the body information is the message for the presence ofNauman himself. There is no longer the necessity of amaterial (other than the artist's body) for the mediation.This work of Naumans in the present in the presence of thespectator. .. just as Nauman has inverted his relation to thesculptural materials he works upon, he now becomes the,object' and the 'subject' simultaneously; he is both artistand material, both perceiver (as he perceives himself inorder to execute the piece) and perceived, and both exterior and interior surface." (Dan Graham quoted in RainerMetzger, Kunst in der Postmoderne: Dan Graham. Cologne:

authorship is now taken. besides by intention, by thesignificance of reception.

11 It is my thesis that these both transitory and body.related video works are developed from the characteristicsof Conceptual and Minimal Art. and then connected withthe performativity of experimental dance theater; hence ablend of body art, of the happening and of Fluxus actionsreally is not preferred. For basics and details cf. Flach.Korper·Szenarien. 2003 (as in note 1).

It is fundamental for understanding this work mode that these characteristics of the work

of art are established in clear distinction to those of modernism.10 The self-referential

questions that define modernist art have been replaced by works implying a new materiality,

and whose questions aim at the structural and symbolic positioning of a subject body.

They are derived from Minimal and Conceptual Art, since their current processuality is

also emphasized by the purism, the open-endedness (non-finitio) and the intellectuality

of the execution of the workl1 ln Minimal and Conceptual Art in particular one finds the

reduction of the aesthetic object as well as its replacement by a host ofactivities, notations,

and actions, which both expanded the concept of the artistic work once more after it had been

radicalized in classical modernity, and, particularly starting in the mid-sixties, reshaped the

traditioned canon of art aC,tion and art reception. In our current understanding art equates

the artistic object and artistic practice. Tendencies ofephemerization and dematerialization

as well as its redefinition as a phenomenon in space and time situate the work ofart outside

the conventions of the individual genres. With the fundamental changes brought about by

Conceptual Art a work ofart is no longer considered the preserved trace ofa manufacturinO"I::>

process, as for example in Abstract Expressionism, nor as a process, as in an artistic

happening. With conceptions of Conceptual Art the artist gives a dynamic to his work

through the limitedly open relationship between concept and execution.12

As a consequence of Conceptual Art then the artistic >work< is understood as a series

of decision-making processes. The artistic work with a performative character is action

oriented, and is therefore first of all an ephemeral and yet participatory, performative, and

concept-oriented event. Any further presentation requires the transformation ofthe artist'swork into a variant of its mediality.

The self-contained, autonomous work of art, embedded into a societally defined

canon, which in turn ensures its comprehensibility, has made way for the emphasis on the

processual; the conditions surrounding the piece must be included in the work's reception as

much as the emancipation of the idea structuring the work must be considered a form13

Hence the work ofart is no longer regarded as an object with meaning lodged within it,

but rather as a cognitive process. The works are characterized by a highly conceptualized,

strictly ritualized action, enabling a coming to terms with existential aspects ofcorporeality,

which are observed with detachment though. Actionism not only resulted in a different idea

of the work; rather the strong presence of a subject made it downright transcendent. The

10 Hence, the 1960's see a radicalization of art beyondthe individual arts, i.e. the individual evolutions of genres;the dynamics it implied and as it was still characteristicof modernism, has now become just as obsolete as theauctoritas proclaimed by modernism. probed - amongother things - by the seriality of Minimal Art and by theindexicality of Conceptual Art. By revising the position ofauthorship the role of the viewer is redefined at the sametime, so that the place traditionally occupied by artistic

03 Sabine Flach. Withd~awl as an Aetfom.

The analysis of artistic works from early video technolconsistently pursued and devel d ogy demonstrates that those

Art. Those early video pieces ::em:rckondcebPt ofart as postulated by Conceptual and Minimale y a concept ofspac I'

of action sequences. Both are fi 'bl I ere atIng to the processualityorCI y re ated to corporeart . .

with it. Spatiality howe . h' I Yor are In constant Interaction, ver, tS c aractenzed not h b .

so muc y archItectonic constants but

52 53

rather by processuality and dynamic; i.e. forms of execution and process that may generate

in-between spatialities or parentheses. Emphasis is also placed on spatial processes, which

may be designated as >situational aesthetics<. In this case too the body possesses once again

a crucial meaning-constitutive function, while it is still Nauman's principle to always

show that which isn't present. This impression is enhanced by the camerawork, which

obviously focuses on visually representing what is lacking. (Figure 03) In video works such

as »Wall-Floor-Positions« or »Walking in an Exaggerated Manner around the Perimeter

of a Square« or »Playing a Note on the Violin while I Walk around the Studio« or even

»Slow Angle Walk: Beckett Walk« but also in his installations, such as the »Green Light

Corridor« or »Video Surveillance Piece: Public Room/Empty Room« Nauman16 positions

the fixed camera lens in such a way that part ofwhat is happening is always unviewable, i.e.

outside of the area being taped. Hence Nauman as the actor of these videos is temporarily

removed from the viewer's visual field; the video shows a spatial situation accompanied

by a soundtrack featuring acoustic signals, such as sounds of steps or jumping, breathing,

etc. So in this case the body does not at all function as a space of physical experience but

is imbued with referential meaning; as material of artistic expression it serves to map the

space and the situation.

Such a perspective moves to the center of aesthetic practice both thematic reflections of

the body image neglected by the fine arts heretofore, and >marginalities<, in the sense of

emphasizing the difference, the seam, the trace or the fissure, which stresses the components

without which the image - that of the body - wouldn't even exist17 Highlighting these

>lacunae< allows for traditional body concepts to be investigated, under the assumption

of their questionability, and helps to better understand the fundamental construction and

thence the artificiality of body perception.

With regard to the representation of a body image new technologies in the fine arts

not so much offer an emphatic final rhetoric on the dissolution of the body within or as the

image as they inscribe the body into the visual field. Emphasis is placed on the inherent

processuality of this procedure, i.e. body images are processual in their structure.

This form of artistic production, which persistently affects questions of intention and

reception, will be exemplified by the installation »Live/Taped Video Corridor« in the

following. (Figure 04)

16 Just as for Dan Graham lack is constitutive ofNauman's work as well, such as in his work Roll from 1970,in which he proceeds according to a similar principle.17 Less and less the body is regarded as the locus of

the natural and of the authentic, which 18th centurythought had made it out to be. The body is shown asa construct, as a foil for the historically changing inscriptions of the sciences and of cultural phenomena.

03 Sabine Flach. Withd~awl as an A~tfo~m.54 55

. From the year 1969 on Bruce Nauman created a number of corridor installations 18which InVite the viewer to r I h '. . '

. 19 . ac Ive y use t em. In Its ongInal conception the »Live/Taped Video

Corndor« conSistsof several corridors of different lengths, set up next to one another in

a row to form the »Vldeo Surveillance Corridor«. 20 These corridors are all very narrow sothat It IS Impossible to enter th . h h .

. . em, Wit t e exceptIOn of a passageway. In later exhibitions

that major, walk-In se.ction of the work is often exhibited as »Live/Taped Video Corridor«wIthout the other additIOnal corridors.

The passageway of the installation is very high and narrow; on one end two video

screens are set up one on top of the other. Once the viewer enters the corridor and moves

toward the screens, she notices a human form being displayed on one of the screens. At

first glance the second screen doesn't seem to display anything. As the viewer approaches

the screen, she recognizes that the form on the lower screen is the apparent image of her

own body. But contrary to our everyday experience in the mirror, the image shown is not

her mirror image but rather her image with her original handedness. Yet precisely this

kind ofprojection is confusing, for the viewer sees herself from behind as she walks down

the passageway. So her own person is not reflected in a direct, confronting display; rather

the viewer realizes that there is a camera in the room which, mounted up higher than her

body height, projects an image of her back view. Hence the surveillance equipment in the

corridor taping her physical movements acts as a surveilling >gaze< behind her back. If the

viewer wants to see the camera eye, she has to turn away from her own projection - the

camera will still be taping her then but she can no longer control her image. Ifshe attempts

to watch the recording of her body on the screen and moves closer to it, this controlling

gaze is sabotaged, for the camera image becomes smaller the closer she gets to the screen,

only to finally disappear completely, as she stands directly in front of the screen. Bruce

Nauman himselfdescribed the »Live/Taped Video Corridor« as a difficult experience, where

withdrawal is an essential factor;

»The easiest pa~t of the piece to get into was a co~~ido~ thi~ty-fou~

feet and twenty-five inches wide. The~e was a television came~a at the

outside ent~ance, and the pictu~e was at the othe~ end. [_I When you walked

into the co~~ido~, you had to go in about ten feet befo~e you appea~ed on

the television sc~een that was still twenty feet away f~om you. I used a

wide angle lens, which distu~bed the distance even mo~e. The came~a was

ten feet up, so that when you did see you~self on the sc~een, it was f~om

the back, f~om above and behind, which was quite diffe~ent f~om the way

you no~mally saw you~self o~ the way you expe~ienced the co~~ido~ a~ound

you~self. When you ~ealized that you we~e on the sc~een, being in the co~

~ido~ was like stepping off a cliff o~ down into a hole. [_I You knew what

had happened because you could see all the equipment and what was going

on, yet you had the same expe~ience eve~y time you walked in. The~e was no

way to avoid having it.«21

18. The work Walk with Contrapposto features an actingindividual. which however the viewer can only view byway of the videotape (cf. chapter 3 of this work). whichwas taped inside the 1969 Performance Corridor (243.8

Figure 04 BruceNauman. »live/TapedVideo Corridor«. 1969

x51 x 609.6 cm; Panza Collection. Milan). Besides thispiece Nauman developed series of corridors. such asthe Green-ligh! Corridor from 1970/71 (walls 304.8 cmhigh each; fluorescent tubes 234.8 cm long each. Panza

Collection. Milani, the Corridor Installation from 1970(335,3 x914,4 x 1219.2 cm. Panza Collection. Milan). theKassel Corridor: Elliptical Space from 1972lexterior wall365.8 x 1432.6 cm; interior wall 365.8 x 1417,3 cm; PanzaCollection. Milan). the Corridor Installation with Mirrorfrom 1970 Iwall243,84 cm high; mirror 137,16 cm high;installed at San Jose State College; destroyedl. Moreoversome corridors or corridor-like constructions such as theAcoustic Wall from 1969/70 Ica. 243,8 x 1065.8 cm. PanzaCollection. Milani or else Acoustic Wedge: Sound Wedge- Double Wedge (1969/70) refer directly to the sense of

hearing; their specific spatial constructions exert pressureon the ears and thereby on the sense of balance.19 Live/Taped Video Corridor was the first video installa·tion with a closed-circuit system.20 This work has great similarity to the installationCorridor Installation. which included three closed-circuitvideo cameras though.21 Bruce Nauman in an interview with Willoughby Sharp.»Interview with Bruce Nauman«. in: Janet Kraynak (ed.).Please Pay Attention Please. pp. 133 -154.las in note 91pp. 151 -152.

03 Sabine Flach. Withdcawl as an Actfocm.56 57

In this way Bruce Nauman foils the viewer's efforts to recognize her physical traits and

thereby verify her identity; he denies her the image of herself and of the work. The visual

process alone doesn't allow the visitor to perceive the work, for - in front of her own

reflection - she literally stands herself >in the way<. Nauman steers the perception ofhis work

toward a concrete perception act, a kinesthetic experience, which manifests itself mostly

The viewer is denied a concrete image of herself; she finds herself confronted with

a situation she cannot control, and which she can only escape by leaving the corridor

altogether. Nauman stages an inescapable surveillance situation for the viewer, which,

however, doesn't immediately present itself as such but becomes evident over the different

levels, on which the withdrawal takes place. The viewer cannot do anything without being

taped, whereas she herself has no control over the recordings. With the camera taping the

entire room the person being taped is under the impression that not only are her current

actions being surveilled but that, due to the exposed positioning of the camera, future

actions can be pre-viewed at this point. The complete withdrawal of her image implies the

assumption that even future actions on the part of the viewer are subject to this situation,

prior to their happening. Evoking this impression in the viewer, after all, is one of the

goals of this surveilling gaze. The narrowness of the corridor reinforces this sentiment of

being manipulated by the installation, so that the viewer finds herself in a claustrophobic

experimental setting. 22 The second screen mounted on top of the other heightens this

impression; it also displays an image of the corridor, but the recording of the visitor is

missing entirely, and substituted by a lacking image instead.

Hence the viewer participates in the work without being able to interfere with it

through her presence or her actions. So denial and absence have prompted an element of

manipulation, which not only completely controls the viewer of the installation, but which

also corresponds to one of Bruce Nauman's essential aesthetic premises. The strategies

Nauman develops in this piece are founded on the idea ofhighlighting precisely that which is

missing. Susan Sontag has cited this attitude as being comparable to silence, and continued to

define both as power factors for the artist's own position. For Susan Sontag they both create

opaqueness, and a therefore almost unassailable position of power. She states: » [ •.. ] the

actist who cceates silence oc emptiness must pcoduce something dialectical:

a full void, an enciching emptiness, a cesonating oc eloquent silence.«23

.. .. - , h k he can see its projections. ' " While the viewer IS part oft e wor , s

in ItS spattal speCIficatIOn. , h lusion of the observing gaze of. . th camera image IS based on t e exc

only madequately, so e b t' t d the assumption that his works, '24 B e Nauman has su stan la e

the person generatmg It. ruc. 'fi llows' » [ ... ) something difficultmanipulate the viewer in a SItuatIOn of exclUSIOn, as o. ') fceedom but in ceality

. It a eacs to give [the Vlewec 'goes on ln my wock. pp . d 'des to pacticipate, the cesultit doesn' t alloW foe fceedom. Even lf one eCl . 25

. Th's difficulty is intentlonal.«is nevec thlS cleac. [ ... ) 1 h 'thdrawal process the lack as

, f h . ce stresses t e WI 'The aesthetic conceptIon 0 t e pie b f om a viewing distanced.' b' t which the viewer should not 0 serve r '

malllpulatlon of the su Jec , . d' t' volvement in a kinesthetic event., d to expenence as Irec m

stance but which she IS suppose, h' d by a means of manipulation than'I b t a speCIfic result ac leve

Therefore the work IS ess a ou. ' I t' n' the viewer experiences that her" . fi h rceptlOn of the malllpu a 10 '

about a condltlOllIng or t e pe th t II hiCThlight a lack, Neither. ' 't bl preset parameters a a to>

behavior depends on vanouS, mevI a y . I b a specific person nor is it entirely. f h' erience embodIed extenor y Y

is the subject 0 t IS exp . . h' h negate it as a person just asneutral; it is replaced by instrumentaltzatlOn processes w IC

much as they construct it as a subject. , I by the incessant observation of theThis form of conditioning IS achieved not on y t h' ch results

" but even more by rendering the space concre e, w Iviewer with a vIdeo camera, . . osed to be the same for all

. ' . I erience. This expenence IS suppin her Immediate physlca exp . d t 'ned by the artist.26 Bruce

. n can be specified m a way pre e ermlviewers, so that the receptlo ", h h the radical Minimalist mapping

, h eriences m hiS viewers t roug ,Nauman mduces t ese exp , . CT that conditions of perception

d by denyinCT the productIOn of meanlllto>, soof the space an to>

undergo a condensation.

22 Bruce Nauman escalates these spatially extremesituations in his tunnel objects, which are very often truedead-ends, The maquettes for subterranean tunnels suchas Room With My Soul Left Out, Room That Does Not Carefrom 19B4 have a similar effect. They appear sinister andprovoke claustrophobia.23 Susan Sontag: "The Aesthetics of Silence« 11967), in:id, A Susan Sontag Reader. London: Penguin, 1982, p. 191.24 Another work likewise based on exclusion - again that

of the mirror image - is an environment first erected inSan Jose in 1969. with amirror standing at the end of av-shaped, ever more tapering room; the mirror does not reflect the viewer's mirror image, since Nauman had placedit below the eye level of the viewer. Once more Naumanattempts not to reflect amirror image but rather to allowthe viewer to map her spatial environment, precisely bywithholding her image from her. The work Video Surveillance Piece: Empty Room/Public Room aims at a similareffect. The viewer enters a constructed, usually square

room with amonitor placed on the floor in one corner. Thetape displayed on that monitor shows another room with

. 'n'lt So they are in two spaces, the ,actual'tWO viewers I . , .

room of the installation and in the second projection but

not in the first one displayed on a shared mOnitOr. ,25 Bruce Nauman quoted from: Jane Livingston, MarCiaTucker (eds,), catalogue Bruce Nauman, ~erke von1965bis 1972, Los Angeles/New York/ Bern/Dusseldorf, Kunsthalle Bern, 1973, n,p. [Translator'S note: retranslatlOn from

the German.]26 Bruce Nauman himself refuses the idea of playful

erimentation with his work on the part of hiS viewers.~x:stated in an interview: " ...1don't like the idea of freemanipulation. Like you put abunch of stuff out there andI t eople do what they want with it. I really had some~o;e specific kinds of experiences in mind and, withouthaving to write out a list of what they should do, I wantedto make kind of play experiences unavailable: lust by thepreciseness of the area. Because an interesting thing

h 'A lot of people had taken a lot of troublewas appenlng. .'educating the public to participate .. If Iput thiS stuffout here, you were suppose [sicl to participate. Andcertain kinds of clues were taken that certain sculptures

were participatory. You walk in or you rearrange things.Bob [Robert] Morris had a show in a large space wllh alarge number of pieces of felt lying there, and a lot ofangled things, but he had them all made up: some sortof C-shaped things and rectangular plates cut In strangeshapes. Anyway, there was just a large number of things... about one hundred elements arranged all over the floor In

this space. He had taken a good deal of trouble to arrangethem in a particular way, Then people would come In and,start rearranging them and he got very upset, they weren tsupposed to do that. But at the same time, ayear before,he had written all this crap about if you put these thln,gsout there, it doesn't matter how you arrange them, It s thesame thing. So people can arrange them anyway." BruceNauman in an interview with Lorraine Sciarra, January,1972. in: Janet Kraynak (ed.), Please Pay Attention, Please,

(as in note 9) pp. 166 -167,

03 Sabine Flach. W·thl d~awl as an A~tfo~m.

58 59

in the artistic work is taken by the conceptual existenceof the piece, Within which the self·critical approach is

expanded to examine the conditions and consequences ofthe cultural and Institutional context as well as the medial

c:ntext. lawrence Weiner later identified this situation oft eartistic process as llpresentational situation«30 In hiS text llTowards a Theatrical Engagement;,

lawrence Weiner defined the theatrical claim of thework as aconcentration on cultural phenomena that arenot necessarrly related to the realm of art. A theatricalengagement for Weiner is one that can represent humanrelations In the Fine Arts. llA theatrical engagement is

neither the expiation of guilt nor a newspaper of our timesbut a representation of existing factual relationships of

exclusion, withdrawal, as well as concealed, negated, re-performed, repeated and updated

material. 3o

For the time being let us posit that a transitory, media-oriented, event-like, and

performative work of art eludes a conventional methodological grasp and its historic

continua. However, it is precisely due to this aspect that these works ofart mark a constitutive

flaw of the methodological apparatus in dealing with artistic practices whose intention

lies in the procedure rather than in the product. Accentuating procedures nonetheless

emphasizes presence; in analysis the perception of this presence is still neglected in favor

of the historicity of a work. So this is still about the historical state of having-become and

not about viewing. 31

Works of art, however, which evolved out of Conceptual and Minimal Art do not

represent anything, but they present something; in fact they present themselves. Their

formal structure does not disclose itself as immanent, but always only in relation to the

surrounding space and to a body. Meaning is not inherent in them but displaced towards the

outside, towards the act of perception. In the aftermath of Minimalism works of art are no

longer exhibited but they take place - at an interface where they are immediately withdrawn.

The work of art is a phenomenological event conceived as an experimental, experienceable

situation, in which the viewer is integrated into the actual time and space experience.

This new phenomenological conception implies therefore that the structural and

symbolic positionings of the artist, of the viewer, and of the work ofart are being reviewed.

The artist turns into the manufacturer of a real experience; a mise-en-scene is staged, and

analytical methods refer back to personal experience. Finally, at the interface of presence

and presentation, a definition of performativity comes into playas Jacques Derrida

developed it.

While the performance is always singular and unique, performativity lays out a concept

that cannot be reduced to this irreducible act. Derrida's conception gives center stage to

an act of citation interweaving the event, repetition, and difference. Derrida does not view

an event as a unique, original, unrepeatable occurrence but rather as a citation, which can

only be actualized in its repetition.

It is obvious then that the presence of the bod d '. - - - - - -in its materiality, but rather as th d y. oes not invariably find its expression

e para ox of the wIthdraw /d .aggressively flaunted body I thO b' n enzed and at the same time

. n IS am lvalence ofmay be viewed as a form of beh . A . presence and absence the work of art

aVIOr. ccordlng to this co h .more in terms ofthe physical t . I . ncept t e body IS then regarded

race It eaves behind or thit evokes. as e constantly oscillating meaning

As for the question ofdocumentation, one must be mindf I' .approach, in order to understand th d . u of this performatlve, transitory

e ramaturglcal conception fth kof their perception The p fI . 0 e wor s and the modes

. er ormatlve aspect of the work m '. .therefore it can neither be fi t d aterlahzes as an Interaction;

xa e nor reproduced Mea . . .- through withdrawal. . nlng constitutes Itself once again

Performativity then always means undercuttinD' .art as well as traditioned' '" clasSical concepts of the work of

receptIOn patterns' it is therebrepresentation. Rather perfo 1" . ' y a counter-concept to that of

rma IVlty POints to somethin th .and, as it were, resistant in the f' g at remaIns vacant, oscillating. process 0 meaning D'enera1' 27 y; " .Itself that draws attention to th . . '" IOn. et It IS thIS performativity

. . e vacanCIes and dissolutions R fI .Origination, withdrawal and c I '. . e erence IS performed in its

oncea ment, I.e. In negation' what' .of a representation system Effl f ' IS represented IS the fragility

. orts 0 all-encompassinD' .sabotaged, since the present kid . '" representatIOn are consistently

. wor e u es claSSIcal conservat' . "and exhIbitionability 28 A t b lOn, and hence hlstorlclzation. . r ecomes once more a discursive . . . 'Interacts with the struct . . practice, which examines and

. ures surrounding It. Phenomenol' .practice brinD'S forth ace t . ogIcal experience as aesthetic

. '" r aln reserve towards traditional meaan Illusionist character of art. 29 ns ofart as much as towards

Works such as those by Bruce Nauman also im I a _. .the question for ways of prese '. . p Y medial - fleetingness, so that

rVlng It presents Itself even m Th .what it means ifworks cann t b '. ore. e questIOn arises as to

o e preserved In their entiret bThe classical apparatus ofd' y, ut can only be reconstructed?

ocumentatIOn must be interrogated as to its ability to handle

27 Cf. Flach. Korper-Szenarien 2003 ( ., as In note 1)as well as Dorothea von Hantelmann: lllnszenierun~endes Performatlven In der zeitgenossischen Kunst«, inErrka Flscher·llchte, Christoph Wulf ( d ). PIt.. e s.. aragrana.n ernatlonale Zeltschrift fur Historische Anthropologie

Theorren des Performativen, Munich 2001 I 10 .Pp.255-270. ' ,va" no. 1.

28 Flach, Korper-Szenarien 2003. las in note 1) especiallypp. 316 - 325.

29 It is precisely the theatrical engagement MichaelFrred dismissed which is necessary for thO . hob ". IS, since t e. servat,on Situation, Which evolved from Conceptual ArtIS now expanded to include the observation of the entirecultural environment by way of the b d Ca y. enter stage

human beings to human beings in relation to an objectifiedcultural situation.« (lawrence Weiner from llTowards aTheatrical Engagement«, cited in Alexander Alberro et aI.,lawrence Weiner, london, 19981 Hence - in stark oppositi·on to Fried - Weiner takes the position that art should dealwith the relations of humans with each other, especiallysince the establishment of Conceptual Art, whose contentis consciously directed against the traditional status of awork of art as a unique object. In order to achieve this theagents as well as the cultural situation are objectified.llThe actor [agent) must be an object indeed [... ]. By objectifying the actor there is no false sympathy, no false empathy. [...1The placement of the actor on the stage eliminates

any problem of objectification. - The use of schematiccharacterizations negates the need for empathy, in orderto make meaning obvious.«31 [Translator's note: retranslation from the German.]In this interpretation then the body has a fragmentarycharacter insofar as it does not and cannot exist by itselfbut can only be perceived within a spatial and social environment, and even then it can only be referred to. The bodyoscillates in this relationship. vacillating between symptom and symbol. By inserting the body into a performativework of art inspired Conceptual Art, a new radicalism isintroduced into artistic practice.

I

03 Sabine Flach. Withd~awl as an A~tfo~m.

This form of repetition, however, is precisely not the recurrence of the identical, of

one and the same, but it consists in the recurrence of the possibility of that which was. 32

Therefore it forcibly brings up difference. Insofar as a citation is implicit in every original,

the concept of the performative in the arts has been changing since the 1960's. The power

of the performative lies precisely not in the generation of an original event but in showing

that which wasn't shown by itself. The relationship between presence and absence, between

immediacy and reproduction is problematized in the media arts and situated in the field of

tension between the work and the event. The observing subject is constituted in this process,

and at the same time it is perpetually destabilized.

As for reception this affords the insight that a work of art as a performative, situational

perception operation does not manufacture a material product, but that it interweaves

stagings of the event-like and of experience intensity with media representation, which

converges theoretically and methodological with Derrida's concept.

The work of art also always produces something: namely a hypothesis in order to see

what happens to it.

Translation: Ina Pfitzner

32 Cf. von Hantelmann, Inszenierungen des Performativen, 2001 (as in note 271.

60 61

Montage and Image E .nv~~onments: Na~~ative

Fo~ms In Contempo~a~y Video A~t

structuralist theories from a new historicist understandingwhich continually shows the historicity of text as thetextuality of history.6 Elisabeth BOttner has analyzed the reflexive functionof the images between film and video in the work ofGodard, particularly from the basis of the example film leiet ailleurs, 1970-1974. Elisabeth Buttner, "Projektion.Montage. Politik. Die Praxis der Ideen von Jean-LucGodard (>lei et ailieurs<J und Gilles Deleuze, ,Cinema 2:L'image-temps<", Vienna: Synema 1999.

Spatialization of the P~inciples of Montage through Video

In the following we address the principle of montage within commercial and experimental

videos indebted to postmodern narrative techniques which, on the basis of the editing, awaken

the impression of homogeneous narration and shift our attention towards the conceptual

commonalities ofmontage and video. Thus the openly presented montage, in the combination

ofheterogenic fragments, reveals its own methodology in the same way as the video apparatus

which, according to Fredric Jameson, represents a model ofpictorial text that lets the reading

form itself become the subject. The postmodern medium and the traditional procedures of

montage are explicitly self-referential. Video, in its manifestation intermediate to commercial

television video and experimental art video, has supplanted the cultural supremacy offilm

and literature and, a fortiori the symptomatic loss of the referentiality of the symbol, has

also become the privileged »a~t foem of late capitalism. ,,4 Per Jameson the medium

denotes a »C~isis of Histodcity« to which, as ofthe 1980s at the latest, the new narrative

structures answer. 5 The classical techniques offilm montage are being supplemented through

imaging procedures operating spatially. Furthermore, the closed transmission system, the

successive expansion ofthe technical horizon through digital video, as well as the mobilization

ofthe compact camera have enabled a spatial integration and presence in video transcendent

of the presentation capacities offilm. Video has become the most advanced picture medium

because it can, through supplementing the so-called image flow of the seemingly lost

referentiality of symbols with a self-reflexive level, and by permitting of the recognition of

image realities as constructions, generate the effect of real ity.

Jean-Luc Godard is seen as a filmmaker who, as of the early 1970s, has, with video

technology, continually both criticized the montage and conventional muster offilm narration

and reflected upon his own production of images. The image flow in the video montages of

Godard is utilized to create intermediate images whose montage enables the disclosure of

the meaning of the individual motif and its modus as image through the combination with

a further number of text, audio or image fragments,6 Godard contrasts the montage as the

spatial factor to the temporal organizational form of moving images, the camera angle, and

the mise-en-scene. With that he alludes to the dominance the concept of time - which has

experienced an almost paradigmatic reevaluation through Deleuze - has to the structure

62 63

of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press.. 1991,pp. 67 - 965 Margaret Warwick. »New Narrative«. published inGabor and Veruschka Body leds.l. Video in Kunst und AIItag, Cologne. 1986. pp. 81- 86. Warwick emphasizes themeaning of the omissions in the new narratives of videoart which differentiate them from tele-visual standardization. For more about the relationship between History andNew Historicism. ct. Moritz Bafller (ed.). New Historicism.Literaturgeschichte als Poetik der Kultur, Frankfurt a. M.:Fischer Verlag 1995. Bafller reveals the influence of post-

piece, conve~ge. Fo~ms

assimilato~y, a~e to lesse~

info~mation.,,3

definition .indicative of the industrial modern usage Itstransmission onto artistic processes was propagated by

John Heartfield and George Grosz. who began to refer tothemselves as Monteure as of around 1916 E,'se t' .t d d . ns eln In-ro uce the term 'Montage, in the field of film cf M"b'

2000, op. cit.. p. 15 f. ' . 0 IUS

3 The definition of the principle of collage by WSPI . . erner

es can, In ItS general formulation. be directly transfer-red to montage.. Werner Spies, »Collage - Verwendung desgenerellen Begrlffs«. published inc Gatz Adriani led ) ME~t~ I . U... agen - nventar und Widerspruch. Kunsthalle

TUbmgen, Colognec DuMont, 1988. pp. 11- 27, p. 16.4. FredriC Jameson, »Surrealism Without the Uncons

CIOUS«, published ;n: Postmodernism. or, The Cultural Logic

»Dive~se content, un~elated outside of the

which as such a~e in p~inciple always

extent coupled than dispa~atesenso~y

Both procedures were applied by the avant-oarde ofthe earl .open form. In other words the' t" 0 y 20th century m principle ofan

, m er,aces and ruptures in b th h .ken should, as visible formal t . . 0 t e matenals and interpretive

con rasts, elIcit a process of cooniti b .ofassociation. In reoard to th . 0 on y openmg new areas

o e representatIOn oftime colla .Within photography paint' d' ' ge and montage are mterrelated.

. ,mg an musIC, collaoe facilitat hof vIsual or auditory events w'th' . . 0 es t e concurrent presentation

. 1 m a smgle piece, whereas mont .Simultaneous incidences so th t. age, lil film, deconstructs

a a narratIve or new meanino b .subsequent chronolooy In fil t h . 0 can e denved from their

. 0 . m, ec mques such as parallel ed' . 0 . .

dialectic montage shot/co t h Itmo, vertIcal, honzontal or, un ers ot, etc. have been develo ed o'

Successions of narrative elem t V'd P to olve rhythm to temporalen s. 1 eo aSSumes the th d I .

montage, but has also developed d' . me 0 0 oglcal attainments offilmme IUm-speclfic represe tt'l

keying, the insert edit vision" . n a IOna methods such as chroma-, mIxer, vIdeo syntheSizer, wipe and similar.

1 For terminology determination. see Hanno Mobius

Montage und Collagec Literatur, bildende Kunste Fil~Fotografie, Musik,Theater bis 1933, Munich: Fink Verl~g.2000, p. 28 f. MObiUS supplies the most current. comprehenSive and systematic historical analysis of montage

terminology. starting from its early literary forms and theirImpact on the visual arts from asocio-cultural historicalviewpOint.

: Mobius derives the etymologic linguistic roots of therench term Collage from the Greek kolla. The rhetoric has

long been familiar with the agglutination of earlier wordsegments IntO new terms, the varied historical roots of~hlCh remain hidden. The encyclopedia by Diderot and

dAlembert (1765) Supplies a technological- mechanical

Montaoe and coli .o age,are considered paradiomatic tech .

garde. 1 Montage is the gen . t .. 0 mques of the modernist avant-. enc erm ,or a process which ai . .Interpretational associations th h h . . ms at aChIevmg conceptually

roug t e mtercomb t' fitems. The modern meaning of th ma Ion 0 heterogeneous individual

e term developed correlativ I . h .production processes of the 18th e y WIt the mdustrial

century and was .film.2 Collage pursues an analooous . . I '. assocIated early with photography and

. 0 pnnclp e wlthm the field f '. .lIterature. In collaoe as w'th . 0 pamtmg, musIC, sound and

o , I montage, the fOllowing applies:

r

Stemmrich (ed.), Kunst/Kino, Jahresring 48, Jahrbuch fUrmoderne Kunst, Cologne: Oktagon, 2001. pp. 217-238.12 JUrgen E. MUlier, »lntermedialiUit und Medlenwlssenschaft Thesen zum State of the Art". publ,shedm.montage a/v: Zeitschrift fUr Theorie & Geschichte audlovlsuellerKommunikation, 3/2.1994 pp. 119 -138, p. 128.

64 65

. d 1998 Director and Production:04 Musikclip: Die Goldenen Zitronen. "Weil wir einverstanden Sin «. •Figure 01 toSmoczek Policzek

- - - - - .. It t anscends a. f film theatre literature or advertiSing. r

depiction technIques taken rom '... ' d' when it unfolds a »conceptional. .. sition« of diSSimilar me la .

simple »multlmedla Juxtapo . . l' . throuoh »(aesthetic) refractIOn. . . 0 . turn to innovative Imp lcattons '" .

anastotnoslS« dlrectln"" In , .. I flizes narrative techniques. 12 r its roduct the music video m partlcu ar u I . .

and refutatlOn«. Fo p, . . d d ith commercial advertlsmg.d fashion and an artistic eman w

to effectivity coalesce soun , d' l't predefined representational. h iques to reflect the me la I y,

Few clips use their chosen tec n . f th edium' their comportment. I iewpoint perspectives 0 em,

archetypes, enVlronmenta or v d to the principle of montage and/or. seldom self-referential, and thus does not corresponIS . Ifcollage as adopted by the artistic avant-garde ltse .

. Monta e in St~atification and Supe~imposition .Smoczek Pohczek - 9 . d (1998) for the German band Die

. l' »Weil wir einverstanden sm «In tbeir video musIc c Ip P l' k (Ulli Lindemann and Deborah

duction duo Smoczek 0 IczeGoldenen Zitronen the pro . . film Their cartoon film, a

b k t the techniques of antmatlOn .Schamoni) barkened ac 0 .. . d fio s with lines of type or letters,

d' oes combmmo anImate ",urepbotocollage of foun Ima", "'... Wandering image elements

. . nand inoenlOus dilettantism.is a concoction of agitprop, Iro y '" f h' h leftwards aoainst the normal

. f' d' 'd al episodes most 0 w IC go '"catenate the successIOn 0 m IVI u , h' t in which the locomotive

. . . . ume through contemporary IS oryreading directIOn, mto a JO y . t 120 shots charge across the

. leitmotif. For a good three mmu es, .. .tram recurrently appears as 'bl I'ancy of the title _ m Engltsh.

. unk rhythm. The ostensl e comp I .monitor to a beatmg, post-p h' esultant of the predicatIOn of

. . mediately broken by t e Irony r»Because We Agree« - IS 1m

the text/image/tone combinations.

B'ld K'lno 1 1st ed. 1989. Frankfurt a. M.:Bewegungs- I. . ,

Suhrkamp, 1997, p. 73., (eng!.: Cinema 1: MovementImage. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1986110 Deleuze (as in note 9), 1997, p. 73.11 See Ursula Frohne, »That's the Only Now I Get: Immersion und Partizipation in Video Installationen", In: Gregor

-----------------

selon Deleuze. Weimar: Verlag der Bauhaus Universitat,1995. pp. 496 - 515. p.500.

B Spielmann 1995. p. 505 (as in note 7).

9 Gance experimented with triple projection. doubleexpOsures and poly-vision to intensify the sublime effectsof the images' simUltaneity. See Gilles Deleuze: Das

04 Bippus / Mollmann. Montage and Image Environments.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

of the image space.? With video, however, a culture of image agglomeration as well as of

networking through data threads and transportation routes in real-time _ characterized by

spatial concerns - is beginning to be propagated. Yvonne Spielmann met this development

with an expansion of the Deleuzian polarization of the perception of time/movement in

regard to the concept ofspace and introduces tbe notion ofthe »electronic montage«. The

digital possibilities ofstratifying or under-laying (inferring) images spatialize the temporal

principle of montage in video, shifting the image organization from the successive to thesimultaneous realization of numerous images on a single screen.

»The character of the analysis of formal questions, perception struc

tures and pictorial traditions in film [has] shifted to the space

time axis; indeed, supported by the Possibilities of electronic

montage, from the temporal factor (the principle of succession and

linear montage] to the spatial factor (the construction of filmic si

multaneous environments through stratifYing, inferring].«B

Since the mid-1980s, furthermore, the utilization ofprojectors bas enabled the construction

of video installations as spatially tangible displays, expanding the normal Screen image

into a three dimensional, occasionally unmanageable, environmental image. The concept of

simultaneous multiple-projection offilm images is not novel, having already been realized

in 1927 by Abel Gance in bis silent movie »Napoleon«, 9 but video technology has resulted

in it experiencing a widened proliferation in exhibition spaces. If it is true that Gance aimed

his visual rhythmicity at the soul of the spectator so as to confer »the psyche with a

perception of an entirety in a sensation of boundlessness and immeasurable_

ness«,10 then a tendency can be witnessed in contemporary video installations towards the

audiovisual envelopment ofthe spectator in the sense ofa bodily experienceable immersionwithin a pictorial environment. 11

The following reflections, as exemplified by three examples, open the topicality of the

term montage to debate. To begin with, we show how montage/collage as an artistically

and commercially appealing statement is bound to the flexible and casual characteristics

of video. Subsequently, we return to the commencement of the so-called »electronic

montage« within the context of art and, in conclusion, probe the immersive effects of

a narrative video installation. Video is deemed as a medium deploying genre-spanning

7 "The >concern about the connection of images,. theprimary interest of Godard. means that lone destroysthe concept of environment in favor of the concept oftime,,'. Jean·Luc Godard. quoted by Yvonne Spielmann."Digitalisierung: Zeitbild und Raumbild«. in: Oliver Fahleand Lorenz Engell (eds.l. Der Film bei Deleuze/Le cinema

{i

04 Bippus / M611mann. Montage and Image Envi~onments.

The categorically identifiable strength of the music video is based on the impression of

the authenticity of the message: Text, music and image of »Weil wir einverstanden sind«

assimilate one ofthe central ideas ofpunk, the laying claim to cultural dissidence through the

awareness ofan individual, personal style or dress code. Ironic agreement signalizes being

in the know. With premeditation, gestures of artistic autonomy (authorship, distribution,

target audience) are supplemented with gestures of subcultural work (cooperation, own

distribution system, alternative scene) without relinquishment of material and media

omnip~esence in adve~tising and music v~d~oS'c~itical potential [_]. its capab1l1ty

15 Graw (as in note 13\. 2000, p. 164.16 Spielmann las in note 7l. 1995, p. 509 f.

. d 's an illuminative,.' ta e »Weil wir einverstanden sm « I

As an exemplification of mon g f . t d film conJ'oins the manipulationsh 'd by means 0 anIma e ,

exceptional case because t .e VI eo,. .' ge of film

of photomontage with the kmetlc Ima .

. nvi~onments in

»The staged compart~entalizati:n :::::~: :~c:::~:a~IY overlap t~ans-which the presentat10n levels pp t [ ] The stratification

. tion of the mon age. -fo~ms the image organ1Za .' ·t of a shot [can] be

.' lities w1th1n one un1of two divergent f1lm1c rea . . f the montage shifts from

. d' ch a way that the 1nfe~r1ng 0perce1ve 1n su . . 16a linear to concu~rent image organ1zat1on.«

66 67

. h - Iso evidence of a.' ortedl obsolete technIques, t ere IS a .

In addition to this allusion to purp y £' d h'ch in :film in the transl-. .' lectronic montage to be ,oun WI,

creative pnnclple mherent to e . . . I h characterized as a transferal oftion from analogue to digital image edltmg, Sple mann as

temporal to environmental factors.

- - - - - - - - - modern art The video collage created by Smoczek

reflection, the touchstones ofautonomouS d' I't . f the photo and television images is. . f that the me la I y 0

policzek is self-reflectIve mso ar .' h . lip crenre (the extremely fast. . n aesthetic intnnsIc to t e musIC c <>

staged, and that VIdeo, via a .' h di m ofthese images. In terms. ) I itself be dlscerntble as t erne u .

edit to a mUSical rhythm, ets . h d' . To be the transmItter ofI . al function of t e me \Urn.

of content, the video fulfills the c asslC . 14 Smoczek policzek have given back thesignals for intentional and communIcative acts.

technique of the collage

»which. in face of its

nobody would still g~ant any

as an a~tistic language.«"

14 In this case we are following the definition supplied by JOrgen E. MOiler: »Consequently. a 'medium' would be embeddedin intentional narrative continuity. It is dialogic and semiotic inconception 1. .. 1«, MOiler las in note 12). 1994, p. 127.

13 Isabelle Graw. llDas steht in einem Verhaltnis. Uberdie Musikvideos von Smoczek und Policzek« published in:Texte zur Kunst. 37/10,2000. pp. 156 -171, p. 163 andp.170.

The expression of skepticism vis-a.-vis the work object already present in the material,

form and mediality of the modern collage was politicized and popularized by the Berliner

Dadaists, through the expansion to photomontage, for deployment as a radical critique of

social conditions in society. The utilization of this technique in a commercial music clip is

atypical and bestows the anachronistic modus operandi a new timeliness. Smoczek Policzek

spent the summer of 1998 on the production of their animated film. They constructed a

)shooting-box( with five separately lit levels, the lowest of which was a television monitor.

The individual frames of the background image material seen onscreen - consisting of

television sequences taken from fashion, religion, politics, military, pornography and

tourism - was steered by computer. The collage elements were laid out on the remaining

transparent intermediate levels and, where required, then shot in single frames with the

16mm camera. In this regard the procedure is based thoroughly on a figure-to-background

relationship. It is used initially to display the subculture milieu of the music group as

personified by friends, fans and supporters and then to situate the band members themselves

posing derisively amidst sociopolitical events. The music video updates the conventional

practices of animated film in that it maintains, via the photographic collage elements, a

traditional stipulation for the reproduction of reality while nonetheless playfully amending

its pictorial status as a document of antecedental reality via the technique of the animated

film. The enormous cadence ofthe frame rate is aimed against a coherent narration and thus

precludes, among other things, the regression into simple agitprop methodology. Smoczek

Policzek generate a nostalgic atmosphere in the video which restitutes the seemingly lost

referential connections of the medium content by »exhibiting [the g~oup' s subcul

tu~e scene as a) social connection« and, at the same time, »evidencing a medium

contingent vicissitude and t.ransience. «13 The topical connections to current history

(e.g., the train crash at Eschede, the death of Lady Diana, world economic summit, etc.)

experience a supplementary accentuation through their dissection into the image language

of the principle of collage.

und theoretische Zugange«, Vienna: Promedia 1992p. 671. ' ,

19 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, llFaust. Der Trag6diezwelter Tell«, Stuttgart: Reclam, 1986,

~4_B~p~u~ ~ ~6:1mann. ~o~t:g: and Image Envi~onments.

The 16mm film t k - - -. s oc was transferred onto Beta Cam vide . .

AVid editing table The film t' I 0 and slIghtly modIfied on an. rna ena was predominantly al d .

cannot speak ofa montage in the cla . I iiI . rea y cut In the camera, thus one. SSlca mlC sense. Howeve th . .

as a combInation ofdispa t. r, e pnnclple of montaaera e sensory Information doe h '"

in the rapid flood of images bl . . s nonet eless come into deploymentem ematlc of a vIdeo clip Th ' . .

the simultaneous spatial supe ' . . . e Image organIzatIOn, through. nmpOSItlOn and layerino- with' d' ffi .tmage levels and perspecti " In I erentlal and divergent. ves, generates a heterogeneous i 0- .

lInear narration. Per advent h" ma"e envIronment devoid ofure, t IS IS one of the wherefores b h' d . ,

as a music video within the laro-e d' t'b" e In ItS reticent reception" r IS n utlOns CIrcles versus 't .

contexts.17 I s receptIOn within cultural

Smoczek Policzek (Deborah Schamoni and UII' L' d-I In emann). at the 'collage·table, for '<Weil w' , .

"elnverstanden sind". 1998

Da~a Bi~nbaum - Pa~allel Envi~onments and Spaces ,In-Between,As an edItIng technique for video montage I

' was a ready 'bl'analogue, semi-professional U f 1 POSSI e In 197 I with the

-rna IC system. 8 Nonetheless an . .at a professional level with th 'I bI' ,expenmental Interaction. e avaI a e technical means 's fi t fi .Image processing Occurring in stud' . . . 1 rs ound In the 1980s in the. . lOS, UTIIVersltIes multimed' tud'InstItutions. By way of the rna' I bT .' la s lOS and other similar

nIpU a 1 Ity of the mdividual pixels, at further consideration,

17 Typically enough, "Weil wir einverstanden sind« was

not shown on MTV but rather at experimental film festivalsor, later, In cultural programs on public television.

18 Gerda Lampalzer, JJVideokunst. Historischer Oberblick

68 69

generated images are actually less assembled than combined. They generate in the pictorial

data stream a liquefaction and permeability of the montage's points of fracture and thus

follow the principle of >de-montage<. At today's highest technical level the transitions of

the assembled elements are hardly noticeable, wherewith the disclosure of the points of

fracture ceases to be a principle of montage.

Figure 06 Dara Birnbaum.llDamnation of Faust CharmingLandscape,« 1987. Courtesy ElectronicArts Intermix (EAI). New York

The American media artist Dara Birnbaum belongs to the first generation of those who

reflected and productively utilized the image reality of the mass media within their work.

In »Charming Landscape« (1987), the last part of her trilogy »The Damnation of Faust«,

Birnbaum superposed representational forms of both individual and collective memories

via a simple and apparently untouched image mixture. She is concerned, in her utilization

of the technique, with a consciousness about the handling of images. The title of the film

confers the allegorical awakening of the Goethean »Faust« in the »charming landscape«19

onto the urban redevelopment measures of the present day and the construction rubble of

a playground in Manhattan which, for the two narrators Pam and Georgeann, represents

memories of their youth. Their off-screen narration refers to the forlorn location. In the

course of the video, television recordings from the 1960s to the 1980s (showing scenes of

the US civil rights movement, ofan anti-Vietnam War demonstration and ofPeking Square

at the time of student demonstrations) are blended into the conversational sequences of the

two young women. Repeatedly, the gestural underscoring of the narrative with the hands

of the young women creates a formal connection to the images of protest. 80th narrative

levels are visible as a result ofthe image mixture. To evoke her topic of memory, Birnbaum

utilizes imaging procedures which are nowadays standard to any digital processing or

70 71

cuttino program' Slow mot" f''" . Ion 0 Image and audio, spatial effects through depth of focus

and/or out of focus shots, the inferring of image layers, zooming in to images, the merginoof Image Into Image. Through the combining of image levels, which is amalgamated wit:

flowing borders and wipes or separated by short blue insert shots B' b. . . , zrn aum generates a

plctonal environment that permits a correspondence between nonconcurrent events and

creates a visual presence of transitions which she in Interview 1995 all t .. " oca es an essential

status 10 the >reallife< between the images:

»The 'in-between, is ~eally the ~eall·ty we need to live in.«20

The obvious conclusion Birnbaum conveys is that social as well as personal utopias anddeSires can not only be db

conveye ut can also be manipulated through image media in thatshe presents the >authentic< documentary imaoe as an a t' I fi . .

" . '" r IC e or covenng other Images.For her, the utilIzatIOn of electronic montage is not a technical oimmick Rathe 't .t k' '" . r I alms

a rna 109 a statement about the relationship of reality to images, which she refe;s to via

the f1eet1Og, Interjected images layered like memories 21 She opens h b. . . sp eres etween theImages whIch are interwove d t th . .. 0 " n an , a e same time, divorced of each other. In video, suchIma",e combInatIOns construct narrative modes which resemble the . . I fand collaoe Th . . pr10clp es 0 montage

",. e process, however, IS neIther acquiescent to a postmodern image fIcompletely abdicative of narration. In a self-reflexive manner 't' h ow nor

. . . ' I IS muc more a narratIonas memory that IS 10 Itself being told.

Figu['e 07 SamTaylor-Wood. "AIlantic". 1997, Threelaser discs for threeprojection, duration: 10minutes 25 seconds. ©the artist. Courtesy JayJopling/White Cube.London

Sam Taylo~-Wood - Image Envi~onments / Envi~onment Images

In video installations, numerous artists have taken advantage of the technical development of

the beamer to expand the image space ofthe screen into a three dimensional environmental

image. Sam Taylor-Wood's video »Atlantic«, made in 1997, shows the events occurring in

the restaurant of the same name from three different angles. On the left wall, in close-up,

the face of a young girl is to be seen who is obviously angered, emotionally injured and

close to tears. To the right, male hands play nervously with a pack of cigarettes and a wine

glass. Between the two a full shot oftbe restaurant is to be seen. Despite the close-ups, their

conversation is not to be heard; the noises ofthe centrally displayed interior alone are audible.

The three shots run parallel to each other and, at any time, the observers can enter or exit

tbe events of the (infinite) loop. Through the tripartite presentation form Taylor-Wood, on

the one hand, abrogates from the axial alignment of the cinema screen while, on the other

band, she follows the style of a narrative technique of silent film - tbe so-called parallel

montage - to manufacture a narrative coherence. D. W Griffith initially developed this

process for »Intolerance« (1916) in which he alternately presented two concurrent narratives;

they instigated a heightened sense of drama through their rapid editing. The viewers were

induced to think along with the sequence being viewed and figure out themselves what had

occurred in the missing episode. This works when an extremely high narrative continuity is

maintained through, for example, a common goal in the mutual storylines or the presence

of an omniscient narrating entity.

Taylor- Wood takes up the montage technique of parallel narration but creates,

embedded in a uniform aural environment, a visual segmentation which the observers,

standing between close-up and full shot, must themselves put together. Unlike with her

panoramic 3600 photographs which display unrelated parallel narratives side-by-side, in

the video installation the common environment ofthe varied shots only becomes apparent

at second glance. On the audio level, Taylor- Wood evokes the impression that the viewer

is in the restaurant itself; that is to say, the environmental continuity and the integration

of the observer is initially ensured by the resonance of the background noises. To involve

the observer in the story Taylor- Wood steers the concentration to the gestures and facial

play of the two actors. The close-up of a face, a classic image of emotion, lends the entire

film an emotionalized reading. Even when the close-ups of hands and faces have different

meanings and effects, as Deleuze notes the close-up itselfhas the ability of »disengaging

the image f~om its spatial coo~dinates so as to display the pu~e emotion

in the exp~ession.«22

20 Hans-Ulrich Obrist, »Conversation with Oara Birnbaum", at: http://www.mip.al/de/dokumente.21 Joachim Paech. »Oas Bild zwischen den Bildern"publishedm: Joachim Paech (ed.I, Film. Fernsehen, Videound die Kunste. Strategien der Intermedialitat. Stuttgart:Metzler, 1994. pp. 163 - 178. In this paper, Paech presents

a collection of possible intermediate images. He describesthe »L'Entre-images" as »a paradox/cal location whereeverything is simultaneous." Paech. 19941as in ;his notel.p. 164, and rubncates editing techniques such as thecross-fade. the omission by jump-cut, the unmoving/stillImage or. finally, the electronic image which, knowing no

invisible image strokes between either the cadres or film.is. as matrix or mask. 'pure surface' instead. Paech 1994las in this notel. pp. 168 f.. p. 175.22 Oeleuze 1997 (as in note 91. p. 135.

04 Bippus I Mollmann. Montage and Image Envi~onments.- - - - - - - -

The room of suggestion - the cinema - and its narrative techniques are analyzed,

differentiated and charged by the video installation so as to supplement the cinematographic,

aesthetic and reflexive perception with the possibilities of participation and immersion. [n

the installation of three walls of video images Taylor-Wood interplays an analysis offilm

technique and a strategy of audiovisual subjugation. The filmic narrative pattern is shown

by means of a decontextualization of key scenes; nothing is said about the content of the

fictive drama. The axis of the gaze and relationship of the protagonists is maintained.

The image continuity typical of films in regard to the transition or alternation between

close-ups and full shots or shot/countershot is manufactured by the observer. Changes

of viewpoint and position are required to be able to grasp the setting in its entirety. [n

Taylor- Wood's installation, a cinematically trained perception of the observer is drafted

as an interface between the images. With his »Montage der Attraktionen« [Montage of

Attractions], Eisenstein constructed polarities for utilization in the popular cinema which

were supposed to lead to a tensing of muscles as an automatic reflex. Later, he refined

the functional mechanisms of his montage with psychologically founded shots utilizing

countermovement.23

The emotionally accentuated video installation of today isolates the

viewer and permits him or her to enter the image environment. [n »Atlantic«, the narrative

technique offilm becomes explicit in video: The postmodern medium video communicates

narratives in a non-linear process which first achieves articulation through the physical and

imaginative participation of the observer with the images.

Inte~p~etational Envi~onments

The videos introduced here, not only as multi-channel installations but also as single tapes,

escape easy interpretive accessibility. Fredric Jameson suggests a modified concept ofvideo

derived from the postmodern term >videotext< which, through sequentialism, superimposition

and intertextualism, strategically excludes the modern concept of autonomous work. 24

Conceivable is "an inte.rp.retation which puts the p.roduction p.rocess in the

fo.reg.round mo.re so than the message, meaning and content.«25

His intention here is to supply the mediality of video, representative of a concept of text

which makes the invisible visible through an image technology, with answers to the question

of the value of interpretation. The reading form itself becomes the subject matter. These

two aspects constitute the historically interesting moment of this type of text conception.

72 73

The structure of the videotext is characterized by an unrelenting, apparently coincidental

interplay of cultural symbols. For such a ".relationship between symbols [... ] we

[have] but highly app.roximate theo~etical models at hand. As a matte~ of

fact, it conce~ns the asce~tainment of a continuous flow o~ flood of multi

fa~ious mate~ials of which eve~y simila~ as well as abb~eviated signal can

be unde~stood as a specific type of na~~ation o~ fo~ a specific na~~ative

p~ocess. «26

Jameson attempts to avoid a textual semantic analysis in that he converts the production

process into the object of interpretation. Therewith he is reacting to the complex

amalgamation of market, distribution, advertising and production. Since the 1990s,

however, videos in particular have shown an intensified interest in the more or less

classical narrative structures. At the same time, some of them allow the relevance of the

environmental structuralization become conspicuous. This contains potentials for self

reflection, for bringing up for discussion the concept of the narrative in consideration of its

own historicity as well as the immersion and participation of the observer.

The iMediathek as an Image Atlas

[n our view, the spatial process is also notable as an interpretive process which promises

to transcend the interpretative self-limitations suggested by Fredric Jameson without

necessarily disemboguing into the dilemma of the parenthetic gestures of the commentary.

The digital preparation of video in the iMediathek permits the detailed analysis of

editing. This possibility could facilitate the automated dissection of videos into samples

comparable to those in electronic music. What effects this will have for future productions

or interpretations remains to be seen. Regarding to analysis, the dissection of video

material into its cuts would make exact information on the production processes possible.

The successive structure of video - if it is dissected into individual images/image series

- abdicates in favor of a spatial coexistence. Relationships which appear as subordinate

temporal coexistences could be made visible this way. This pictorial analytic process does not

have to remain confined to one video; rather, further (comparable) images could be imposed

at other levels. [mage constellations would become effective in parallel environments, in

stratification and superimposition which, as pictorial hypertextual structures, surpass the

possibilities supplied by commentary and documentary and/or historical material archives.

The interpretation narrates its story as well and thus opens new connection possibilities.

23 Confer to the open montage in the silent films of SergejEisenstein, cf. Mobius 1995 (as in note 11. p. 361 f.24 Jameson 1994 (as in note 4), p. 190.

25 Jameson 1994 (as in note 41, p. 211.26 Jameson 1994 (as in note 4). p. 200.

Translation: Bryin Abraham

Mona Schieren.

74 75

.. n er a matter of discrete objects (files, books, art»The archlve lS no 10 9 . 'f' places (libraries, museums,

) t ed and retrieved In specl lCworks, etc. s or . t of data without geogra-

h' is also a contlnuous s ream ,etc, J. Now the arc lve . t. tted and therefore without temporalphy or container, contlnuously ransml 5

. . available in the here and now).«restrlctlon (always. . a> roductive provisional arrangement<;

I Id like to discuss the Idea of the archIve as p .

wou .. as an accumulation process, that IS openin other words to interpret the process of archIvmg II'd An archive that becomes a place

d r expanded on a SI es.to the future and can be accesse 0 'thout elasticity or a tolerance for change, i.e. indexing,for storing and recordmg thmgs, WI .. 6 A It when developing an Internet

. . d l' fi in terms of Its usabIltty. s a resu ,has a ltmite I espan . h t d Iwith the issue ofpower structures,. 'th d mentary matenal, one as 0 eaarchive today WI ocu . f data material when creating and designing it.and consider the stratIficatIOn process 0

. h' . a documentary materials thatIn the following, I shall outline vanous ways °h

farc ;vm~ a role in the development of

. I l' P rticular factors WhICh ave p ayeare accessib e on me. a . B WhI'ch has initiated a study

U' 't >} the Arts remen,the iMediathek project at the nzversl yo I t I tform for teaching and researchto determine the prerequisites for a media art nterne p a

purposes, are considered. .. '1 b the fact that media art worksThe situation at present is charactenzed pnman y y b of the public with an

. . . ntists and researchers, nor to mem ersare neither acceSSIble to SCIe . d .. g additional information

. . The same holds true m regar S to acqumninterest m the subject. . k . distributed throughout the world deon the work and the artist. InformatIOn on the wor s IS or via various distribution

. b th artist himself, through a museum,centrally - either y e . d' t 'b tors do indeed offer Internet

eums and VIdeo art IS n uchannels. Though some mus d ences of the works. This is

latforms these often show only stills or lO-secon sequ

p , . ntation is especiaIly important for three reasons.inadequate. ExtenSIve docume . d d'a art in particular, researchers and curators

First of all, in the field of video an. me I . . ractice in other fieldsd t be able to see works in their entire length. ThIS IS common p .. d

nee 0 . . where students can refer to literature m a lIbrary, an seesuch as pamtmg, for example, d t' of the entire work. Although

f . t' a but a repro uc IOnnot only a smaIl fragment 0 a pam m

o, h II t first this can be deepened if the

. f h duction may seem s a ow a ,the impreSSIOn 0 t e repro h C f exhibition. In regard to media art, an., . I . d in a museum or ot er lorm 0ongmalls ater Viewe . d time _ the most important

. f l'ttl help Sound motion, anillustration in a catalogue IS 0 Ie. , . Th s artistic works which utilizeC ffil.m and video - are withheld from the VIewer. uleatures 0

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Media sto~age. On Documenting and A~chiving

Media A~t

According to its etymological roots the term >archive< is derived from the Greek archeion,

meaning government building, public authority, or office. The archontes were members

of the municipal authorities who occupied these buildings. These citizens were granted

the right to enforce or represent the law. Given their publicly recognized authority, one

deposited official documents with them at home (the citizens ofthe municipality would bring

personal official documents to their homes.). ln this respect the archontes were the keepers

and guaranteed the physical safety of the documents and their owners. As Derrida pointed

out, they also had the power to interpret the archives. 3 Here too, the archives themselves

can be thought of as an institution of power. ln this context, WOlfgang Ernst states that

archives»are characterized by the arbitrariness of the way they are selected

and the discreet addressability of their elements«.4 The power structures that

determine the content of archives are changing in the face of developments in technology

and ways of archiving. 1n particular there has been a shift in the localization and thus

the accessibility of archives. Geoffrey Batchen made a trenchant remark on the subject:

When questioning how media art can be documented and archived, allowing installations

that are often temporary and site-specific to remain accessible at a later date, especially

for study and research purposes, the first question that arises is, >what is it that constitutes

a work of art<. In addition to video material - be it analogue or digital _ the manner of

presentation plays a decisive role in how even one-channel works are perceived. The use of

different media, as well as the place and manner in which the work is displayed, can have

a dramatic effect on the context of the work, therefore the perception of the work ofart can

be subject to change. Thus, the task of documenting media art is a task of translation. In

Walter Benjamin sunderstanding ofthe term, the aim is to develop a form ofdocumentation

»which produces in it the echo of the original.« What Benjamin describes as the

»essential core of that which is so determined and which itself cannot be

translated «1 should be communicated as a trace. As such, the trace gives presence to the

non-present. The reference only becomes a trace when it is read as a trace. The reading of

the trace manifests in a manner, which in hindsight, becomes the cause of the trace.2

Suchtraces are collected in the archive.

1 Walter Benjamin: »The Task of the Translator«, in: ibid.Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn, Glasgow: Jonathan Cape,1979, p. 76.

2 See Sybille Kramer: »Das Medium ZWischen Zeichen undSpur«, in: Gisela Fehrmann, Erika Linz, Cornelia Epping-Jager leds.), Spuren LektOren. Praktiken des Symbolischen,

Munich: Fink Verlag, 2005, pp. 153 - 166.

3 Jacques Derrida: Oem Archiv Verschrieben. Eine Freudsche Impression. Berlin: Brinkmann +Bose 1997, p. 11.

4 Wolfgang Ernst: »Archive im Obergang«, in: Beatricevon Bismarck et al. (eds.), interarchive. Archivarische Praktiken und Handlungsraume im zeitgenossischen Kunstfeld

/ Archival Practices and Sites in the Contemporary Field,Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig, 2002,

pp. 137 -146, here p. 140. ...5 Geoffrey Batchen: »The Art of Archlvlng<~, In: Deep .Storage, Collecting, Storing, and ArchiVing In Art, Munich /New York: Prestel: 1998, pp. 46 - 49, p. 47.

6 Anika Heusermann, Gesine Markel, Karin Pratorius:»Ablegen unter ,endgOltig vorlaufig«<, In: Interarchlve2002(as in note 41. pp. 227 - 229, p. 228.

. f the work that plays a considerable role here, but alsoIt is not only the documentatIOn o. . th espective context in which the- and even more so in the case of mstallatlOns - e r

documentation appears: .. I here' Video installations are set up in differentFI'rst of all the spatial context IS crucla . a

. ber of parameters as. hibition The respectIve room sets anum

roomds deP::~nng a~:i:~::: not inst~ll their works themselves they generally make known

boun ary. k' b' et up In some cases the curator. b .dered when the wor IS emg s .which polOtS must e consl h k'n their respective presentation

. h d B t whatever the case, t e wor s Iis also gIven a free an. u . ffi t Even the way a single channel video

d· I h very dIfferent e ec.contexts will accor 109 y ave a .. h monitor or projected with

. d d nt on whether It IS S own on awork comes across IS epen ellSto those engaaed in scientificbrAs th is is of areat interest to curators as we a <> d

a eame. <> tion would not only be welcome, but is also long over ue.research, careful documenta f t t'on intended by the artist as

. d t the style 0 presen a IIt is essentIal here to ocumen. . h' h the work has unfolded over the course

.ffi t I of presentatIOn In w ICwell as the dl erent s yes . t d Only a few organizations,

I the first step IS execu e .of time. Frequently, however, on y . . ar means of archiving

such as art video distributors and univerSItIes, puhrsue thltesn~::::rc~ on the other hand,

. f d t t'on and researc resu . ,and administratIOn 0 ocumen a I. 'fi methodological consideration and

k to the next wIthout specI cprogresses from one wor f h ther this type of data conservation allows the reuse ofwithout consldenng the Issue 0 w e

the works or even their further distribution. 8

76 77

- - - - available to those looking for a work, particularly those thatof non-lInear paths should be . fi" fi m After all the aim of such

. th ork 10 a de mtlve or . ,resist the attempt to want to regIster e w h and serve as a temporary materiala database is to present the documents, to collect t em. .

b t eadinas of media art in various dImenSIOns.depot for su sequen r <>

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -05 Mona Schiecen. Media stocage.- - - - - - - - -

these media fail to be given in-depth analysis due to the lack of material- despite theirincreasing significance in exhibitions and general discussion.

Secondly, extensive documentation would considerably facilitate both the curatorial work in

preparation for exhibitions, as well as the research of media specialists and art historians.

Finally, since the »institution that is ad,'? - as termed by Peter Burger _ is

becoming increasingly global in nature, I consider it particularly important to create a

structure which makes media works accessible to an international public as well. The

presentation of media works in exhibitions, at festivals, in the press and academicjournals

is, as a rule, still characterized by a western Eurocentric view. It is important to open

and qualify this perspective, by making the material and its supplementary information

more widely accessible. Without a doubt, the economic interests of galleries and art video

distributors also playa decisive role here. Central examples of media art in Eastern Europe

are, for example, known only to a few specialists in the west. For historical and political

reasons in the history ofmedia art, which is essentially recorded from a western perspective,

such >eastern artists< are still under-represented. When eastern and western perspectives

are combined, an expanded picture of European media art since the 1960s can be created,

which may possibly lead to a re-writing of the history of media art from both eastern andwestern points of view.

What should be taken into account when c~eating an a~chive?

To begin with, one needs to ask who the target audience for the archive is. Should the

information be for specialists, or should it be geared towards students and an interested

lay public? If copyright material is available, access should be controlled and ifnecessary

restricted. In this context it is possible to set up limited access by means of login processes.

It may also make sense to allow for different access levels on one platform.

8 See Alain Depocas, "Digital Preservation: Recordingthe Recording", in: Gerfried Stocker, Christine Schopfleds.l, Takeover. who's doing the art of tomorrow, Ars

It is important to emphasize the point that we are only dealing with a documentation of

media art and not the art work itself. If a video work created in U-Matic is digitalized,

for example, in MPEG 4 format, the work has a completely different feel to it. As such,

documentation is always a form of interpretation because it selects, repeats, translates

and copies the original work. In my opinion, a successful documentation should follow a

structure which allows as many different approaches to the work as possible. However it ispertinent then to ask; what form can this take?

All documentation media have their specific qualities: photos, description, drawings!

blueprints, sound recordings, 3D models, and film documentations. For this reason, a variety

7 See Peter BOrger. Theory of the avant-garde.Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. 1984.

h ~ of the a~chivist . b'lT e powe .. h h'ving power structures functIOn, 01 sThe question posed at the begmnmg as to ow arc I

estion of who possesses the authority to add content. .down to the qu . . hich necessarily involves evaluatmg

The archivist selects material and categonzes It,w. t f definition.. .. nd cate orization also inherently mvolves an ac 0It. As such, archlvmg a g .. I d present in an archive as what

. I th t is not archIved IS always a rea yHowever, even matena a h' . t d I with this powerful decision-making. . I ded How can the arc IVIS eais mlssmg, or exc u . h 't rl'a on which s!he bases the

? F' t b makina known t e cn eosition in a productive way. Irs, y <> •

:election. Second, by incorporating participatory models for producmg content.

Electronica. Vienna / New York: Springer Verlag 2001. pp.334 - 339. p. 335.

78 79- - - - - - - - -05 Mona Schieren. Media storage.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ---

. . the same time, archive editors can appear in web blogsa wide vanety of perspecttves. At mentary on existin

amaterial

k' th subject known Moreover, com b

and forums as hosts, rna mh

ge desired Ini~iallY the information submitted would onlyId h I expand the arc Ive, as . h

cou e p . . . d rd't In-depth research toget erb hecked by editors for its plausibility an va I I y.have to e c

with specialists could then follow as a second step.

.. 0 ush forward the process - which has come inThe iMediathek research project mtends t p d' 9 I this context, it has established a

the form ofa range of initiatives for archlvmg me la art'h

n el video works in their entiretymodel for discussion, which, as afirst step, shows one-c ann

as well as providing a variety of additional informatIOn.

-- ..---O'iE lATHE

Figure 01 iMediathek - List of Work

The history ofvideo art is comparatively young, and there are many who criticize archivists

for lacking historical distance from their subject matter. Interpretations develop through

art critique, but rarely with historical analysis. This frequently results paradoxically in a

total lack of archiving being undertaken at all. Although, if, one waits until the historical

distance is >great enough< the tapes are sticky and important witnesses are no longer

available. The first step in remedying this is to collect material and Sources from as wide

a base as possible, and make them as accessible as possible. The artists selected should, in

my opinion, be choosen by archivists or an appointed jury, who should make their selection

criteria known. This way, a shared editorial system can be used which offers archivists, users

and possible witnesses the chance to contribute to the archive content. This would qualify

the decision-making power of the archivists. In contrast to the classic top-down models,

in which selection is hierarchical, a bottom-up model could introduce an interesting mode

of documentation. In line with the idea of an open archive outlined at the beginning, the

documentation should grow and change. However, it would cost a lot of time and resources

to thoroughly inspect this material. One could imagine different modes of documentation:

on the one hand >assured< data and on the other, a kind ofpin-board platform, which allows

....._.

Figure 02 iMediathek - Artistpage

h' b st~uctu~ed?

How can an a~c ~ve e h as search 'structures and indexing, determine the way theOrgantzatlOn systems, suc . th works to be cateaorized m a

. 't f s involved also require e b

material is read. The mstl u Ion . nt when decidina

how to. d this factor should be taken Into accou b

comprehensible manner, an ... d to create an archive. Furthermore,clear! define the procedures and selectIOn cntena use . .

. . y ortant that the database features an optional and integrative structure.It IS Imp

9 See for example. http://www.mediaartnet.org/. hltp:

II h· 2 nil hltp://www.variablemedla.net. Medlen-arc Ive.v. . . Ih· 235 Media Kiiln http://www.exqulse.org .kunstarc IV. .

hltp://www.eai.org/. http://catalogue.montevideo.nl!andvarious other art video distributors.

05 Mona Schieren. Media storage.

The importance of featuring an optional manner in which to structure the archived

contents lies in providing sufficient opportunity for the addition of supplemental elements,

which in turn would enable the possibility offurther links. The importance of establishing

an integrative approach to structuring the information, is that this approach would enable

the archive's contents to be integrated into meta-structures. On the technical level it is

imperative to choose compatible formats for the storage of documents. Additionally,

it is important to select a data structure beforehand which can be integrated into other

structures.

Metadata

Metadata describes what information is to be interpreted, and in what manner this

information is to be interpreted. The digital >drawers< should be labeled. For processing the

metadata there exist sound concepts such as Dublin Core, the Open Archive Initiative or the

Thesaurus for Media Art, which was developed by v_ 2, Institute for unstable media. 1o

SeaL'ch L'outines

The elementary interfaces for a database are its search mechanisms and catalogue.

>Browsing< in a real space archive can be imitated by listing the documents available in

the archive. Furthermore, a full text search enables a broad-based search. To date, the

logo-centric indexing in the style oflibrary systems (OPAC) is still prevalent among search

possibilities. Digital archives, which also house and/incorporate audio visual material,

offer the option of an image-based image or acoustic-based sound search.11 At present

iMediathek, in cooperation with the Center for Computing Technologies (TZI) of the

University ofBremen, are evaluating these search methods. The aim is to find images in

this mass of data by inputting self-drafted drawings or image samples. In the case of the

acoustic-based sound search the sounds which have been imputed are compared to and

selected from the respective video files. Broad-scale implementation is in part still a future

scenario; nevertheless, one could imagine completely new methods of research for a larger

variety of users, especially for found footage. 12 There remains, however, one limitation;.

»Dnly that which can be computed can enter this beautiful new world of the

Inter[net) aL'chive, eveL'ything else has to remain outside this Cybernetic

door.«13

Given the short life-span of the works' storage media and the new information technology,

institutions such as >museum<, >library<, >archive< and >documentation center< will inevitably

80 81

. D . 14 The aim behind this is to networkh redicted by Alam epocas.

move closer toget er, as P . d' for differentiated research. The. ..' h b creatlllg the foun atlons

the various InItiatIVes, t ere y ..' phases and perspectival.' . dia art archIves with vanous em

collective vlewlllg of vanous me . h' h orks can be read in differentd' a t picture to emerge, III W IC W

interests enables a lver",en .' . I Id be a rhizome-like hyper-archive,'ffi f t d thlllklllg The Idea wou

ways, allowing for dl eren 18 e . . . k be viewed and further cross-f d' 'ndlvldual wor scan

from which the various ways 0 rea Illg 1

links developed.

Translation: Jeremy Gaines

10 See http://dublincore.org/. http://www.v2.nl. http://www.openarchives.org/.11 See Wolfgang Ernst. las in note 41. p. 141.12 Claus Pias proposes as an attempt to analyze andcompare images using automatic image recognition pro-

cesses. See Claus Pias: »Maschinen/lesbar. Darstellungund Deutung mit Computern«, in: Matthias Bruhn led.1.Darstellung und .Deutung. Abbilder der Kunstgeschichte,Weimar: VDG-Verlag, 2000, pp. 125 -144.13 Wolfgang Ernst. las in note 41. p. 141.

14 Alain Depocas, las in note 81. p. 335.

Lydia Haustein.

Global Icons82 83

»The distinction between astp ,present and future is only an l'll .

Albert Einste' h 100 . USlon«.the In, w ose . th annIversary we are celebrating these days, in cOnjunction with

50th annIversary of his theory of relativity, challenged us at the beginnincr of the ?Oth

mceondtuelrSYatodabandon Euclidean causal concepts also in cultural studies. Howe:er vari~ble

n concepts asi· 'hI' ' n quantum physIcs, cannot be transferred easily. Yet theye p us questIOn our own wa f th' k' , may

of i '. ys 0 In lng, once we explore potentially non-linear processesmage generatIOn, which are characterized by overlapping structures. 1

Figuce 01 and 02 Abu GhraibTorture Photo, 2004, Fernando Boter~,Abu Ghraib, 2005

The »Global Icons« research project is based on our studies of images, undertaken in the

last 10 years, on a global scale, on many trips all over the continents of the world. If you

travel Asia, Latin America, or Africa, you realize the growing number of images, no matter

where you go. These are, mostly, the visual experience of the other, introduced within the

framework of contemporary image communication. In some cultures they remain alien

implants, or they change the forms of traditional views. The vital impact of images follows

the traveler at every turn. He/she is surprised to witness, how even the poorest handle in the

most self-confident way the insignia offashion, advertising, and pop culture, Young people,

in particular, choose their personal style from international icons, or wear Western brands,

like the masks or >tribal insignia< of the past. They no longer perform their >masked dance<

at sunny clearings or in remote niches of the jungle, but in more or less improvised dance

halls or cyber cafes in Berlin, Bejing, Lima, Accra, Laos, Lagos, Yaunde, Cusco, or Addis

Abeba. The >virtual< world of the subway system in Tokyo is an entire, incredible cosmos

of images. It is an >underworld<, where the >tribes< of pop, of the manga world, HipHop,

or media images translate into fashion meet.

Abu Ghl.'aib

:~::::::;~~::::::;:~::;;~,:::::i::t:;::~,:::::j:::::'::::t::i~:;;:.Y:::'2~~~"ar urg anticipated many Innovative ways to examine the imacre and he k .

would have to take a farewell of th j' '" , new that we· e Inear concept of progress. He was amon h fi

to discuss culture as overpowered by the d' h . g t erst· me la t rough the magIc of the imag h h

studied the pictorial language of Italian Re . e, w en enalssance art, and later, when he be an t

up new fields of exploration. In the COurse of his studies he focused o' g 0 opentInImage SOurces e g

:::nas~~::~:'o~rao:::;:~s:;::~sh~::~a:::~:e;::~;ng, i,e, objects, which had not nor~a;l;Like Warburg in his time '.

· 3 ' ' we are witnesSing today an era characterized by fault lineconflicts. Different economic, political, and cultural tensions lead to wars of ima

cr: ~nhd

more than language esc . ",es, w IC ,

the Internet first of ~Il, a::::~:r~:~~:alor epistemological premise, We have looked at. e enormous speed In the generation and exchancr

of popular Images, which refer to the patterns of art history ad' . ",ere-reflection in the arts. ' n vice versa, I.e. their

I should l'k t l' 'leo Imlt myself to the presentation ofa few highll'ghts ofo h'

h' h d ur researc project: SIC

U' ue to cdontemporary identity issues, image, media, and globalization theories canno;

mmanze In one thesis only. ,

They all influence the highly codified iconic languages of modern Japanese photography

and media art, like we know them in the West from the works produced by Kyupi/Kyupi,

Moriko Mori, Araki, Yasumasa Morimura, or Hitoshi Nomura. In the lounges of international

airports, when traveling the country, on political posters, on TV, in museums, magazines,

or movie theaters: wherever you look, you recognize usable materials of a swelling stream

of images, which affects also the real encounter of human beings. Sometimes, the sphere

of the iconic informs the biased opinions about the other, or conceals the major differences

between urban and rural areas in Latin America, Asia, or Africa. The current tribalization

of European societies, as the French ethnographer Marc Auge says, has progressed

sufficiently, so that science should turn the ethnological glance of the past, and look at

itself. The public mise-en-scene selects, along with traditional motifs, kitsch and colorful

>stereotypes of exoticism< in a careless way, which flood in particular African and Latin

American tourism markets. The fictional >traditional< Latin America in official institutions

and air-conditioned shopping malls in Sao Paolo, Rio, Salvador do Bahia, Caracas, and

Lima contradicts, thus, the culturally diffuse worlds in between, produced by syncretistic

and Afro-Brazilian civilizations.

Our thesis was informed by the immediate experience ofan almost anarchical use of images,

less by theory, and holds that the images, which circulate globally at great speed carry

increasingly transnational discourses. Ifideas and images are transported around the globe

1 David Bodanis, Bis Einstein kam. Die abenteuerlicheSuche nach dem Geheimnis der Welt. Stuttgart, 2001. See p125 t., see also in this respect Ruth Lewin Sime, Lise Meitne;.

Ein LebenHir die Physik, Frankfurt a. M.: Insel Verlag, 2001.2 Yoshrhrko Markumas, Der Begritt der Kultur beiWarburg, Nietzsche und Burckhardt, Stuttgart, 1984.

3 Ulrich Raulff, Wilde Energien. Vier Versuche zu AbyWarburg. GOllingen: Wall stein Verlag, 2003.

06 Lydia Haustein. Global Icons.84 85

Figure 06 Andrea Mantegna,The Lamentation over Dead Chflst,

1490

Figure 05 Freddy Alborta, Corpse of Ernesto Che Guevara, 1967

These images we call icons, and their core cannot be grasped semanticallY· ~e have. h to understand their mtnnslc

mentioned the global diffusion of icons. But IS t ere a way . ?

double aspect of symbolization and representation at different sites. .th ost important means to prove historical accuracy, are bemg

Place and space, once em, 'ndreplaced by a media aura, which establishes virtual sites of memory, Its Images seize a

whelm us co<>nitively and emotionally. Thus, the question needs to be asked the other

over d' Wha"'t do these ima<>es do to us? Theoretician Edward Soja in his draft ofway roun - '" It .

stmodern <>eo<>raphies says that today it is easier to understand time than space: » lS

~:theD the"'sp:ce than the time, which Demains hidden i~ its cons~quences,DatheD the making of geogDaphy, than the making of h1StODY, Wh1Ch makes

ee the pDactical and theoDetical wODld. TheDe. we expeDience the s~tesus s t b lie expDess10nas icons (GDound ZeDo). not as DepDesentation, bu as sym 0 '

which establishes a distance fDom the usual and centDalized appDo~ch, ~hein oDdeD to summaDize the phenomena, 1S be1ng

sociological patteDn we use, , 1deteDmined by the divide of physical space and the teDDitoDY of SOC1a

. We rna well use the concept of a myth heDe, and say that theexpeD1ence, y f limitlessness.ational myths of limits aDe being Deplaced by the myth 0

n . s as a centDal facetThe iconic and emotional peDspective of these 1mages map, 5

1,' nd the fundament of the stDuctuDe of soc1ety,«the De 19lous a

Figure 07 Zbigniew Libera, Che,Next Exposure (Positive Series),

2003

Figure 04 Candice Breit!, Babel Series, 1999

like goods, they change and shape the iconic memory of an ever younger audience/public.

We must see, however, that the producers of images are but a few major media trusts, which

ultimately control the images of mass cultures.4 Like Bill Gates and his Corbis agency

they secure on a global and large scale copyrights of pictures, in order to subsequently

play the keys of the media in perfection, and according to their interests. Video artist

Candice Breitz in her works »Babel Series« and »Karaoke« reminds us that the >We are

the world< universalism puts more at stake than global consumption, which dilutes social

values with perfect advertising. Artists, who focus on the relationship of perception and

visibility, enlighten - in margin between the beginning of a new era of technology in the

1960s, symbolized by the icon of the landing on the moon, and the icon of the destruction

of the Twin Towers on September II - the social morphologies of the realities perceived

in the 21 st century.

Special images among the multitude of the ones which incessantly enter our awareness

are being highlighted in the globalization discourses. They seem to concentrate in a kind

of contemporary media cult freely flowing opinions, texts, and ideologies of a potentially

inexhaustible media universe. They communicate their message not only in contents, but via

an >aura<. They are catalysts ofglobal iconic streams, and, thus, penetrate different worlds,

which are normally separated by the walls of mutual ignorance and lack of understanding

(icons of9/11). They appeal to the subconscious, not only in terms of what they show, but

also in they way they show it. These images of memories, in particular, bring back the old

iconic magic, which returns so to speak through the backdoor. It is, however, difficult to

say, how they originate, what or who renders them significant in the fabric of local and

global horizons. They often seem magical because ofthe practices that constitute the image,

and, in particular, through the interaction with other images (Che Guevara, Jesus Christ).

Their magic cannot be grasped in an ontological approach. More than what they carry

generates their magical status. Unlike the cult icon this is not about the production of the

presence of a figure, an object, or a thing in the image, but about the production ofongoing

remembrance via the image.

4 See Johnathan Crary, »Modernizing Vision", in: HalFoster led.), Vision and Visuality. Seattle: Ray Press, 1989. 5 Ian Hacking: Was heiBt >soziale Konstruktion?' Frankfurt

a.M.: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. 1999. especially chapter 4.

06 Lydia Haustein. Global Icons.86 87

Since we witness these processes, we realize that cultural tradition is not continuously

perpetuated by a conscious process of building tradition. Instead, we observe special

activities in the interstices of cultures, which Aby Warburg was the first to mention. The

steady transition and blend he labeled >i mpure discontinuities< inspi red the enormous image

atlas he produced in 1924. It is an atlas of the collective memory of images, which covers

Ghana

The influence of cinemas in Africa, for example, and the booming ofa domestic video film

industry in Ghana, Cameroon, and Nigeria, which, incidentally, we have come to be aware of

only recently, go hand in hand with this media experience. Non-western media-makers use

what they deem typical western themes, and use them in their own stories, like the Nigerian

version of the »Titanic« movie, which recycles scenes taken from the American production

in a locally adjusted remake. The mythical character of the narration and spectacular special

effects of the Hollywood movie remain unchanged, and just have to be complemented by

adequate regional actors.

Figure 10 Movieposter from Ghana

insist on the experience of a dynamic media change, which fundamentally irritates co

existence. In spite ofthe fact that the digital global network facilitates and diversifies cultural

exchange, our world has not been characterized by better mutual understanding. The analysis

ofthe technology-driven transformation ofculture and the issue of the historicity ofpresent

times, which is significant in every civilization, has become an important theme in the arts,

in particular in Arab states and in Africa. The fact that masked dancers and video artists

can live in the same place, and show their works, provokes in a special way the old question

of the »synchronicity of the asynchronous«. Video and media art, in particular, follow a

technologically modified world, and shape it at the same time. They visualize in a very clear

way the great dichotomy of the >real< world and all kinds ofrepresentations.

Figure 08 Kalam Patua. "Nine· Eleven for Breakfast". 2001

Figure 09 Anonymous Islamist Handy logo

The more difficult it is to reach the images the mo th '.d . ' re ey encourage Identity-building

an combm~ dreams and wishes of women and men. Even more so there, where they ar~read as special signs ofbelonging. They shift meaning from material to imaginary objects

and, thus, set ~p a dense network of images in the collective memory. In conjunction wit~the media environment they produce a global mnemonic system. A necessary implication

are new forms of memory culture, brought about by the shift of attention of the culturalmemory from concrete to »digital sites of memory«.

Contemporary arts are in this situation unique seismooraphs ofthe d'k . '" noma IC aspects of

nowledge production and the transformation processes Ab m b .. ' y"ar urgonce called >memlc

waves<. :helr faces, forms and functions ofexpression in the cultures are multi-layered, and

the multI-perspectIve approach is the only way to understand and explain them.

The artists help us understand that the visual concept ofglobal"t' I .b .'. I Y IS no onger determlDed

y POI.ltlcal symbols and rItuals, which aim at the establishment ofidentity, but by a concreteselectIOn of Images from ever d d II b' '.h . 0 '. y ay an a ut mnocent ICOntC narratives. The question,c:

wIma",es, ~s media without alternatives, shape the mutual concepts ofcultures in media

des, or natlO.ns work on the mise-en-scene of their self-images, includes the question

::en:ernmg

their Impact. Artists,. therefore, present experimental set-ups, which show that

. norm.o.us ~Iurahsm ofpotenttal perceptions ofthe world can neither be determined b a

slDgle clvlhzatlOn, nor be considered from a one-dimensional perspective. They, therefo~e,

- - - -the West and the E t d" - - - - - - -

as ,an It IS Warburg's attem t to re '.symbolic structures of passionat . p present the IConIC formulas and'. e excitement and their cultural . '.

tOPiCS and migrations It is f th ' geographic, and historIcal. . ,ur ermore, the qualitative . .Images, namely the developme t f . processIng of hIs memory of

n 0 a topologIcal and th .set up along the two major axes f" ematlc structure, which is being

o >orIentatIOn< and >expre' Habout 80 large-format panels w'th b '. SSIOn<. e uses, for this purpose,

I a out 1,000 plctonaI dlevels ofquality, which are beina sh' ft d . ocuments from 2,500 years, at all

'" I e around In a never endin .the somewhat wordy title of M . g process. HIs work bears

» nemosyne. A Picture Serie E "Preconditioned Antiquity-Relat dE' s xamInIng the Function of

expressIve Values for th P .in the Art ofthe European Re' 6' . e reSentation of Eventful Life

nalssance«. HIs Idea or objectivor an encyclopedia or reservoir of' b e was, by no means, quantity,

Images, ut rather the contrar I h' .to find the structure of imaaes th t Id' y. n IS Image atlas he tried

. '" a wou tngger the best qual't dwhich were to visualize the c f . I yan utmost associations

on lilUIng existence ofAntiquity and the c b . 'urn ersome genesis

Figu['e 11 Aby Warburg.»Mnemosyne Atlas«. 1929

6 See the introduction of Martin Warnke, Claudia Srink(eds.), Der Sllderatias Mnemosyne, Serlin: Akad .Verlag, 2000. emle

88 89

of Renaissance culture. Correspondingly, and with reference to the associative character

be wanted to achieve, he grouped motifs from many different cultural spheres around an

imaginary or iconographic center. According to his own words, the atlas was to show the

struggle of our own and alien images. He aimed at the visualization of an anthropological

fundamental mood; a mood, Erwin Panofsky or Pierre Bourdieu would call the habitus

of an epoch. The atlas is much more than a documentation, interpretation, or knowledge.

In the collection of presentations, affects, and emotions, the atlas becomes the treasury or

chamber of miracles of the cultural memory.

When we asked in the course of the study project, what are the circumstances in which

contemporary transcultural migrations of images take place, we discovered Aby Warburg's

metapher ofthe >image vehicles<. They were, according to him, the results ofthe technological

innovations ofhis time. The railway, or electricity, were, he thought, determining factors in

the acceleration of cultural processes. Given the increased »dynamics of the global traffic

of images and signs«, Warburg became interested in the most modern media of his time,

e.g. the air mail stamp, He considered it to be the >technical vehicle<, capable offacilitating

the transatlantic migration routes of the images. For Warburg, the >image vehicle< was a

powerful carrier of cultural information, which contributed in a decisive way to the visual

translation of global image flows. The acceleration of the vehicles in modernity produced

images, which like the images in the transition from Antiquity to the Renaissance lead

the beholder beyond his own experience or recollection of images of his overall culture.

Warburg saw the emergence of a socialization of the imaginary in what we would rather

label media socialization today.

In his attempt to conceive the Mnemosyne Atlas as a »laboratory of the history of

images« and »virtual machine of the memory«, Warburg acknowledged the importance of

a close alliance of word and image. The great number of notes he made, when designing

the atlas, reveal, however, the unease he felt with respect to his own, always ambivalent

drafts of a relationship of word and image. Works of art were efficient images for Warburg.

To recognize them meant to look through them and discover more profound layers, the

very shaping of the values they meant to express, which made their transformation to

different images a transparent process. Works of art wanted to convey a message, which

had to be released in the first place. Warburg distinguished this process from the solution

of picture puzzles. We can only decipher the images by following them along the paths of

their historical effects. Then, they tell us their message almost by themselves. Warburg,

thus, thinks that it is grotesque to neglect the imaginary structure of the image memory

for the benefit of the formal aspects of the art, without asking about the human contents,

06 Lydia Haustein. Global Icons.

as expressed in the forms: »Futhermore, I truly felt disgusted by the aesthe

tization of art history. The formal approach concerning the image without

an understanding of the necessity to see it as a product between religion

and art seemed futile to me.«

The »expansion of the boundaries« of art history in cultural studies results in the loss of

privileges of autonomous art. Warburg argues in favor of a radical opening of the corpus

of sources (like New Historicism and cultural studies today). In the library diary we see,

how the atlas becomes the mirror to reflect the very movements of the images, and the

order they establish and re-establish by following the tension of their energy, their charge

and discharge. The whole undertaking seems to remind us of an act of protest against the

superficial approach in understanding cultures, against the weakening power of traditions,

and the images, which have shaped it. The energetic vocabulary Warburg introduced in the

theory of symbols was the extraordinary invocation of the power of the images, a radical

rejection of anything made to just please and insinuate consciousness. Warburg enjoyed

the triumph, when he was able to prove, by means of a female figure in flowing robes on a

stamp, which disclosed the traces ofa Maenade, that even the most banal images encompass

the traces of age-old determination (Pipilotti Rist). His nymphs are a >dynamogram<,

however, not according to a fixed semantic formula, which may be quoted, but in terms of

an energetic scheme of action, which includes a major spectrum of iconic variations and

semantic potential, ranging from the Maenades, Judith, and Salome to the female gol f player

ofmodernity. In these »series of images« the atlas demonstrates, how the mnemosyne, which

seizes the whole body, works on its migration through the almost underground regions of

the works that shape the value expressions of the soul. Totally convinced that each work of

art is not only an expression of the form and narrative intended by the author, but a carrier

of the ambivalent, individual, and all-cultural subconscious, he re-establishes the context of

the images. He reflects on the transformation of»primitive cultural stereotypes«, and turns

to his new God, the collective imaginary. The tools Warburg uses to analyze the »dynamism

of the transmission of images« in a differentiated way, which we have roughly sketched

here, have to be further developed, because each translation of differing visualities bears

the risk of leveling the differences in the global cultural space. Warburg's >dialectic< or

>ambiguous< >Prage-Bilder< [shaping images] are in the global multimedia communication,

in economic globalization, and political supra-nationalization, in the multimedia of our

times parts and segments ofthe same dynamics of the global media space, which once and

for many years penetrated the historical narrations of images.

90 91

Figure 13 Pipilotti Rist. Ever isOverall. Video I Performance. 1997

Figure 12 Erika Sell·Schopp.

German Golfer. 1929

. . roO ect on Warburg and the visual mise-en-

In the question ~e raise I:I:~:::::;:::o:t:aditional global perception of the culturalscene ofcultural Identity, we n '" . t cific images in a

tion of communication, which transpor s speheritage, but to the percep II II thl's an oscillation between tradition

. h' t I way We may we cavertical, mstead ofa onzon a· d k' d f I'nner cultural core of identity,

. . b' t tured aroun a m 0and the future, which IS emg s ruc. 1" of the imaae. I should rather

. r from maaic and theoretical construc Ions '" .and gets Its powe '" 'd ., tabilize them for a certain penod

. h which construct I entities, sdiscuss cultural Images ere, . . ' d ths If the cultural

. . ersa com letely dissolve traditIOnal Images an my . .of time, or, vice v , P . d' and information technologies,

Ory switches from classical sites of memory to me la~m .~ d

I' a s are not lost but remiorce .

the m:~i::~:::~~:v::c~:~:~erlt::~Orld, together'with the generation of images of the new~. . ' moria i e the erasing of images, which is bemg accompanle

the exceSSive damnatlO me , . . . I Idwide fiaht aaainst temporary. f!"1" allmaaes Cu tures wor '" '"

by the excessive recyclmg 0 po I IC "'. 'b' f' mposed cultural memoriesamnesia, markers determined by others, and the attn utlOn 0 I

based on vested interests.

- - - -In view ofthis stage ofdynamic information and communication techn . - - -

Castells coined the term of the th' d' d" ologles, ManuelIr In ustnal revolutIOn which h h d

unprecedented way He d 'b ' as c ange culture in an. escn es ever new ae h' h

loops constantly new visual innovations wh' °h :res, w IC produce in so-called feedback

of living. In the everyday ima h" IC ecome an essentIal element ofglobal waysge arc Ives of the feedback 10 .

images they generate a medium of the civil societ I . ops or osmotic movements of

are central, they are not being understood in all CUl~' n sPlthe of the fact that these images

D k ures In t e same way You fi d D lduc even on the walls of H" b II h' . nona

IZZ 0 a schools In complete hrecruit martyrs. This motif's d ' armony next to posters to

I a goo example to show that th a' '.

has gone a long way in people's minds al d ,eoenuInely Amencan Iconrea y, a new melanae comes int b .

equalization: Donald Duck =Childhood. 0 0 eIng, and a new

Figu['e 14 Shadi Ghadirian, "Domesticlife«, 2002

Figu['e 15 Anonymous Internet Montage,Tailban Barbie

The next aspect I should like to tackle is the formatio ....machines are virulent in particular there wh . n ofpolItIcal IdentIty. Image. , ere economIC supenor't h 11 . .ISsues in societies dominated b I" . I Yc a enges Identity

y re IglOn In an unprecedented I .movement the newl emer '. way. n a kind of COunter-

y gIng Arab media have discovered the local d" .Source of a new national identity d a' . . ImenSlon as the mainSimultaneously we find inno t"' an olve specIal emphasIs to the religious perspective.

The »GlobaIIco' . va lve pOsItIOns of female artists from Islamic societies.ns« prOject wants to set d" I

field it is meant to be a kind of "up a 19lta atlas, and in view of this comprehensivecompass tor other scientists b m k' a .

materials available in order to all "b . .' y a Ino a global collectIOn of, ow tor etter onentatlOn on a I

Its open structure furthermore enables each h . comp ex cultural territory.researc er to mclude hIS data into the existing

7 See Michael Diers, Schlagbilder. Zur politischenIkonographie der Gegenwart: Frankfurt a. M.: FischerTaschenbuch Verlag, 1996.

92 93

web. The atlas is, thus, much more than a digital data bank, based on an encyclopedic

tradition of thought. There, where Warburg wanted to make visible the contexts of the

>Schlagbilder< [striking imagesF between two or more interlinked >topics<, he structured

his atlas as an >overall framework< ofan extended description in cultural studies, thanks to

which he could trace the »suJ:viving shaping poweJ: of the expJ:essive values of

Antiquity in EUJ:opean cultuJ:e«. He aimed at flexibility, which was the major challenge

he had to meet. Instinctively, Warburg understood that he had to avoid any reference to

rigid frames, because they would reduce the great flexibility of his >topic maps<. The

structure he chose characterizes his >work in progress< as an important »testimony of

the AvantgaJ:de«, as George Didi-Huberman would call it'? Once you rediscover Warburg's

>conceptuallandscapes< [Begriffslandschaften] in digital >topic maps<, you may use them,

in a figurative sense, to navigate and structure greater volumes of information. This is,

declaredly, the intention of the project I have presented to you so far. You will understand

why we - like Warburg - tend to apply the mapping procedure, and neglect the dimension

of >time in history<. Warburg, furthermore, invites us to read culture as a field of force of

psycho-energetic vectors, which oscillate within frequencies that go beyond history and

form transitory clusters of heterogeneous cultural elements.

It is true: icons, like images, establish symbolic registers and set up a formal structure

of the latter. Roland Barthes, in his studies on photography, distinguishes studium and

punctum; studium is the conventionally readable sense, the text; punctum is the truly

convincing aspect, the magic of the image, Warburg spoke of. 8 Since each perception of an

image is, first of all, an individual event, activating your brain and nervous system, brain

research and its contribution to the understanding of its fundamental conditions is of major

importance in image studies.

According to a fundamental thesis, the brain, which memorizes and structures images,

does not proceed in series, but in a parallel approach. A whole range ofperceptive elements

is being perceived and located simultaneously, which is different from technical systems,

e.g. computers, which process data only by means of a special software. Correspondingly,

we tried to conceive the atlas by thinking different types of data in terms of serial data

molecules. Since our way ofstructuring the image is based on the model ofbrain and nervous

systems, where each perception of the image consists of the simultaneous intake of many

different elements of perception, we want to admit synchronicity and stress the possibility

ofcontradictory observations. The image atlas does not contain data and images, which are

stored in individual memories and can be retrieved ifneeded, but a network-like structure of

8 See George Didi·Huberman, Vor einem Bild, Munich /Vienna: Hanser 2000, p. 200.

06 Lydia Haustein. Global Icons.

added contents, links, texts, and thousands oflinked images, which become at least visible,

when you touch the entries. Contemporary, highly complex >topic maps< are, thus, visible,

but they can also be read, as in Warburg's first drafts, as atlasses in terms of plates.

The net-shaped rhizomatic structure of the atlas allows for an orientation in different

directions, and is, therefore, different from a working field with accurate limits. Individual

and complex networks and layerings in the entries may be projected in different ways, as

in the limbic system of the brain: extremely emotional experiences of the language of the

images become virulent. The issue of classification and categorization in iconic thinking,

the possibility to psychologically cope with visual and acoustic phenomena, which trigger

deep emotions, Warburg focused and insisted on, and we will certainly have to deal with

them for a long time to come.

The open structure ofthe »Global Icons« database is meant to produce hubs of information

flows, where scholars working on similar problems, inspired by similar epistemological

interests, may well >dock on<. The individual selects the >links<, and the track of >tradi

tional< research will remain a viable option. Warburg, too, admitted that he was faced with

thematic maelstroms, junctions, and unstable connections, when he tried to solve the riddle

of the images.

Translation: Lilian-Astrid Geese

9 Lecture by Dieter Mersch. held at the Bauhaus-University Weimar. Published in an extended version in:Gernot Biihme. Dieter Mersch {eds.l. Wort. Bild. Ton.ModaliUiten des Darstellens. Munich. 2002.

94 95

Dieter Daniels.

Thle same applies to the history of technology, incidentally. Photoaraphy and the ele t .

te earaph we did 0 c flCo . re eve ope by several inventors at the same time around 1840 A d G h

Bell regIstered his patent for the telephone on 14 February 1876 onI h' n ra amcompetitor Elisha Gray. y two ours before hIs

tThhere is a kind ofprofessional malaise in art history: it is always trying to find the absolute

every begInnIna e a th fi b . ,"» '0' erst a stract pIcture the first absolute fil . d'd 'm,or In eed the first

a~t VI eo.:ut art does not develop like that: abstraction emerged simultaneously in several

~::::: aurope

around 1910. A decade later, Walter Ruttmann, Viking Eggeling, Marcel

b. p nd Hans Richter were working on so-called absolute films, usually without

eIng aware of each other.

In the case of video art t h' , .'d . ,ar Istory s savIOur seems to be the history of technoloay' an

art VI eo could not eXIst without a video recorder - so here at least it must be pos:b;e to

fix a defimte start In relation to the production medium But th '.(pre-)histor ofwhat w . . . e opposIte IS the case: thework y . e now call vIdeo art begIns, as can be read in almost all the standard

s, around 1963, In other words two years before the first Sony VCRs were available

~am June Pmk and Wolf Vostell are mentioned as competitors here in almost all texts whe~ISCUSSIng the questIOn »who was the first?«2

This essay presents the results of my research about this period of b a' .

1963 results that . eoInnIngs around, surpflsed me as well. Artists start workina wI'th tele ". .k b . 0 VISIOn Imaaes wIth

remar a Ie sImultaneity around 1962 _ 64 b 0

section Hence the . . ' as can e seen from the examples in the nextt I .... term video art IS not appropriate here either, it is about the electronic

a:t~:li:on Image and ItS power as a mass medium. This also applies to the early years of

. work wIth vIdeo, whIle throughout the 1960s television was usually the reference

POInt. ThIS IS borne out by the titles of the first major exhibitions in 1969' »TV .medlUm« (Howard W' G . as a creatIve

lse allery New York) and »Vision and Television« (Rose Art Museum,

4 Umberto Eco, Das offene Kunstwerk, Frankfurt a. M.:Suhrkamp, 1977, p. 211 (Umberto Eco, »The Open Work".trans: Anna Cacogni. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press 19891.

George Brecht (19591: Dieter Daniels (as in note 1) p. 22and p. 43, note. 28, engl: p. 31 and p. 66, note 28.3 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media. The Extension of Man, London/New York: Routledge, an imprint ofTaylor & Francis Books Ltd., 2001 (first 1964), p. 351.

In 1963, Umberto Eco devoted the conclusion of his book about the »open work of art« to

television experiences with live broadcasts, where he sees a structural relationship with the

non-predetermined >open< art forms of his day. An artistic >alienation< of live TV seems

like a »surprising break in passive attention, as a challenge to judgement

- OL' at least as an incentive towards liberation from the seductive power

of television. ,,4 Here he is precisely formulating the aims that artists were soon to be

trying out practically with their TV experiments.

Before I start looking at the individual artists and works in the early 1960s I would like to

refer briefly to the intellectual context of contemporary media theory. Here too the social

influence of television is a key theme, and media theory came into being at almost the same

time as the artistic positions presented here. Marshall McLuhan prophesied that the audio

visual media would bring about the end of the Gutenberg age in »Understanding Media« in

1964. This thesis made him a media star in his own right, and he was able to illustrate and

give evidence for it in his frequent radio and television appearances. He made some bold

parallels with art: according to McLuhan, the mosaic image of the TV screen demands that

viewers take an active role when viewing - just as modern art does. »TV is the Bauhaus

pL'ogram of design and living, or the Montessori educational strategy, given

total technological extension and commeL'cial sponsorship. The aggressive

lunge of artistic stL'ategy foL' the remaking of Western media has, via TV,

become a vulgar sprawl and an overwhelming splurge in AmeL'ican life.«3

Waltham/MA) and the magazine Art in America called its special issue »TV - The next

Medium« for this reason. Gerry Schum's »Fernsehgalerie« (Television Gallery) had its first

broadcast in 1969 as well, and in the USA the program created by artists »The Medium

is the Medium« was broadcast on WHGB-TV. So in the late 60s as well things happened

surprisingly at the same time, as was also the case for the period around 1963, which is to

be investigated below.

96 97

Like the commercial American and the public European media systems, these two theories

cast art in different roles: for McLuhan, media-technical progress essentially defines the

development of art, in that it makes new presentation forms feasible that had hitherto been

available only to artists' imaginations. But for Eco, art offers a model for a self-determined

alternative to possession by the power ofthe media. This difference is typical ofthe different

views of television in the USA and Europe, which also characterize artistic approaches.

as

1963,

1990s .1

a~ound

Frieling, D.ieter Daniels, Medien Kunst Netz 1: Medienkunstlm Uberblick/Media Art Net 1: Survey of Media ArtVienna/New York: Springer Verlag, 2004 and online: http'.//www medienkunstnetz de/themen/medrenkunst rm .ueberbllck/massenmedlen/)

2. There were some artistic attempts to work with teleVIsion even in the 1950s, cf. for Lucio Fontana (1952) and

Befo~e and afte~ video a~t- Television

a subject and mate~ial fo~ a~t

and a glance at net a~t since the

1 Thisessay is based on the previously published essayTelevIsion - art or anti-art? Conftict and co-operationbetween the avant-garde and the mass media in the1960s/70s; it should not be read as identical with the

ear/I.er piece, but as a Meta Text. sharpened in terms of itstheSIS, relating to the period of the 1960s/1970s, whichwas comprehensively researched there. (See: Rudolf

r

07 Diete~ Daniels. Befo~e and afte~ video ad.98 99

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Figure 02 Paik and Karl Otto Gatz with the Kuba TV at the »Exposition of Music, Electronic Television« 1963 (Photo:

Manfred Level

The most eminent example is Paik 's first major exhibition »Exposition of Music - Electronic

Television«. It took place from II to 20 March 1963 in the Wuppertal architect Jiihrling's

private Ga/erie Parnass. The title alone shows the transition from Paik the musician to Paik

the pictorial artist. The exhibition was distributed all over the building and even spilled over

into the private rooms. Visitors at the time often took scant notice of the room containing

12 modified TV sets. Paik had worked on these second-hand televisions of different makes

and ages for over a year in his studio so that the public could manipulate the TV image

while it was running _ thus demonstrating his Utopia of »participation TV« for the first

time. He kept these experiments under wraps until the exhibition, well aware that an idea

like this can easily be stolen.

Ill'\,

c~.

'. ""

;......., .-.. IIt· ...

ectronic television;

: (1) ~~ -a.. CO~ (1) c:cal-

.el CO~=~~~~~

~o~~rt;~~/ArtJstICColl."".~.~-.JT omas SchmitJ Frank Trowbridg

~~.o':l". Tee Gunther Schmitzv'- ,Zenzen

u.........•~ ..

...................~~~!:~~~.l7~~ttJr~~1..~ .

Paik's Participation TV

I: Examples of aetistic television woeks 1962 - 1964

Figure 01 Nam June Paik, Invitation forthe »Exposition of Music, Electronic Television«, 1963 The complex project also included: four prepared pianos, several disc and tape installations,

mechanical sound objects and a freshly slaughtered o,,'s head above the entrance. The

exhibition was open for 10 days only, for two hours in the evening from half past seven to

07 Diete~ Daniels. 8efo~e and afte~ video a~t.- - - - - - - - - - 100 101

Vostell's first public show of TV works took place from 22 May to 8 June 1963 in New

York, only two months after Paik's Wuppertal project - and undoubtedly more strategically

located in the world-renowned art metropolis. The exhibition, similarly to Paik 's, consisted

of several sections, which Vostelliists as follows: ,,6 television sets with vadous

p~og~ams / the pictu~e is decollaged. 6 fusions / pots with plastic ae~o

planes that melt in the heat - 6 g~illed chickens on a canvas / to be eaten

halfpast nine. "P~actically no one but the padicipants' f~iends came to the

opening. and almost no one at all on the othe~ evenings", Tomas Schmit reported;

he had been involved in the show's installation.5 Even so, this exhibition's twenty hour

lifespan made 1963 into zero hour for the history ofvideo art - and that is true even though

no video equipment was used here. Paik once confided in me that the evening opening times

were intended to fit in with the times at which the then only German television channel

was broadcast, as that was the only time an image, albeit modified, could be seen on the

TV sets.6

This shows how important these experiments, scarcely acknowledged by visitorsand the press, were for Paik himself.

Figure 05 Tom Wesselmann, "Stillile#28", 1963

by the public f~om the pictu~e - 6 Chicken 1ncubato~s / on canvas / the

chicken should hatch on the day of the exhibition - eve~yone ~eceives an

ampou1e of liquid he can use to smudge magazines. ,,7 The said ampoule of solvents

was handed out to visitors at the opening, and photographs show that this offer of »Do it

yourself De-collage« of magazines hanging on the wall was enthusiastically received.

Research usually concentrates on juxtaposing Paik and Vostell, but this contrast can be

placed in a different context by other examples. Some of the following works have been

familiar for some time, others are trouvailles from my own research.

Tom Wesselmann

Much has been written about the question of priority for Paik or Vostell. 8 Ultimately Vostell

has his own somewhat exaggerated assertions to thank for the fact that he usually comes

off badly in the eyes of progressive critics. He once said: ,,1 am the fi~st a~tist in

the wo~ld who has been using television sets fo!' images since 1958. ,,9 And

yet he did some important things, and some unique things as well: the Happening» ein

- 9 Decollagen«, for example, which was organized as a bus trip, also in 1963, but now in

Wuppertal. Participants were taken into a cinema where a film showing a TV-Decollage

was running, accompanied by howling sirens, while people lay motionless on the floor of

the cinema. This film, »Sun in your head«, can count as the first artistic work using recorded

moving television images.

Figure 04 WoIIVostel/, "TV Burial", 1963(photo: Peter Moore)

Vostell's TV Decollage

Figure 03 Wall Vostell, "Television Decol/age". 1963

5 Tomas Schmit, "Exposition 01 Music". in: Nam JunePaik, Werke 1946 - 76. Cologne: Kiilnischer Kunstverein1976. p. 67

6 Conversation.between the author and Paik, New York 1999.7 Otto F. Walter/Helmut Heissenbuttel (ed.), Vostell, Happe.ning & Leben, Neuwied/Berlin: Luchterhand, 1970, p. 293.

8 Edith Decker has undertaken a great deal 01 researchon the question 01 Paik - Vostell priority, and it reads likean artistic thriller. CI. Edith Decker, Paik. Video, Cologne:

DuMont, 198B.9 Interview with Vostell in 1977 in: William Furlong, AudioArts. Leipzig 1992. p. 64.

Ce'sar also uses a television set sculpturally in his piece »TeIevision« in 1962. He strips a

h" d Withtelevision of its casing and places it on a scrap sculpture. The whole t mg IS covere

hood with holes for the aerial, loudspeaker and operating knobs. The Idea oftheaperspex , , . h . 't fready-made is transferred to the wonders of modern civilization, entirely m t e spm 0

Pierre Restany's »Nouveau Realisme manifesto«.

07 Dieter Daniels. Before and after video art.

Tom Wesselmann built working TV sets into some of his Pop Art paintings in 1962/63.

The best known is the 1963 »Still Life # 28«. The picture is crammed with American

symbolism, and the portrait of President Lincoln on the wall relates to the topical events on

the screen. Wesselmann shows television as part of American everyday life, as something

that people do not watch with close attention, but that is on in the background and is just

as much part of the interior as the furniture and the pictures on the wall. Even then there

were several programs being broadcast all day in the USA, so that Wessel mann's image

almost always )worksc This is the only example of a TV program being integrated into a

work of art unaltered, as a readymade, and Wesselmann does so without any Utopian or

critical counter-designs.

Gunther Uecker

Figure 06 Gunther Uecker, »Nailed TV", 1963,

In the same year, 1963, Giinther Uecker processed a TV set, »TV 1963«, by covering it with

nails - over-nailing - as well as painting it white. The object is part of an exhibition called

»Sintflut der Nagel« (Great Flood of Nails) in which Uecker over-nailed all the furniture in

a living-room. A TV broadcast by the Hessischer Rundfunk accompanying the exhibition

showed Uecker buying the brand-new television set, and then subjecting this valuable object

to artistic treatment.10 Thus television as a consumer fetish becomes an object reminiscent

of primitive rituals, of the kind found in African nail fetishes, for example.

Cesar

102 103

Figure 07 Cesar ICesar8aldaccinil. »Television", 1962

10 Exhibition in Rochus Kowallek's »d" gallery, Frankfurt1963, Uecker says that he produced three processed televisions at this time, and also a piano. Using the principle of

nailing over them, and in some cases painting them whiteas well.lUecker in a telephone conversation with theauthor on 20.8.1996),

07 Dieter Daniels. Before and after video art.104 105

Isidore Isou

Figuce 08 Isidore Isou. nLa television dechiquetee ou I'anti-cretinisation«. (nJagged Television or Anti-Cretinization«),1962. reconstruction 1989

A TV object by Isidore Isou, the founder of lettrism, dates from the same year, 1962; it

is called: »La television dechiquetee ou l'anti-cretinisation«. (The jagged television or

anti-cretinization). Lettrism is a movement that has been somewhat unjustly forgotten.

In the early 1950s, it anticipated many developments that did not occur until the 1960s in

conceptual and inter-media art. Isou proclaimed the destruction ofthe film in 1951, actually

implementing this with a montage film and thus causing the scandal that brought the young

Guy Debord to lettrism.11 The movement was best known for lettrist hypergraphics, a set

of meaningless signs that anticipated the development of comics and advertising in many

ways. In his TV object, Isou puts a template of such hypergraphic elements over the screen.

This simple gesture makes the TV screen into a reservoir of constantly new signs, created

by overlapping the hypergraphic matrix and the moving image. A key fact is that both Cesar

and Isou exhibited their TV objects in Paris in March 1962.12

Figuce 11 KarlGerstner: stills from thefilm demonstrating Autovi

sion.1964

Figuce 10 KarlGerstner nAuto-Vision«,1964. detail: Wavy Lens.Concentric Prisms.

Figuce 09 KarlGerstner nAuto-Vision«.

1964.

p. 224 f. Gfeller provides a comprehensively researched

account of Gerstner's TV works.13 Quoted in: Johannes Gfeller. nFruhes Video in derSchweiz«. in: Georges-Bloch. Jahrbuch des Kunstgeschichtlichen Seminars der Universitiit Zurich. 1997.

The Swiss artist, graphic designer and advertising expert Karl Gerstner changed the TV

. . a much more complex visual way. He developed various models of his »Auto-Image 1D . . d' ff from television:V·' from 1962/63' "The name identlfles the l erenceISlon« . . tl Fthe aim is not to broadcast programs, but to create programs dlrec y. ~r

this we use daily television programs that are abstracted through ~ ,palr

f t les an d alienated to the point of being non-representatlonal,-o spec ac ( , . I ). , t n the process13 These >spectacles( in moulded perspex (Plexlg as ,IS Gerstner s commen 0 .

related to Op Art, can be swapped around, and each pair creates a different effect.

Karl Gerstner

TV-Objekt was also shown in Paris in March 1962 in thenAntagonismes II-I'objet« exhibition at the Musee desArts Decoratifs. Decker 1988 (as in note 81. p. 48, p.57shows that Vostell visited this show and saw Cesar's TVobject there.

11 For the lettrist films and their pioneering role see GreilMarcus. Lipstick Traces. Von Dada bis Punk, Reinbek: Rowohlt. 1996. p. 312 If.; Roberto Ohrt. Phantom Avantgarde.Hamburg: Edition Nautilus 1990. p. 27 ft.12 Isou's TV object nwas shown in the Paris Museum ofModern Art and then destroyed.« Jean-Paul Curtay (ed.l.Lettrism and Hypergraphics - The Unknown Avant-Garde.1949 - 1985. New York: Franklin Furnace. 1985 Cesars

106 10707 Dieter Daniels. Before and after video art.

Figure 13 Edward Kienholz. "Instant On«. 1964.

photography: Lee Friedlander, Dennis Hopper LTV is also a subject for photography. Also in 1963, the American photographer ee

Friedlander examined the relationship between the television screen.and the domest::.' . . 15 A d in the same year the actor and artist DenniS Hopp

intenor m a senes of pictures. n TVphotographed the »Kennedy Suite« series, which focuses even more sharply on the

screen as a principal theme.

Inhis 1964 sculpture »Instant on«, based on a portable television, Kienholz provides a critlic~1

. . . h . us year The tit e IS. fTV' of John F. Kennedy's assassmatlOn m t e prevlo .analysIs 0 Images .

ambi uous: it describes the new TV technology which manages without the old warmmg up

. gd I' red by valves _ and also stands for direct participatIOn via TV m current worldpeno requ . h h k

. the on/off switch on the object to switch on a hg. t t at rna esevents So viewers can use d

. . h' Thus spectators are rna e. f the "atal shot at Kennedy appear m the crosS airs.an Image 0 L, . ' d' 14

into co-culprits symbolically, sharing the marksman's perspectIve via a mass me \Urn.

Figure 12 Paul Thek. excerpt fromthe series "Television/Analyzation«.1963. (Photo: D. James Deel

I will single out just Paul Thek as a representative for representing television in painting

or collages. He painted perhaps the most lucid and radical picture of this kind in 1963 in

his »Television Analyzations« series, in which the box completely fills the canvas with a

detail of a face.

Painting: Paul Thek

TV ~ep~esentations in painting, photog~aphy, object a~t and action a~t

As well as the pieces that integrate or manipulate the television as a functioning object, there

are of course numerous examples of television appearing in painting and also providing a

subject for photography, object art, and action art.

The object, put together with designer perfection, would have fitted in well at the time Object: Edward Kienholz

with progressive home design a la Verner Panton. But Gerstner is not just interested in

superficial effects. He explains in an elaborate film including a demonstration of the work

that he sees his »direct program creation method« as a substitute for manipulating images

digitally, which the computer could not do at that time. Two working examples of »Auto

Vision« have survived, unlike Paik 's and VosteU's early TV works, which have disappeared,

but tbey have been largely ignored in the history of video art.

14 See Lars Blunck. Between Object & Event. Partzipationskunst zwischen Mythos und Teilhabe. Weimar:VDG-Verlag. 2003. p. 189.

15 See Lee Friedlander. The little screens. San Francisco:

Fraenkel Gallery. 2001.

07 Dieter Daniels. Before and after vI'deo- - - - art.

Action Art

F'19uce 14 Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg. »Livin with P .

department store, DUsseldorf gop. A Demonstration for Capitalist Realism« 1963'. , ma

Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg staged »Leben mit Po' .Kapitalistischen Realismus« (L" . h p. EIne DemonstratIOn fUr den

IVIng WIt Pop AD'a Diisseldorffurniture store in 1963 Th .' emonstratIOn for Capitalist Realism) in

. e artIsts themselves s't t' Ifurniture »like sculpture 1 mo IOn ess on the available

s on pedestals their t 1 .creased to give a sense f b . ' na ura dIstances apart in-

a elng on show« 16 The t I " .the news punctually at 8 p math . .' e eVlslon IS also on, Showing

, ., s e actIon begIns.

In the 1963 happening »Push and Pull«, Allan Kaprow also invi " .arrangement with a tele " h . tes VISItors Into a furniture

VISIon s OWIng a program in it but h '.themselves to create new constellations. ' ere It IS up to the visitors

III Theses

The central thesis arising from these examples is: The hi "by the technological history ofth d' f . . .stor

yofmedIa art IS not prescribed

erne Ia. I the tIme IS npe D b' .until the media industry prov'd th . h' or a su ~ect, artIsts do not wait

1 es e ng t eqUIpment for th 0up methods and resources in order to"" I em. n the contrary, they take

,ormu ate their st ta ements - by processing the media

16 Concept of the action. in: Gerhard Richter. Text Frank-furt a. M.: Insel Verlag. 1994. p. 15. .

108 109

material both really (realistically) and symbolically (and in the case of television this is in

fact happening surprisingly late). The range extends from the modified TV set via film,

photography, object and painting and on to action, even before video becomes available as

a medium from 1965.

Rather than a source of Utopian hope, most 1960s artists saw television as unduly powerful

and as an objective for attacks whose widespread media effect made the pictorial world of

art seem insignificant. And yet there were an astonishing number of attempts to redefine

television, and there are various approaches to demonstrate this, going back well before

the beginning of video art. Here distinctions can be made between:

- Firstly the critical and aggressive positions (Vostell, Isou, Uecker) aimed at destroying

the media apparatus. The domestic television set is used as a representative-vicitim for an

attack on the entire system of television as a broadcasting institution.

- Secondly the neutral and contemplative approach (Wesselmann, Cesar, Friedlander,

Richter/Lueg), which accepts the running program as an unchangeable fact and places it in

the context of its own image-finding process.

- Thirdly the constructive-productive method, represented above all by Gerstner and Paik.

They design models for work with the electronic image as artistic material, which already

point forward to later video and computer art. Paik in the first and only artist to intervene

in the electronics at this stage, so that an image can be formed at source. His vision is: »As

collage technique replaced oil-paint, the cathode ray tube will replace

the canvas. «17 And Paik is the only artist named here who then worked consistently with

video from 1965.

The synchronicity with which artists started to work with television as a medium in 1962/63

remains surprising. One key fact is that the artists started to work with TV on the basis of

different genres:

- Paik comes from music, Vostell and Wesse/mann from painting, Cesar, Uecker and Kienho/z

see the TV above all as a sculptural object, Gerstner uses it as a source of optical signals,

lsou's starting points are film and literature. The new medium is at a point of intersection

between the traditional disciplines. So the artistic >re-conquest< of television is nothing less

than the start ofvideo art fixated on one medium - it is at the point of intersection of the new

interdisciplinary direction taken in the 1960s, working towards removing the boundaries

between genres and the cultural institutions linked with that.

17 Nam June Paik. »Electronic Videorecorder«,flyer from 1965, reprinted in: Rudolf Frieling/Daniels,Media Art Action. The 19605 and 1970s in Germany,Vienna/New York: Springer Verlag, 1997, pp. 130 -131.

07 Dieter Daniels. Before and after video- _ _ _ art.

IV Pa~allels with net a~t

Finally I would like to leap forward to the 1990sad. .net art Th .. n examIne parallels wIth the history of

. . e same mistaken Judgement is being made about net art as was made about vide

:~t~:::::II: a:i~: not come into being until the introduction of the Internet and above al~d. Web. Thus for the time beIng It becomes the latest <>enre defined by

me mm, the first one being video art in its day. '" a

This is relatively easy to dis rove thr <> .t I .. P ou",h the almost thirty-year history ofe ecommunIcatlOn art h· h .

'. W IC was USIng electronic networks as early as the 1970s. Andthe early 1990s saw projects like »The Thing« or »Handshake« whO h ha . I fi . .. ' IC saw t emselves as

:oCIa art orm, stIll functIOnIng independently of the Internet technically, put alreadyan IClpatIng the Idea of a networked community.

The great difference is that the Net is seen as something in its Own right as an a tmedmm for self-creation _ h·1 1 .. ' u onomous

.. w Ie te eVlSlOn confronts artists around 1963 as the total Oth

so:ethIng allen, that they have no influence on at first. In fact, as a result ofthe boom in t:~

fiml ndInetles, the Internet was to develop into a mass medium of this kind in which art I.Sorce on to the peri h Th· .. '

from 1995 At fiP ery. IS monopolIzatIOn became the subject ofartistic net criticism. rans ormatIOn of this kind fro U· .

direction in the 1960s h.d m topla to DystopIa took place in the reverse., . : w en VI eo technology seemed to make the idea of autonomou

created artIsts teleVIsIOn viable from 1965. sly

This brings me finally to the extent to which such art can be documented As I h hearl TV . . ave SOwn

Y. art IS comprehensible only in the context of the specific state of develo ment 'televIsIOn. ThIs IS demonstrated by the fact that Paik' WI. . . P offi s upperta exhibitIOn was only 0 enor two hours a day because of the thi G b. P

wit . n erman roadcastIng program - and in contrasth thIS, Wesselmann's American TV still II· fie bl

. was a e to run all day A I h . .difference between Europe and the USA· I .. . s ave said, thISby U. b E IS a so mIrrored In contemporary media theories

m erto co and McLuhan.

The greatest common feature with net art in the early 1990s lies in this dependence fr

Ocofnthtext, and It IS comprehensible only against the background ofthe ultra-rapid developm::

e associated medIa A . t I·k .. proJec I e »The ThIng« emer<>ed in 1991 If d fi .

co .. '" as a se - e nIn<>mmullicatlOn communit b d '"y eyon all control. Then from the mid 1990

Artworks are t b d s, many Neto e un erstood only as criticism of control and commercialization of the

110 111

Internet. (E.g. >>http://www.antworten.de<< by Holger Friese and Max Kossatz 1997 and

»Oump your Trash« by Blank&Jeron and Heath Bunting's»_readme (Own, Be Owned or

Remain Invisible)«, both dating from 1998.) Like the TV interventions of the early 1960s,

they do not so much create media works, but model media modifications, responding to the

overall situation of the realation between medium and society. The question of the extent

to which such art can be documented is thus not restricted to the work as such, but would

actually have to reflect on the context of the medium at this time and on its social functions.

Rather than mentioning the site-specificity that is usual in art history, here we can speak of

time-specificity for these works, which change their meaning and their mode offunctioning

crucially through the rapid development of their media surroundings. This also applies

incidentally to the above-mentioned television works, which relate to a particular situation

in the medium: a linear perception which took place at the time without program zapping, a

simple pictorial language, without electronic experiments, but with slow editing sequences.

In addition, the technical manipulations that Paik carried out would no longer work for

today's TV sets. But all the works named would show a completely different sequence of

images with today's television programs.

Finally I would like to ask that terms like video art or net art should always be used as tools,

and not as genre concepts. Unfortunately it is often forgotten that these terms are auxiliary

constructions, trying to describe an artistic approach by means of a technical category. The

following paradox shows how stubborn such coined terms are: today from a technical point

of view, video as a medium has long been subsumed in a digital-multimedia context. In

artistic terms, almost nobody would like to be called a >video artist< anymore, because you

are either a media artist or a fine artist who occasionally works with video. But it is only

now that (still so-called) video art is celebrating success on the art market - and it is only

now becoming acceptable in art history as a subject for academic seminars and writings.

But ifone considers artists' dealings with the electronic image as a leitmotif from 1962 to

the present day, then perhaps >video art< never existed.

Translation: Michael Robinson

Katharina Ammann.112 113

Dan G~aham's Designs ro~ Video P~esentations:

A.rt, Commenta.ry and Solution

the same time. My analysis will be preceded by some preliminary remarks on the special

circumstances of presenting video within the context of exhibition operations in an art

institution.

In what follows the issue of presenting video will be examined from different angles,

starting from Dan Graham's »Three Linked Cubes/Interior Design for Space Showing

Videos« (1986). On the one hand investigating this example will illustrate the problem

of documentation by way of an exemplary attempt at reconstruction; on the other hand

Graham's work compels the viewer to reflect on the particular conditions of presentation

in general, as well as on exhibiting video from a curator's and from an artist's perspective.

For, this piece is artistic commentary and a practical solution for presenting video both at

Since the mid-sixties two essential questions regarding presentation - in the sense of

exhibiting and visualizing - have imposed themselves in the study of video art. They

concern, on the one hand, the ideal presentation of the work in a museum, and, on the other

hand, the appropriate form of publication. The issues of presentation and documentation

are actually quite related. While the difficulty of representing such a time-based medium

in a conventional exhibition catalogue had soon been recognized, the obvious alternative of

documenting video art by means ofvideotapes failed to catch on.1 Even organizations aiming

at disseminating video art reach considerably fewer people than a conventional catalogue.

Indeed, before the ubiquity of the internet, the print media were clearly the most influential

vehicle of information. And yet printed screenshots insufficiently represent not only the

actual videotape but also its spatial setup. While photographs depicting the surrounding

space have been customary for video installations and video objects, documentations of

single-channel works in exhibitions were long neglected. The rare early pictures provide

some insight into the reasons for the lacking awareness of how the arrangement of the

installation plays into the reception. Due to the rudimentary, yet costly presentation

technology creative options were limited. Consequently most video exhibitions do not offer

much ofa variety and hence are oflimited appeal to the public. Apart from the evolution of

content, it is quite telling that video art did not conquer the institutions until advanced and

affordable technology allowed for more sophisticated ways of presentation. However, the

scarcity ofdocumentation available on the history ofvideo presentations is indicative of the

fundamental difficulty ofdocumenting time-, sound-, or space-based media. When neither

the conditions of installation nor the content and sequence are adequately represented, the

video work will be unintelligible for someone who was not present at the time.

Figure 01 Dan Graham. »Three linked Cubes I Interior Design for Space

Showing Videos«. 1986 - 1987. Kunsthalle Hamburg

Presenting Video in the MuseumOne reason for attaching importance to the presentation of video lies in the length of the

video inherent in the work and the respective minimum viewing time required for the

viewer. In the 1990s, when video art was copiously represented at large exhibitions such

as the Biennale and Documenta, journalists and publicists opened up a public calculation

as to how many hours and days of their lifetimes the audience would need to employ only

for viewing videos at these exhibitions. Inevitably visitors to such events must choose

from among the great number of video works, and therefore the presentation may well

be decisive in the selection process. For besides the content shown, which is not always

accessible at first glance, other factors such as the ambiance, acoustics, comfortableness,

and available information influence whether and how long a viewer will engage in the piece.

aturally, one first and fundamental decision precedes such questions of staging: that on

the presentation technology. The necessary screening equipment (video player, monitor,

projector or computer), essential for running the video in the first place, is another reason

for the presentation to be significant for video as a medium. This minimum pre entation

equipment not only affects additional staging options for the piece and thus its perception,

but it is really part of the video itself. The fact that the carrier of content invariably depends

on the projection machine, a characteristic of all electronic media, adds even more weight

to the question of presentation.Who actually decides on the presentation ofa video in a museum? Whereas, in the case

of a video installation, it is clearly the artist who is responsible, this is not so clear-cut for

single-channel videos. Especially when it comes to group or themed exhibitions, it is not

so much the artist but rather the curator who designs the presentation and decides on the

exhibition architecture and the setting. The undetermined forms ofpresentation relate to the

very openness of the medium of video, which, as we know, is also well established outside

the realm of art exhibitions. Video allows for manifold cross-references, such as to cinema

and television, home and confessional videos, surveillance technology and videogames, to

mention only a few. Apparently many artists are interested in exhibiting video because the

medium affords a myriad of approaches to socio-cultural, philosophical, and perception-

theoretical reflections.

K61nischer Kunstverein. Kunst- and Museumsbibliotheklproduced avideo catalogue in U-matic format. which noteveryone had available at home. In addition a cataloguewas published for the exhibition as well.

1 As early as in 1974. for example. the Projekt 74. Aspekteinternationaler Kunst am Anfang der 70er Jahre [Project74. Aspects of International Art in the early 1970's) inCologne (Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. Kunsthalle Cologne.

08 Katharina Ammann. Dan Graham's Designs For Video Presentations.114 115

The second >for< of the title ».. , for Space for Showing Videos« got lost along the way, just

as the original >videotapes< became simply >videos<. These title modifications reflect the

constant evolution ofthe work's idea as well as the multitude ofversions, whose identification

has not yet been finalized despite intensive research.

In 1990 the Galeria Mario Pieroni in Rome replicated the indoor pavilion with a

simplified ground plan under the title »Three Linked Cubes/Interior Design for Space

Showing Videos«, using the original dates 1986/87. This work was exhibited at the Onnasch

Collection in Berlin for a long time and is now owned by the Friedrich Christian Flick

Collection. The version consists of six wall elements only, being of similar height as those

of the Hamburg version (237 x 157 cm) at 230.5 cm but only lOS cm wide (Figuce 04 and

05). This design provides less space for video screens and is therefore easier for viewers to

grasp. A pointer to another version, which was briefly exhibited at Nicole Klagsbrun art

gallery in 1989, is stil1 being investigated. A ground plan published by Brouwer8

could not

yet be matched with an existing version either. Finally, in 1995, Graham realized »New

Design for Showing Videos« (Figuce 06 and 07) at the Generali Foundation in Vienna.

Reconstruction and Identification of Graham's »Video Pavilions«

Dan Graham (born in 1942, lives in New York) is one of the first artists to address the

viewing ofvideotapes both in artistic and practical terms, by creating a pavilion for screening

videos. Commonly known under the title »Three Linked CubeslInterior Design for Space

Showing Videos« Graham realized an early form ofa video lounge where visitors can view

different video programs on six screens. The machines, headsets, and cushions are placed

in rectangular bays made of framed glass or mirror glass panels. The double title refers to

the fact that the work can be used as both an indoor or outdoor pavilion. The »Office of

Ability and Desire«2 in Brussels, according to its then director Chris Dercon, produced the

prototype ofthe piece. Initially this original version, on display at the Hamburger Kunsthalle

today,3 consisted only of»Interior Design for Space Showing Videotapes« and was shown

as such at various exhibitions. 4 On the occasion of his exhibition in Paris5 in the 1987 Dan

Graham augmented the existing structure by adding an additional side panel and two glass

roofs. Hence the prototype existing of eight original glass elements was expanded by three

additional elements. In this form, without video equipment, the pavilion is designed for

outdoor installation. This expansion, designated by the add-on title »Three Linked Cubes«,

was likewise produced by the »Office for Ability and Desire«, and has been part of the work

ever since. Accordingly the work exhibited at the Hamburger Kunsthalle is titled »Three

Linked CubeslInterior Design for Space Showing Videos« and is dated as 1986 to 1987 for

accuracy, to account for the later augmentation. Interestingly the videos at the Hamburger

Kunsthalle are shown in what is actually the outdoor version, i.e. with the roofing. In 1992

the eight-part prototype, i.e. the indoor pavilion, was reconstructed in the original size for

the touring exhibition Walker Evans and Dan Graham6 and then purchased by the Whitney

Museum. Comparing the ground plans of the Whitney version and the original version in

Hamburg, the difference between the covered outdoor pavilion and the open indoor pavilion

is evident (Figuce 02 and 03). While the work at the Whitney was executed as an indoor

sculpture only, it is displayed under the complete title and dated 1986 for the year ofcreation.

Graham seems to regard the two parts principally as belonging together, as is implied in his

oft-cited description of the piece: "Three Linked Cubes [1986 J, a series of rectan

gular bays with one side open and with side panels of alternating two-way

mirror or transparent glass, has a dual identity. Placed outside it is an

open pavilion illuminated by the sun; placed indoors. it is transformed

into Interior Design for Space for Showing Videos [1986J.«7

•

Figuce 02 Ground plan of »Three Linked Cubes /InteriorDesign for Space Showing Videos«, 1986/1987, KunsthalleHamburg

Figuce 03 Ground plan of "Three Linked Cubes/InteriorDesign for Space Showing Videos«, 1986, WhitneyMuseum

2 The »Office for Ability and Desire«, founded in 1985 andheaded by Chris Dercon, acted as producer for realizingworks of art. Chris Dercon provided most of the data onthe genesis of »Three Linked Cubes/Interior Design forSpace Showing Videos«.3 The Hamburger Kunsthalle acquired the piece from theIsy 8rachot Gallery in 8russels in 1995, which had ownedit since 1989.

4 First exhibited at the Stichting Kijkhuis, The Hague, sub·sequently at La Criee Halle d'art contemporain, Rennes,at Videowoche Wenkenpark, Basle, at Beursschouwburg.BrUsse!. at Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst. Gent, atFruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 1987/1987.5 ARC MusM d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1987.6 Walker Evans & Dan Graham, Witte de With, centrumvoor hedendaagse kunst and Museum Boymans·van·

...

Beuningen, Rotterdam; Musee Cantini, Marseille; Westfa·lisches Landesmuseum. MUnster; The Whitney Museum ofAmerican Art. New York, 1992 -1994.7 In: Two·Way Mirror Power. Selected Writings by DanGraham on His Art. Ed. by Alexander Alberro. Cambridge,MA .. London, England: The MIT Press, 1999. First publish·

ed in: Dan Graham, Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Ministeriode Cultura, Madrid, 1987, p. 27, and in: Dan Graham:Pavilions. Kunstverein MUnchen, 1988, p. 46.8 Draft from: Dan Graham. Werke 1965 - 2000. Ed. byMarianne Brouwer. DUsseldorf: Richter Verlag, 2002. p.221.

~8_K:t~a:i~a_A~m:n~._o:n_G:a~a~': ~e:i~n: ~o= ~i~e~ ~~:s:n:a:i~n:._

While this pavilion is still based on the same fundamental idea, it clearly differs from its

predecessors m Its ground plan and in the punched metal sheets used instead of the two glass

panes .. The bays are no longer rectangular cubes, but rather have the shape ofparallelograms

and tnangles. A slmtlar work entitled »New Space for Showing Videos« (1995) is ownedby the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. 9

I----------~~

Review of the Status of Documentation

This attempt at identifying versions or variants ofGraham's »Spaces for Showing Videos«

demonstrates that mformation obtained from generally accessible sources, such as relevantltterature and the Internet10 .s ft .

. ' t 0 en erroneous. StIll the existence of two different works»Three Lmked Cubes/Interior Design for Space Showing Videos« from 1986 and »New

DeSign for Showing Videos« from 1995 became obvious fairly quickly. The latter in

partIcular has been quite well documented by the Generali Foundation and is easily found

on the Internet. The cover of the booklet accompanying the video Dan Graham. »Video/

Archlteoture/Performance«l1 even features Graham's sketch of the ground 1 Ib .d h . 1 P an, a elt

un er t ~ tt:: »New Space for Showing Videos« (Figure 07). According to the Generali

FoundatIon thIs sketch corresponds to the piece in their collection and has served as

116 117

instruction manual for setting up the installation. Such imprecision as to the title and the

version is even more common with regard to the earlier piece »Three Linked Cubes/Interior

Design for Space Showing Videos«. Most publications do not specify the existenoe ofsev

eral versions of the work, not to mention how they differ from one another or where they

are located. The catalogue Transjorm13 from Basle is an exception here, displaying both

the matching ground plan and elevation for the piece depicted therein and exhibited at the

show. Even monographic publications on Graham have been surprisingly uninformative in

this respect. Marianne Brouwer's overview publication contains a ground plan ofuncertain

provenance, which cannot be matched with any of the figures, but at least for once it does

point to the existence of several variants. The author seems to assume that the work at the

Onnasch Collection (today Flick) is the original and served as model for the reconstruction

at the Whitney Museum. However, given the work's genesis as detailed above and the

similarities in ground plans, it seems much more plausible that the work at the Hamburger

Kunsthalle served as the model for the reconstruction. Brouwer does not even mention the

Hamburg piece, although just a simple google search wi II turn up the Hamburger Kunsthalle.

Google's first listing is medienkunstnetz.de, a platform providing an excellent introduction

and art historical background to Graham's work. While medienkunstnetz.de also fails to

conclusively solve the question of the different versions, the documentation is constantly

updated. Ultimately only this kind of open platform with regular updates can do justice to

an ever-evolving state ofknowledge as in the case at hand. This is not to speak of the hardly

viable personal and financial investment. Of course the print media are also fully capable

of depicting more complex video installations with the help of pictures of room settings

and room layouts. In the case in point countless pictures of the installation were easy to

come by, but rarely a ground plan, let alone one actually matching the version pictured.

Ground plans are particularly helpful in understanding the structure, for while Graham's

oft-cited summary14 does convey a general idea of his work, it does not evoke a precise

spatial image of it. However, the location of the installation photograph or the institution

currently holding the work are scarcely documented. Overall the Onnasch Collection is

referred to the most frequently.

For these reasons numerous inquiries with galleries and museums as well as archival

research and conversations with the artist were necessary to accomplish the present

identification of the work variants, without having succeeded to compile a conclusive list.

This is why, among other things, the varying measurements of the pieces could not be

verified. Of course the study of »Three Linked Cubes/Interior Design for Space Showing

i

J

,

,I

2. '90

I 'i .. , .• l ' ' .

~

Of 100

. , ... l.s.~ ,. '" ~t't....

~ ..1.00

100

Figure 05 Ground plan of "Three Linked Cubes /Intenor Design for Space Showing Videos«. 1986. FriedrichChnslian Flick Collection

Figure 04 "Three Linked Cubes / Interior Design forSpace Showing Videos«. 1986. Friedrich Christian FlickCollection

9 New Space for Showing Videos has the same groundplan as New Design for Showing Videos but is less tall(213 em instead of 220cm) and has no aluminum panelsThe Whitney Museum purchased the work from the Ma'rianGoodman Gallery in 2002.

10 A Google search for "Dan Graham Three Linked CubesInterior Design for Space Showing Videos« turned up thefollowing pages in this order: www.medienkunstnetz.de.foundation.generali.al, www.raeumen.org/graham.www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de. www.diachelsea.org.

11 Cover page for Dan GrahamVideo/ArchitecturelPerformance. Booklet accompanying the videotape. Ed. bySabine Breitwieser. Generali Foundation. Vienna. 1995.12 Conversation with Dr. Doris Leutgeb. Generali Foundation. Collection. Director of Study Room.

13 Transform. BildObjektSkulptur im 20. Jahrhundert. excat. Kunstmuseum and Kunsthalle Basle. ed. by TheodoraVischer. Basle. 1992.14 Cf. note 7.

118 119- - - - - - - -08 Katharina Ammann. Dan Graham's Designs For Video Presentations.- - - - - - - - -

Conceptual Comments on Graham's »Video Pavilions«

Since the mid-sixties Dan Graham has frequently used video installations to address issues

of temporal and spatial perception as well as identity and subjectivity. From the late 1970's

on the pavilion has become a central theme for Graham, due to its hybrid multifunctionality

and its parallels with metropolitan and garden architectures. In his 1986 »Three Linked

Cubes/Interior Design for Space ShowingVideos« Graham merged videos and pavilions

and played out this idea in numerous variants of his )video pavilions<. Graham has often

Videos« poses a particular challenge: with the artist occasionally rethinking and refining

this work, it is even more difficult to match and identify the different objects. Committed

to what Dercon calls a »democratic principle of enabling genecal visibility and

ac ce s sibili t y",15 Graham usually produces three editions ofa work,16 thereby rendering

moot the question ofthe original. And yet the search for the prototype as much as the attempt

at documenting the different versions have been worthwhile exercises, because it turns out

that the continual honing of one basic idea is Graham's preferred artistic approach. All in

all the missing documentation ofGraham's work listed here illustrates tbe general problem

of presenting video installations outside of the exhibition context. The, often deplorable,

status of documentation of media art could improve dramatically if certain standards of

information for technical data as well as detailed lists of figures were implemented.

/..I

\\\\

commented on his usage of glass and two-way mirrors, also known as spyglass. What

interests him is the interface between the private and the public, manifest in the one-way

view from mirrored high-rises, from the living room window or onto the television screen.

The pavilion, a pervious outdoor architecture, as it were, epitomizes this simultaneity of

inside and outside. Thus the glass bays of his )video pavilions< establish spatial intimacy,

aU the while denying visual intimacy. So watching television, a private act, is transposed

into the public sphere of video art. This, for Graham, is not only about watcbing videos

but also about simultaneously being watched watching videos. His )video pavilions< are

designed in such a way that tbe viewer sitting or standing in front of a monitor will also

see parts of otber videos and even more so him or herself and others through the glass

panes or in their reflections in the spyglass. With the incidence of light changing with the

video images their effects change as well: » Two-way mirror glass is simultaneously

reflective and transparent. The properties of this material cause one side

to be either mace reflective oc more transparent than the othec side at

any given moment. Spectators inside and outside see supecimposed views of

theic bodies and gazes as well as the surrounding landscape. The two-way

micror is cinematic and hallucinatory.«17

In this fashion a tension builds that well relates to ideas of surveillance, isolation,

and group pressure. Besides such reflections on self-perception, identification, and public

behavior Graham's )video pavilions< also function as exemplary experimental setups for

physiological perception, for seeing. After all, it is through the reflection of self in the

mirror that the viewer becomes aware of the act of seeing and that his or her gaze becomes

the object of Graham's art.

In his work»New Design for Showing Videos« from 1995 Graham further elaborates

the idea of alternate transparency and reflection. Conceptually as much as formally »New

Design for Showing Videos« makes reference to the work »Three Linked Cubes/Interior

Design for Space Showing Videos« from about ten years earlier. The later work was the first

instance of Graham using punched aluminum for the side panels, besides transparent and

mirrored glass: »This >New Design for Showing Videos ( uses punched aluminum

(two aluminum sheets with small holes). The small holes relate to the small

pixels on the video image. They are semi-tcansparent when seen neacby and

completely tcansparent when the viewer presses his eyes to look di~ectly

thcough a hole. This is in relation to the transparency and shifting semi

ceflectiveness/transpacency on the two-way mi~coc panels. a shift caused

by changes in the pcojected video images.,,18

Figul'e 06 »New Design for Showing Videos«. 1995.Generali Foundation

Figure 07 Ground plan of »New Design for ShowingVideos«. 1995. Generali Foundation

15 Conversation with Chris Dercon.16 Conversation with Dan Graham.

17 Graham. Dan. Dan Graham. Two·way Mirror Pavilions/

Einwegspiegel·PavilJons. 1989-1996. Ed. by Martin Kotte.ring and Roland NachtigaJler. Stadtische Galerie Nordhorn1997. p. 99. . .

18 Comment by Dan Graham in: Dan Graham.Video/Architecture/Performance. Booklet accompanying thevideotape. Ed. by Sabine Breitwieser. Generali Foundation.Vienna. 1995. p. 11.

So one the one hand Graham discusses pixeling, i.e. the no longer perceptible resolution

of the digital image, and on the other hand the constantly shifting transparency of his

pavilion. By using the punched aluminum Graham reinforces the optical and conceptualcomplexity of his work.

]nitially the artist himself programmed the videos for his )video pavilions<; the

altogether six screens showed three different programs19 featuring artist videos, music

videos, activist videos or motion pictures on video, thus commenting on the diverse cultural

origins ofvideo art. After the first few exhibitions with practically the same sequences, the

programming was modified as needed with Graham's consent. ]n the meantime the )video

pavilions< have been used for multiple video screenings. Hence the definition of this work

ofart has shifted from video installation to exhibition architecture. Graham described this

ambiguity of his piece as early as 1986, when it was first created: "The WOL'k is both a

functional exhibition design and an optical aL'twoL'k displaying the video

images as well as the spectatoL's' L'eaction to the video viewing pL'ocess in

the social space to the video exhibition.«20

]t is precisely this vacillating position between work ofart and exhibition architecture

between content and form, that makes this piece an interesting case study for qUestion:concerning the presentation of video art in the museum.

Exhibition AL'chitecture as Art

As it were »Three Linked Cubes/lnterior Design for Space Showing Videos« is at once art,

commentary, and solution. The piece works as sculptural object, as conceptual and sensual

setup for viewing video art, and as viable exhibition layout for videos in a museum. Graham

accommodates the requirements for exhibiting video in a museum, as discussed above,

with an inviting, video lounge-like setting. Visitors can retreat into the bays by themselves

or in a group, move the cushions around, sit back, put on the headphones, watch different

videos and thereby, seemingly, withdraw from the public sphere of the cultural institution.

Graham entertains the idea of relaxation, of informal encounter in the museum: "I think

museums aL'e great places. I L'ealized that a museum could be a social space

and I fell in love with the empty lobbies, the gift shop, coffee shop, aL'eas

wheL'e people could L'elax. So I did WOL'k like ,ThL'ee Linked Cubes/InteL'ior

Design foL' Space Showing Videos" 1986, wheL'e teenageL's could lie on the

flooL'. I think what I did was to discoveL' the tL'adition of the museum in

stead of pUL'suing the stupid idea of Institutional CL'itique. «21 Hence he views

the museum as a space for social interaction and creates niches allowing for a variety of

120 121

activities. Interestingly enough the television set - which is what a video screen inevitably

evokes - is part of and contributes to this coziness. In his texts »Soft Furniture Design and

Video Feedback«, »Soft Furniture and TV«, and »Art as Design/Design as Art«22 Graham

explains the connection between the comfortable sofa and watching television, often a

familial activity, as opposed to individual seats in a cinema theater. Soft furniture that

molds to the body and reacts to every movement, for Graham, is a tactile parallel to the

visual self-perception ofclosed-circuit-procedures or in the reflections ofhis pavilions. John

Chamberlain also combined video and soft furniture, in his oversized foam rubber couch

at the Westkunst exhibition in Cologne (l981), where visitors could sprawl to watch bad

takes of TV commercials on two television screens. Chamberlain's polyurethane couches

inspired Graham to experiment with manufacturing soft and transparent furniture for

»Three Linked Cubes/Interior Design for Space Showing Videos«, albeit without a final

result. In any event cushions had to be placed in the )video pavilions< for coziness: "The

installation should be veL'y comfortable so you can lie down. Too much aL't

is seen instantaneously, and theL'e's too much video aL't that consists of

giant, oveL'whelming images. This should be small, home-like, an aL'ea that

I think should be a L'omantic, comfoL'table kind of place.«23

Graham's )video pavilions< confer more autonomy to their visitors than a Black Box with an

- in Graham's words - overwhelmingly giant projection screen. In Graham's piece visitors

do not get lost in the image but remain present as individuals, also because they can see

themselves watching video, more or less consciously, in their own reflections. Autonomy

is also in demand when visitors have to make their selections from very different video

compilations on up to six video screens. Graham anticipates the concept of the video library

here, which - due the sheer amount of videos in the 1990's - not only became ever more

frequently shown at exhibitions but was made into the very subject ofartistic inquiry. Hence

video libraries and video lounges were showcased by Fabrice Gygi, Costa Vece, andJohan

Grimonprez at exhibitions such as Art Basel, Biennale Venezia, and Documenta. Particularly

at such large exhibitions video lounges, apart from being a productive option for presenting

videos, meet the need for more intimate spaces. At the 1997 Documenta X Graham's »New

Design for Showing Videos« enjoyed great popularity among visitors, who not only wished

to watch videos but also to sit and chat or simply relax. The pavilion gave the impression

of being an island in the central room of the Fridericianum.

But even many artists who do not or do not only work with video have been interested

in TV experience and TV behavior for some time, always implied when presenting videos

19 For arrangement cf. ground plan of the Whitney version.20 Cf. note 7.

21 Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, "Four Conversations:December 1999 - May 2000.« in: Dan Graham, Works 1965

- 2000, ed. by Marianne Brouwer. Dusseldorf: RichterVerlag, 2001, p. 78.

22 All from: Dan Graham. Ausgewahlte Schriften.ed. by Ulrich Wilmes. Stuttgart: Oktagon, 1994.

23 Dan Graham in a conversation with Mark Francis. in:8irgit Pelzer et al. Dan Graham, London / New York:Phaidon Press. 2001. p. 32.

08 Katharina Ammann. Dan Graham's Designs For Video Presentations.

on a screen. The >TV< inside the museum means that a habitually private environment is

transposed into the public context. This transplanting of the private sphere into the public

realm was characteristic of the lounge culture of the 1990s, an era that, significantly,

produced extreme forms such as »Big Brother«, reality shows, and live webcams. The socio·

cultural interest in visitor behavior and in constructing a trendily designed communication

platform goes hand in hand with an ostentatiously art-market-oriented service mentality,

such as in Angela Bulloch's »Bean Bag Set I1«. The artist furnishes the exhibiting institution

with colorful, comfortable bean bags and fleecy pedestals with screens on top, where random

video programs can be displayed. Needless to say that such >solutions< are of interest to

curators because they receive both a ready-to-use environment for screening their videos

and an artistic commentary on the conditions of the medium's presentation and reception.

Graham's >video pavilions< also imply both the conceptual deconstruction of the viewer's

identity and subjectivity formation as well as the purely functional aspect. Dan Graham, who

wrote about »Art as Design - Design as Art«, describes his >video pavilions< as exhibition

designs, as is obvious from the titles >Interior Design< or >New Design<. Consequently

museums and art collectors covet these exhibition setups; but their desire for both service

and sophisticated art, for both a relaxed environment and an intellectual challenge has also

met with criticism. Wade Guyton, for example, replicated the structure of»New Design for

Showing Videos« but omitted the videos and the mirror glass. In his minimal »New Desicrn«"

(2003), void of purpose, this artist of a generation born in the late sixties and early seventies

questions both the questionable role of the museum as leisure lounge and the problem ofthe

just about inflationary usage of Graham's >video pavilions< in institutions.

Dealing With Uncertainty

The exemplary study of the status of documentation for Dan Graham's >video pavilions(

served to examine the multifaceted issue ofpresenting video. It became obvious how difficult

it is, still in the internet age, to present accurately and in its entirety a well-known and oft

cited video installation. The lack of binding and detailed standards of information clearly

came to light. While information was readily available, it often proved to be deficient; only

intensive research completed the picture of Graham's piece, although this is actually fairly

well documented. Accessing Graham's own texts about the work was easy, whereas getting

a hold of video documentations, which are only available in some few media libraries,

proved to be more difficult.24 Ground plans and original drafts were mostly requested

from the owners of the works, as well as precise measurements, since secondary sources

frequently cite the wrong measurements for the works shown in the figures. The reason for

122 123

this is mostly due to the fact that there are several versions of the piece, an instance that,

surprisingly, finds little mention. An ideal information platform - whose implementation

might be utopian - would provide a collection of relevant data, with clickable crosslinks to

all the versions including their technical specifications as well as information ranging from

Graham's texts and video interviews to the videotapes the artist had originally programmed

for the work.By analyzing Graham's >video pavilions< we explored the difficulties ofdocumentation

as well as the lack of accessibility, but also the problem of presenting video art in the

museum. Graham may be considered the predecessor of a number of 1990s artists, whose

works dealt with exhibiting this medium. He took the video screen down from the high

pedestal of the museum to create an alternative, familial environment within the exhibition

and the art institution, thereby anticipating the lounge culture of the 1990s. The fact that

many artists of recent years have dealt with exhibition design, ambient art or video lounges

is evidence for a tendency toward dissolving traditional boundaries between the curator,

the artist, and the viewer as well as a pronounced interest in questions of identity between

privacy and publicity in this age ofmedia pervasion. The new media lend themselves for this

kind of enquiry, most of all video, which has been around for some 40 years now. Owing to

its degree of technological sophistication video may be used and presented in a multitude

of ways, and with this vague status may touch on various realms of society. The openness

ofthis medium, and its simultaneous dependence on its equipment, make the presentation

of video _ i.e. exhibiting and documenting it - not only a difficult curatorial and scholarly

task but also an artistic challenge.


24 The 45·minute interview Chris Dercon conducted withDan Graham about Interior Design for Space ShowingVideotapes and Design as Art. Art as Design. 1996. recor-

ded at the Witte de With. Rotterdam. may be viewed inthe Study Room of the Generali Foundation in Vienna.

Hans D. Christ.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Stan Douglas, »Win Place 01' ShOW«l,

Figure 01 Installation view, Montage, Museum KOppersmOhle, Sammlung Grothe, Duisburg, photo: Sascha Dressler

The aim of this text is to describe an art work from the edges of its reception. From the

vantage POInt of the curator, who invites a contemporary artist to present a work at an

exhIbItIOn In order to transport a certain content with the aid of this work and h b d'of th . . . . w 0, Y Int

IS InVItatIOn, additionally undertakes to >emplace< the art work in the setting in an

adequate manner for the purpose of its presentation, This second, often neglected task of

the curator IS what I am referring to here when I describe the purpose of this text as beina

to dISCUSS the, edges of reception, The aim is to describe the things that, as in the case 0;Stan Douglas above-mentioned work, ideally are not the object of observation, but rather

functIOnal elements of its effect. Stan Douglas' work would seem to lend itselfparticularly

well as the fundamentally manipulative character of spatial enactment is seen here in thesense of an Intellectual reflection on the content of the kwor.

Context [exhibition]

»dialogues & stories. Neue Formen des Erzahlens in der Medienkunst«2 was the title of

the exhIbItIOn In the context ofwhich the »Win Place or Sh k' ow« wor was showcased at the

124 125

Museum Kilppersmilhle Sammlung Grothe, Duisburg, in 2001. The exhibition presented

works that focused on the film structures ofspace-related narrative, that have ranked among

the sovereign practices deployed as a matter of course by artists since the beginning of the

1990s, The art works featured at the exhibition (re)told contexts offilm history, literature

and urban planning from the viewpoint of the present day, with their back facing the future

and looking back at the past. The medium used was video installation organised in and/or

structuring space,

Stan Douglas, Win, Place o~ Show Refe~ence model [genecal]

Stan Douglas' »Win, Place or Show« video installation oscillates between reconstruction and

invention, between condensation ofaction and infinite expansion, between media translation

and historical facts, Stan Douglas takes the >fiction< of an urban master plan as his starting

point that follows the ideas of the functional city of the 1950s and 1960s,

The functional city, that was based on a division of the city into strictly separate

functional zones - home, work, leisure and transport - was also the basis for the revised plan

for Strathcona, a suburb ofVancouver, that was devised in the 1950s. After demolishing the

old buildings, the aim there was to build a worker's housing estate in the style of modernist

>off-the-peg functional architecture<. In the end, however, only two of the building

complexes were actually bui It, as the project was stopped by the opposition of the >old

locals<. So with his »Win, Place or Show« installation, Stan Douglas, who refers explicitly

to this story, tells us a story that could not have happened like that because it already lacks

the option of reporting about a real, existing space, Nevertheless, the basis of the art work

reproduces an >authentic< project, that serves as a model for a style of building that was

gaining a very firm foothold all over the world at the time, Stan Douglas, then, negotiates

neither local history nor a specific occurrence, but rather investigates the ultimately fictional,

actual plans based on their representativeness of modernism.

Refe~ence model [concept]

In developing the art work, Douglas focuses on a concrete building: the BI single worker's

apartment from the aforementioned project. He reproduces it in the form of a true-to-scale

film set, furnishing this set with furniture prototypical of this period: radio, picture of a

Klee imitation by a local architect and painter, seats, lamps, etc. The circumstances of the

action taking place on this set also follow this structure of a reproduction for the purpose

of representation.

1 Stan Douglas, "Win, Place or Show«, 1998, two-channelvideo projection, four-channel soundtrack, 204,023

variatIOns with an average duration of six minutes each,dimenSions variable, Edition of two.

2 Other artists: Teresa Hubbard und Alexander BirchlerRuna Islam, Franciska lambrechts. '

09 Hans D. Christ. Stan Douglas, »Win, Place or show«.- - - - - - - - 126 127

Figure 04 Organisationchart of the camera views(hypothetical reconstruction)with approxiamate dimensions

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horse races, leading finally to the two protagonists fighting, are shot from twenty different

camera angles. The cameras are aligned in such a way as to cross the room on two parallel

offset axes. Information about the system employed by Stan DougLas here can be gleaned

ana other thinas from the captions provided with the footage for printing the invitationam '" '"card or catalogue [1- East WS l.tif= wide shot] [1- North CU Don l.tif= close-up, Don] [2

- West MS Don l.tif= medium size]. The positioning of the camera is therefore organised

by the dictates of condensing the action by folding up the room and not by making the room

dynamic by using such camera techniques as panning or travel.

[Post] production / presentation [technique]

We can only speculate on the post-production based on the final technical products as seen.

But, in the end, this is legitimate as post-production is ultimately developed for the specific

presentation, and this presentation is known. The final product comprises four digital video

disks (the master format is Digital Beta, video), on which the changing camera positions

are located along the selected axes for camera positioning, being repeated in a six-minute

loop. In post-production, the various sound sequences are separated into four channels

(language, rain, radio station).

The presentation technique is linked directly to production of the video data. The four

DVD players are connected by two technical units. These are a synchronous starter and a

>vertical interval switcher<. While the synchronous starter guarantees that both images are

frame-synched in the two projections, the switcher acts as a video mixer between the four

Figure 03 Still from "Win. Place or Show". 1998(detai/J

'l'Yl))~ IIID h' •

Donny and Bob, the two protagonists in the scene, temporarily sharing the single

apartment, correspond to the stereotypes of a TV series produced in Vancouver in 1968.

They represent typical actors of working class roles of the time, albeit of the media-based

fictional representation of this group ofsociety. In contrast to the historical TV production:

however, the actors themselves are theatre actors. That is to say, their acting patterns are

guided not so much by the camera lens that scans the room (full shot, detail, etc.), but

rather by the concrete, spatial situation of the film set. By means of this link-up of fiction

and reconstruction, between mediality and physical relation to the real film set, Doug/as

reconstructs the paradox/parody that has always been inherent in the concept of utopist,

urban planning master plans and their synthetic manifestations.

Figure 02 "Type Bl". in Leonard C. Marsh. Rebuilding a Neighbourhood. University of British Columbia.Vancouver. 1950

Production [Work with the film set]

DougLas consistently develops translation ofthe above-mentioned contexts onto the level of

the actual relation of space, time and action in the scene to be shot based on the underlying

parameters - restrictive architecture, media representation and stage. The film set opens

up completely on two sides along the longitudinal axis and side axes. That is to say, the

scene, acted out several times, is shot as a stage space in front of two space axes in each

case. The scenes, that go from discussions about conspiracy theories and winning odds in

09 Hans D. Christ. Stan Douglas, »Win, Place or show«.

image sources. For the viewer, this means that, while the scene is always repeated at the

same interval (one loop of six minutes), the combination of the various sequences varies

from loop to loop. In combination with the camera angles, that were transferred onto four

>freely< combinable DVDs, the result is an infinite expansion of the time axis of the same

scene to approx. 20,000 hours until a combination of images is optionally (because this

cannot be experienced) repeated.

P~esentation [spatial]

The room is accessed on the side to the back of the room through an open double-door

blackout that is adequately soundproofed and long to ensure that no light or sound gets in

from adjacent rooms. The position of the entrance to the side of the projection screen is

important in that, in order to be standing at the centre the projection, the viewer must enter

the room completely and not stay, for example, in a central entrance area. The blackout

entrance and the interior are painted with a grey hue that preserves the volume of the room

but does not reflect the light from the projection. On the side walls and back wall there are

echo breakers that enable the viewer to perceive the sound as coming from the projection

and, at the same time, ensure that all the different sound sources can be adjusted without any

uncontrollable in-room echoes. The projection screens (2.81 m x 3.75 m each) installed on

the face end are positioned in front ofa matte black wall. The stark contrast to the reflection

light of the projection created by this background always ultimately results in the seemingly

immaterial, floating character ofStan Douglas' video images that we observed, for example,

in Nu:tka. To achieve this effect, it is also important to suspend the projection screens at a

sufficient distance to the wall (centre 20 cm). The two projection screens (MDF board with

the edges bevelled off 45° to the back to avoid the viewer seeing the edge of the material

and to remove all volume from the screen), tilted 7° to the side and separated by a 2 cm gap

also achieve the optical effect that the viewer appears to have an equal view of both video

pictures at the same time. However, this panorama view is constantly being undermined:

by the breaks in the details, sections and overlaps ofthe space and, as a result of this, by the

bodies and faces of the actors that appear now on the edge of the picture, now disappearing

in the gap between the projections, now mirrored on both sides of the projection.

The seemingly panoptic image refuses to accommodate the viewer by constantly

nesting and folding space and as a result of action taking place through it. As a result, the

>totalitarian< space concept underlying »Win, Place or Show« is transferred not into the

structure of a historical presentation, but rather into a claustrophobic, fragmented, fatally

inevitable constant within which the plots obey the conditions of space.

128 129

. Sh" at KOppersmOhle Museum. Grothe Collection. Collin Griffiths. 2001figure 05 Alignment plan for "WIn. Place or ow

09 Hans D. Cheist. Stan 0_ _ _ _ ouglas, »Win, Place oe show«. 130 131

~esence [laye~ed sound]

The >foreground< of the action is the conversation between Bob and Don, their debate drives

the plot and is thus the most audible sound source. The pictures are dubbed with the constant

sound - accompanying all the scenes - of endless rainfall and a radio that can be heard in

the background. The sound of rain only comes to the fore in relation to the only film shot

of a view out of the apartment window that appears regularly but not at equal intervals, a

panorama of a night-time city in pouring rain, whose buildings correspond to the above

described model of modernist urban planning. Here, in this picture of the inhospitable

outdoors and in relation to the monotonous sound of falling rain, the fatal situation is

intensified that takes place in the hermetic interior ofthe apartment. The faintly audible noise

of the radio in the background seems to emanate from a radio sitting on a chest ofdrawers.

The irritating thing, however, is that the viewer occasionally hears German speakers or

familiar jingles: the sound of the radio is a feed from local radio stations at the exhibition

venue. Here, at this other level, Stan Douglas intermeshes the fictional scene of the film

with the overarching, representative and transferable theme of»Win, Place or Show«. The

spatial layering ofsound that is ofelementary importance for the overall structure is created

on the one hand by the aforementioned echo breakers, the positioning of the loudspeakers

(above and to the side of the projection screen), and the sound sources connected to various

control devices (multiple amplifiers and mixer).

Translation: Richard Watts

[P~ovisional] end

The complex links hinted at here between the production and presentation of an art work

hopefully demonstrate how crucial the proper performance of works of media art is for

transporting their content. This is an aspect that is also intended to illustrate that any attempt

at standardisation, as is currently becoming established in the institutions, runs counter to

the serious transportation of the specific characteristics of media art.

At the end of such a text, that takes an ultimately reduced view of a pure description

of the work in question, there remains the unfulfilled task of intermeshing the evolution

of the work and the conditions of its presentation even more intimately with its content.

However, this was not my intention and, in the case of »Win, Place or Show«, has already

been done most excellently by William Wood (»Secret Work«, Stan Douglas, Exhibition

Vancouver Art Gallery, 1999, p. 107 - 120). The knowledge summarised here is owed to the

precision of the artist's dossiers and probably the best >fulfiller< ofthe requirements in the

exhibition setting, Colin Griffiths, who was chiefly responsible for planning and technical

implementation of the presentation of Stan Douglas' works on site until 2002.

Figu£'e .06 Alignment plan for "Win, Place or Show, alKuppersmuhle Museum, Grothe Collection Collin Griffiths2001 "

P~esence [the epidiascope]

If the overall spatial arrangement follows the theme of the art work' . I . .i h' '. In VIO atIng certalDmages, t IS IS, however, also In relation to the physical presence ofthe . d' .

. . prOJecte Imaue ttself~agaIn In the form of a dual structure. Firstly, in terms of quality, it should measu;e up to

e toverp;:enng structure ofcinema, only to lose this >potency< due to the aforementioned

nes Ing30 t e Image. For this reason, when he is not working with such film material as 16mm or 5 mm Stan Do I I

th d' '. ug as on y uses three-tube projectors in exhibitions. These actually

ra er. 1m machInes are still the only technology available to project a video imaue inapproxImately CInema quality. With the aid of th h d b

, . ese cat 0 e- tube based projectors it ispossible to display the subtlest colour transitions and unlike LCD 0 DLP . 'bl k d h' . ' r projectors real

ac an w Ite. The lIne-based and unlike d . 'oft' '. ' mo ern projectors, non-additive composition

he Image In pIxels allows genuine depth of field Th" . .D . IS IS partIcularly Important when. ouglas demands that the projectors have a line doubler - a kind of lossless image rInterpolatIOn. Ine

Figu£'e 07 View of installation, montage: KOppersmOhle Museum . . .The dlstnbutlOn of light does not correspond to the d' t'b' .' Grothe Collection, DUisburg, photo: Sascha Dressler.

IS n utlon of light at the exhibition

132 133- - - - - - - - - - - -Dennis Del Favero / Neil Brown / Jeffrey Shaw / Peter Weibel.

of televisual databases

T_Visiona~ium: the aesthetic t~ansc~iption

Concepts

This paper takes the form of a series of thematic reflections on digital aesthetics. These

reflections are focused around an experimental artwork, entitled »T_Visionarium«, we are

currently developing at the iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Centre, University oJNew South Wales and ZKM, Karlsruhe. The essential thrust of the paper is to suggest that

databases can be productively approached using aesthetic and philosophical concepts of

transposition and ascription rather than the conventional archaeological concepts ofaccessand retrieval.

Construction of Social Reality, Harmondsworth: PenguinBooks, 1995; Michel Serres, The Birth of Physics, Manchester: Clinamen Press, 2000.

narrative is central to conventional cinema, the theoretical and experimental emphasis upon

simulation has led to two separate consequences within digital cinema and new media.

Firstly, it has led to the narrative potential within these art forms being overlooked. Secondly,

it has seen the aesthetic potential of televisual database interactions being ignored.!

The paper addresses the concern that it is limitations in the understanding of narrative,

as opposed to technical understanding, which have restricted the aesthetic development

of new media and digital cinema in terms of interactive narrative. Through its focus on

viewer-generated recomposition of televisual data, »T_Visionarium« seeks evidence of

how interactive narrative, exists across simultaneous layers of time, and in other words

how it is multi-temporal. »T_Visionarium« frames televisual databases not in terms of a

spatial archaeology, which can then be accessed and retrieved, but in terms ofmulti-layered

temporal compositions, which can unfold through their dialogue with the viewer. In this

way the viewer and the database form a digital ecology able to generate unprecedented

aesthetic and social meanings. 2 The »T_Visionarium« methodology provides a model for

transcriptive strategies across a range of databases. For example, it can be applied to other

database formations such as the Internet, libraries, image archives along with the abstract

modeling of viewer attitudes applicable in a range of fields. By sifting through seemingly

chaotic and unrelated data, transcriptive narrative creates a new logic of inter-relationship

between data. This >media ecology< recycles apparently waste data into new sensory fields

of experience and communication. At an individual level, applying transcriptive narrative

to materials already bound together in emergent narrative formations - such as family photo

and video archives - reveals the profoundly expressive potential oftranscriptive narrative,. . . 3especially revealing to those who are Its partIcIpants.

Transcriptive narrative achieves this media ecology by integrating the multi-temporal

qualities of narrative with the multiplicity of modes built into digital information. As an

experimental integration of these temporal qualities »T_Visionarium« aims to test the

simple proposition that interactive narrative occurs by means of the transportation of the

multiple modalities ofdigital information across virtual time. In testing the transportation

of information within virtual time, however, we anticipate evidence of the previously un

described multi-temporal qualities of narrative. In this multi-temporal form of narrative

viewers not only re-compose complex information into distinct temporal episodes but

also simultaneously experience the unanticipated temporal consequences of these virtual

episodes as real events. This dynamic form ofengagement with time, involving the emerging

and looping intersection between virtual time and real time, produces a mode of narrative

that contrasts dramatically with the temporal sterility of the closed narrative menus typically

found in computer games and database formations.

ARC Discovery Project, 2002.3 Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations 1972 - 1990, New York:Columbia University Press, 1995; John Searle, The

Figure 01 Installationview of the Dome at lKM1998.

Cinema/Art/Narrative, london: BFI Publishing, 2002.2 Dennis Del Favero, Ross Gibson, Ian Howard and JeffreyShaw, »The reformulation of narrative within digitalcinema as an integration of three forms of interactivity",

1 T~ansc~iptive na~~ative

The paper is founded on the concept ofaesthetic transcription as a model for the production

of interactive narrative within digital cinema and new media. Transcription refers to the way

the aesthetic allows viewers to transpose from one form of sense experience to another. to

transact across experiential contexts. In the case ofour experimental work, it refers to the

capture, transposition and recomposition of multi-layered forms of sensory information

within digital environments. By means of the experimental extended virtual environment

»T_Visionarium«, whose first prototype was presented at Lille Cultural Capital, Europe, from

December 2003 to March 2004, viewers are enabled to capture, transpose and recompose

global televisual data. The significance ofT_Visionarium is set against the fact that while

1 Jean Baudrillard, The Transparency of Evil, london:Verso, 1993; Jean-Fran~ois lyotard, »Idee d'un filmsouverain", in: Misere de la philosophie, Paris: Galilee,2000; Martin Rieser, Andrea lapp, New Screen Media:

4 lIya Prigogine. The End of Certainty: Time. Chaos and theNew Laws of Nature. New York: The Free Press. 1996. p. 27.5 Serres. The Birth of Physics. las in note 31. pp. 84 - 88.

To test our concept of transcriptive narrative we are in the process of developing the

extended virtual environment »T_Visionarium«, in prototype and demonstrator form.

»T_Visionarium« is an extended virtual environment set within a dome, 12 meters in

diameter, 9 meters in height, made of inflatable fabric.

2 T_Visionadum

In the Lille prototype the viewer, on entering the dome, places a position-tracking device

on their head, connected to cableless stereo headphones. The viewer then steps onto a

control platform located at the center of the dome that is equipped with a remote control,

134 135

Figure 02 to 07 T_Visionarium: different interior scenes

category. . ' b . They include such categories asFor Lille the recombinatory categones are qUite aSlc. d' a fr m 48 alobal

. b The database itself is constituted by the recor me> 0 e>>greetmgs<, >em racee . . ultaneous sixty-minute period. These 48 hourssatellite-television channels dunng one Slm f are matrix in ways that hyperlink the

fglobal televisual data are post-processed by a so two . fi the televisual database.different data sets in virtual time so as to orm

. rdware/software. We will refer to this systems' combinationprojector and computatIOnal ha t 01 enables the viewer to thematically select

b' t matnx The remote con rafs the recoon:stl:; :~ionariu~'s« televisual database by selecting a specific recombinatoryrom am e> -

Shaw / Weibel. T_Visionarium.Brown

On the other hand a transcriptive approach to this data would enable a reformulation of the

broadcast data, allowing it to remerge in new narrative encounters. In relation to the purposes

oftranscriptive narrative, the French philosopher Michel Serres argues: »We are dealing

less with the story of how something came about than with the dramatizati

on of pre-existing forms. ,,5 Transcriptive narrative dramatizes the world instead of

freezing it into schematic representations. It transforms the cinema into a kind of Platonic

cave wall onto which viewers project, then respond, to the episodic shadows of their journey

through cultural information. It is only insofar as digital technology accomplishes the

awesome task of transporting multi-modal data into virtual time that the aesthetic potential

of interactive narrative can be tested. The concept of multi-modal refers to a number of

distinct properties of digital media. These include the complex set of modes in which this

data exists, ranging from its original transmission mode, as in televisual broadcasts, through

to its symmetrically recorded mode, say as in DVD, and onto its asymmetrical modes when

it is recombined within non-genre specific contexts such as databases.

The re-enactment of televisual information as proposed by »T_Visionarium« has the

potential for allowing a multiplicity of significant unfolding to occur within the original

data. Currently the great mass of broadcast or recorded televisual information is received

indirectly by the viewer and sorted retrospectively in memory. This information is

encountered through techniques such as channel hopping, muting, multi-screens,

assembly in different contexts, or fragmented through time-delay and by report. Thus

although television broadcasts may begin as purposeful forms of cultural communication,

their meaning goes beyond their original producer's intentions as this meaning is digitally

composed into irreversible narrations. 4

10 Del Favero

10 Del Favero / Brown / Shaw / Weibel T V" .- - - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . - lSlonarlum.

The projection system is fixed on a motorized pan-tilt apparatus mount .

which projects televisual data onto the interior skin of the dome T . ed on a tnpodartIculated to the trackina de" h . he projectIOn system IS

the .lar~e projected view~ng :~:~:;Ut: t:a::~~::::~~:~::r::;hs:viewer's head causes

devIce Identifies the exact orientation of the viewer's point of view w~fa~e.. ThIs trackIng

t~e on~ntation of the projector so that it beams its image directl~ to ~:e l;p:~r:::;~rtohISVIewer s eyes are fixed The d' . eentire surface of the d~me S:Uth:-;~sual data streams are virtually distributed over the

. ' e movement of the projection windows en blVIewer to navigate between these data streams The d I' f a es the

. . . e Ivery so tware creat h'dlstnbution ofall the televisual data by its real-tim t t . es a sp encal

~:::::~:~:::::~:~:'~:_~;::,: :,h~::l;l:,~,p~,~:::::,O:::::~::; ',::~:~,7::::. ' oca e a specIfic WIndow grid on the dome'

surface. ~hls enables the viewer to navigate between each data set by merel shifrin S

POInt ofVIew. ThiS mapping strategy applies to both image and sound seamYless t g theirbetween d' . . rans!tlOns

IScrete Image and sound events are handled b th d .delivery system The m" f h' Y e eSIgn of the audio-visual

. IXIng 0 t e audIO, synchronized with the move .projection system, allows a spatialized soundscape inside the dome to b ment :fth~ pan-tIltthe visual experience. e sync rOOlzed WIth

By means of interaction with the remote interface and th . Ithe head and '. . e Simu taneous movement of

larger viewin:r:~:~;~o:f:~n:o;~t~h::~::~rgenerates unique performances on behalf ofa

136 137

Based on deep content authoring, which allows high levels ofclassification, the recombinatory

matrix sorts the data according to classifications such as language, movement, color, speech,

composition, lighting and pattern recognition. As already noted these classifications are

then regrouped in the on-screen menu available to the viewer through a range of thematic

categories, such as >greetings<.6 After selecting a category to frame their search, the viewer

explores the results of their recombinatory searches using these categories by moving

the projection window across the dome screen as they move their head. In the as yet to

be completed final demonstrator of»T_Visionarium« the remote control is to be replaced

with a keypad, allowing for database access via viewer determined keywords. In this

final demonstrator, for example, the viewer may type in the keyword >home<. This would

then usher forth intersecting dramatizations of >home< episodes as extracted from current

affairs, sports, features, life style, historical, scientific and mini-series broadcasts from

48 channels, all within the simultaneous pre-recorded sixty-minute time frame. In their

totality these channels embody a multiplicity of languages, numerous time zones, and

heterogeneity of cultures.

[n this way the recombinatory matrix unravels convergences of multi-modal televisual data

at levels of temporal density that only be revealed as they come together in the extensive

virtual time projected across the dome. The viewer can extend these events as they unfold.

For example they can fine-tune the search within the keyword of >home< by adding the

keyword >violence<. Thus, by changes in point of view the viewer activates a powerful

navigational framework that produces a directional flow of information in which the

expressive meaning of the data is boundlessly translated.

Figure 08 T_Visionarium: robotic projection systemThe profoundly multi-temporal logic at work here echoes the structure implicit in digitized

audio-visual data.? This logic is imperceptible in conventional televisual transmission and

viewing, as the latter establishes symmetrical patterns of temporal resemblance among

broadcast items. The reason for this is that they are based on syntactical properties inherent

in the data where classification is based on conventions of genre, for example, sport, and

structures of transmission, for example, CNN·8 Transcriptive narrative, as embodied here,

moves beyond this logic of resemblance to develop a logic of transposition. It is able to

unfold new content within a virtual information sphere of digitized images and sounds

whose patterning is freed from the constraints imposed by the representational re-delivery

of information, the standard database paradigm.

6 Howard Wactlar. Michael Christel. Y. Gong. AlexanderG. Hauptmann. "Lessons Learned from Building aTerabyteDigital Library«. 1999. http://www·2.cs.cmu.edu/-hdw/IEEEComputer_Feb99.pdf f.

7 Elizabeth Grosz. Becomings: Explorations in Time.Memory and Futures. New York: Cornell. 1999. p. 27.8 Juan Casares. "Silver: An InIelligenI VideoEditor«. 2001. http://www·2.cs.cmu.edu/-silver/CasaresShortPaperpdf.

10 Del Favero / Brown / Shaw / Weibel. T_Visionarium.- - - - - - - -

Sifting through digitized televisual data, the viewer unravels invisible links. By cutting the

multi-modal structure ofpre-recorded information at a number ofaesthetically significant

points, the recombinatory matrix brings together new audio-visual streams into episodes that

can be re-assigned a new narrative function. Reassignment is made at the discretion oftbe

viewer within the possibilities provided by the virtual time of the digital environment.

As a consequence, narrative becomes a complex event which interweaves a number of

intersecting temporal and physical navigations. In terms of time, the matrix allows for

the intensive navigation of symmetrical audio-visual data and their reconfiguration into

hyperlinked asymmetrical virtual streams. For example, as I have already noted, after

selecting a specific parameter, say >home<, the viewer can refine these streams by zooming

Into a specIfic current, say >violence<, within the streams. Once these new virtual time

currents are projected across the dome, the viewer can process them in real time bh . Y

P YSlcally navigating the projection window across the dome's surface. This interweaving

of matrix and viewer navigation with virtual-time processing precipitates the emergence of

unprecedented narrative events. In this respect »T_Visionarium« opens interactive cinemaand new media to a multi-modal aesthetic.

3 Refo~mulation of inte~active na~~ative

The interactive architecture of digital technology provides a fresh opportunity for

reformulating the role of narrative within digital cinema and new media.9 Current

experimentation in interactive narrative is handicapped by under-theorization of the role

of time and temporal events. 10 We know, for instance, that digital architecture is multi

modaJ.ll We also know that multi-modal artifacts are shaped by software rather than

linguistic codes.12

Software compresses information into thick units of virtual meaning.

»T_Visionarium's« manipulation of culturally prefabricated information rehearses the

longstanding artistic tradition oftranscription. 13 In this tradition the artist is presented with

a body of meaningful informational data which they reassemble in the process of creation

transposing the sensory form and hence meaning of data as it is reassembled. '

However, the multi-modal information employed in digital forms of production asserts an

independent agenda as this information rehearses the inbuilt eventfulness of the software.

Cinematic narrative, unlike literary narrative, is distinctively eventful. According to the

13B 139

French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, the two key variables in the formulation of cinematic

narrative are duration and movement. 14 Thus, even in conventional cinema the viewer's

direct awareness ofunfolding events is necessary in bringing the narrative to closure. When

the opportunity to direct the duration and movement of information is also seized by the

viewers, then they gain, in principle, possession of the tools necessary for the production

of narrative. The viewer is able to effect the lines of narrative not only indirectly, by re

assigning the symmetrical network of episodic links between the information, but also

directly through asymmetrical reflection on the unprecedented nature of these episodic

networks as they unfold.15 However, the narrative reassignment of complex multi-modal

information is only practical within the dialogic context of virtual environments. Only

within the technical possibilities afforded by digital technology can the viewer assert

autonomy over the temporal structure of the narrative. The recombinatory power of the

digital software proposed in »T_Visionarium« allows televisual kinds of information to

be analyzed and broken down into complex temporal layers. It also enables viewers to

reassign the connections among these layers by overlapping them until they cascade into

new episodes ofautonomously unfolding events. »T_Visionarium's« recombinatory matrix

furnishes the viewer with multiple entry and exit points to and from the information, as well

as with the facility to rehearse this information as narrative content on the fly.16 Its software

is engineered to capture existing teIevisual information in ways sufficiently sensitive to

the qualities of the viewer's reflections.1? »T_Visionarium's« multi-temporal narrative

structure, by allowing viewers to reflectively and independently recompose existing

televisual broadcast data according to their particular concerns, can serve as a prototype

for autonomously focused database and artistic interaction.

In the second respect, the reasoning which guides the design of the transcriptive software

is based on an associative logic. This associative logic has been studied by the philosopher

John Searle. 18 He argues that meanings are ascribed to cultural artifacts according to the

associative functions their stakeholders agree upon them to perform. He cites money and

calendrical time as instances of significant social artifacts existing only by virtue of the

associative functions attributed to them. Insofar as functional properties can be ascribed,

it follows that properties such as international currency-exchange rates are always open to

re-ascription through the interaction of players. However, openness to re-ascription does not

necessarily mean that meaning is relativistic. 19 Neither does the process ofascription suggest

9 Sake Dinkla. »The Art of Narrative - Towards theFloating Work of Art«. in; Rieser. lapp (eds.). (as in note 1,)

p. 34; John Dovey. »Notes Toward a Hypertextual Theoryof Narrative«. in ibid.. p. 144.

10 Ralph Melcher. Stations; Bill Viola. Dstfildern; HatjeCantz. 2000; Tony Dove. »The space between; telepresence. re-animation and the re-casting of the invisible«. in;

Rieser/lapp (eds.). (as in note 1).

11 Peter Weibel. »Narrated Theory; Multiple Projection andMultiple Narration«. in: Rieser. lapp leds.J.las in note 1). p. 51.12 lev Manovich. »Post-Media Aesthetics«. in; dislOCATiONS. Dennis Del Favero. Jeffrey Shaw (eds.). lKM Centerfor Art and Media. Karlsruhe. Ostfildern; Hatje Cantz. 2001.13 Peter Weibel. »Post-Gutenberg Narrations«. in Del

Favero / Shaw leds.)'las in note 121. p. 28.14 Gilles Deleuze. Negotiations 1972 -1990. New York;Columbia University Press. 1995. p. 59.15 Arthur C. Danto. Analytical Philosophy of Action.Cambridge; Cambridge University Press. 1973, p. 117.16 Manovich. »Post-Media Aesthetics«.las in note 121. p. 16.1? Ibid .. p. 17.

18 John Searle. The Construction of Social Reality.Harmondsworth; Penguin Books. 1995.19 Searle. las in note 18). p. 15; Weibel. »Post-Gutenberg Narrations«.las in note 13). p. 35; Neil Brown. »Theimputation of authenticity in the assessment of studentperformances in art«. in; Educational Philosophy andTheory. vol. 33. no. 3/4. p. 313.

10 Del Favero Brown Shaw I Weibel. T_Visionarium. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -140 141

a world where human meaning is pre-determined. Ascription rather refers to the patterns of

associative logic at work in all human arrangements. 20 It is a critical role of the new media,through its use ofassociative and transpositional logic, to act as an instrument in the aesthetic

reformulation of cultural meaning and to serve as a site of cultural contestation.

4 Multi-temporality

»T_Visionarium« formulates a multi-temporal approach to interactive narrative. It takes

a novel approach to the theorization of content within digital media, which is currently

informed by uni-temporal and simulatory rather than cinematic understandings ofaesthetic

production. 21 The reason why we have chosen a multi-temporal approach is twofold.

Firstly, we are careful in »T_Visionarium« not to equate the unfolding of narrative with the

simulation ofmovement. While movement is a defining feature ofcinema, movement and its

simulation alone provides an insufficient basis for the theorization of cinematic narrative.

Animation of spatial movement produced by the donning of video headsets, for example,

beg the question of narrative. We also set aside the hyper-representationalism of Jean

Baudrillard, for whom digital narrative invokes a field of infinitely reversible simulacra.22

Such a symmetrical world oflinguistic simulacra can never actualize new narrative content

or unfold narrative events as it flattens time into a never-ending mirror of itself.

Secondly, in »T_Visionarium« we turn away from psycholinguistic assumptions that

understand narrative as the recovery of representational structures from past memory.23

Following Deleuze we approach narrative as the recomposition ofevents within the emergent

memories of the viewer. For Deleuze the process of thought is described as episodic

reflection on the contingencies of a self-conscious passage through temporal reality.24

For »T_Visionarium«, the dynamic potentiality of utilizing complex relationships between

different layers of time, for example the speed and position of the viewer's head linked to

graphics software parameters, enables the bonding of navigation and narration.

,Liens,

Finally by way of summation, let us return briefly to the philosopher Michel Serres. Serres

explains the narrative relation between the subject and the object as the interrelationship

between two mutually dependent temporal systems. For Serres, subjects and objects are

interactively defined by their temporal relations with each other. Serres illustrates this., Th I 25

relation by reference to the invention of geometry by the Greek mathematlctan a es.

For Thales, the measurement of the length of the shadow of a pyramid at a particular time

of day involves the interrelationship between three things: an object in motion - in this

case the sun; an object at rest - in this case the pyramid; a subject who transcribes the

interrelationship - in this case the mathematician. In formulating measurement as the

temporal relation between the pyramid, the sun and mathematician, Thales conceives

geometry as a narrative of time. Here Serres is proposing that subjective activities, such as

narrative transcription, are intertwined with objective processes, such as motion, whereby

narrating becomes navigating and navigating becomes narrating. In this way subjectivity

and objectivity form a bond, or >liens<, of interactive encounters generated by their ever-

evolving multi-temporal relationships with each other.26

Similarly »T_Visionarium« brings together subjective and objective processes within

the digital field. Viewers, through their movement and navigation across the multi-temporal

streams of the recombinatory matrix, are able to reformulate their experience of global

television, transposing their encounters with the data flows into unprecedented narratives

of interaction between viewer and televisual data.

20 Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of aTheory of Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982, pp. 163 - 7.21 Jean Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death,London: Sage, 1993, p. 70.22 Baudrillard, The Transparency of Evil, (as in note 11.23 Paul Willemen, ..Reflections on Digital Imagery: Of Miceand Men«, in: Rieser, Zapp (eds), (as in note 1I. p. 20.

24 Baudrillard, The Transparency of Evil, (as in note 11. p. 149.25 Michel Serres, Hermes: Literature, Science andPhilosophy, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press,1982, p. 90.26 Michel Serres, Bruno Latour (eds.1. Conversationson Science, Culiure and Time, Ann Arbor: University ofMichigan Press, 1995, p. 177.

Figure 02 Page »Tapes«

fa COt

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --~

Jean-Francois-Guiton.- - - - - - - - - - -

www.guiton.de

The idea behind creating this website was to provide a platform for both information about

and input to my artistic activity. It makes available biographical data about the artist, brief

work descriptions, screenshots, longer texts about the tapes, designs, and documentations for

the installations. Another feature making this website a useful tool is the additional benefit

of downloading higher resolution photos as well as some designs and set-up instructions

for the installations. Working on iMediathek. internet platform for a video art archive, it

became more and more natural to present full-length videotapes on the webpage, perhapsalso as a sort of appetizer.

The pictures show the pages on the tapes, and in conclusion the respective first pages ofthe

website's other chapters: Installations, Photography, Biography, Links.


Fig ure 01 Homepage Figure 03 and 04 Pages»Tape Description« I»FuBnote«and »Coup de vent«1

11 Jean-Francois-Guiton. wwww.guiton.de.

Figure 05 Page "Tape Description« "La tache«

I ..

Figure 06 Page "Tape Description« and Page "Text«

Figure 07 Page "Tape« preview with link to distributor

144 145

11 Jean-Francois-Guiton. wwww.guiton.de.

Figure 08 Page "Tape Description«. "Tramage«

Figure 09 Pop Up "Timeline«

146 147

Figure 10 Page "Stills Overview«

Figure 11 Page "Still« with link to download

11 Jean-Francois-Guiton. wwww.guiton.de.-------

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

148 149

Figure 12 Page "Tape preview« with link to distributor

r'1Ir.;;' ::r ~:;;'.1:.0..- r-=- r........;..:- ~.;....;. F--

~ .~. '- --,,;;..;..-== 1-

.-' I~ -~ ~

~r= I ..... -

'-,

~ '--~.,

~I..-'

Figure 13 Page "Installations«

Figure 15 Page "Iink«Figure 16 Page "Photography«

Rudolf Frieling.150 151

Database and Context A~tistic St~ategies

within a Dynamic Field of Action 1

computer: the totality of knowledge (»his whole experience«) and the speed of the data

connections ("L'eady-made« and "on call«).'

Database Desi.re

Even ito google< is now an everyday term. Search engines such as Google seem to have

fulfilled the wish about the computer as a universal machine expressed by Vannevar Bush's

mid-twentieth-century essay »As We May Think«. Comprehensive knowledge on demand

finally joins machinic vision: "Wholly new fOL'ms of encyclopedias will appeaL',

L'eady-made with a mesh of associative tL'ails L'unning thL'ough them, L'eady

to be dL'opped into the memex and theL'e amplified. The lawyeL' has at his

touch the associated opinions and decisions of his whole expeL'ience, and

of the experience of fL'iends and authoL'ities. The patent attoL'ney has on

call the millions of issued patents, with familiaL' tL'ails to eveL'y point

of his client's inteL'est... «3 Bush does not reflect here on the context and history of the

production of knowledge, with all its social and historical conditions; rather, he combines

the central key figures of encyclopedic desire with the vision of a yet-to-be-developed

A >datum< is that which is given, as opposed to a >factum<, that which is made, or produced.

>Database< suggests a collection of data as a given structure upon which one may build

further, or - when referred to in German as a >databank< - a bank, from which one may

retrieve data, depending on one's interest. In this case, however, the etymology is deceptive.

The database is, in any event, already a produced >factum<, delineated as much by economical

as by social vectors. Furthermore, data is never simply a set >given<; rather, it transforms

itself, undermines itself, dissipates itself. The loss ofdata is a constant and inherent process

in the archive. Today the archive sees itselfconfronted by processes offictionalization as well

as dissipation, as much as does the technology within which it operates2. The dissipation of

electronic media is, on the one side, a technical issue, in that the pressure to innovate does

not allow for criteria such as longevity, and on the other, it is based on the performativity

of the archive itself. Thus the incomprehensibly and exponentially growing amount of

knowledge and information creates a desire for tools that qualitatively and quantitatively

collect, sort, and evaluate data material to be presented via interfaces. This text, however

is not about new technologies and database systems, but about fantasies and exemplar;

strategies as to how artists work with databases.

But were these not already realized, in analog form, as encyclopedias and libraries?

Walter Benjamin had already demonstrated in his unfinished book »Passagen Werk« (»The

Arcades Project«) that under contemporary conditions the traditional concept ofknowledge

with its inherent taxonomies was on its own insufficient, so knowledge must involve an

understanding of social processes and the character of apparitions as commodities, and

of the latent meaning of images, with reference to Freud's dream analyses. His notion

fundamentally touches the concepts ofvisual constellations (herein related to Aby Warburg's

»Mnemosyne Atlas«) and of materialistic experience. 5

Deconst.ructing and A.rchiving

.Selection by alphabet is L'andom enough, for what other system could put

Heaven, Hell, Hitler, Houdini and Hampstead in one categoL'y?«6 The concept

of the constellation connects Benjamin and Warburg with a medially created art through

indefinite, generative or randomly chosen orders, as the synopsis for Peter Greenaway's

1980 film »The Falls« illustrates. » The oL'der of things« (Foucault) as a category - and

index-oriented problem has, from an artistic point of view, been dealt with on numerous

occasions in analog form: the serial nature of date displays by On Kawara; the collection

of ephemera and images of mass culture by Hans-Peter Feldmann and Peter Piller; the

variety ofcontingent happenings in Andy Warhol's »Time Boxes«. With respect to dynamic

electronic databases, however, two further analog examples are more productive for index

typology: with his text work and photographic installation »lndex from >The Naturalist

Gatherers<<< (1992 - 1997)7, Douglas Slau presents a complex scientific index as a fictitious

catalogue that text can emerge out ofas a permutation, and Dan Graham's »Poem Scheme«

(1966)8 is a set oflinguistic instructions which operate as a simple text generator. After Slau,

one no longer >reads< a text through its main body, but more through its edges and specific

however, the site of the Gesamtdatenwerk must be theplanet as a whole, its data space, its electronic noosphere.« Roy Ascott, Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theoriesof Art, Technology, and Consciousness, Berkeley/LosAngeles: University of California Press. 2003, p. 226.5 The idiosyncracy of any form of taxonomy is used byMichel Foucault with reference to Jorge Luis Borges in hisbook The Order of Things (German version Die Drdnung derDinge, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1971, p. 17).6 http://vue,org.uk/falls.html.7 See Ingrid Schaffner and Matthias Winzen (eds,1. DeepStorage. Arsenale der Erinnerung. Munich / New York:Prestel Verlag, 1997, p. 72f. and 166f.8 Online at http://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen5and6/poem.html.

Goethe Institute and the ZKM Karlsruhe, and supported bythe German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.Z See the archivist projects of the Atlas Group by WalidRa'ad, and see also, among others. the catalogue of Documental1_Plattform5: Ausstellung, Dstfildern: Hatje CantzVerlag, 2002, pp. 180-183, and Bruce Sterling's collectionof obsolete formats at http://www.deadmedia.org.3 Vannevar Bush, »As We May Think«. The AtlanticMonthly, July 1945, pp. 101-108, reprinted in TimothyOruckrey (ed.1. Electronic Culture: Technology and VisualRepresentation, New York: Aperture, 1996. pp. 29 - 46.4 In a 1989 article for Kunstforum International, RoyAscott imagined that which he referred to as a Gesamtdatenwerk or 'complete data-work<: »Whereas Wagner'sGesamtkunstwerk was performed in an opera house,

(http://www.mediaartnet.orgl. which was to be publishedin comprehensiv.e form and linked to audiovisual materialtowards the end of 2004. It is aproject carried out incollaboration with Dieter Daniels, commissioned by the

1 First published in »aRt&D: Research and Development inArt«. Rotterdam: V2_NAi Publishers, 2005. This text isbased on materials and thoughts related to the theme of»Mapping und Text« for the online portal Media Art Net

12 Rudolf Frieling. Database and Context.

texture, as a form of comment structure, of selection of images, of quotes and notations,

of colophon, of cover, and so on; and with Dan Graham, a text always updates itselfintoa

form based on a semiotic system of rules, words, and so on - thus texts as well as collections

of data always operate with an apparatus based on subtext and context.

152 153

this perspective, the data-based archive presents itselfno longer as a passive storage space,

but rather as a place of action. To speak of a >store< of knowledge is misleading, since it is,

instead, a >generator< ofknowledge, Data is no longer simply placed in the archive as a >file<

but becomes an >actor< and begins to be mobile, leaving the archive again.

52

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Figuce 01 Dan Graham, "Poem Scheme«, © Graham

ed by typeby typo

CG or p

Early on, the Russian Constructivists recognized the potential ofnew means of information

distribution, up to a new conception of the book as a store of images: »The traditional

book was torn into separate pages, enlarged a hundred-fold, colored for

greater intensity, and brought into the street as a poster, [_1 If today a

number of posters were to be reproduced in the size of a manageable book,

then arranged according to theme and bound, the result would be the most

original book, The cinema and the illustrated weekly magazine have triumphed,

We rejoice at the new media which technology has placed at our disposal,«9

The accelerating dynamics of distribution processes were as close to the Constructivists'

hearts as was American capitalism, with the exception, as El Lissitzky noted, that the former

were placed in public specifically to catch the fleeting glance of the automobile driver. While

writers such as Jorge Luis Borges still saw the world as a book, or a library, it had now

become an image store that became mobile, to be experienced while in motion.

Since with radio, film, advertising and later television, data and images began to circulate,

they needed to become >locally< accessible again. Around 1965, Stan VanDerBeek built

his »MovieDrome«, which he conceived as a space for communication with a universally

accessible image gallery to be used by a communitylO Following Vannevar Bush and

seconded by Marshall MeLuhan, the »Expanded Cinema« of the 1960s helped create a

view of the world as an enormous audiovisual warehouse, which today has effectively been

realized in the form of a distributed global network of servers that one can scan with the

help of search engines, In turn, the search engines operate with gigantic storage capacities

and the parameters of intelligent database structures,

The index, removed from its point of reference, becomes the >main body< of the text. The

potential of the text moves into the foreground, The artists >free< the images (Piller) as

much as the words (Blau) from their original referential and indexical format to that of an

original order, such that the new sense oforder opens a new mode ofreading, The generative

nature of the text apparatus and the logic of the library (as storage space of all referential

structures) transform the archive into a producer and an archive of potential texts, From

The database as a cultural form of the twenty-first century, according to Lev Manovieh ll ,

employs ever more technicians, archivists, scientists and artists, While it delivers the ability

to structure material (principally using general standards such as the Dublin Core), it also

offers the variable preferences of the order itself, which equals something ofa fundamental

paradigmatic shift. While in traditional theory the level of syntax created an explicit

narrative and the level of paradigmatic choice (of narrative forms) existed only implicitly,

9 EI Lissitzky, "Our book«, Gutenberg Yearbook 1926/27,quoted in: Transform the World! Poetry Must Be Made byAll!, Moderna Museet (ed.!. Stockholm 1969.10 Stan VanDerBeek, "Culture Intercom: A Proposal and

Manifesto«, Film Culture 40,1966, pp, 15 -18, reprinted inGregory Battcock, The New American Cinema: A CriticalAnthology, New York: EP Dutton and co., 1967, pp. 173-179.

11 Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001, p. 218; see in particularChapter 5, "The Forms«, previously published on theInterrnet in 1998 as "Database as a Symbolic Form«; seehttp://www.manovich.nel.


this relationship in the computer era does an about face: the options are explicit, and the

resultant narrative now only exists implicitly.

Manovich references a range of artists, from Dziga Vertov to Peter Greenaway, to support

his thesis l2 A look at the home computer, however, is enough to confirm it. The computer

displays the library as one tool among others on the monitor (the >desktop<). Since in the

meantime the users also create massive amounts of image data, software packages come

with pre-installed libraries and image databases. Working one's way into the computer

therefore begins not with the creation of data but with the study of the possibilities for

referential structures and storage systems within the computer as a universal machine. How

can prefabricated referential systems be altered, then, in order to allow new and intelligent

relationships within a database? And how can an artistic use of databases be conceived?

The keywords for future networked databases already exist: significant content production,

dynamic networking to differing and heterogynous systems, and the possibility of random

sccess, i.e., associative, image-rich access.

The Database as an A~tistic Fo~m

Agnes Hegedus' interactive CD-ROM piece »Things Spoken« (1999) challenges the user

to research personal memorabilia in a database and to activate objects. Two stories may be

called up: the artist's story of each object, and a second person's, a close friend or family

member's, whose point of view is an interpretation of the object with respect to its owner.

»The viewer can sort these objects by various criteria such as size, weight,

color, function, or such as in the case of gifts, the gender of the per

sons who gave it to me. In this way that feverish method by which digital

archives can be reorganized according to any criteria is here applied in

a manner that is as gratuitously personal as the objects themselves.«13

With this, two categorical levels are established: that of formal keywording as a process of

subjective as well as arbitrary meta-information, and that of the spoken contextualization

of two constantly differing perspectives. The reorganization of the material according to

purely subjective criteria here is obvious, even when the artist's collection still seems to

stand for some sense of coherence.

In a further developed form of this work, a participatory installation, each visitor to the

museum could scan an object of his or her choice and tell a story about it, which in turn was

videotaped and stored. One could then retrieve the oral histories in this growing archive

154 155

from the computer on site. Over time, a relational structure between the objects and stories

emerged from these data collections, which, although fragmentary and anecdotal, were

clearly structured.14 The archive >wrote< itself and produced significant semantic clusters,

but also completely unexpected results. I never personally participated in this installation

as such (even though I had always intended to do so at the ZKM), but nevertheless I found,

after browsing through the material, my own name among the images. The oral storytelling

>behind< the images, the meta level, explained this image's entry into the database by way

of a colleague who playfully used my identity to tell his own story.

Figure 02 Agnes Hegedus. "ThingsSpoken". Screenshot: Volker Kuchelmeister

© Hegedus

Thus one's own history will also be extrapolated by others, rewritten and placed in other

contexts. Nor do I have any means of controll ing my name, images attributed to my name,

or least of all the use of my texts in digital space. Even though data mining is not my topic

here, it remains a fact of great importance that not only can the trail left behind by the user be

tracked by the corresponding software program (see RSG 's projects on this using Carnivore

software15), but it remains in the domain of the user to track down his or her own desire.

Era of Image ExchangeThe media archive (and not simply the database) is the >backbone< ofglobalized culture and

a concrete expression of the fact that people now live in the »era of image exchange«

(Gene Youngblood). The »iconic turn« as diagnosed by William 1. Mitchell and Gottfried

Boehm16 in the mid-1990s during the media boom, the omnipresence of technical imagery

in the natural sciences as well as the expanded use of digital cameras, webcams, MMS

and other image generators, is obvious, and fills the ever-growing storage capacity of the

computer. >Visual capital< is accumulated and then waits to be connected to the endless

12 See also Manovich's randomly generated databasecinema. Soft Cinema 120021. in collaboration with AndreasKratky. Future Cinema EXhibition. ZKM Karlsruhe. 2002.13 Agnes Hegedus in Update 2.0: Current Media Art from

Germany. ed. by Rudolf Frieling for the Goethe-Instituteand ZKM Karlsruhe: ZKM. 2000. p. 60.14 George LEigrady has also worked in acomprehensivemanner on this kind of multimedia. open form of archive.

15 http://www.rhizome.org/carnivore.16 William J. Mitchell. Picture Theory: Essays on Verbaland Visual Representation. Chicago: University of ChicagoPress. 1995: Gottfried Boehm. various publications. most

recently. "Zwischen Auge und Hand". in Bettina Heintz.Jorg Huber {eds.1. Mit dem Auge denken. Vienna / New

York: Springer Verlag. 2001. pp. 43 - 54.


circulation ofcharacters on the Internet (see calc's »Communimage« project1?). The images

not only possess a use value but also an exchange value. The >iconic turn< increasinglybecomes a >performative turne

Figure 03 and 04 calc. »Communimage«. Screenshot: Rudolf Frieling. © calc

Despite all performance, texts will continue to be systematically arranged, keyworded and

searched according to categories. But how do we order and systematize images? Do we have

tools that can >read< images? The work of the Viper Project's Geneva Informatics Group is

noted here as but one example of a whole series of image analysis and search algorithms l 8.

156 157

In essence, the parameters of the visual search are known: pattern recognition through the

comparison of forms, structures and textures, and moreover, color analysis and distribution

by percentage ofparameters within the image segment. The interesting aspect ofthe Geneva

Informatics Group's work relates to the necessity ofbuilding user feedback into the process,

insofar as the user must judge the relevance of the presented search results_ Based on the

user's evaluations, in turn, new hits will be generated and newly evaluated, and so on.

Figure 05 Viper, »GIFTCollection Guiding«, Screenshot:Stephane Marchand-Maillet.© Viper. UniversiUil Genf

Though some of the uses of these methods are already well established (i.e., the search for

brand names, commercially protected logos, etc.), questions pertaining to the semantic

ordering of less clearly identifiable images remain a much more open field of analysis. Can

algorithms then also achieve a complex semantic ordering of data? Is there hope for an

automatic archivist, or must the automatic indexed and keyworded data still be examined

by the eye of an expert? All these questions, ofcourse, also touch upon the discussion ofthe

navigation and cartography (or >mapping<) ofvirtual space, but also images as texts, which

I will go into at another point.19 The answers until now have all nonetheless been negative.

What is even more serious, at least here in the relevant field of media art, is that there is

hardly any uniform and comparative language with which to effectively describe time

and process-based work. 2o As such, then, it is not surprising that the Geneva Viper Group

once again focuses on the user in order to allow for an individualized handling of images.

Data has then - and this is an important moment - relevance only in one specific context.

One logical consequence is that a completely automated recording of complex audiovisual

correlations will only produce varying degrees of possibilities, which then almost always

fail programmatically, given the complex contextuality and semantics of art.

17 http://www.communimage.net.

18 Compare Stephane Marchand·Mailiet. »Image-Searchor Collection Guiding?« on http://www.mediaartnet.org(20051. as well as http://viper.unige.ch.

19 See Rudolf Frieling's follow-up. »The Archive,the Media. the Map and the Text«, on http://www.mediaartnet.org (2005).

20 In any case, within the V2_Archive as well as in otherfora, the first examples of glossary design may now befound.

12 Rudolf Frieling. Database and Context.- - - - - - - - - - - 158 159

Figure 06 Christophe Bruno••Non-weddings«, Screenshot: Rudolf Frieling. © Bruno

But is a blurry, ambivalent bit of information (response), taken in the context ofart, notthe

only possible one? In the following project, the question as to the quality of the retrieved

response is posed in a specifically artistic manner. In Christophe Bruno's online projecl

»non-weddings« (2002)21, which can be found on the www.unbehagen.com server, the

visitor is requested to .enter a dual set of terms into a search engine. The program returns

the images collected on the Web that correspond to the terms entered. What the actual

correspondence is in concrete terms remains open, however. We suspect that the search

here involves the pieces of text associated with the images. But this doesn't immanently

make much >sense<. Bruno seems to imply that today's discontent, following Freud, lies not

in the general notion of >civilization< but rather in the prerequisites with which knowledge

is generated electronically. The connection between data such as image and text becomes

obvious in its arbitrariness and fictionality, as it is experienced through Bruno, though

it is also as a source of Lacan-inspired >jouissance<. It is the tension in the relationships

between concept and image that subjugates the linguistic dualities within an ambivalent

field of random image connections. In Vannevar Bush's sense this work is >ready-made< and

comprehensive, since the user, in principle, always gets a significant hit, whose significance

only comes to light through associative interpretation of the user's results. In this sense

Bruno makes an intelligent offer: the useful and surprising weaving together of the data ~a subjective activity beyond the index or category.

Collective Data Space

The preceding examples assume a use of a given media offering by an individual. If the

database were made accessible for a larger audience, then multimedia objects could be made

accessible to a collective practice ofsorting, evaluating and intervening which moves beyond

the generally variable design of interfaces, as in John Simon's earlier »Archive Mapper«

project. In the following, third artistic project, we are confronted with aspects ofalgorithmic

text and image analysis, with the processes of data generation and narration which are a

result of this collective process. Chilean lsmael Celis and other media art students at the

MECAD university in Barcelona have completed a graduation project, known as» ewlexia«,

which aims to create a >new< filmic narration from data generated by the user.22 Each user is

called upon to add an image with a text-based description to the database. The algorithmic

process then analyzes the structure of the image as well as the terms in the description,

compares it with images already existing in the database, and sorts a series of ten images

with decreasing >similarity< into a linear one-minute film. The effect is completely filmic,

as the connections between the images are themselves simple cinematic editing techniques

such as fading. In the end, the >producer< doesn't see a typical >narrative-based film<, but

rather an >image-based film<. As with each visualization of data, it's obvious that the more

data exists, the higher the narrative resolution. Taking the words of Edward Tufte, the dean

of data visualization in the USA, instead of the modernist credo »Less is mo£'e« (Mies

van der RohelRoberto Venturi), data visualization dogma cries, »Less is a bo£'e«.23

One could imagine that, were the same image inserted at different times, not only would a

different narrative structure result, but the implicit semantics of the image would continue

to form into a logical storyline with increasing success. Speaking of semantics also means

beginning with an interpretive context. In principle, weaving together (networking) as a

structure ofdynamic production offers an increased potency with regard to ense - which,

understandably, implies the reverse: that sense itself can degenerate into overcomplicated

as well as simplistic nonsense (see also the spectrum of text permutation in Daniela Alina

Plewe's 2003 »General Arts« net project for Media Art Net). 24

Traps of Dynamics

Imagining the archive as an open, collective and dynamic system means, in other words,

exchanging the intransitive term for the transitive and process-oriented term >archiving<,

and >storage< for >generatof<. So far, so good. In fact, we experience in every nook and

cranny of the Web precisely how this networking process and collective expansion of data

became reality long ago (one needs only to think of Wikipedias, among other things). A

-

21 http://www.unbehagen.com/non-weddings.22 http://www.master.esdi.es/newlexia.ia.23 Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantative

Information. Cheshire: Graphics Press. 1983 (new edition1995J. p. 191.

24 http://mkn.zkm.de/GeneraIArts/.


load of data lies at the disposal of every single user at home on a Pc. What's the problem,

then? I would like to wrap up this discussion by formulating a question rather than a

fundamental objection.

Figure 07 Ismael Celis a.o .. »Newlexia«. Screenshot: IsmaelCelis. © Celis

To begin with, it is not unimportant to point out the fact that every database usually deals

with processes of inclusion and exclusion: in other words, politics. Data is not simply given,

it is created, as the statement at the beginning of this text points out. It appears important to

me that the computer as a universal machine with its powerful search engines produces the

Google effect: that everything which is not online has the tendency to be forgotten, and that

which is found appears to transport authenticity. Yet whether the answer to a precise search

request is an equally precise response is a fundamentally open question in light of the fact

that >anyone< can publish online. The obvious advantage is that since >everyone< publishes,

I get a full potential set of answers and never have to go away >empty-handed<.

Beyond this, other questions remain: how does coherence evolve from a constantly variable

amount of data? Quantitative constraints are one option. Primarily when dealing with a

predetermined finite amount of content, I can not only publish a concrete text but also

construct a concrete story, as Graham Harwood and Mongrel eloquently demonstrated

with »Nine(9)«. 25 The collective construction of the identity of a particular neighborhood

in Amsterdam allows itself to be much better narrated with "new images, new texts«

than with completely open structures. Additionally, the online visitor is guaranteed to

experience a form of audiovisual biography in this case. The great advantage of an artistic

database is the possibility, even with small amounts ofdata, ofdynamically and temporarily

generating interesting constellations. While a large amount of data is central to data

visualization and mapping, art makes do with smaller albeit significant amounts of data.

While the configuration of software is an optimizing solution, the Benjaminian concept

points the constellation towards a variable but positive order. The structuring of materials

25 http://9.waag.org.26 http://aporee.org/equator/.

160 161

into parameters of opposition, ambivalence, noise, and other artistic strategies supports the

exhibition and presentation of data in itself - independent of the actual amount of concrete

content on offer. Coherence therefore does not (supposedly) primarily come through lists,

inventories, indices, etc.: coherence declares itself(or not) first through the particularities

of the individual reception.

To what extent reception and participation are productive depends not only on the open

formal structures, but rather more on the significance of the available content on offer. One

of the earliest artistic database projects programmed with php and mysql, »The Equator«

and »Some 0therlands« by Philip Pocock, Udo Noll, Florian Wenz and Felix Stefan Huber

(1997) 26, presents the collecting and uploading ofaudiovisual data as a principally open field

of action, on the one hand illustrating how temporary and process-oriented relationships

in a database are built, while on the other hand the important and central aspects move

into the foreground. Here we are dealing with a group of content producers and not an

>authorial< narrator, documentarist or curator. The problem of quality control in science

as well as in art and media history doesn't present itself in artistic production in the same

way: quality does not measure itself through the data but rather through the accessibility

and productivity of the presented content for the users, who have no special interest beyond

a curiosity about new experiences, and for particular experiences that do not predefine that

which is generally known. In the best-case scenario, the users can choose their own filter

mechanisms, but without the art of radical, provocative and surprising selections - to stress

the point emphatically - there is no image, no text, no narrative.

Translation: Stephan Kovats

Monika Fleischmann / Wolfgang St~auss.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

On the development of netzspannung.o~g

An Online A~chive and T~ansfe~ Inst~ument

fo~ Communicating Digital A~t and Cultu~e

162 163

P~elimina~y Rema~ks

The Internet platform netzspannungorg is a comprehensive archive ofthe current discourse

on the theory of media, of artistic work and new strategies for communicating digital

culture. Unlike other online platforms established in Germany in recent years, such as

Medien Kunst Netz or Datenbank der virtuellen Kunst, which, using varying approaches,

offer a more historical perspective on media art, netzspannungorg addresses current

trends in digital art and culture. One fundamental characteristic of the platform is its

interdisciplinary take on media art, media design, media theory and information technology

and the way it communicates this information in the form of online teaching and learning

modules. Through these, the site has succeeded in establishing an information pool with an

interdisciplinary focus that appeals equally to users from the fields of the humanities and

computer sciences, artists and designers, agencies and IT companies.

- -- --

But it is not only with regard to content that netzspannungorg is a model educational tool

and transfer instrument. Another fundamental aspect is the technical infrastructure on

which the platform is built. Its special knowledge discovery tools allow for multidisciplinary

contextualization and intuitive access to information. The platform is thus a model for

structuring topical knowledge in order to render it accessible.

Whereas cultural institutions, educational establishments and libraries are experiencing

budget cuts and sponsors for art and culture are increasingly hard to find, by contrast, the

fast-moving, complex and highly diverse world of digital media demands the provision of

additional information, not least as an economic factor. The kind of information SOurces

that communicate currently relevant, up-to-date and attractive material are vital to the

transfer to society of learning, design utopias and new technologies.

1 http://netzspannung.org/about/history.

2 The authors have headed Media Arts Research Studies(MARSI. a research department initiated by them at theFraunhofer Institute of Media Communications, since 1987.At the time, the Institute of Media Communication IIMK)still belonged to the GMD Research Center for InformationTechnology. The GMD merged with the FraunhoferCompany in 2000.

3 The CAT feasibility study became the basis on whichthe Internet platform netzspannung.org was developed.It represented the start of the Internet media lab that wehave been setting up digitally at the MARS Exploratory

Media lab since October 1999. http://netzspannung.org/version1/ journa l/issueO/cat-history/

Figure 01 The netzspannung.org homepage as an overview structure

On the genesis of netzspannung.o~g

Media art needs laboratories in which to conduct its experiments. We see the platform as

. t allocation an >Internet-based media lab<. As a next step, it is planned to allow Ita vIr u , . . ffi d' t

. I >local media lab< and an accessible archive. ThiS Will 0 er me la arto functIOn as a rea .

in the German-speaking environment in particular the opportunity to publtsh and present

itself within the context of the international community.

At the start of the undertaking, we reviewed art using digital technologies and its social,

. 1 I mer 1998 we conducted2 an electrOnIc surveyPolitical and economic relevance. n sum .

h i (CAT) 3 aimed at media cultureh b'ect of the communication of art and tec no ogy ,on t e su ~ . .

. th hout the world The CAT study looked at the way art, culture and mformatlOnartists roug. . d htechnology influence one another and forecast trends and mutual interactIOn. It forme t e

. f h fi ar CAT R&D proiect that has created some 25 jobs for an mterdlsclplmarybaSIS 0 t e ve-ye J

team for the duration of the period.

164 165

At this point in time the netzs afor storin" adm· . t. p nnungorg platform comprises a series of basic servicesfi d .0' InIS erIng, accessIng and regulating user rights plus a total of I I modules

or ata Input and data output. netzspannungorg has now become an Internet

stagIng media events, art productions and intermedia research Acco d. 1 platform .for. r Ing y, even verSIOn

The mentioned survey was directed at 100 d·me la experts from th fi ld f

science and industry. This means that the CAT study benefits fr e e s 0 art, culture,

::::mmendations of international artists, curators, and sCientists.O~:h::;:oe;;e:sce:a:a~of >di:~:~c:~;:r:al~:ga:::dPathigeneSI'eIcntternet-basedresearch and interviews on the subject

. romc arts comm ·t· hlab< function as an online competence center for art, cu~:~:~n::e:n an >I~ternet media

It be structured? What functions should it fulfill? How can the platfi mbedla. How shouldof reflecti n d· orm e used as a means

g on me la developments oriented around both peoples' ne d dThe community offered the idea 0 e s an content?

. f a networked >center of centers< that could bevirtual home fo . b··· ,comeafurther Platfor~:.r~:::or~il::~vr:hu.alartists, for artistic/scientific research projects and for

we chose for the latfi 0 Ives was named as one Important objective. The name

One "oal of t p orm was a play on words and as such open to different interpretations..0 ne zspannungorg was to initiate networks between ur ..

and mteraction between the different activities The platform tP

lveyors of digItal artof2001, with the aim .. .. wen on IDe at the beginning

. . of engenderIng vIsible suspense on the World Wide Web throu h hmedIUm of Interesting and topical content on digital culture. g t e

In his 1945 article »As we may think« Vannevar Bush called for a new relationship between

thinking people and the sum of our knowledge. The American scholar complained that

»the~e is a gcowing mountain of cesea~ch. But the~e is incceased evidence

that we ace being bogged down today as specialization extends. ,,6 In Bush's

analysis, the real problem in choosing information is the artificiality of its indexing systems

which sort data in archives alphabetically or numerically so that the information can only

be found, if at all, by going through the indexes one by one. He went on to say: "The human

mind does not wo~k this way. It opecates by association. With one item in

its gcasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the associa

tion of thoughts, in accocdance with some intcicate web of t~ails caccied

by the cells of the bcain. (on) Selection by association, cathe~ than by

indexing, may yet be mechanized.,,7

On the development of netwo~ked knowledge st~uctu~es

What is the significance of the permanent growth in information in terms of its reception?

What formats could be found for communicating non-linear and networked forms ofartistic

expression in order to illustrate process-controlled works in aesthetic terms? How can trans

genre information structures be portrayed as networked knowledge beyond the bounds of

rigid systematics? How are trans-disciplinary knowledge structures created?

1.0 has the technical capabilities of a dynamic knowledge portal for digital art, design and

media communication. We launched an incentive program featuring cooperation agreements

with artists (artists in residence) 4 and workshops. Our »digital sparks«5 competition has the

object of highlighting what is currently being taught in Germany, Austria and Switzerland

with best-practice examples from the worlds of art, design and IT as well as of awarding

production bursaries to the prizewinners. Some of these are implemented at the MARS

Lab, others with partners.

netzspannung.org allows for an architecture of data spaces that can be individually

configured and sees itself as a public information interface with the >netzkollektof< as

a free channel interface and state-of-the-art production and distribution format for

the community. With the knowledge discovery tools methods of offering access to,

networking and illustrating the flow of information and data storehouses are structured

using semantic classification. These form the basis of new interfaces with an extended

scope of knowledge.

Figure 02 Mostwanted statistics toolindicates Users' originsand their interests

--.."......--",--

4 http://netzspannung.org/about/mars/projects/.5 digital sparks is a competition for students and graduates fromall specialist areas working in the fields of mediaart, media design. media IT. media staging and media

communication. What we are looking for is interactive,experimental and theoretical work that demonstrates anInnovative approach to digital cultural technologies. Theobjective of the competition is to encourage the Upcoming

generation working in media culture and, at the sametime, to offer insights into the research currently beingconducted and into what is being taught at universitiesin the German-speaking world. http://netzspannung.org/digital-sparks/.6 Vannevar Bush - As We May Think - The Atlantic

Monthly, July 1945. HTML version by Denys Duchier,1994 http://www.csi.uottawa.ca/-dduchier/misc/vbush/awmt.html.7 See also: Vannevar Bush, »As We May Think". In:Form Diskurs magazine, no. 2,1/1997, pp. 136-147, http://wwwcs.upb.de/-winkler/bush_d.html.

13 Fleischmann / St~auss. 0n the development of netzspannung.o~g.166 167

---------------------------------

such as >cultural heritage< and >explore information< in the >media art research< section.

Presented in relation to one another in this way, connections between works that would not

otherwise be recognizable thus become visible, offering users many different perspectives

on media art-related topics.

Just as large telescopes allow astronomers to see the heavens we need new cultural

technologies and new tools to sift through, survey and evaluate the quantities of data.

Astrophysicist Roger Malina compares our knowledge discovery tools to a »telescope

facility fo~ looking at and evaluating the data cosmos«.

Figure 03 Kno I d d·we ge Iscovery tools:timeline. semantic interface map and interface

The idea of associative networks of concepts also forms the basis of the w

knowledge discovery tools are designed and proorammed Th' ... ay theof media art works both visualIy and in tech .0 I . elr aIm IS to dIsplay the content

. mca , computer-related terms with .

~::~:Z;::h,:dt~"hi""Y HI,,""Iog "m,",I, I",,,,,''';o",hl,, ;0 the;, d;gl":':~~:o:s e semantic map filter relevant content from the fI . .

establish interrelated conceptual networks from it Th hOOd of informatIOn andenti re current content. . e user t us gets an Idea ofthe archive's

netzspannung.org's archive serves not only to reconstruct a a ..present. Here, what is calIed for is not a rioidly fixed a pst, but also to Imagme a

constantly changing formation ofa grOwinooarchive that :::n::me:tof data bodies but thethe semantic rna . ° rea In ever new ways. With

. P - a dynamIcally generated navigation map - invisible links .of Information are calculated and displayed Conte tId .. between Items. . n on re ate tOPICS IS oro d t hIn clusters with a spatial distance' d' . . ° upe oget erIn IcatIng a substantIve one The m Itwo documents are, the closer together they are positioned T~ ore c osely >related<

on automated text analysis and the evaluation of the latter b~ m:a:::; are produced based

~~""d of"log 11","."d hl'''''hl,,1 "m"",", lofo'm"loo I, dl';I::::o::~ o:~::~semantIc relatIOnshIps. The semantic rna to .of the archive d' .. p pographlcalIy groups the entire contents

. accor Ing to content sImIlar in a cybernetic sense under a certain k

such as >Interactive<, >instalIation< or >video< depending h eywordsbeen defined as keywords for the works' . on w at terms (meta-data) have. In questIOn. Here the docum ntIn a neuronal network folIowing the principle of closest roximit . e s are arranged

Conversely, >timeline< sorts the works in time and . p h Y In geographIC terms.assigns t em to specIfic topic groups

On our curatorial strategyOur strategy for building up a colIection of media art and material relating to digital culture

is not based on data hunting in general, but on the acquisition of interconnected information.

Ifmedia art is to be seen as a point of interface between art, technology, science and society,

it must be displayed with its processes and interdependencies. This cannot be restricted to

individual, isolated descriptions of the ceuvre of welI-known artists often mentioned but

seldom analyzed and interpreted in the context of other contemporary works, descriptions

that do not take account of the latter's individual production conditions. By contrast, with

netzspannung.org we aim to record current and emerging cultural trends and tendencies

in present-day attitudes. We want to direct what we offer not only towards the academic

community but also to the artists themselves and a wider public interested in current

questions relating to media art. How are digital media researched? How do they become

productive? What do artists do with the new media and what individual characteristics do

they put in place?

In this context, increasing significance is attached to the term artist/scientist. After all, it

should not be forgotten that media art is based on a technology originating in scientific,

industrial or military research laboratories that has suddenly turned up in social contexts.

Our objective is thus not to present a comprehensive compendium ofselected media art in the

form ofan educational canon, but to devise an open structure capable of further development,

perhaps comparable with architect Le Corbusier's endless museum or the encyclopedia of

scraps on Monte Verita in Switzerland, the brainchild of Swiss artist Armand Schulthess.8

Following the fundamental principle of interactive art, the aim is to program a non-linear

construction and colIection structure on the Internet and thus an >imaginary museum<9 such

8 Armand Schulthess "wrote out thousands of littletablets. most of them made of sheet metal. covering themWith amassed knowledge from the entire cultural historyall fields of learning and all walks of life. He established'an encyclopedia in the forest, little written tablet hangingon trees and bushes and mounted on walls, together with

path systems and seats, laid out in wine terraces and onthe slopes of a chestnut fores!. Working painstakinglyand With great attention to detail, he created a librarythat he wrote.and Illustrated himself.« Armand Schulthess(1901 -19721 Der verwunschene Garten des WissensMarkus Britschgi led.I, S. Corinna Bille (text). Theo Fre'y

Iphotographs) http://www.diopter.ch/Publikationen/

kunst_schulthe ss.htm.9 ,Because an imaginary museum, such as has neverexisted has opened its gates: it will take to the limits the

intellectualization that began with an incomplete confrontation with works of art in the real museums.« Andre

Malraux The imaginary museum.

13 Fleischmann / Strauss. On the development of netzspannung.org.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

as Andre Malraux wished for, one that would basically allow every visitor a different and

personal viewpoint - an individually configurable exhibition for analyzing and interpreting.

This structure appears as a mixture of display storehouse on the one hand and guided tours

through networks of content on the other. In this environment, the individual work appears

in comparison with other works. It grows beyond the statement it makes on its own behalf

and in this constellation throws light on the manifestations of cultural digital technology.

A statement of the kind that the work alone would not have engendered comes into beina,,,one that is often not the intention of the work, but now to interpreted in a new context. In

this modular and configurable field of vision a multi-facetted range of media art emerges,

one that not only - as is often the case in museums -leads to an illustration of the works on

show. This notion ofcollection, and it is also reflected in the trans-disciplinary configuration

of art rooted in technology, is one of the principle focuses of netzspannungorg and could

also be expressed by the term ofnetworked knowledge. The idea ofnetworking information

and rendering it visible forms the basis of the knowledge discovery tools.

Figure 04 Semantic map in various different degrees of semantic 100m

168 169

On the contentThe question »Why is it so appealing to live in mixed realities« is the programmatic subject

ofour CASTOI conference: »Living in Mixed Realities« at Schloss Birlinghoven in 2001. It

describes our initial strategy when we started developing our database, to fill the planned

archive's empty virtual >room< with content. A >call for papers< prompted 450 answers to

the above-mentioned questions. The international jury ofartists and scientists selected more

than 80 works, texts and projects using a peer review procedure. For the conference, these

were divided into seven panels. The invited speakers raised some of the main questions of

our media society on the following issues:

I Understanding Mixed Reality? / Spaces for Emergent Communication

2The Information Society Landscape / New Formats of Expression

3 Networked Living / Connected Citizens

4 Digital Archives and Mobile Units

5Tools and Strategies for Intermedia Production

6 Performative Perception / The Body as Instrument

7 Media Art Education / Teaching New Media

The theme of the conference serves to define the main features of the contents of the

data pool on media art and digital culture. Entries submitted for the conference form the

basis of the online archive. Four years down the road this collection of articles and works,

which is compiled in the CASTOI conference volume, remains one of the most frequently

downloaded documents on netzspannung.org. Now, in June 2005, netzspannungorg has

over 1,000 entries covering art, design, art theory, media theory, and computer science.

There are articles and theoretical writings, multi-media presentations - images and films,

as well as applications - of both artistic and academic projects, as well as over 130 hours

of video documentation of scientific lectures and symposia.

The netzspannungorg section covering »Media Art Research« pave the way for questions

on the topic of the interaction between Man-Machine-Man. Themes such as »Take Part«

or »Perform & Play« bring together characteristic examples, prompting fundamental

questioning of media art, illustrating the interaction between artistic, design, technical

and academic aspects. Whereas the entries in the database provide in-depth information

on individual works and projects by artists and academics, the general fields place these

works in a theoretical and historical context that lends itself to the media. »Positions« has a

Figure 05 The mobile unit as data storage. recording and distribution tool

13 Fleischmann I Strauss. On the development of netzspannung.org.

. E Passages - media16 Fleischmann & Strauss. nerg¥- .

. I http'//www energle-art Installation in a pubhc pace. .

passagen.de/.

W'kis are Web siteshich authors can collaborate. I . .

;at enable any Internet user to contribute Wlthou~ PflO~. . n one can write new articles or lOa e ,m

registration. A y. . The Wikimedia Foundation,ents to eXlsllng ones. .'

~r~~:~tableorganization, is engaged in pioneerl~g ~o~~ernthe collaborative compilation of contents. T~e c a;l

n:w

foundation, which was set up by Jimmy Wa es anhas aworldwide network, uses the money It receivesfrom donations primarily for expanding the servers and

technical infrastructure.

cultu~al technologyKnowledge st~uctu~es as the legitimate interests of authors

I vailable In the Internet ageKnowledge should be free ya '. fth's maxim. Nonetheless, ways must

. . . hts stand In the way 0 Id owners of explOItatIOn ng I e commercial interests.

an he Internet does not mere Yservbe found whereby knowledge on t I beino planned and furthermore to

o rioht laws current y I::> •

This applies to the changes to c py I::> b Il wed to become preventive. . . C ri ht law must not e a 0 ,

civil rights in a digital society. opy g I' t the Internet. 10 For this reason Itth se features pecu lar 0 .

law. It must take into account o. t culture without forfeiting fair. h h mplOns a free Interne

is necessary to create a nght t atcadby the Encyclopedists,12 who, between• 0 'th the Idea pursue

remuneration. 11 In keeplnl::> WI . h t as then known,13 since 2001 the. 78 I mes everything taW

1751 and \772 published In - vo U . 'k' d' 14 has been orowing, with the aim ofclopedla WI Ipe 13 I::>

freely accessible Internet ency 15 W'th the same spirit netzspannung.org'1 bl on a large scale. I

making knowledge aval a e . k' the >netzkollektor<. In this contextk available their wor In

invites artists and curators to rna e .' blic place hiohlights the need for16 a media art installatIOn In a pu , I::>

our >Energy-Passages<, .. "n a olobal society. .

the free flow of informatIOn I I::> d' 'b tion of all types of informatIOnI doe and the mass Istn u

The mechanization of know e I::> • h d humanization of knowledge-I 0 hand in hand Wit a e-

on the Internet nonethe ess 1::>0 I omethino that was initially. . . k' nd is forfeiting to techno ogy S I::>

processing activIties. Man I t th growth in human knowledge. . 'fi y »Wheceas to da e e . .

Part of its indivIdual lie energ , .' d ys technology that 1S 1n-h 1 1t 1S nowa a

promoted the bicth of tec no ogy, . pcocessing, distcibution,. th coduct1on, stocag e ,

creasingly influenc1ng e p 'b 'ng evec moce dominated by. d e Knowledge 1S ecom1 . '

and cecycl1ng of knowle g . . 1 mecely a pce-Cequ1s1te foetechnology, and as such knowledge 1S no ong

ec

170 171

- - - -- - - - - - - - - -. - earlier archive information. Both the opportunity with the

relatino it at the same time to . 'bTty in terms of contents and timeI::> • h h' 0 quickly and Its acceSSI I I

online archive to publls t Inl::>s. d I fi r a new form of public library. Thek I doeoroamsmandamoeo. I

make the platform a now e I::> 1::>. h d ofaccessino the contents, InVO ve. . hich enable different met 0 s I::> •

various archive Interfaces, w . k n knowledoe in archives. HereI atino previously un now I::>

in part totally new approaches to oc . I::> • h interdisciplinary R&D is conducted at allmedia art topographies are recorded, In whlc

levels _ content, technology, design and transfer.

13 .. So that the work of the past centuries was notwithout benefit for the coming centuries; so that ourgrandchildren are not only better educated, but at thesame time more virtuous and happier, and so that we donot pass away without having been of use to humanity,«Denis Dideror.14 Since May 2001 a total of 240,638 articles have beenwritten for the German-language version of Wikipedia. Asat June 5, 2005, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauptseite.15 Wikipedia uses Wiki technology, a digital tool with

10 http://www.rettet-das-internet.de/index.htm.11 See Attac-AG ..Wissensallmende und Freier Informationsfluss« fOr die Kulturflatrate. http://www.attac.de/wissensallmende/.12 Encyclopedist refers to the founders. members ofstaff and publishers of the Encyclopedie ou Dictionnaireraisonne des sciences, des arts et des metiers whichappeared between 1751 and 1772 under the guidance ofDenis Diderot and Jean d'Alembert. http://wwwphilosophenlexikon.de/diderot.htm.

wide range ofvideo documentation oflectures by renowned artists and academics produced

in collaboration with well-known partners from the fields of culture and science such as

Burda Academy in Munich, Edith RujJ House for Media Art in Oldenburg, House oj World

Cultures in Berlin, ZKM - Center for Art and Technology in Karlsruhe and many other

cultural or academic institutions. Selected lecture series on »Iconic Turn«, »Migrating

Images«, »Frames of Viewing«, »Mapping«, »Generative Tools« and »Cordless« were

recorded with the help of the netzspannung.org mobile streaming lab and broadcast live

to the lecture theaters of the associated universities. Networking lecture theaters widens

the possibilities of teaching on home territory and is the first model for the >classroom of

the future<. It is a podium for lectures by hitherto less well-known academics and artists

as well as internationally renowned speakers. They cover a wide range of topics: The film

director Wim Wenders, for example, speaks about »Every Picture Tells a Story - of Places

as Authors«, robotics researcher RolfPfeifer about »The Visualization of Intelligence«,

art historian Barbara Stafford about »Images of Knowledge« and art expert Boris Grays

about »Exiting the Image«. A player developed specifically for the films provides additional

information about the context of the lectures.

By publishing lectures immediately as video documentation and making them accessible

to everyone in the long term the platform encourages the acquisition of fresh knowledge,

13 Fleischmann / Strauss. On the development of netzspannung.org.

Figure 06 Energy-Passages. An interactive installation in a public space. Munich 2004

technology, but just as much its ultimate goal." This is how Holger Nohr, a

business IT specialist, describes the change in the relationship between knowledge and

technology17 Extending to all disciplines, research in science, art, politics, technology and

economics must develop new approaches to stimulate new education processes, focusing

on a different attitude to knowledge and lack of knowledge. Researchers into the future

say that we need to strengthen not an >either, or< but an >as well as( mindset, not to mention

>thinking in relationships<.18

Search engines, first and foremost Google, have long since represented a form ofpower

over knowledge. In 2002 a Telepolis article addressed the influence ofsearch engines on our

knowledge: »Which knowledge memories a society has, and the extent to which

those thirsty for knowledge can access them is not in itself decisive, ul

timately the way millions of people typically use them is what forms public

opinion. ,,19 Nowadays search engines20 function as our »universal interface to the

digital world. ,,21 The growing Wikipedia Community defines the term as follows: .A

search engine is a program for enquiring about documents that are stored

on a computer or a computer network, such as the World Wide Web." With

172 173

netzspannung.org as an artwork itself we make a discerning observation and illustration

of changes in societal knowledge structures and we support experiments in educatIOn of

crosscdisciplinary thinking

Translation: Jeremy Gaines

17 Holger Nohr. in: Technisierung von Wissen - eineHerausforderung fOr die Technikfolgenforschung7. http://www.iuk.hdm-stuttgart.de/nohr/p ubI/Technik.pd f.18 See. Bernhard von Mutius. Die andere Intelligenz. Wie

wir morgen denken werden. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. 2004.19 Goedart Palm. The world is almost everything thatGoogle is. 28.03.2002. http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/12/121B7/1.html.

20 The word .Suchmaschine< (search engine) appeared forthe first time in the German reference book GroBer Dudenin 1999: an Internet program that with the help of extensive databases consisting of Internet addresses enables a

targeted search for information in the Internet.21 Stefan Krempl. The Beautiful New World of the GoogleSociety. 20.05.2005 http://www.heise.de/newsticker/

meldung/59709.

Rens Fromme / Sandra Fauconnier.

fo~mal

p~ese~ving

Captu~ing Unstable Media A~ts - A

model fo~ desc~ibing and

of elect~onic media a~t

aspects

174 175

leading to a generic structure of typical concepts for the description of electronic media

art activities in general. Finally, a formal model to describe electronic media art activities,

in several levels of detail, is proposed, offering a series of sharable, basic concepts of

interest to a wide variety of institutions and actors in the field of media art. This article is

concluded with a few recommendations on the description, preservation and presentation

of unstable media arts.

AIle Kunstformen werden durch die Digital' .. '. lSlerung zu exakten wissen-

schaftllchen D1Szlplinen und k- .. onnen von der Wlssenschaft nicht mehr

unterschleden werden.

Vi/em Flusser, 199/1

Introduction

~::;:nand technolog~ play an increasingly important role in contemporary society and

h art. CommUnIcatIOns, productions, trade and medicine are all being chanoed b

tec nologlcal developments, which are also transformin o the arts Art that k b Yel t' . b . ma es use of

ec ronlc, espeCIally digital or >unstable< media, explores the meanino h '.

and the boundaries of these media. So far, few attempts have been made :~ ~:c:peCJflcltYpreserve thIS field of unstable media art (or electronic media art), partly due to the ::t ~end~:terogeneousnature of these artistic activities, partly because the field is still in its inf:nc;'

b -- - a centre for art, culture and technology in Rotterdam, the Netherlands _ has I .0;::concerned wIth this issue, building an archive with documentation of twenty ye:~C' dctronIc media art and media art events. In 2003, together with the Daniel Langlol'sFaun atLOn (CDN) V') d d

f bl .' -- con ucte research on the preservation and (on-line) presentationo unsta e medIa arts, which resulted in a fresh approach called Ct' UMediae 2 ' > ap urIng nstable

Preservation of contemporary art

Traditionally, concepts of artworks and their documentation have been oriented on the

material presence of artifacts, corresponding to static models of documentation 5. In

contemporary art, however, both the use of materials and the production techniques are

extremely diverse. Artists may use any material, varying from stone and metal to plastics and

highly transitory biological matter. Still, in a museum-related context the notion of>original

state< is prevalent, focusing on preservation and/or reconstruction of an original:

Reconstruction of modern art should - according to existing codes - be carried out as far

as possible only in a reversible way, that is: without impairing or destroying the original

material, nor the traces of its construction. 6

The conventional paradigm of preserving the artifact will not be effective for media art.

Unstable media art practices are ephemeral and variable, in the sense that the meaning of

these practices may not be specifically tied to anyone element or artifact, or it may lie in its

inherent transformation or degradation. In this respect unstable media arts are more close to

forms ofperformance art or other forms of time-based art. A common preservation practice

for these has been to save a canonical form of the work (score for a musical piece)7, together

with audiovisual documentation of all stages and manifestations of the workB.

3 Sandra Fauconnier, Rens Fromme, »Capturing UnstableMedla«. http://archive.v2.nI/Projects/capturing Febr 012004.. ' '.

4 V2.Archive. »whisper«. http://framework.v2.nl/archive/archlve/node/work/default.xSIl/nodenr.135466. Aug. 01. 2003.

Unfortunately, canonical forms for electronic media art have not yet been researched and

developed. Although, for example, the Variable Media Initiative has designed a framework

for the description of variable appearances of a work, together with the registration of

As part of this research, several theoretical approaches for capturing and .

unshtabl; media arts were analyzed, together with a number ofmedia art projects ::::e~lD~arc Ive . In thiS artIcle whisper" I' . . _ sb Theel S h' ' , a rea -time, partIcipatory video-installation/performancey a C lphorst (CDN) and Susan Kozel (CDN/GB) '11 b

'11 . WI e presented as a case studyI ustratIng all necessary information on the' . 'and d'ff, '" prOject as well as ItS subordinate aspects

1 erent manIfestatIOns In time. Followino the h fi .d' b researc, rst essentIal aspects andi o:umentatIOns for capturing the whisper project are identified. Next, on the basis of the

n- epth InvestigatIOn, clear concepts and terminologies for its components are defined,

1 Vi/em F/usser. Digitaler Schein. in: Claus Pias. JosephVogi. Lorenz Engell. Oliver Fahle. Britta Neitzelleds.).»Kursbuch Medienkultur«, Stuttgart: OVA. 1999. p. 214.2 V2_Archlve. V2_Archive Portal. http://archive.v2.nlAug. 8. 2003. .

5 Christiane Berndes, »New registration models suitedto modern and contemporary art«, in: Ysbrand Hummelen.Dionne Sille led.!. »Modern Art: Who Cares? An Interdisciplinary Research Project and an International Symposiumon the Conservation of Modern and Contemporary Art«.Amsterdam: The Foundation for the Conservation ofModern Art and the Netherlands Institute for CulturalHeritage, 1999.6 Ernst van de Wetering. »Conservation-restorationethics and the problem of modern art«. in: Ysbrand Hummelen. Dionne Sille leds.): »Modern Art: Who Cares? lasin note 51. pp. 247 - 249.

7 Howard Besser, »Longevity of Electronic Art«.http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/- howard/Pa pers/e lec tartlongevity.html. Febr. 01. 200l.B Carol Stringari, »Installations and the problems ofpreservation«, In: Ysbrand Hummelen, Dionne Sille leds.l:"Modern Art: Who Cares? (as in note 51. pp. 272 - 281.

:4_R~n: _Fr_om_me_/ Sandra Fauconnier. Capturing- _ _ _ _ _ _ Unstable Media Arts.

acceptable variables within aspects of a work tkind offormalized canonical form 9 If ' hese were not yet transposed into some

, . we recogllIze that thIS w 't b .

near future either, ancillary materials that explain and contextua~:e t:ea::::::::

edin the

Important to preservelO . Here we can Ie me moreart already have encountered~l arn from the problems conservators of installation

First ofall the environm t' h' h' en s m w IC electronic art functions need to be well d

Compared with other forms of modern art, electronic media art 0 ocumented.dIrect relation to the appearance and beha' f h . ften has an even more

vlor 0 t e work Itself:Context and relation is crucial for understandi a .

collections which are comprised fl' I . no. conceptual and mtermedia arts. 0 mu tIp e objects m one performance or c .

documentatIon with artifacts t h'b' ombmeo ex I It process over product.12

Secondly, sketches, drawings and the original proposal written b . .m understanding the artist's intention. In ord y an artIst, are Importantto develop more dynamic models ofdoc er to preserve >process over product<, we need

of media art activities. umentatIOn, focusmg on vanous forms ofevidence

Unstable Media A~ts

Unstable media art . I d . .

projections, perfor;::::s :n::~:::::~:::::::c~::::;~ikemedia art installations, video-

the framework offestivals exh'b't' d nICS or software, presented within, I I Ions an other proa Md'

place in dynamic networked . orams. e Ia art practices often take(human-to-mach~ h envIronments, which include all kinds of social interactions

me, uman-to-human and machine .mostly do not come into bei' -to-mach me). These environments

the context of (media arts) in:~t~~i:n:~~~~h:r;~:~;p:::::t,butfare rather prod.uced withinartw k f . Ion 0 envIronments m which the

or unctIOns, depends largely on the culture and history of the places wh hproduced or the context in which it is presented. ere t eyare

176 177

media art. According to Jon Ippolito 14, when preserving and re-presenting media-based

works of art, we should give up the notion of a single, authentic object and rather view

these works as processes or sets of instructions, functioning in a specific environment.

So, instead of focusing on precious originals created by a single artist's genius, we need

to explore new paths of preservation, taking into account complex issues like distributed

authorship, the interaction of users and keeping the essential aspects of electronic media

art activities accessible.

Addressing the preservation and long-term access issues for digital resources is one

of the key challenges for capturing unstable media. Digital works cannot be allowed to

wait for even a few years while solutions are found, due to the extremely compressed

obsolescence rate and fragile nature of digital media formats 15 , Already, the fields of

information science and digital archiving have developed several techniques to preserve

digital information objects. The three main techniques are static preservation, migration, and

emulationl6 . However, the art community cannot rely entirely on these techniques alone to

solve the problem of preserving digital information, as unstable media art implies specific

problems distinct from many other types of digital information like preserving the context

and physical components in which the information functions and describing its hard- and

software dependencies and interactions.

Unstable media art follows on the modern art genres like installation art, with its physical

properties and video art/performance art, with its time-based character. Its practices lie in

a hybrid position between the physical art object and the artistic event. Apart from maybe

snapshots and source codes, the only traces of electronic media art are their documentation,

produced with means external to themselves1? Capturing such projects, research practices,

or components of them, calls for a different methodology than the preservation of more

simple and static objects (like sculptures) for which standard description models already

exist. Questions arise around defining which elements should be documented, described

or preserved (in short: captured).

V2_ has no interest in collecting media art works 0 .

the documentation of its activities or events r pIeces of works, but focuses on

developed for physical artifacts cannot cov~rS~rl::: sta~~lllg Pfreservation techniquespro em 0 preservmg electronic

9 John G. Hanhardt, »The Challenge of Variable Media«10: Alam Depocas, John Ippolito, Caitlin Jones (ed.): »Pe·r.manence through Change: The Variable Media Approach«New York / Montreal: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum .and Damel Langlois Foundation, 2002, pp. 7_ 9.

10 Howard Besser, »Longevity of Electronic Art«.http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/-howard/Papers/elect_artlongevlty.html, Febr. 01.2001.

11 Carol Stringari, »Installations and the problems of

preservation«. In: Ysbrand Hummelen, Dionne Sille (eds.l:

»Modern Art: Who Cares? An Interdisciplinary ResearchProject and an International Symposium on the Conserva.tlOn of Modern and Contemporary Art«. Amsterdam: TheFoundatIOn for the Conservation of MOdern art and theNetherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage, 1999, p. 272

12 Berkeley A(t Museum & Pacific Film Archive, »Archi.vmg the Avant Garde«, http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/about_bampfa/avanCgarde.html. 2003.

13 Michael Naimark, »Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Money:Technology-Based Art and the Dynamics of Sustainability«. http://www.artslab.net. May 01, 2003.14 Rens Fromme, »Interview at V2_ with Jon Ippolito«,Variable Media Network, Aug. 10, 2003.15 Richard Rinehart, »The Straw that Broke the Museum'sBack? Collecting and Preserving Digital Media Art Worksfor the Next Century«, http://switch.sjsu.edu/nextswilch/switch_engine/front/front:php7artc=233.

16 Jeff Rothenberg, »Ensuring the Longevity of DigitalDocuments«, in: Scientific American, Vol. 272 nr. 1, January 1995, pp. 42 - 47.17 Alain Depocas, »Digital Preservation: Recordingthe Recoding«, http://www.aec.at/festivaI2001/texte/depocas_e.html, Ars Electronica Festival, 2001.

14 Rens F~omme / Sand~a Fauconnie~. Captu~ing Unstable Media A~ts. 178 179

anumber of intertwined research and test activities, some ofwhich took place at the V2_ Lab,

producing data and resulting in several manifestations, like prototypes, presentations and

performances. The whole initial concept ofwhisper was written down in a project proposal21

During the first artist-in-residence period at the V2_Lab (June-July 2002), the research

focused mainly on hardware and system development and design issues. The project was

also presented at >Anarchives, Connection-machines< 22 a conference organized by V2...;

The second residency (January-February 2003) emphasized the practical implementation of

the participatory public installation and on wireless communication between the different

modules of the whisper system. Next, whisper was performed in a public installation at the

DEAF03 exhibition and at the E-Culture Fair.

Electronic media art projects, like whisper, consist ofseveral research phases, manifestations

(occurences23) and components, each ofwhich is documented by different types and genres

of documentation. On a more detailed level, these occurred activities and products can

be subdivided into smaller functional components, such as installation objects, software

and hardware components in a specific configuration or moving images. For Capturing

Unstable Media, the whole range of data and documentation of whisper has been analyzed

in depth.

The whisper team members focused on different components during their first

residency. Some designed the aesthetics of the input and output sensors, documented by

photographs and sketches, while others focused on the technical design of these devices and

their wireless Bluetooth communication, as outlined in a wiring diagram24. A mathematician

developed special application software, the so-called particle system, which generated the

visual output projected on the floor of the space where the performances took place 25 .

For the actual implementation of the installation and for the public performance during

DEAF03, the physical properties of the installation space were mapped in a plan and in

sketches. The required wireless network was set up, together with the sensors, documented

by installation instructions. Finally, lighting, visuals and audio were implemented, also

documented in installation instructions. Photographs and a digital video report served as

Case Study: whispe~

When defining appropriate strategies for capturing unstable media art (or electronic

media art), we need to understand the associated practices. In the projects of V2_'s art,

>research and development< (aRt&D) department, the artists bring in knowledge from less

technically oriented areas; existing technical applications are re-used or combined in other

constellations or for other purposes. Projects often consist of longer research processes!8;

outcomes are the result of a collaborative team effort between artists, scientists, engineersand designers.

Related to their interdisciplinary nature, the projects are often very hybrid in

themselves - for example, a CD-ROM presented in the context of an installation with

specific computer hardware, or a video-performance involving audience participation, audio

and wearable technology. Often, we can identify different phases or >states< of a project;

for example, a project is implemented several times in a physical (installation), digital

(application) or mixed environment or a piece of hardware is tested in successive researchand development periods.

In order to distinguish essential aspects ofelectronic media art activities, and to define

aspects that need special attention for capturing, various projects from V2_ s archive have

been investigatedl9

. One of the case studies was whisper, a new media piece based on small

wearable devices and intelligent garments that are linked to a network. These computing

devices gather physical data and signals generated by the body, and respond to these.

During the DEAF03 festival, organized by V2_20 , whisper took place as a performance in

an installation space. Participants entered the space, wearing data suits and could interact

with each other and with the devices, networked to a central database server. The server

translates these behaviors in an aesthetic, shared audio-visual experience. whisper consists of

Figuce 01 Whisper"s visual output of participants' behavior projected on the floor

18 Oliver Grau. »Database of Virtual Art«. HumboldtUniversiUit Berlin. http://virtualart.hu-berlin.de. 2003.!9 For an overview of all projects, see V2_, »CapturingUnstable Media: Deliverable 1.4 - Content Research«.http://archive.v2.nl/v2_archive/projects/capturing/1_Ccontent.pdf. Febr. 28, 2004.20 V2_, »DEAF03. http://deaf.v2.nl/03, Mar. 01. 2003«.21 All pieces of documentation discussed here arelisted and referred from V2_, »Capturing UnstableMedia. Deliverable 1.4 - Content Research, Appendix1'. http://archive.v2.nl/v2_archive/projects/capturing/1_4_content.pdf. Dec. 28, 2004.

22 V2_Archive, »Anarchives; Connection-machines«,http://framework.v2.nl/archi vela rchive/node/eventldefault.xslt/nodenr-135524. Jul. 5,2002.23 Dccurences can be activities or products with adistinct. short time span and an autonomous character(see Figure 04, belowl.24 V2_Lab. «Whisper Bluetooth Wiring Diagram«. http:I/a rchive.v2.n I/v2Jab/projects/whisper12002_wh isper_bluetooth_wiring.jpg, Febr. 24, 2004.25 whisper. »whisper development site«. http:/Iwww.wagwag.org. 2002 - 2003.

180 181

the content of works, projects, activities and documents. Finally, it is often necessary to

describe how a well-defined group ofcomponents work together, to better understand how

a new media piece functions in its environment. As one of the research deliverables, V2_

proposes a thesaurus for electronic art, types and genres of documentation and metadata

for the description of problematic aspects of unstable media arts27 .

Apart from this, the model focuses on several problematic aspects in the area of capturing

unstable media and suggests metadata solutions: terminology for describing electronic art

(through a special thesaurus31), genres and types ofdocumentation32, describing distributed

authorship33, hardware and software dependencies34 and user interaction35 . In the above

description of whisper, the configuration and design of different modules of its system

were outlined (see Figure 02). Both Systems Design and Configuration are entities in the

Captu~ing Unstable Media Conceptual Model

During the last few years, V2_ has developed a proposal for a thesaurus for electronic

media art2a, which has been further elaborated during the course of >Capturing Unstable

Mediae Apart from gathering documentation about a researched object and its associated

terminology, describing the object and its documentation in an appropriate formal model is

an important step in the process ofcapturing. So, an abstract reference model was created for

outlining the different levels of concepts through which activities in the field of electronic

media art can be captured; Such activities may be as varied as long-term international

research projects and specific, short-lived artworks, pieces ofhardware and user interfaces.

The model was designed as a source of inspiration to describe electronic art activities in

a generic way, by using a structure of typical concepts: >the Capturing Unstable Media

Conceptual Model< (CMCM).

The CMCM offers a series of basic concepts of interest to activities in the field of

electronic media art 29, along with suggestions on how these concepts could interrelate with

each other. An interactive overview of all concepts can be consulted in an HTML export

of the CMCM ontology3°.

2«, http://archivev2.nl/v2_a rch ive/projects/captur ing/1_3_metadata.pdf. Febr. 28, 2004.32 Sandra Fauconnier, Aens Fromme, "Capturing UnstableMedia (as in note 301. A semi-hierarchical list of genrescan be found in: "Capturing Unstable Media: Deliverable1.3 - Metadata, Appendix 4«. http://archive.v2.nl/v2_archive/projects/capturing/l_3_metadata.pdt. Febr.28, .2004.33 Sandra Fauconnier, Aens Fromme. "Capturing UnstableMedia (as in note 311.34 Ibid. (as in note 331. Chapter 5, Appendix 5.35 Ibid. las in note 331. Chapter 6.36 Installation = the whole of a system of machines,

27 Sandra Fauconnier, Aens Fromme: Capturing UnstableMedia, Deliverable 1.3 - Metadata http://archive.v2.nl/Projects/capturing/download.html. Mar. 01, 2003.28 V2_Archive. "Thesaurus«, http://framework.v2.nl/archive/notionmap/start.xslt, 2003.29 Sandra Fauconnier, Aens Fromme, "Capturing UnstableMedia.Glossary«. http://www.v2.nI/Projects/capturing/glossarY.html, Febr. 28, 2004.30 Sandra Fauconnier, Aens Fromme, "Capturing UnstableMedia, CMCM - HTMl export«. http://archive.v2.nl/v2_archive/projects/capturing/cmcm/html, Febr. 28. 2004.31 Sandra Fauconnier. Aens Fromme. "CapturingUnstable Media: Deliverable 1.3 - Metadata. Chapter

documentation for the resulting public performance during DEAF03 and th .. . e correspondlQ.mteractlOn between participants26 0

For capturing on a more detailed level, it is important to be able to describe ho 'fi.fl' . w a speci C

mam estatlOn ofa project (in the case ofwhisper: its public installation) has functioned How

did the dIfferent components work together? As demonstrated in Figure 02 below the b' thand pulse (. . , reacom sensors mput devIces) for the participatory installation are integrated with other

ponents, lIke the garments participants wear (installation objects) and are part of the

weara~le configuratIOn. Thisconfiguration (called >wearable system< in the diagram belowcompnses a central processmg unit CPU (lavaSt . )

. ' , amp mIcroprocessor), an input/outputdevice (Bluetooth module), and an output device (LED's sewed on th )

e garments.

During the analysis of the case studies, a series of problematic aspects for the capturina

of

unstable media art projects were encountered. User interaction is an important characteri:tic

of many projects, but is difficult to describe and capture in a aeneric and b' .F h . . b 0 JectIve manner

urt ermore, there IS stIll a lack of established agreed' ., -upon termmology for describing

Figure 02 Deployment diagram with a schematic overview f .its dependencies 0 the different modules of the whisper systems design and

26 V2_lab: "whisper performance video registration«.http://archlve.v2.nl/v2_lab/projects/whisper/200302whlsper_performance_mov, Mar. 01, 2003. -

182 183

ComponentDigital

Software: particle system

Network: bleutooth network setup

ComponentConceptual

o

••o

· Project: whisper

_Occurrences:

o OccurredProduct

• publiclnstallation, Application, Performance

o OccurredActivity

• Meeting, Presentation, Performance,

R&DPeriod- Components

Focusing on a more detailed level, whisper's public installation, for example, includes

an installation environment, documented by an installation plan~9. In the environment

several installation objects are positioned, including the garments participants wear'° Also

several hardware components are integrated in the installation, like the audio system and

lighting (both electrical appliances). The breath and pulse sensors (input devices) for the

participatory installation are integrated with other components, like installation objects

(garments participants wear) and is part of the wearable configuration41

Below a selection

for tbe CMCM-hierarchy, relevant for whisper:

---------------------------------

PROJECT

-.-.-

14 Rens Fromme / Sandra Fauconnier. C_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ apturing Unstable Media Arts.

• Design: interaction design, wearables design

o ComponentContent

• DataCollection

Figure 03 Schematic overview of the main concept levels used in the CMCM

CMCM, both should be used for expressing meaningful clusters of technical components

of an occurrence.

In the case of whisper, the process of developing and realizing the whole .. bd" . >proJect<IS su IVlded mto several occurrences each of which' . d .. ' IS associate and mterrelated with

different components, several actors and documentation. Occurences of whisper are

amongst others, two artist-in-residence periods, the Public Installation'36 of the r' 'the Performances'37 at DEAF03 d P oJect,. an E-Culture Fair and the Presentation38 at Anarchives

ConnectIOn Machines. '

•••o

••a

•iiiiii

Audio: wave sound output

Movinglmage: pool visuals

Stil1lmage

ComponentTechnical

Configuration: wearable configuration

SystemsDesign: system design

ComponentPhysical

InstallationInstallation Environment: installation environment

InstallationObject: garments

apparatus, and accessories, when set up and arranged forpractical working or aesthetic experiences in a specificenvironment (interior or exterior of abuilding or publicplaza). All definitions in: Sandra Fauconnier, Rens Fromme,"Capturlng Unstable Media,Glossary" (as in note 291-37 Performance = an event in which generally one groupof people (the performer or performersl behave in a par-

ticular way for the benefit of another group of people (theviewer or Viewers, or audience). Sometimes the dividingline between performer and audience is blurred.38 Presentation ~ The act of making something publiclyavailable/presenting something at a specific point in time.39 V2_Archlve, "Space Plan, Installation Environment"http://archive.v2.nl/v2_lab/prOjects/whisper/2003_whls-

peupaceplan.jpg, Oct. 01,2003.40 V2_Archive, "Intelligent Garments", http://archive.v2.nl/ v2Jab/projects/whisper/2002.whis

per.garment.jpg, 2002.41 Configuration = a specific grouping of components_mainly hardware and software set up for a specific goal.Aconfiguration usually includes a specific systems design,

operating system, network setup and has aclient and/orserver function, and is designed to accommodate an

application (occurrence).42 Antwerp City Archives, "Standards for fileformats",

14 Rens Fromme I Sandra Fauconnier. Capturing Unstable Media Arts.

http://www.antwerpen.be/david/website/teksten/guideline4.PDF. 2003.

43 Howard Besser is one author who describes the inter.

Captu~ing Recommendations

Based on the findings from the case-studies, a series of recommendations can be formulated

for the description, preservation and presentation of electronic media art projects. An

important aspect of >Capturing Unstable Media< is the act of collecting documentation

that is most appropriate to the entities of the object of research that needs to be captured.

Institutions need to make a selection in the documentation, depending on the relative

importance of the object or activity, and to the level of detail in which it will be described'

furthermore, documentation can be selected on the basis of its quality, variety an~standardized readability. Typically, in unstable media art practice, a lot of heterogeneous,

experimental material is created, in many cases digitally born. As a general rule of thumb

it is recommended to give preferences to file formats in the following order42: '

Depending on level of interest, a component or occurrence can be documented by different

pieces of documentation. The breath and pulse sensors of whisper, for example, can be

considered aesthetic devices, requiring visual documentation (photographs ofthe sensors),

or as technical devices, requiring documentation on the sensor architecture by a circuit

diagram and by a description of the sensor hardware architecture and communication. The

same goes for the visual pools projected on the installation floor, which can be documented

by a video-registration of the rendered visuals or by the source code ofthe algorithm, which

renders the moving image. Institutions need to make a selection in the documentation

depending on the relative importance of the object or activity and to the level of detail i~which it will be described; a video-art institution will be less interested in hardware or

software dependencies than the informatics department of a Technical University.

184 185

Official standards (e.g. ASCII, TIFF, HTML, ODA, lPEG, MPEG)

De facto standards

Specifications (e.g. XML, SVG, PNG)

Open standards (e.g. PDF, RTF, SXW, MIDI, GIF)

Closed standards (e.g..au, .avi, Word, Excel, .bmp, .wav)

Application-specific formats: only as a last resort.

ooo

Next, it is important to define which inclusive entities of the object of research need to be

captured. Here, again, the level ofdetail will depend, among others, on the commitment and

involvement of the capturing institution. Electronic art practices often include a number of

objects, activities, actors, tools and components. Each of these is associated with different

phases ofa project (research, development, implementation, dissemination). At this moment,

it is important to identify the phases and states of a project and discriminate any aspect

or activity that >happened< or >was created< within the scope of each state/phase. The

concepts defined in the >Capturing Unstable Media Conceptual Model< (CMCM) can be

very helpful here.

An important aspect ofcapturing an electronic media art project is outlining the way in which

a project has evolved and functioned, both in general and specific ways. More specifically,

on a detailed level, it should, where possible, also be made clear how an occurrence has

functioned. How did the different components of an occurrence (e.g. a Performance or a

Public Installation) work together? In general, a description of the different phases and

)states< ofa single project should be outlined clearly. Has the project been shown in different

ways at different locations? Which important research and development trajectories have

fed the project?

Finally, the specific, subjective characteristics and qual ity of a user's interaction with an

electronic art piece cannot be captured through formal modeling; specific documentation

of a user's experience is needed here. Often, such documentation will need to be actively

created by the person or institution involved with capturing. Available documentation may

be textual or visual use case scenarios; but for a good understanding of user interaction, it

is often necessary to create audiovisual reports or registrations of someone interacting with

a piece (e.g. a screen movie of the use of a user interface, or a piece of video about a user

involved in an interactive installation). Interviews with users may also prove very useful;

in general, recordings and registrations of user testing activities are rare, but interesting

documentation materials.

Hardware

ElectricalAppliance: audio system, lightning

ComputerHardware

Computer: (generic) Powermac G4

ComputingDevice

CPU: javastamp microprocessor

StorageDevice: datacontroller/microcontoller

InputOutputDevice: Bleutooth MOdule

InputDevice: Breath and pulse sensor

OutputDevice: Sound domes, LEDs, video projectors

iii

iii

•

oo

•••iii

iii

14 Rens Fromme / Sandra Fauconnier. C_ _ _ _ apturing Unstable Media Arts.

Conclusion

>Capturing Unstable Media< presents a com limentaand object-focused, rather static approac: in the ry approach to the widespread material·

preservation of contempounstable media art it is difficult t d fi h . rary art. For

. ' 0 e ne t e notIOn of the >original state< of .DocumentIng the context ofel t' . . . an art object.

ec ronIC art actIvItIes is important II .process over product Unstabl d' . " ,as we as a perspectIve of

. erne Ia art activItIes often take pIa . d .environments and are the result of " ce In ynamlc, networked

aRt&D processes can have very dive:s: :~:~~:::Sr:archand development process. Such

installations, to presentations and" ' ngIng from tools, moving images andperlormances Each of thos d b

context in which they are produced a d'f' e nee s to e valued in the, n , I necessary, needs to be captured.

Unstable media art projects, like whisper, often consist of several researchmanIfestatIOns (occurrences) each f h' h . phases andof documentation. On a mor: detai: :1 IC IS documented by different types and genres

be subdivided into smaller funct" ~ evel, these occurred activities and products can

studies V2 IOna components. On the basis of the findings from case, - developed an abstract reference model for the d "

unstable media arts' the >C t . U escnptlOn and capturing of. ' ap unng nstable Media Conceptual Mod I Th

descnbes electronic media art act' 't'" e <. e CMCMIVI Ies In a generIc wa b .

concepts. The CMCM' . . y, Y USIng a structure of typicalcontaInS a multI-hierarchical and b' .

interrelated concepts or classes The CMCM.' 0 Ject-onented structure of. IS not Intended as the f d f

structure, it can exist independently from th . d un ament 0 a databasee vane metadata and d t b

are used at various electronic media art institutions around the WOrlda

a ase systems that

>Capturino- Unstable M d' k''" e la< ta es Into account that the field fl'

I . . 0 e ectronIC med' t'a arge, InternatIOnal and distributed do . .h' Ia ar IS

maIn WIt many Ind"d I d' .players, each with ad' ffi j' IVI ua an Institutional

I erent po ICy and approach towards re hpresentation, archiving and preservation It e . . searc and development,

trans-institutional and process-b d . mphaslzes the Interdisciplinary, international,

tase nature ofthe actiVIties in the field ofelectronic med'

ar , as a necessary add' t" h . laand museum field. I IOn to t e object-focused approach that is still prevalent in the art

The consequence ofthis approach is that data, information and k .activities in the field of elect' . nowledge about the speCIfic. rOnIC art IS also not centralized at . '.Internationally throughout th . fi . one POInt, but dlstnbuted

e In ormatIOn systems and collections of .studies in our research proved th t '. many parties. The case

a necessary InfOrmatIOn related to various manifestations

186 187

or occurrences of a project is often institutionally or geographically dispersed43. In most

cases, in order to get a complete overview ofan art project or a research trajectory, it would

be necessary to consult the information systems of various institutions. >The Capturing

Unstable Media Conceptual Model< was developed not only as a formalized stand-alone

model- needed for capturing the activities in electronic art - but also as a tool for enabling

this archival interoperability. Continued efforts in collaboration between institutions and

their collections, archives and data sets will prove extremely important for safeguarding

the rich history and variety of electronic media art activities.

BibliogL'aphy

Archiving the Avant Garde. December 2003. Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive.

31 December 2003 <http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/about_bampfa/avant_garde.html>.

Berndes, Christiane. »New registration models suited to modern and contemporary art.«

Modern Art: Who Cares? An Interdisciplinary Research Project and an International

Symposium on the Conservation ofModern and Contemporary Art.Ed. Ysbrand Hummelen

and Dionne Sille. Amsterdam: Stichting Behoud Moderne Kunst / Instituut Collectie

Nederland, 1999.

Besser, Howard. Longevity of Electronic Art. February 2001. 31 December 2003 <http:

//www.gseis.ucla.edu/-howard/Papers/elect-art-longevity.html>.

Besser, Howard. »The Next Stage: Moving from Isolated Digital Collections to Interoperable

Digital Libraries.« First Monday 7.6 (June 2002). First Monday. 30 December 2003 <http:

//firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_6/besser/>.

Daniel Langlois Foundation - Centre for Research and Documentation, December 2003.

Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology, 31 December 2003, <http:

//www.fondation-langlois.org/e/CRD/>.

Depocas, Alain. Digital Preservation: Recording the Recoding, 2001, Ars Electronica

Festival, 31 December 2003, <http://www.aec.at/festivaI2001ltexte/depocas_e.html>.

Fauconnier, Sandra, Rens Fromme. Capturing Unstable Media. 2004, V2_0rganisation,

01.03.2004, http://www.v2.nl/Projects/capturing/index.html.

Flusser, Vilem. Digitaler Schein. In: Claus Pias, Joseph Vogl, Lorenz Engell, Oliver Fahle,

Britta Neitzel (eds.) Kursbuch Medienkultur, Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1999.

Grau, Oliver. Database ofVirtual Art, January 2003, Kunsthistorisches Seminar Humboldt

Universitat Berlin, 31 January 2003, <http://virtualart.hu-berlin.de/>.

relation between preservation and interoperability. See:Howard Besser. »The Next Stage: Moving from IsolatedDigital Collections to Interoperable Digital Libraries«. in:

First Monday 7.6 (June 20021. http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_6/besser. Jun 01.2002.

14 Rens FEomme I SandEa Fauconnier. CaptuEing Unstable Media AEtS.

Hanhardt, John. »The Challenge of Variable Media.« Permanence through Change: The

Variable Media Approach. Ed. Alain Depocas, John Ippolito and Caitlin Jones. New York

and Montreal: Guggenheim Museum Publications and The Daniel Langlois Foundation for

Art, Science, and Technology, 2002, 31 December 2003, <http://www.variablemedia.neU

pdf/Hanhardt.pdf>.

Naimark, Michael. Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Money: Technology-Based Art and the

Dynamics of Sustainability, May 2003, 31 December 2003 <http://www.artslab.net/>.

Nigten, Anne. Human factors in artistic research and development in multi- and

interdisciplinary collaborations, 2002, V2_Lab., 31 December 2003 <http://lab.v2.nV

homel_docs/nigten_2002_humanfactors.pdf>.

Rinehart, Richard. The Straw that Broke the Museum's Back? Collecting and Preserving

Digital Media Art Works for the Next Century, 14 June 2000, switch 14.31 December 2003,

<http://switch.sj su .edul-switch/nextswitch/switch_engi ne/front/front.php?artc=233>.

Rothenberg, Jeff. »Ensuring the Longevity of Digital Documents.« Scientific American,

Vol. 272 no. I, January 1995, pp. 42 - 47.

Standards for fiIeformats. December 2003, Antwerp City Archives, 31 December 2003,

<http://www.antwerpen.be/dav id/website/teksten/guidel ine4. POF>.

Stringari, Carol. »Installations and the problems ofpreservation.« Modern Art: Who Cares?

An Interdisciplinary Research Project and an International Symposium on the Conservation

of Modern and Contemporary Art. Ed. Ysbrand Hummelen and Dionne Sille, Amsterdam:

Stichting Behoud Moderne Kunst I Instituut Collectie Nederland, 1999.

V2_Archive - V2_Archive portal. 2003. V2_0rganisation, 31 December 2003, <http:

Ilarchive.v2.nll>.

V2_Archive - Thesaurus. December 2003, V2_0rganisation, 31 December 2003, <http:

Ilframework.v2.nllarchive/notionmap/start.py>.

V2_Archive - Whisper. 2003. V2_0rganisation, 31 December 2003, <http://

framework .v2.nllarchive/arch ive/node/workldefau It.pyInoden r-13546>.

V2_Archive - Anarchives; Connection-machines. 01.07.2002, V2_0rganisation,

31 December 2003, http://frarnework.v2.nl/archive/archive/node/event/default.py/nodenr

135524.

V2_Lab: whisper Bluetooth Wiring Diagram. 24.02.2004, V2_0rganisation, 01 December

2004, <http://archive.v2.nl/v2_lab/projects/whisper/2002_whisper_bluetooth_wiring.jpg>.

V2_Lab: whisper performance video registration. 01.03.2003, V2_0rganisation,

13 December 2004, <http://archive.v2.nllv2_lab/projects/whisper/200302_whisper_

performance_mov>.

V2_Archive: Space Plan, Installation Environment 10.01.2003, V2_0rganisation, II

December 2004, <http://archive.v2.nllv2_lab/projects/whisper/2003_whisper_spaceplan.jpg>.

1BB 1B9

. G t ?002 V2 Organisation, 11 December 2004,V2 Archive: IntellIgent armen s. - , - .

<h~p:/larchive.v2.n IIv2_lab/projects/whisper/2002- whisp.er_garment.jpg>. f modern

. Ernst van de. »Conservation-restoration ethiCS and the problem 0 .

weteMnn

d

g, Art. Who Cares? An Interdisciplinary Research Project and an InternatIOnal

art« 0 ern . Y b dH me1en. . m on the Conservation ofModern and Contemporary Art. Eds. s ran urn .

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N d r1and 1999 pp. 247 - 249.e e '.' . 2002-2003 01.12.2004, < http://wwwwagwag.org>.

Whisper. Whisper development Site, ,

Lori Zippay.

Access

190 191

d the commercial art market insists that video be invested with the »aura«00 the other han , ..h d. installations. By creating hmlted. b· t or art commodity, as WIt me laof the umque art 0 Jec h . . I of the multiple the commercial gallery system has. d·· bsedontepnnclpe ,Video e ItlOns, a .t .deo and electronic art to entersuccessfully discovered an economic model that permI s VI

the art market and satisfy the needs of private collectors.

. and must, co-exist, however uneasily. We recognizeThe reality IS that these two models do, h ks and the development of anh d for educational and cultural access to t ese wor ,

t e nee . t ' ks. f k as well as a viable market for the artls s wor .academiC ramewor ,

.. f what one mio-ht term the >renaissance< of video within theParticularly In. hg~ta:tworld it is essebntial that the public continue to have access to andcontemporary VISU ,

a context for historical and new media art works.

A a and Access . .. d IsUL' . d ·th two seemino-Iy irreconcIlable hlstones, mo e ,

Video art distribution today IS face WI . b . I"fcal and cultural. h d we see video's roots In an alternative po I I

and economies. On one an 'd. m's reproducible status an anti-art object, outside of the

system that celebrated the me IU t. fartists is workino- with the Internet. II s stem Indeed a new genera IOn 0 b

commerCial ga ery y., d. ally subvert the expectations of theod interactive media on projects that even more ra IC

a . . .k t and conditions of the art InstitutIOn.art mar e

Video A~t, Au~a and- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --~

The Digital Mystique:

Int!'oduction

Since its emergence as an art medium and practice in the 1960s, video _ and the electronic

technologies that constitute its various new forms - has presented a un ique set ofchallenges.

The very conditions that proved so theoretically and conceptually stimulating to artists

working in the emergent video movement, particularly its reproducibility and democratic

potential, have proved problematic in issues of distribution, the art market, and access.

Although video has held a significant position in contemporary art for over four decades,

for many years video art functioned as a kind of enfant terrible, an outsider on the fringes

of the art world, supported within an alternative network of production, distribution and

exhibition. Ofcourse, since the 1990s video art - and related digital or interactive art forms

- has become fully absorbed into the mainstream visual art world. Video is a seemingly

ubiquitous presence in commercial gallery exhibitions and international art festivals.

Museums are increasingly establishing important media art collections and organizing

historical retrospectives of artists' video. Even private collectors have »discovered«video.

Electronic media art is often shrouded in a kind of technological or digital mystique, caught

between utopian notions of access and the aura of the unique art object.

In this presentation, I'd like to address challenges relating to the distribution of media art

from a theoretical and historical framework, but also from the perspective of Electronic

Arts Intermix (EAI). Founded in 1971, EAI is a nonprofit resource organization that holds

one of the world's major collections of new and historical video art, featuring over 3.000

works from the 1960s to the present. For over thirty years, EAI has provided an alternative

model for the distribution and preservation ofvideo and interactive media works by artists.

In this presentation, I'd like to identify and perhaps demystify some ofthe issues relating to

contemporary media art distribution, from questions ofvideo editions to new interactive Web

projects. The presentation will include a brief selection of online visual materials from the

EAI Online Catalogue and the project »A Kinetic History: The EAI Archives Online«.

A N np!'ofit Model fo!' Access d

EAI: 0 . . ne of the leading nonprofit resources for video art anElectronic Arts Intermix (EAr) IS 0 f d. tEAl's core proo-ram is the

. d· A ioneer and advocate 0 me la ar , b

interactIve me la. sap . . f nd historical media art works. f aJor collection 0 new a

distribution and preservatIOn 0 aim d. EAI also provices an artistic and cultural. I t and cultura au lences.

to educatlOna , ar s, . I" e resources educational initiatives,k fi thO collection through extensIVe on In, .framewor or IS ." T. EAl's Online Catalogue prOVIdes. bl" roo-rams and eqUIpment LaCI ltIes.viewmg access, pu IC p b' . d 3 000 works in the EAI collection and

h . resource on the 175 artists an ,a compre enslve

expanded research materials.

.. ortino the creative visions and alternative voices of media artistsEAlls dedicated to supp b . h . k EAI offers the following programs,and providing wide audiences With access to t elr wor .

projects and services:

192 193-------

- - - - - - - -15 Lori Zippay. The Digital Mystique.

The Artists' Media Distribution Service is a leading international distributor of

experimental video art and interactive media works by artists. EAJ facilitates exhibitions

acquisitions and touring programs for cultural, arts and educational audiences around th~world.

In 2004, video art distribution is not a monolithic enterprise. We're working with an

enormously diverse range of artists, technologies, audiences, and contexts. Distribution

means renting tapes on VHS for a public library, coordinating the sale of works on DVD

for a major museum retrospective, selling works in the bookstore of a museum, licensing

works for broadcast on television, or organizing the restoration and sale of historical works

on digital formats for a private collection. Likewise, prices for artists' works may range

from $200 for a VHS tape to over $ 2,500 for a work on digital Beta. And each of these

contexts has corresponding rights and terms - from basic public performance rights to inhouse duplication rights for high-end digital purchases.

cartridge, for distribution through EAl. Three different versions, three different distribution

contexts.

• EA/'s Online Catalogue (www.eai.org) is a comprehensive online resource on the artists

and tapes in the collection and includes QuickTime streaming ofexcerpts of artists' works.

This digital database includes extensive contextual material on contemporary art and the

media arts field. This section allows us to present dynamic interactive media works that

use digital technologies as artistic practice and cultural discourse.

EArs Preservation Program is a leading initiative for the conservation and cataloging

of early videotapes by artists, to ensure that the media arts will be accessible for future

generations. These restoration and cataloging efforts reflect both our philosophical approach

as well as our responsibility to the collection, the artists, and our audIences. Particularly

in areas such as preservation, the nonprofit distributors have become the caretakers of this

artistic and cultural legacy.

• EAI's collection of over 3,000 new and historical media works by 175 artists spans tbe

1960s to the present, from video pioneers and major visual artists to young emerging media

artists. EAJ works closely with these artists to distribute, preserve, catalogue, present, exhibit

and represent their works. The EAJ collection also includes artists' interactive media works

including Web projects, CD-ROMs, audio and sound art works, and DVDs. '

The fluid ecology and economy of video art, with its shifting forms and technologies,

embraces contexts ranging from commercial venues to collective practice on the Internet.

This mobility has implications for both established and emerging artists. For example, the

iImited-edition video works ofmany major artists are handled by their galleries, While EAI

represents the same artists' early videos of the 1960s and 1970s, which were not created

nor intended as editions and thus have little )value< in the traditional art market. Preserved

by EAI, these seminal works, which are in fact invaluable to video art history, are nowwidely accessible.

• All of EArs activities are seen in the context of our role as a resource for education and

access. The EAl Viewing Room provides free, on-site viewing access to the EAI media

art collection and archives. EAJ staff provides programming and curatorial guidance. EAI

resents free public video exhibitions and special events at our West Chelsea space. EArsp . h·educational initiatives include the »New Media Collaborative«, a program III partners Ip

ofseveral nonprofit organizations, including Dia, Eyebeam, and the Kitchen.

Histo~ical F~amewo~k

It is instructive to note that these dichotomies were present from video art's beginnings.

EAI has been distributing video art for thirty-three years. As one of the first organizations

in the United States dedicated to the emergent video movement of the early 1970s, EAI was

founded to provide an alternative system ofsupport, production, exhibition and distribution

for this nascent art form.

Cory Arcangel, a young artist who works with early computers and video game systems,

Illustrates the fluid negotiation of the new distribution landscape. His piece »Super Mario

Clouds« originated as an open source project for the Web; Arcangel posted instructions

for hacking a Mario Brothers game cartridge online, accessible to anyone for free. He then

created an installation version of the project, featuring the hacked game, which was shown

in the 2004 Whitney Biennial and sold as an edition. Finally, he made a third iteration

of the piece, »The Making of Super Mario Clouds«, which documents the hacking of the

In fact, EAI emerged from a commercial gallery context. From 1960 to 1970, the Howard

Wise Gallery on 57th Street in New York was a locus for Kinetic Art and multimedia works

that explored the nexus ofart and technology. The gallery featured several groundbreaking

exhibitions, including the landmark 1969 »TV as a Creative Medium«, which was the first

exhibition dedicated to video in the United States. Featuring installations, video sculptures,

performances and single-channel tapes, the exhibition included twelve artists, such as Nam

June Paik, Charlotte Moorman, and Aldo Tambellini.

194 195

ConclusionMore than three decades after video first emerged as an art form, we are still discussing its

recalcitrance and problematics, Implicit in these discussions is the suggestion that electronic

media art still embodies an inherent radicality and transgression, a protean ability to move

from the museum to television to the Internet, from the aura of the limited edition or

installation to the access of the unlimited edition or open-source Internet project, Indeed,

this persistent radicality, this ability to transcend forms, to move in and around and between

contexts is precisely what makes video so powerful and provocative as a mode of making

art. This is media art's strength, not its weakness, and it's our responsibility and challenge

to respond with equally dynamic solutions.

Online Resou~ce Guide fo~ Exhibiting and Collecting Media A~tIn 2005, EAI will produce an online resource guide for the exhibition and collection of

media art. To be published in both electronic and print versions, this guide will identify key

issues relating to exhibiting and collecting media art, and provide specialized information

in the form of »best practices« and established protocols, Areas to be covered range from

explaining media formats and defining technical terms to issues of video conservation,

acquisition rights and contracts, and digital presentation, This resource guide will contribute

to the application of professional standards and practices in the fields ofmedia art exhibition,

collection and preservation, and provide user-friendly access to this information,

This project expands our goals of access, education and preservation. By making rare

contextual information and materials on the artists, their works, and the history of the

medium widely available, the project contributes to the public's understanding and

knowledge of the media arts, »The EAI Archives Online: A Kinetic History links the

history and the future of media art«.

EAl's archives chart the innovative movements, technologies and discourses that have

marked the development of this cultural and artistic legacy. This project not only creates

a permanent record of an important part of our artistic and cultural heritage for future

generations, but also provides widespread access to this material through the Internet and

digital technologies.

published. This »Iiving archive« will continue to expand, linking the history of the media

arts to its future.

-------------------------------------

Through three decades as a key organization in the media aran extensive archive of docume titsfield, EAJ has amassed

n s, cata ogues ephemera a d th h' 'beginning in the late 1960 M f' '" ' n 0 er Istoncal materials,

s. ost 0 thiS matenal IS extremely rare and has never been

Within this spi 't f I ' ,n 0 a ternatlve practIce EAJ's d' t 'b' ,, IS n utlOn service was fI d dan alternative structure for th d' '" oun e to providee ISSemInatlOn of vIdeo art w k F 'primary audiences were arts cultural d d ' ,or s, rom the begInning, the

, , an e ucatlOnal InStit fE' , ,was the acknowledgement th t 'd u IOns, xplIclt In this fact

, a VI eo was somehow different - th hradIcal, even transgressive about video' b'I' at t ere was somethings a I Ity to defy traditio I d ' "and presentation. Video ad' na mo es of exhIbItIon

" ' n now »new medla« or interactive or W b .problematIC historically related t ' e art - embodies ao conceptual art or sIte a t V'dfor the dematerialized art ob' t r, I eo could be the poster child

~ec .

A Kinetic Histo~y: The EAI A~chives Online

One can point to several new models or projects for rovidina 'and media arts history to a wide bl' . "P c access to medIa art works

, pu IC, USIng dIgItal technoloai F 'History: The EAJ Archives 0 l' , d" c es, or example, A KInetic

n Ine IS a Igltal resource th t kfrom EAJ's archives publicly a 'bl a rna es rare historical material

ccessl e, Documents eph .decades of print and media t' I ' emera, and Video from three

rna ena are partnered with essa hwithin an art historical and cult I ys t at frame the material

ura context The ' hof video as an artistic moveme t d ' , project c arts the history and evolution

n , an traces a nch and If'and ideas _ from Kinetic A t t ,ec ec IC trajectory of art, artists

r 0 contemporary VIdeo This d' ,artistic and cultural legacy, ,Igltal resource documents an

In addition to defining a ' " - - - -, n emergIng artIstIc movement w' h'Influential exhibition revealed th d " ,It In a gallery context, this

e nee ,or new paradlam t 'video, In 1970 Wise closed the alieS 0 support artIsts working in

ca ery to lay the groundwork fI EAJ 'following year to foster creative pursuits in the ,or,whIch he founded the

, , nascent video undergro d EAJ' .mISSIOn was to develop and h un. s foundmgsupport t e emergent video medi b ' , .access to funding technolog d h urn y prov.ldIng artIsts with

, y, an ot er resources. At its ince tionumbrella for projects that included Th K' .h P , EAJ served as thee llc en, the Annual Av t G d .first Women's Video Festival the 0 C' , an ar e Festivals, the

, pen [rcUlts conference at MaMA hFestivals, and the patentina and d' t 'b . ' t e Computer Arts, c IS n utlOn of Eric Sieael's Vid S .eclectIc projects reflect the It ' " 0 eo yntheslzers, These

a ernatlve artistIc and I" I' , .video subculture. po Itlca Impulses dnvIng the early

The 9~owing audience

The most striking development is the shift that has taken place in the appreciation of video

work, which has seen it move from being a marginal art form in the wider field of the visual

arts in the 1960s and 1970s to one of the most used and a the same time most discussed art

forms in the last decade. Its audience has grown along with the rising interest and increasing

number of works available; the growth in audience has been both quantitative, in terms of

visitor numbers, and qualitative, in the sense of their being better informed. For the rest, it

appears that as the problem of the scarcity of video art has been resolved, viewing habits

have changed drastically. Where in the 1970s a video-lover would watch a video art work

in its entirety, now only a fraction of the audience will watch a work from beginning to

end, although many may perhaps think back on the work and would like to find it again,or perhaps even see it again.

In addition there has been an enormous increase in the number of training Courses

which give extensive attention to video art, from art academies to new programs in cultural

communication and majors in )visual culture<, for both video makers and art historians

Since 1978 the Netherlands Media Art Institute, previously known as MonteVideo, has

promoted the dissemination of, and reflection on media art and video art. As well as

organizing eXhibitions and administering and circulating a large collection of video art,

there is Artlab, where artists are invited to develop projects for or with Internet. Among these

are also the latest developments in the field of making video art accessible through Internet.

Before going into this in more detail, I would first like to sketch an historical framework

which, hopefully, will help explain the choices which are being made. The historical

developments I will outline are closely related to one another and their causes and effects

are interconnected. But I would first want to devote a short analysis to four themes which

can define a further vantage point. In doing so, I apologize in advance for the absence

of hard figures, but I am assuming that most of my listeners or readers will recognize

themselves in this sketch of developments. After all, being involved with art institutions

you also plot your course through the analysis of these tendencies, without having the time

and means to perform academic investigations in the field. I would, however, want to share

with you a quote from the book »Remediation: Understanding New Media«, by D. Boller

and R. Crusin. 1999, which to my mind says a lot about the problem we are now facing, of

the differing interests of the audience and provider: »What is new about new media comes

from the particular ways in which they refashion older media and the ways in which older

media refashion themselves to answer the challenges of the media.«

Bette~ p~esentations I h s the artist profited from being able to.. f t hnoloay not on y aWith the democratlzmg 0 ec '" , d ms have profited as well. After

. . I means but art centers an museu .work with video by sImp er, . der to improve the presentatIOn

ire professional apparatus m orall they are now able to acqu . . f II-fledged museal art form. The

' de with video arew mto a uofvideo art. In the 1990s art rna "'. . . often cited but that certainly

. 'ected image and the pamtmg IS , .similanty between the proJ h d There are many artists who

I .anificance of what has appene .does not cover the who e Sl", . f'd by specifyina the position of the

. the presentatIOn 0 VI eo '"further spatially problematlze . b' t to the space. The presentation

. a h lor ofthe space, or addmg 0 ~ec s . .video screen, changm", t e co . of watchina the video signal IS

. . Ilation so that the expenence '" .is comparable with an msta, d d the further context of the presentatIOn.

. db the apparatus selecte anvery deeply mfluence y .. which the visitor is affected by the

't II enriched expenence, mThis strongly involves a VI a y . s the aura of the artwork but,

. ae and sound. This not only Improve .synergy between Ima", . f the television expenence. To

im ortant, distinguishes the museal presentatIOn rom .

more. P'd t in this way is to undergo a unique expenence.expenence VI eo ar

196 197

- - - - - - - d and for means that will allow them.. This new audience has created a new emand cntlcs.

to consult video art easily.

Video a~t and the ma~ket . .. d festivals in the late 1970s andd b s ecialized mstltutlOns an

After video art was annexe y p fth museum circuit, increasing numbers90 ti II ina the success 0 e

early 1980s, in the 19 s, 0 ow '" ti The developments sketched. this (for them) often new art orm. .

ofaallenes began to focus on I . definina their artistic status, also"'. nd art criticism played a ro em", .

above, in whIch museums a tt this had its effects at multIple. I fthe art works. For that rna er,

affected the economIc va ue 0 . h' h h d to be paid for the artworks, but. . I affected the pnce w IC a .

levels, that IS to say It not on y . h f t in his or her presentatIOn. In.. I were able to mvolve tear IS .

also the way m which peop e . a ter relief aaainst the UnIform. . f the maker came to stand out m ",rea '"h· ay the mtentlOn 0 .. . I )

t IS w . F m tape to dlaltal signa < .. . . d' d (see below m) ro '" .possibilIties of the me la use .. h II circuit primarily as a sIgnboard

d t functIOn m t e ga eryAt first, video art appeare 0 .. bl nd enhance the image of the

. f the other artIsts m the sta e ato polish up the Image 0 . L t as demand from collectors and

d' t the value of >Its< art. a er,gallery as being able to Icta e . d the trade intensified, the gallery

. h video beaan to mcrease anmuseums for art made WIt '" f" th' s not only was in the interest of

. d b scarcity. As a matter 0 lact, IcirCUIt was best serve y .. t' of the presentation. The totally

ntributed to the differentia IOnfinancial value, but also co . . I th' s only a few galleries made any

. . d to dnve up pnces. n I,artificial limited edItIOn was use. Id or the purpose for which the tape wasdistinction between the cirCUIts to which they so ,

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ---

delive~ what is asked«

Bart Rutten.

»How to

16 BaEt Rutten. H t_o~ _0 deliveE what is asked.

to be used (the presentation circuit versus educational use . . .- - - - -accessibility of video works. or arChIving). ThIs reducedlhe

FEorn tape to digital signal

In the 1960s and early 1970s the most used vehicles for the. .open reel tapes. The differe b . vIdeo signal were quarter inch

nces etween the vanous individual Iwere so great that exchanoe of" n . p ayers and brands oftapes

o In ormatIOn on tapes was extre I d·number of tapes was so small th t d 1· . me y Ifficult. In addition, the

a up IcatIOn was a prerooative f .. .and businesses and an Occa· 1.. 0 0 specIalIzed Institutions

SIOna artISt. ThIs changed . h h .vehicle became the standard n.d . . WIt t e arnval of Umatic; this

or VI eo art. (It IS Importa t t .used the same technolooy as the t I .. n 0 note at this point that artists

o e eVISIOn world which ° .equipment.) With the standardization fth h. ' . ouaranteed the avaIlability of the

o eve Icle Illegal dr·problem. For the rest it appears that t.l".' up IcatIOn became a potential

, un I lar Into the 1980s 0 I haware of the possible probl . h . n ya andful of artists were

ems WIt unauthonzed use of co· h .around. For instance, in our arch· th . pIes t at mIght be floating

Ive ere are still many ta fwe apparently have no rioht t pes rom early exhibitions that

o 0 possess. Furthermore duri ° h .>What the Netherlands Media A t I . . .' no t e conservatIOn project (see. . r nstltute IS focuslno on< b I ).instItutions had difficulty d· f . h.. 0, e ow It appeared that many

IS IngUls Ing In their video collecti fhad come in as previews what h db I f ons rom before 1985 what

, a een e t on loan that the . habout, and what they had full rioht t artIst ad eventually forgotten

o 0 as a museum. When cons . band research into the orioin of th t b ervatIOn ecame a necessity

o e apes egan many bl f·It illustrates how the ways of d I· . .' pro ems 0 this sort came to light.. ea Ing wIth video became inc . ° .Increasingly limited and h f reaSlnoly formalIzed, use was

, per aps rom the outset had beerather of right. n a matter not of possession but

. An advantage of Umatic, and later of Betacam as com .vehIcles is that they are of " . pared wIth the newer digital

prolessIOnal format alonoside h·as VHS can exist. This enabled b .' 0 w Ich a consumer format such

anum er ofartIsts to make and II V .for the consumer market _ for wh· h th se HS COPieS especially. IC ere was demand after all h· . .Interfere with professional e h ·b· . . ' - w Ich did not In any way

x I ItIOns. In a certain sense th .the use. With the dioitization ofth .d. ' e nature ofthe vehicle connoted

'=' e VI eo sional and fl·a vehicle, the old difference b t ,=" par ICU arly wIth the use of DVD as

e ween profeSSIOnal format - Umatic _- VHS - was eliminated. The attenda t d· d. and consumer format

n Isa vantaoe IS that DVD ( .easy to copy without loss of quality E . II . '=' s are and wIll remain) very

. . specla y In the Consum k .an Issue about tradin o content W·th I . er mar et no one IS making

'=' • I nternet this can be ad· .the circle ofone's Own frie d d. ' n IS, Circulated further outside. n s an acquaintances. For the . .

CIrcuit of up and do~n-loadino h . present vIdeo remains outside the. '=', as as happened wIth music and regular fil

Today there are Inventories and catalogues in dat b ms.a ase programs for most video

19B 199

collections. Metaphorically, the computer with the inventory stands right next to the

cabinet with the video tapes. Many larger collections which are accessible to the public

are transferring their collections to computer servers. Because digital storage capacity

has increased enormously, it is more sustainable to fit out a public space with computers

which can log into a terraserver than to maintain video viewing sets. Logically, the two

-the database program and the server with video files - will be integrated. If the computer

formerly stood next to the cabinet, now the cabinet is disappearing and only the computer

will be left. The collection is totally accessible, and only security keeps it out of the hands

of the public on the Internet.

Event-based alongside databased

Asplit has occurred in the way video art is consumed. On the one hand the presentation has

become more intense, meaning that the audience experiences the video work in a special

situation; on the other hand, an audience has arisen which wants, whether for personal

or professional reasons, to be able to study or consult the work in its totality. Alongside

event-based video art there is a growing need to be able to consult a database for video art

at a distance. This is not just in the Western world, but certainly also in former East Bloc

countries and in Asia, where there is an enormous appetite for video art and its history.

The audience for this is willing to accept less technological quality, in the same way that

the VHS video tape functioned, and in a certain sense, like the illustrations in a museum

exhibition and stills in books and on the Internet.

Because ofthe apparently great similarities between DVD quality and videostreams as

they are generally found on the Internet (high compression rate), many artists are hesitant

about releasing. Often they proceed from the thought that doing so would stand in the way

the potential income from sales or exhibitions. What can be investigated is the question of

whether having the video available in Internet indeed results in decreased income. Perhaps,

on the other hand, the chance to become acquainted with the work will prove beneficial,

and there will be more demand for having it set up as an installation or seen in a cinema

or theatre. The Internet site where the work can be called up will play an important role in

this. Here the prestige of the site will help to determine its status, in the same way that the

museum circuit functions, and this would give the traditional platforms a chance to profile

themselves, and their prestige, online too.

Opinions on the possible changes in significance and quality as a result of making

work available online vary enormously. For one it is a welcome new platform to use

alongside the regular, technically polished exhibitions. Internet is not suitable for use as a

platform for others, because for them the work and medium are one entity, and therefore

cannot be seen apart from each other. The context - for instance, the desk on which the

200 201

Artists remain responsible for the decision of whether their work can be placed on the

Internet. The Netherlands Media Art Institute will always respect that. We will however

continue to make efforts to give video its rightful place on the Internet in a way which

satisfies both the artist and the public. Perhaps the solution will be found in encouraging

artists to offer their work with inferior image and sound quality in a context which makes

it clear that this is documentation which functions as a reference, and which is not intended

to replace the work in the art and film circuit. Accomplishing this no longer requires any

technological advances, but rather a change in cultural attitudes by which the Internet will be

seen as complementing regular presentations, and for which possible new payment strategies

can be developed. In order to bring about this cultural change we should be aiming for as

many presentation sites as possible. We are on our way to that goal; who will follow?

acceptable transmission quality. Moreover, MPEG 2 fits with industrial standards and the

system appears to be guaranteed. Accessibility criteria such as capacity and speed also

played a role in this. For distribution purposes the MPEG signal is transferred to DVOs.

In the future we will perhaps also be investigating new exchange possibilities via Internet

with professional customers.Computers that offer access to a selection of works on the terraserver are also placed

in the project space during exhibitions. This is done not only as a trial run for the future

mediatheque where one can log in directly to the server, but also to link the exhibition

with the collection.The custom-made Watson database system has been used in order to integrate the

collection into the Institute. The videostreams are coupled with the entries in the database

system, A catalogue system is adapted for the website. In addition to fragments and stills,

if desired whole works can be added to this system, for instance in MPEG 4. We contact

artists personally to ask in what manner the artist wants to have his or her work available to

the public. They are offered the following choices: no fragment; a 15 second fragment; or

the whole work in either small format, or full screen. Responses are presently still coming

in to this inquiry.In the future we will also be trying out various manners of digital distribution, For

instance, a pilot ofa Pay on Demand system is being organized, in which Internet users pay

for viewing the work in MPEG 2 format, But we also want to work further with making

workS available temporarily on educational and streaming channel Internet sites. The

largest obstacle in this sort of cooperation to date has been that many organizations do

have a budged for the technical realization of an Internet project but won't give a moment's

thought to compensation for the content.

-------------------------------------

What the Nethe~lands Media A~t Institut . f ... e 1S ocus1ng onIn 1995, In collaboratIOn with Toxus software, the Netherland' .a database program that was s 'II'sMedw Art Institute developed

· pecla y tatlored for recordino vid C IVideo variant through which I to eo. yc ope was the derived

peop e could consult the coil f Th ..artist and title and also oe b' ec IOn. e VISitor can select from

, to me, su ~ect and key word A fiftadded for a large number of works. . een second video fragment was

Artlab has developed b .anum er ofptlot projects whiche' .a platform for video exhibitions W'th th ., xpenment WIth the Internet as

. I epermlsslon of the arti t'd .temporarily on Internet full screen (MPEG 4)' d' s S, VI eo art IS also offered

, In e ucatIOnal projects.

After our dnve to eliminate a backloo . ., to In conservatIOn between 1995 dcollectIOn was transferred t O' 'b ( an 2004, theo Igl eta see the p bl" . .Art, by the Stichting Behoud Mod K u IcatIOn »The SustaInability of Video

erne unst« 2003) In 2003 hInstitute began the transfer fro O"b ' , t e Netherlands Media Art

m Igl eta to MPEG 2 on a terrase Th' .as the memory for the MPEG' I h . rver. IS hard dIsk serves

sIgna t at, In contrast to Oi'b ..use by the public. Thus in terms ofth h' ,gl etas, IS Intended precisely for

eve Icles there IS a great d' f 'or conservation and exhibitio W h 1S InctIOn between storage

n. e c ose MPEG 2 as the fi timeets the specifications that are e I d . ormat or storage because this

mp oye In OVD productions, and because of its relatively

computer stands - and the mediocre quality of the visuals and sound - - -Important objections Thus in th are named as the most

. ., ese cases, Internet exhibition' ,with presentations in reoular theatr IS consIdered as competing

to es or museums.

Arguing in terms of the medium, it appears the idea ' ,Internet will be a historical ne 't H .. of makIng thIngs available via

cessI y. owever, With ItS technol . I .. . . .art never lets itself be defined b f ' oglca POSSIbIlIties, VIdeo

y uture scenanos. Artists them I fspoken opinion on the intentions that lie beh' d th ' se ves 0 ten have an out·In elr artwork and I tcopyright on the artwork The .. . ,nmos cases they retain· . . . se OpInIOnS and nghts must be r

SIde Institutions and museums t k ,. espected, but on the othercan a e part In the dIscussion of th .

can be provided to artworks 0 b e questIOn of how access· . nce we ecome accustomed to the Int

VIdeo, we come to see the diffi b ernet as a platform for, , erences etween Internet andat'

slmtlarities, which we are . r presentatIOn better than thenow concentratIng on too much.

The present situation would seem to b' ,. e an IntermedIate h 0 .Instance, by the huge increase in OVO publ' t' b' P ase. ne IS struck, forIca IOns yartists mao' d>virtual museums( alike Th . ' toazInes an newly founded

· . ey appear to be makIno oratef I f h ' .VIdeo art and the fact that fio th to to U use 0 t e lack ofavaIlabtlity of

repast years OVOs hav b 'in bulk editions. But it remains t b' e een avaIlable very inexpensively

o e seen Just how far thes d" ..financially; because the consurn k' e e ItIOns go In beIng profitable

er mar et IS small much alread dlibraries and archives. ,y epends on purchases by

16 Bart Rutten, How to deliver what is_ _ _ _ _ _ asked.

Neil B~ownNeil Brown is a leading researcher in the fields of cognitive art theory, creativity and art

education. He is a Co-Director of the iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research

(UNSW), Associate Dean of Research at the College ofFine Arts (UNSW) and a member

of the Centre for Cognitive Issues in the Arts (CClT) at the University ofBristol. He was

the inaugural head of the School ofArt Education at the College of Fine Arts UNSW from

1992 to 1996. His current research is centred on four projectS. The first aims at establishing

theoretical grounds for a philosophically neutral ontology of the artefact. The second,

seeks empirical evidence for the way in which a vernacular theory of art conditions the

understanding ofworks and informs practice. The third investigates the interaction between

human and machine agents in mixed reality environments which is analysed with the

intention of providing information on how these encounters are perceived and understood

by the participants and what effects on their understanding of >self<, and individual agency

these experiences engender. The fourth seeks to establish a concept of co-evolutionary

experimental aesthetics in relation to machine-human interaction.

www.icinema.unsw.edu.au

Hans D. ChdstHans D. Christ studied art and literature science in Dortmund, Germany. Together with Iris

Dressler he founded the Hartware Medien Kunst Verein in Dortmund as an independent

platform for the presentation of contemporary art in 1996. He organized and curated many

exhibitions in Germany and internationally together with Iris Dressler. These include

»dialogues

& stories« at the Kiippersmiihle Museum in Duisburg, »new ideas - old tricks«

at the Hartware Medien Kunst Verein, Dortmund in 2001. They curated »no one ever dies

there, no one has a head« in Dortmund as well as »Say hello to Peace and Tranquility«

(together with Jan Schuijren) at the Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst, Amsterdam and

at the Nikolaj Centre ofContemporary Art, Kopenhagen in 2002. Further exhibitions such

as »Muntadas. On Translation: Das Museum« in cooperation with MACBA (Barcelona), at

the Museum am Osterwall and »games. Computer games for artists« (concept by Tilman

Baumgiirtel) in Dortmund followed in 2003. After concluding the research project »404.

Object Not Found, What remains of media art?« with an international conference in

Dortmund in 2003, hartware medien kunst verein organized the Nam June Paik Award 2004

in Dortmund and co-curated the 3rd Seoul International Media Art Biennale 2004. Hans

D. Christ and Iris Dressler are currently directors of the Wiirttembergische Kunstverein

Stuttgart.

http://www.wkv-stuttgaf.t.de

Biogf'aphies.

Biog.caphies

Katha~ina Ammann

Katharina Ammann studied A H·and Oxford D. h rt Istory and English Literature at the universities of Geneva. unng t e course of her studies she c I

at the Museum of Modern Art in Ne ~ k omp eted several museum internships,. w or among others. From 2001 to 200

Curatonal Assistant at the Sol th A. 4 she was ao urn rt Museum In Switzerl d hvarious exhibitions on contemporary art th I . an , were she organized, east one beInO a them ( .entitled »schwarz auf weiss« [»in black d h. 0 a IC survey exhibitionan w Ite«] on tra d· I .to art. [n addition she coordinated h. ..' nsme la, graphiC approaches

guest ex IbltlOns on rob ( dart for the same museum She h bl. h . . . 0 ICS an computer-generated

. as pu IS ed exhibitIOn catalo d·on contemporary art She h I gues an articles, mostly

. as a so served on the boa d f h(200[-2005) and on a d. I . . rot e Solothurn Kunstverein

, Ip oma commiSSIOn at Hochschule der K" .the beginning of 2005 Katharina A . unste Bern (2004). SInce

mmann has been fOCUSIno 0 h d .exhibiting video art directed b P fi son er octoral theSIS on

, y ro essor chneemann Chai f CBern University. Her thesis centers on th .'. r 0 ontemporary Art ate presentatIOn of Video a d·t . ·fithe conceptual evolution of the d. n I s slgnI cance forme !Urn. Her current ..Center for Art and Media Ka I h h b one-year research VISit at the ZKM,

, r sm e as een made ·bl bNational Science Foundation. The topic of h d. POSSI e Ya scholarship of the Swiss

er IssertatlOn has be th b· .articles and conference papers t I en e su ~ect of diverse

, mos recent y at the s . f .2005 on »Presenting Video as Art«. ympos!Um 0 the Vldeonale in Bonn

Elke Bippus

Elke Bippus is an art historian and I I .been Visiting Professor and Guest p

Cufitura theonst. After studying art history she has

ro essor at the U· . if2002 to 2005 She I h b. mverslty 0 the Arts Bremen from

. a so as een teachIng art histor and .Visual Arts Braunschweio and H b Y art theory at the UmversitYof

o am urg. After studyIng art hi tand literature in Stuttoart and Ha b h. s ory and German language

o m urg s e received her PhD with h· .procedures in the art of the sixties (»Serielle Verfah . a t eSls on senalC . . renswelsen. Pop Art, Minima[ A

onceptual Art, PostmlnImalism«, Berlin 2003). From 2001 to? ? . rt,of the conceptual artist H Db. _00_ she was assistant

anne ar oven. SInce 1998 she has bFrauen.Kultur.Labor Bremen C I .. een member of the thealit

, . urrent y she IS project lead fTechniques of Knowledoe-Bul·ld· d S .. er 0 »Art and Research.

o Ing an tructunng In A (( S· .//wwwCI·tYOf·d/·rlslc-clentlficpractice«(http.

. - -science e pro ktA . h . .. . ~e nSlc t.Jsp?projektld=2101&la 0-) . .Interest include contemporary art th f. . no-en. MaIn tOPiCS of, eory 0 Image media e ..limitations of art-historic ar( t. d . ' r presentatIOn, Interfaces and

, IS IC an curatonal activitie· ( .and procedures. relationship bet d. s, ar IStiC methods of production

, ween art an sCience.

------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

202 203

Biographies.

DieteL' Daniels

Dieter Daniels co-founded the Videonale Bonn in 1984, as well as numerous projects,

exhibitions and symposia in the field of media art. Between 1991 and 1993, he headed

the Mediatheque at the ZKM, Karlsruhe. Since then, Daniels has worked as Professor

of Art History and Media Theory at the Hochschule fur Grafik und Buchkunst (HGB) in

Leipzig. His publications focus on art of the twentieth-century, particularly on the work of

Marcel Duchamp, Fluxus, and Mediart. He is co-editor of Media Art Action and Media An

Interaction (with Rudolf Frieling), and his most recent book publications include »Kunst

als Sendung« (2002) and »Vom Ready-Made wm Cyberspace« (2003). Since 2001, Daniels

has also served as the co-editor of »Media Art Net« (www.mediaartnet.org). He lives in

Leipzig and Berlin.

www.hgb-leipzig.de/daniels

www.medienkunstnetz.de

Dennis Del FaveL'o

Dennis Del Favero is currently a Queen Elizabeth II Fellow, Executive Chairman of the

iCinema Centrefor Interactive Cinema Research, University ofNew South Wales (UNSW),

Artist-in-Resident, ZKM and co-editor of the forthcoming »Oigital Arts Edition« series

published by iCinema/ZKM/University ofPittsburg/International University Bremen. His

theoretical research focuses on the conceptualization of co-evolutionary narrative forms

involving virtual characters whose interaction co-evolve autonomously with human

participants. His experimental research has been exhibited at numerous international

venues including »Future Cinema«, ZKM (2003); »Fantasmi«, Sprengel Museum Hannover,

(2004); »Cinemas du futur«, European Cultural Capital, Lille (2004). His experimental

research focuses on the demonstration of the participant's ability to influence events by

variations in patterns ofspatial navigation and the development ofan experimental narrative

which provides for mutual interaction between autonomous machine agents and human

participants. This is demonstrated in »Pentimento« (2002) and »Scenario I + 11« (2005

to 09) (with Shaw and Brown). The former demonstrates the ability for the participant to

reconstruct a database by means oftheir spatial movements. The latter delivers a stereoscopic

cinematic environment in which machine agents are able to interpret and respond to their

interactions with human participants in ways that allow them to act autonomously from

human desires and beliefs.


204 205

Sandca FauconnieL' . ' 1994 and a MA in art history at Ghent· d BA in architecture m .

Sandra Fauconnier obtame a . . W b-specific art: the World Wide. . 997 with a dissertatIOn on» e .

University, Belgium, m 1, bl' h d nd lectured frequently on the subject of.' d' (She has pu ISea.

Web as an artistiC me lum(. d eb desianer webmlstress,. m 1997 to 2000 she worke as aWe' .

internet art and media art. Fro .7'. .' Department, Ghent University,. h I aist at the Teacher 1 razmng .

educator and educatIOnal tec no Oe . d' chivist at V2 Organisation m00 he started workmg as me la ar -

Belgium. 1n February 20 s d' t She is currently in the process· ., d a thesaurus on me la ar .

Rotterdam, where she mltlate . k' a with a team of developers on. tern for V2 's archive, wor me .

of developmg a metadata sys -. h ,iects related to copynght and the. d's also involved in vanous researc proJ

V2 's website, an I

pr~ervation of electronic art.

www. v2.nl

Sabine Flach d h 'ties in Marburg, Germany, Perugia,. . literature an umam

Sabine Flach studied art history, d 'c collaborator at the Center. 2000 she has been aca eml

Italy and Kassel, Germany. Smce J h H manities in Berlin, conducting theIS udies at the Centers OJ t e u

fior Literary and Cultura tid of Arts. Her research work.. f Knowledge and Know e ge .

project »WissensKunste« Art 0 d' ts Aisthesis and media, the artsf he body in the arts, me la ar ,

focuses on discourses 0 t ..' (Bildwissenschaft), art and thef t the plctonal sCience

and sciences, knowledge 0 ars'. ry art. Sabine Flach's currentd ?Oth centunes, contempora .

aesthetic theory of the 19th an - . . t' t Confiaurations of arts, sCiences. . . d' »The artist as SClen IS . e ..

research project IS dedicate to. bl' tions include »WissensKunste«.d 1900«( Her recent pu Ica .

and media-technology aroun) .' . . h S'a 'd Weigel, (2005 forthcommg);.' K nst _ Medlen«, edited Wit len

»Bd.I«. »LlfeSclences - u d' dited with Inae Miinz-Koenen &. 1d Ktinste und Me len«,eo ..

»Der Bilderatlas 1m Wechse er .. S ien Zum Verhaltnis von Korper. 005 forthcoming); »Korper- zenar . .

Marianne Strelsand, (2 . . h O' fferenzen. Zum Splelraum der· . (2003)' »Mlmetlsc e I

und Bild in VideomstallatlOnen« , . d' d 'th Georg Christoph Tholen. d a und Nachblldung«, e Ite WI .

Medien zwischen Abbll une .,. . h Medienkultur«, edited with. As ekte zeltgenosslSC er

(2002); »FernsehperspektlVen. p

Michael Grisko, (2000).

Biographies.

Monika Fleischmann

Monika Fleischmann is a research artist and head of th dand Research Studies at the F h ,£ . e epartment MARS - Media Arts

raun oJer Instztute for M d· C ...Augustin, Germany She bela ommumcatlOn In Sankt

. was a mem er of the foundin<> tea f .the Hochschulefiir GestaltungundK . z.. . '" m 0 the new medIa program at

unstIn unch H J·d···and drama, computer <>raphics f: h. d. . er mu tl ISClplInary. background-art

'" , as Ion eSlgn - has made her a .computer science and media t hi. . n expert In the world ofart,. ec no ogy. Her artistIc work ha bIn exhibitions and festivals th h Seen presented extensively

roug out the world e.g. at ZKM KMuseum, SIGGRAPH ICC Ti. k ' . arlsruhe, Nagoya Science

. ,0 yo, ImagIna Monte Carlo, ISEA SheNLca at Ars Electronica 1992 ( H f . . was awarded the Golden

» ome 0 the BraIn«) and th F ..award 2005 (»Energy-Pass <> ) , e L - commumcatlOn design

a",es« amongst others. In 1999 .she initiated netzspannung org- th I ' together with Wolfgang Strauss

. e nternet platform 0 d· <>. Iin 2005, she initiated the eCult . C' •. n I",lta art and media culture, and

ute ractory prOject In Bremenhttp://www.imk.fraunhofer.de/mars .http://netzspannung.org

http://eculturefactorY.de

Rudolf FL'ieling

RudolfFrieling studied humanities at the Free u.. .mversztyofBe r ·1988

the International VideoFest B r. . r In, to 1994 Curator ofer ln, SInce 1990 he has lecturedad· .

extensively on art and d·.. n publIshed Internationallyme la, SInce 1994 curator and researcher at t

Art and Media, Karlsruhe until 2001 h d f. he ZKM, Center for, ea 0 the VIdeo coIl t" h

Hochschulejiir Gestaltungund KunstZ .. . h u ec Ion; as lectured a. o. at theunc , nochschule d K·· B .

Professor at the media facult u.. . er unste erlIn, and was Guesty, mverszty ofApplied Science M·

of the Internet project »Med·a A t N s, aInz; 2001 to 2005 headI r et« at ZKM· most re t .

Sao Paulo 2002 (Net Art sect" ) d S ' cen projects as Curator: BiennaleIOn an » ound-lma<>e« M . C

and co-edited with Dieter D .,,, S. "', eXlco Ity 2003; he has publishedame,s ,or pnnger Vienna/M Yi .

the history and current context f d. . ew ork a senes of volumes ono me la art: «Media Art A .

Interaction« (2000) and> M d· A ctlOn« (1997), »Media Art> e la rt Net 112« (2004/2005) .

»Bandbreite. Medien zwis h K as well as co-edited the volumec en unst und Politik« (with A d

Berlin, 2004; lives in Karlsruhe. n reas Broeckmann), Kadmos:

www.medienkunstnetz.de

206 207

Ursula Anna FL'ohne

Ursula Anna Frohne is an art historian and cultural theorist who received her PhD in

art history at the Freie Universitat Berlin. She was curator at the ZKM, Center for Art

and Media, Karlsruhe and lectured at the State Academy of Design Karlsruhe between

1995 to 2002. As Visiting Professor she taught at the Department of Modern Culture

and Media, Brown University in 200112002; since 2002 she has been Professor for Art

History at the International University Bremen. And since 2003, she has also been

Professor at the Graduate Research Program »Body - Image - Medium« at the State

Academy of Design Karlsruhe. Her research has been funded with grants from the

1. Paul Getty Centerfor the History ojArt and the Humanities, Santa Monica (1990/91), the

American Councilfor the Learned Societies, New York (1994/95) and the Pembroke Center,

Brown University, Providence, R.1. (2001102). She has curated numerous exhibition on

contemporary art and architecture and has co-organized the symposium »Present Continous

Past[s]« (2004). Among numerous contributions to journals, catalogues and books, her

publications include »CTRL [SPACE] Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big

Brother«, co-edited with Thomas Y. Lenin and Peter Weibel (2002), »Malerund Millionare«

(2002) and »video cult/ures« (edited 1999). The focus of her work is contemporary art,

photography, film, video and installation, as well as the economy of art, the theory of image

media and electronic media.

URL: http://www.iu-bremen.de/directory/02759/

Rens FL'omme

Rens Fromme is media archivist and educational programmer at V2_, Rotterdam, The

Netherlands. After studying linguistics and media science at Utrecht University and

Humboldt University Berlin, he was granted a scholarship by the German government

for a master in Media Science at the Technical University ofBerlin. In 2002, he started

working for V2_Archive, and, since March 2003, he has been involved in the research project

»Capturing Unstable Media«, supported by the Dutch Mondriaan Foundation and the Daniel

Langlois Foundation, on the documentation aspects of the preservation of electronic art.

Rens Fromme is currently working on a three-year research-project (»Exchange«, 2005 to

2008) on the exchange of information in digital media archives.

www.v2.nl

Biog.caphies.

Jean-Francois Suiton

~e~dn~Fran90isGuiton was trained as a model maker and fair builder and worked in this

Ae . r~~ 1972 to 1980. He then studied photography, film and video at the Academy oj

rt In usseldorf, Germany, under Fritz Schwegler and Ursula Wevers. In 1985 ha scholarship student under Schwe I G' '. e was

. . g er. Ullon worked with vIdeo starting 1982 and .vIdeo Installations since 1984. Between 1987 to 1994 h h d . . wuhB' . e a a teach Ing assIO"nment at th

erglsche Umversitat-Gesamthochschule in Wuppertal, Germany. 1994 to ~998 h eProfessor ofm d' d' , e was

. e la an vIsual communication at the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs in Strasbour

France. Since 1998 he is Professor of media art at the University of the Arts . B g,Germany, Atelierfiir Zeitmedien. m remen,

www.guiton.de

www.zeitmedien.de

Lydia Haustein

Lydia Haustein is Professor at the Kunsthochschule Bert w.' . .. . m- elssensee and dl rector of thinternatIOnal res.earch project »Globallcons«. Since January of2005, she is the head oftheDepartment OfLlterature and Humanities and Vice-D' t f h e

. Irec oro t eHouseofWoridCulturesBerlin. She has taught at various colleges and universities, among others in Gottin '

Berlin, ~arlsruhe, and has lectured and researched extensively in Asia South A gen,and AfrIka L d' f{, . , menca

. ~ la austem has authored »Videokunst« (2003) add' dder Bilder« (1998) . n co-e lte »Das Erbe

. Her main fields of interest are art and the history of art' thofglobalization and media theory. In e context

www.global-icons.dewww.hkw.de

Dirck Mollmann

Dirck Mo/lmann lives in Ha b d . .. m urg, an studied history of art, philosophy and th .

of lIterature at the University 01"Ii b' ' e SCIence'.J am urg. He IS the co-founder of the ViDEO Club 99

the Hamburger Kunstha/le and works as free-lance Curator and organizer. at

Ulrike Rosenbach

Ulrike Rosenbach persued studies in sculpturing under Joseph Beuys at the Academ 0

Art In Dusseldorf, Germany, 1964 to 1970. It was 1971/72 that she created her fist ~ iftapes, had her first solo exhibitions and >actions<. In 1976 sh h ld I '. VI eofi " e e ectures m video art andeminIst art at the California Institute ofArt USA In th h

fio C . C" " • ,. e same year s e founded the Schoolr reatlve remlmsm In ColoO" G

",ne, ermany and was a co-founder of the first cultcenter for women in Cologne. 1984 she b ". ural

ecame an Artist m Residence with »Western Front«,

208 209

Vancouver, Canada. Since 1989 she has been Professor of new media at the Hochschule der

Bildenden Kilnste, Saarbrucken, Germany.

WI~I~. ul.cike -.cose nbach . de

Bart Rutten

Bart Rutten is a leading Dutch expert in the field of video art. He studied art and cultural

history at the University of Utrecht and at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (USA).

Since 1997 he has been working for the Netherlands Media Art Institute, MonteVideo/TBA,

where he began by doing research on the collections inherited from the former Time Based

Arts, Lijnbaancentrum (Rotterdam) and De Appel (early video art). This research resulted

in, amongst other things, a reference room and tape library at the institute, which was set

up by Rutten. In 2002, he became a member of the administration and is now responsible

for the presentation section (exhibitions, distribution and collections) at the institute. As

lecturer he has worked for the University of Utrecht (history of video art) and the Royal

Art Academy in The Hague and The Sandberg Institute. Rutten also publishes frequently

in Dutch periodicals on film and contemporary art. »The Magnetic Era, video art in the

Netherlands 1970 to 1985« (Nai publishers), an anthology about early Dutch video art,

was published in 2003. Rutten edited this book together with Jeroen Boomgaard and also

contributed to it as a writer.

www.montevideo.nl

Mona Schieren

Mona Schieren was awarded her first degree at the University of Economy and Politics,

Hamburg, from where she graduated in Business Administration. Afterwards she studied

Art History at the University ofHamburg and the Ecole Nationale Superieure d 'Art de Nice.

She held a stipend by the University Hamburg for her MA-research in Paris. She has worked

and participated in various galleries and projects, among them the Suermondt-Ludwig

Museum, Aachen, and the Musee Picasso in Antibes. For the company Tecnobyblos. Servizi e

Tecnologie per I Berni Culturali in Rome she developed the conception ofthe digitalization of

the art libraries in Italy meridional. She has an Adjunct Teaching Position at the Department

of Cultural History. University ofHamburg and currently holds a position as a research

associate at the University ofthe Arts Bremen, where she is also the project-manager of the

iMediathek initiative. In May 2004 she co-organized the international symposium »Present

Continuous Pastes). Videoart. Strategies of Presentation and Mediation«. Her publications

and French translations include works about Annette Messager, Otto Mueller, Mediatheory,

Mediation Issues and the conceptual development for the Financing of Art-Projects.

www.iMediathek.o.cg

Biographies.

Jeff~ey Shaw

Jeffrey Shaw is currently an ARC Federation Fellow and Director of the iCinema Centre

for Interactive Cinema Research at UNSW His research has set benchmarks for the use of

digital media technologies, particularly in developing the multi-modal agency of interactive

narrative in the fields of: Navigable Cinematic Systems; Virtual Reality and Augmented

Reality; Immersive Visualisation Environments; Interactive and Intelligent Interface Desian'0,

and Algorithmic and Reactive Software. His experimental research to date has focused on

the demonstration of the participant's ability to influence events in a cinematic narrative

by variations in patterns ofspatial navigation. This has been undertaken in demonstrations

such as »Reconfiguring the Cave« (2001) and »Eavesdrop« (2004). The former exhibits

animation of real-time agent formations, articulated by their interaction with participants,

by means ofalgorithmically defined behavioural matrices which locate the agents within the

stereographical environment. The latter shows the navigation of complex video narratives

by the participant's engagement with the interactive environment. Shaw's research results

also include: a history of software and hardware design, such as the interactive orientation

device »The Panoramic Navigator« (1997); the curation of international research projects

utilising interactive narrative forms such as the European Union's 1ST projects »eRENA«

(1998) and »eSCAPE« (1999), and »Future Cinema: the Cinematic Imaginary After Film«(ZKM, 2003). '


Wolfgang St~auss

Wolfgang Strauss is an architect and media artist who studied Architecture and Visual

Communication. He is a researcher, lecturer and teacher in Interactive Media Art and

Design, and has been a Visiting Professor ofMedia Art in Saarbriicken and Kassel Germa, ny.

While working on interfaces connecting the human body and digital media space, he is

co-directing the MARS Lab at Fraunhofer Institutefor Media Communication. His artistic

work has been presented in exhibitions and festivals throughout the world e.g. at ZKM

Karlsruhe, Nagoya Science Museum, SIGGRAPH, ICC Tokyo, Imagina Monte Carlo, ISEA.

He was awarded the Golden Nica at Ars Electronica 1992 (»Home of the Brain«) and the iF

- communication design award2005 (»Energy-Passages«) amongst others. In 1999, together

with Monika Fleischmann, he initiated netzspannung.org - the Internet platform on digital

art and media culture, and in 2005 he initiated the eCulture Factory project in Bremen.

http://www.imk.fraunhofer.de/marshttp://netzspannung.org

http://eculturefactory.de

210 211

PeteL' Weibel

Peter Weibel is Chairman and CEO of the ZKM, Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe.

After undertaking research into modal logic, philosophy and cinema at the University of

Vienna during the 1960's, Weibel pioneered early experimentation in filmic and videographic

language and its relationship to the newly emerging systems theory. Until 1999, he was the

Austrian Commissioner for the Biennale di Venezia and the Director and Chief Curator

of the Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum in Graz, Austria. His research to date

focuses on the real time cross-mapping of agent and participant behaviours, utilizing the

design of laser scanning; >Doise< filtering for tracking systems; video playback; wireless

full-body tracking; real time 3D object reconstruction; multiple calibrated video tracking

in defined spaces; automatic control of silhouette extraction, texturing, and occlusions for

3D objects, including actors on stage, in real time. His highly distinguished career has

included: Founder and Director of the Ars Electronica, Linz; Directorship of the Institut

fur Neue Medien at the Stadelschule, Frankfurt a. M.; Professor and Head of Visual Media

Art Faculty at the University ofApplied Arts, Vienna; Professor of Video and Digital Arts

at the Centre for Media Study, State University of New York at Buffalo.

www.zkm.de

Lod Zippay

Lori Zippay is the Executive Director of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI). She has curated,

lectured, written, and taught extensively in the field of media arts, and has been active in

video art exhibition, distribution and preservation for over twenty years. She has organized

numerous exhibitions of artists' video and media art at international venues, and was co

curator of First Decade: Video from the EAI Archives at The Museum of Modern Art,

New York in 2002. She is the editor and co-author of Artists' Video: »An International

Guide«, »Electronic Arts Intermix: Video«, and the »EAl Online Catalogue« (2005), a

comprehensive digital resource, as well as »A Kinetic History: The EAI Archives Online

and the forthcoming Online Resource Guide to Exhibiting and Collecting Media Art«. She

has lectured extensively at museums and universities internationally, served on advisory

panels and international festival juries, and served as a consultant on numerous media arts

projects. Her articles and essays on media and art have appeared in such publications as

Art/orum and College Art Association Journal, and she has written many catalogue essays.

She currently serves on the Board ofIndependent Media Arts Preservation (IMAP).

http://www.eai.org/eai/index.

Bibliography.

Selected Bibliog~aphy

Angerer, Marie- Luise and Kathrin Peters (eds.). Future Bodies, Vienna, New York:Springer-Verlag, 2002.

Arrhenius, Sara, Magdalena MaIm and Cristina Ricupero (eds.). Black Box

Illuminated, Stockholm: IASPIS International Artists' Studio Program in Sweden et al2003. •

Arns, Inke. Netzkulturen, Hamburg: Europiiische Verlagsanstalt, 2002.

Baumgartel, Tilman. [Net.art]: Materialien zur Netzkunst, Nurnberg: Verlag flir ModemeKunst, 1999.

Beil, Ralf: Black Box: Der Schwarzraum in der Kunst, Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz,2001.

Bennett, Jill (ed.). Dennis del Favero, Fantasmi, Sydney: University of New SouthWales Press Ltd, 2004.

Besser, Howard. »Longevity ofElectronic Art«, 200 I, URL: <http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Longevity/>.

Bippus, Elke and Andrea Sick (eds.). Technologisierung < > Industrialisierung vonKunst und Wissenschaft, Bielefeld: transcript, 2005.

Birringer, Johannes. Media and Performance: Along the Border, Baltimore: JohnsHopkins University Press, 1998.

Bismarck, Beatrice von et a1. (eds.). interarchive. Archivarische Praktiken und

Handlungsriiume im zeitgenossischen Kunstfeld / Archival Practices and Sites in the

Contemporary Field, Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig, 2002.

Bolter, Jay D. and Richard Grusin. Understanding New Media, Cambridge, MA:The MIT Press, 1999.

212 213

Borcic, Barbara (ed.). Videodokument: Video Art in Slovenia 1969 - 1998, Ljubljana:

Open Society Institute, 1999.

Brouwer, Mariann e. Dan Graham. Works 1965 - 2000, Dusseldorf: Richter Verlag,

2001.

Bruhn, Matthias (ed.). Darstellung und Deutung. Abbilder der Kunstgeschichte, Weimar:

Verlag und Datenbank flir Geisteswissenschaften, 2000.

Cook, Sarah, Beryl Graham and Sarah Martin (eds.). Curating New Media, Gateshead:

Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, 2002.

Cosic, Vuk (ed.). Net.art per me, Ljubliana: MGLC, URL:<http://absoluteone.ljudmila.org/>.

Daniels, Dieter. Vom Ready-Made zum Cyberspace, Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz

Verlag, 2002.

-- Kunst als Sendung, Von der Telegrafie zum Internet, Munich: C. H. Beck Verlag,

2002.

Del Favero, Dennis Jeffrey Shaw (eds.), DisLocations, Digital Arts Edition (DVD

ROM), published by ZKM I Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and The Centre for

Interactive Cinema Research, College ofFine Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney,

Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2001.

Depocas, Alain, Jon Ippolito and Caitlin Jones (eds.). Permanence Through

Change: The Variable Media Approach, 2003, URL: <http://www.variablemedia.net/e/

preserving/html/var_pub_index.html>.

Dietz, Steve. »Interfacing the Digital«, Museums and the Web 2003, URL:

<http://www.archimuse.com/mw2003/papers/dietz/dietz.html>.

-- »Curating (on) the web«, Museums and the Web. Papers, Archives & Museum

Informatics, 1998, URL: <http://www.archimuse.com/mw98/papers/dietz/dietz_

curatingtheweb.html>.

Bibliography.

Dinkla, Sake P' . . -. IOmere Interaktlver Kunst von 1970 bis he .

Cantz Verlag, 1997. ute, Ostfildern-Rult: Hatje

Druckrey Timothy t I ( d' e a e s.). Ars Electronica' Facin h F

Decades (Electronic Culture _ History Th p'. g t e uture: A Survey ofTwo1999. ' eory, ractlce), Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press,

Druckrey, Timothy (ed.). Electronic Culture New ~o k' A' r. perture, 1996.

-- (ed.). Iterations: The New Imaue Camb'd MAo , n ge, : The MIT Press, 1993.

EIben, Georg (ed.). Videonale 10, Coloune: Verlau dNew York: D A P/D' t'b d .0 0 er Buchhandlung Walther Konig and

. " IS n ute Art PublIshers, Inc., 2005.

Engelbach, Barbara. Zwischen Body Art und V'd k. I eo unst· Korp d V'd .

AktlOnskunst urn 1970 Mu . h'V I . . er un I eo In der, mc. er ag Sdke Schreiber, 200 I.

Flach, Sabine. »Korper-Szenarien«. Zum Verhaltnis von K" . . .stallationen Munich' Wilhel F' k V orper und Bdd In Vldeoin-

, . m In erlag, 2003.

Fleischmann, Monika and Ulrike Reinhard (eds.). DIGITALE TMedienkunst als Schnittstelle von Ku t W. RANSFORMATIONEN,Heidelberg: Whois Verlag, 2004. ns , Issenschaft, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft,

Frieling, Rudolf and Dieter Daniels (eds.). Medien Kun . .lahre in Deutschland / Media A t A . st AktlOn. DIe 60er und 70er

. r ctlOn. The 1960s and 1970s in Ger .York: Spnnger-Verlag, 1997. many, VIenna, New

-- (eds.). Medien Kunst Interaktion. Die 80er und 90er lahre i .Art Interaction. The 1980s and 1990 . G . n Deutschland / MedIa

SIn ermany VIe N2000. ' nna, ew York: Springer-Verlag,

-- (eds.). Medien Kunst Netz I / Media Art Net I. Medienk ." .Media Art, Vienna New Yo k' S . unst 1m UberblIck / Survey of

, r. pnnger-Verlag,2004.

-- (eds.). Medien Kunst Netz 2 / Media Art N t V"2005 e, lenna, New York: Springer-Verlag,

214 215

Frohne, Ursula. »Diskursraume und Handlungsfelder, Medien IKunst und Offentlichkeit«,

DIG/TALE TRANSFORMATION EN, Medienkunst als Schnittstelle von Kunst,

Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, edited by Monika Fleischmann and Ulrike

Reinhard, Heidelberg: Whois Verlag, 2004, pp. 324 - 327.

- video cult/ures. Multimediale Installationen der 90er lahre Cologne: DuMont, 1999.

- »Old art and new media: The contemporary museum«, Afterimage (Sept/Oct), 1999,

pp. 9 - II.

- »Ars Oblivionis: Die Kunst des Sammelns im digitalen Zeitalter«, in: Gerda Breuer

(ed.), summa summarum, Wuppertaler Gesprache, Frankfurt/M. und Basel: Stroemfeld,

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