Leonardo

Networking: Thinking about Mail Art, with and without Technology by Chuck WelchReview by: Mit MitropoulosLeonardo, Vol. 29, No. 2 (1996), pp. 161-162Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576359 .

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BOOKS

NETWORKING: THINKING ABOUT MAIL ART, WITH AND WITHOUT TECHNOLOGY

edited by Chuck Welch, University of

Calgary Press, Alberta, Canada, 1995. 304 pp., illus., $39.95. ISBN: 1-895176- 27-1.

Reviewed by Mit Mitropoulos, 11 Elpidos Street, Athens 10434, Greece.

Postage rates have greatly increased, complains a Pasadena writer in this book of coffee-table dimensions; he predicts a

high-tech shift for mail artists in the 1990s. However, mail art is about operat- ing on the global scale; it is also about

global concerns-this does not have to be, but the book says it is so, and I agree. A check on the list of authors (p. 250) confirms residences in cities of longitude and latitude (and related economies) dif- ferent than those of the Los Angeles area (and of the other 23 North American

contributors)-namely: Liege, Viareggio, London, Oslo, Modene, Trogen, Frank- furt, Montevideo, Elblag La Plata, Stockholm, Eysk, Accra, Wellen, Nishino-

miya and Athens. Some of these are

places where we still have problems get- ting the phone lines to work, no matter what the sophisticated end-equipment is-not to mention places where a size- able majority of the planet's population have never in their lives made a single phone call and never will.

The writer from Pasadena offers us

(p. 129) the title "The Future of Mail

Reviews Panel: Rudolf Arnheim, Simon Penny, Mason Wong, Stephen Wilson, Robert Coburn, Marc Battier, Thom Gillespie, Jason Vantomme, Geoff Gaines, Clifford Pickover, Barbara Lee, Sonya Rapoport, Richard Land, P Klutchevskaya, Paul Hertz, Francesco Giomi, Bulat M. Galeyev, Christopher Willard, Harry Rand, Gerald Hartnett, Henry See, Kasey Asberry, Shawn Decker, Roger E Malina, Rainer Voltz, Michele

Emmer, Curtis Karnow, Jose Elquero, Youry Nazarov, Irina Presnetsova, Frank P Davidson, Mit Mitropoulos

Art." Another (p. 171) relates mail art to telecommunications art, but wisely does not substitute the latter for the former. A third author, a mail artist herself, makes me wonder: in a mail-art network, she (alone amongst the authors) refuses to give her mail address (or other means of contact-p. 251). In her paper (p. 219) she does provide a useful, if partial, indirect and incomplete explanation: the way I would put it in understandable telecommunications terms is that she

perceives that our access opposes her

privacy, and the more we have of the one, the less she gets of the other.

The question is: what is the future of mail art in the Internet era? If pressed to be brief, I would say that the book

gives two possible directions: Tourism and the Internet itself. These two direc- tions may not be desirable to all of us but should be interesting for us all be- cause mail art involves networking over distance. And both these directions eliminate distance. Tourism does it, as a

couple of co-authors (p. 147) put it by proposing to us, "the next step for mail artists to take ... is actually meeting face to face." They in fact put it into practice, took to the road and give us an account in an oversize diary-book on their color- ful tourism (details on p. 284).

On the other hand, high-tech con- nections afford us instant "live" ex-

change that is not tied to geography. Moving (tourism) and communicating (see the Internet or other means of

telecommunicating), of course, have al-

ways been among human beings' basic activities. And both have played a cen- tral role in research during the last 25

years about the organization of space- as, for instance, in Space Networks, where we have been considering space itself as a network rather than as a

place. But is not distance an integral part of mail art? Is not connecting un- der the closed door or over the wide ocean what it is all about? But exactly what do we open the door and cross the water to do? We get no satisfactory answer here. Mail art is about network-

ing, but networking "live"-with no time to reflect-to do exactly what?

Again we are left wanting. One view from the on-line culture

area can be found tucked in the

"Networker Databank Appendix," Entry 91 (p. 285): "Although I miss sending and receiving visual, tactile mail art, I believe on-line environments and net- works will be a more pervasive and last-

ing medium, particularly for artists who work with words, ideas and information and who are interested in working to-

gether to broaden the art base." But the communications issues that come

up are not as simple as that. And here the authors who vote for technology (even those who want us to pack our

bags without including portable com- munications gear) fail us. Yes, network-

ing is about access. Therefore (and the woman with no address got it right), it is also about privacy: who wants to be with all of the people all of the time? This is the beauty and the purpose of behavioral space articulated for the ac- tivities of movement and communica- tion-whether it is built space or elec- tronic space. This is a control issue. And certainly the knowledge of this

planetary connection is both exhilarat-

ing and necessary for problem-solving tasks. But what is the complexity of the

interactivity taking place in the art net- works, whether in snail mail or (even more so) in electronic mail?

The book is made up of six parts, one of which is entitled "New Directions," which is itself made up of nine chapters. Five of the chapters are about going on- line: "the networks have arrived just in time." Myself (having lived in networks for a long time and having survived be- cause of them), I wish it were true. Not so. The last time that there was a global policy context to run the planetary net- works through was the period at the end of the 1970s to the very early 1980s. In 1979, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) MacBride international commission report on the New World Information and Communication Order was handed in. Today, the social context for innovation is the marketplace. For fi- nancial stability, we are left to depend on the bank holiday (if it is October) in

Japan to ease the pressure on currencies

gone global. And we have to buy a per- sonal computer (PC), when a network

computer (NC) would do-the NC would be four times cheaper than a PC,

LEONARDO, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 161-165, 1996 161 ? 1996 ISAST

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for it lacks intelligence and draws its

computing power from links over a telecom network.

Of course, there are other ways to

approach the book and enjoy it. But

exactly because I believe mail art to be an exciting cultural activity accessible to a wide range of people and that net-

working is indeed necessary, the future of mail art remains a concern for me. And although we are not being thor-

oughly introduced into mail art's fu- ture possibilities in this book, we are

given a good deal of helpful informa- tion, both anecdotal and critical, about mail art's past. Furthermore, the editor provides us with a variety of

ways in which we can choose to join this participatory art form. A set of six

appendices (60 pages in all) help one determine whether one is a newcomer or an old boy, with or without technol-

ogy: archives, magazines, articles, re-

cordings, books, a 24-year selection of mail-art activity, an ongoing networker databank. Unfortunately, no discipline has been exercised-there are no de-

scriptive titles and subtitles that would assist indexing and retrieval. The in- dex is a good "who's-who," but in- cludes no issues or concepts. (Is any- one arguing on network content? I cannot say. Is there any mention of pri- vacy? Readers may find it by chance on

page 171. Is performance a valid direc- tion? Yes it is, but one needs to read the book and check the illustrations.

Anyone interested in the Internet? Of course. There are six references in the index, but tourism is not included.)

There are approximately 125 illustra- tions, of which more than half are art- works. However, they give us little sense of the interactivity involved (it is like

having answers without having the

questions-Fig. 99 is a rare case in that we do know what is being exchanged). And only Fig. 98 gives us (in the back-

ground) a sample of the wide range of

responses a mail-art call prompts. But I am sure the book will win readers over to add their own world maps on the in- side cover-necessary for the planetary dimension and any indexing one might choose to do.

This publication should also receive attention outside the mail-art commu-

nity, for it will fill a vacuum for those members. Artists involved in the elec- tronic arts, for instance, should note

for it lacks intelligence and draws its

computing power from links over a telecom network.

Of course, there are other ways to

approach the book and enjoy it. But

exactly because I believe mail art to be an exciting cultural activity accessible to a wide range of people and that net-

working is indeed necessary, the future of mail art remains a concern for me. And although we are not being thor-

oughly introduced into mail art's fu- ture possibilities in this book, we are

given a good deal of helpful informa- tion, both anecdotal and critical, about mail art's past. Furthermore, the editor provides us with a variety of

ways in which we can choose to join this participatory art form. A set of six

appendices (60 pages in all) help one determine whether one is a newcomer or an old boy, with or without technol-

ogy: archives, magazines, articles, re-

cordings, books, a 24-year selection of mail-art activity, an ongoing networker databank. Unfortunately, no discipline has been exercised-there are no de-

scriptive titles and subtitles that would assist indexing and retrieval. The in- dex is a good "who's-who," but in- cludes no issues or concepts. (Is any- one arguing on network content? I cannot say. Is there any mention of pri- vacy? Readers may find it by chance on

page 171. Is performance a valid direc- tion? Yes it is, but one needs to read the book and check the illustrations.

Anyone interested in the Internet? Of course. There are six references in the index, but tourism is not included.)

There are approximately 125 illustra- tions, of which more than half are art- works. However, they give us little sense of the interactivity involved (it is like

having answers without having the

questions-Fig. 99 is a rare case in that we do know what is being exchanged). And only Fig. 98 gives us (in the back-

ground) a sample of the wide range of

responses a mail-art call prompts. But I am sure the book will win readers over to add their own world maps on the in- side cover-necessary for the planetary dimension and any indexing one might choose to do.

This publication should also receive attention outside the mail-art commu-

nity, for it will fill a vacuum for those members. Artists involved in the elec- tronic arts, for instance, should note that, unlike them, all mail artists are networkers. What is more, all mail-art

processes are interactive, or at least

that, unlike them, all mail artists are networkers. What is more, all mail-art

processes are interactive, or at least

they could be. This is not so with tech-

nological art, where response systems are on the increase: machines pro- grammed to be triggered by humans- whether by moving through space or by making decisions or, more likely, ran- dom choices. In mail-art activity, my definition of how it feels to be in a net- work fits well: One can alternatively be- come the center or remain at the pe- riphery. One can plug into the system's resources, pass information to all, sur- vive. Or one can fade out, escape, sur- vive. The editor does provide this feel-

ing in his anthology, which took him 5

years to complete.

THE BIRTH OF ARTISTIC INTEGRITY: THE ARTIST'S SELF-ANALYSIS OF DYNAMIC THOUGHT POTENTIAL

by Ye. V. Sintzov. "Fan" Publishing House, Kazan, Russia, 1995. 228 pp. (In Russian)

Reviewed by V V Bazov, Volgogradskaya 22- 54, Kazan 420040, Russia.

The book is devoted to an analysis of the potential of an artist's creative

thinking that is not fully realized in the artist's final artwork. The author's goal is to prove the active role of this poten- tial in creating artistic integrity, which tends to be dynamic, changeable and chaos-like in nature. There is another thesis that incorporates the aforemen- tioned: the unrealized potential stimu- lates the so-called "self motivation" of the artist's thought (or "unbalanced

identity," to use Hegel's term-or the

concept of causa sui). Bohr's principle of complementarity

was used to solve such complex prob- lems as the reconstruction of aspects of the artist's thought process that were not fully expressed, or not fully realized, in the work itself. The author theorizes that there are two models of artistic thought processes, basing his

theory on his analysis of completed artworks. The first model is very simi- lar to one used by some art critics, fea-

turing an "esseistic" style, meaning that all paths of the artist's thought are

investigated. The second model is based on strict principles of dissipative

they could be. This is not so with tech-

nological art, where response systems are on the increase: machines pro- grammed to be triggered by humans- whether by moving through space or by making decisions or, more likely, ran- dom choices. In mail-art activity, my definition of how it feels to be in a net- work fits well: One can alternatively be- come the center or remain at the pe- riphery. One can plug into the system's resources, pass information to all, sur- vive. Or one can fade out, escape, sur- vive. The editor does provide this feel-

ing in his anthology, which took him 5

years to complete.

THE BIRTH OF ARTISTIC INTEGRITY: THE ARTIST'S SELF-ANALYSIS OF DYNAMIC THOUGHT POTENTIAL

by Ye. V. Sintzov. "Fan" Publishing House, Kazan, Russia, 1995. 228 pp. (In Russian)

Reviewed by V V Bazov, Volgogradskaya 22- 54, Kazan 420040, Russia.

The book is devoted to an analysis of the potential of an artist's creative

thinking that is not fully realized in the artist's final artwork. The author's goal is to prove the active role of this poten- tial in creating artistic integrity, which tends to be dynamic, changeable and chaos-like in nature. There is another thesis that incorporates the aforemen- tioned: the unrealized potential stimu- lates the so-called "self motivation" of the artist's thought (or "unbalanced

identity," to use Hegel's term-or the

concept of causa sui). Bohr's principle of complementarity

was used to solve such complex prob- lems as the reconstruction of aspects of the artist's thought process that were not fully expressed, or not fully realized, in the work itself. The author theorizes that there are two models of artistic thought processes, basing his

theory on his analysis of completed artworks. The first model is very simi- lar to one used by some art critics, fea-

turing an "esseistic" style, meaning that all paths of the artist's thought are

investigated. The second model is based on strict principles of dissipative structures theory (or, more generally, synergetics). The main concepts used for creating the second model are "bi-

structures theory (or, more generally, synergetics). The main concepts used for creating the second model are "bi-

furcation nodes," "fluctuation," "chaos," "attractor" and so on. The in- teraction of these models helps to solve several important aesthetic prob- lems: interaction between parts and the whole, between content and form, between form and content, between the mentality of the artist and that of the recipient.

The main aspect common to all these

problems is the idea that the boundaries between realized and unrealized poten- tialities are indistinct, diffused. Con- strained within these limits, the artist's

thought process is inclined to return to a resting state. This state is very similar to prehistoric, prelogical thinking.

The author believes these transitional boundaries are controlled by the artist. Three ways to control mental processes are described. The first way can be called "ousting." It features the deliber- ate self-limitation of possible directions of thought. In this case, the unrealized

potentialities violate (upset) the conti-

nuity of the realized ones (this process was inherent in the creative thinking of

Gogol, Stravinsky, Michelangelo). The second way can be called "conjugating" or "accumulating." Its basic feature is a

synthesis of heterogenous cultural lay- ers, levels (Chekhov, Scriabin, Donatello). Thus, the source of the de-

velopment of an artist's potentialities for the first type of artist is mainly the devel-

opment of his or her own potentialities. The artist of the second type is stimu- lated by shared cultural potentialities. The third type of process is the fusion of the first two methods, providing the pos- sibility to emancipate the creative poten- tialities of the recipient. This is achieved

by means of suggestively transmitting the artistic thought process from an art- ist to a recipient (Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Kafka, Proust, Rublev). The transmis- sion is based on creating a "figurative model of a way of thinking" (Sergei Bulgakov).

The main object of all these theoreti- cal investigations is to provide the means for recreating the mental processes that take place in the creation of an artwork. The author has succeeded in recreating unusual, original semantic patterns that

give integrity to a fragment, work, cycle or even the creative work of an artist as a whole. The book is devoted almost en-

tirely to the analysis of artworks as a means of providing evidence in support

furcation nodes," "fluctuation," "chaos," "attractor" and so on. The in- teraction of these models helps to solve several important aesthetic prob- lems: interaction between parts and the whole, between content and form, between form and content, between the mentality of the artist and that of the recipient.

The main aspect common to all these

problems is the idea that the boundaries between realized and unrealized poten- tialities are indistinct, diffused. Con- strained within these limits, the artist's

thought process is inclined to return to a resting state. This state is very similar to prehistoric, prelogical thinking.

The author believes these transitional boundaries are controlled by the artist. Three ways to control mental processes are described. The first way can be called "ousting." It features the deliber- ate self-limitation of possible directions of thought. In this case, the unrealized

potentialities violate (upset) the conti-

nuity of the realized ones (this process was inherent in the creative thinking of

Gogol, Stravinsky, Michelangelo). The second way can be called "conjugating" or "accumulating." Its basic feature is a

synthesis of heterogenous cultural lay- ers, levels (Chekhov, Scriabin, Donatello). Thus, the source of the de-

velopment of an artist's potentialities for the first type of artist is mainly the devel-

opment of his or her own potentialities. The artist of the second type is stimu- lated by shared cultural potentialities. The third type of process is the fusion of the first two methods, providing the pos- sibility to emancipate the creative poten- tialities of the recipient. This is achieved

by means of suggestively transmitting the artistic thought process from an art- ist to a recipient (Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Kafka, Proust, Rublev). The transmis- sion is based on creating a "figurative model of a way of thinking" (Sergei Bulgakov).

The main object of all these theoreti- cal investigations is to provide the means for recreating the mental processes that take place in the creation of an artwork. The author has succeeded in recreating unusual, original semantic patterns that

give integrity to a fragment, work, cycle or even the creative work of an artist as a whole. The book is devoted almost en-

tirely to the analysis of artworks as a means of providing evidence in support of these theoretical ideas. of these theoretical ideas.

162 Reviews 162 Reviews

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