video work, awesomeness

Over the past couple weeks, I think the video remixes that intrigued me the most were Phil Solomon’s machinima films. The content of the work was extremely compelling. While Solomon made use of new media and technology he didn’t rely on its newness to make it interesting. While his choice of Grand Theft Auto wasn’t arbitrary and he used what the game had to offer to his advantage, they could have stood on their own as traditional films as well. For me, as someone who has not been exposed to a great deal of digital art, they were incredibly inspiring as an example of the potential and power of new media in terms of innovation, cultural relevance, and the ability to use everything in our environment in ways completely apart from its intended use. Obviously this last point can be seen as threatening to the original (as evidenced by the paperwork from the Yes Men’s lawsuit that Erin sent out) but it also invites rebuttal (the plaintiff claimed that their “acts are antithetical to public debate on important issues, because they prevent the public and the press from knowing the true position of the intellectual property owner…” Bullshit… I’d love to see the “intellectual property owner” remix the Yes Men but they’re undoubtedly too greedy and lazy.) I feel like a lot of the new media work that I have seen outside of this class has operated within the idea that because the media is new-ish, the work is innovative enough for the content to be secondary. As a result I rarely found myself relating to new media work so it’s nice to be exposed to new media art that is actually good, and furthermore, when it is, holy fuck is it good.

This reflects the conflict that David Fodel talked about in reference to the VJ producing art instead of just wallpaper. I was really impressed with the amount of critical discourse concerning VJ on Vague Terrain and VJ Theory because I think a lot of times it is dismissed as simply aesthetic supplement. In particular I enjoyed what Michael Betancourt said in “Wallpaper and/as Art” about engaging the work rather than consuming it. This audience engagement in relation to digital work recalls Walter Benjamin’s description of collective engagement as it relates to film and the destruction of the aura; it is interesting that Betancourt applies aura and capitalism to digital work in another essay, “The Aura of the Digital.”

o p e n content

One of the main advantages to an open content approach is that it makes creation less about an individual monetary goal and more about expanding ideas to achieve a better, collective final product. Restricting rights results in isolation and fear, which ultimately limits the potential for creative consumption. Copyright law’s legal sanctions and labeling the reuse of material as immoral suppresses creative expression as artists struggle to create something entirely original. It prevents knowledge from building to its full ability. I have heard that humans, as a species, have succeeded in ways that other animals have not because we teach what we have learned to each other, allowing our ideas to be used, expanded on, and applied to a variety of environments and contexts. Furthermore, the use of others’ ideas and materials is inevitable, but when it is moralized against it becomes dangerous to admit. Less people get influential credit this way than if it was acceptable to appropriate and commonplace to think about where one gets his/her ideas rather than focusing on the independently innovative self. A slight transmutation of Jim Warren’s statement concerning software, that when it “is so inexpensive that it’s easier to pay for it then to duplicate it, then it won’t be ‘stolen,’” can be applied to creative works. When artists (and furthermore the people who represent them) become less concerned with profit and ‘originality’ and creative monopoly, the use of their work will no longer be considered theft.

On the other hand, while open content has great potential for developing creative thought it also possesses a danger of promoting stagnancy and rereregurgitation of the same ideas rather than remixing and expanding on these ideas. I think because of this there needs to be a reconfiguration of the whole system, where artists place themselves within this system, and what is valued within the artistic subculture. This probably means a separation from galleries and the traditional money-making outlets for artists, so that respect for the individual artist’s creativity is retained while allowing that creativity to be shared property. The internet provides a productive setting fir exposure, collaboration, and the gathering of free artistic material. Many artists are currently using it for this purpose but it is important that the old system does not get internalized within this digital space as it is in the mainstream economy.

Isabel Samaras is a good example of an artist who blatantly appropriates well-known images -- like many artists she remixes scenes from art history but she tends to replace the figures with ones from television. Aside from her more obvious stance about the omnipresent role of mass media I think her choice is interesting in that it allows for a discussion on what forms of art are allowed to be appropriated and what are not, based soley on if something happens to have copyright, which is determined by the time, place, and culture the work was created in. Before this class, I never thought of my own work in the same genre as appropriative work or remix but I've found that this is exactly what forms my process -- I take everything that surrounds me, including compositions, characters, patterns, images, etc. from past and present works of art and put it through my own filter, which is how I think I've attempted to communicate with others through individual experience.

detournement ramblings.

Debord’s opening statement in his essay Methods of Detournement that “art can no longer be justified as a superior activity” really stood out to me because the current status of art is one that has troubled me for a long time. I think that it still is judged as such, that the Kantian sphere of aesthetics that has become the institution of “art” as separate from “life” still applies. It bothers me because art has become something that most people feel they don’t relate to. It seems that a lot of conceptual artists tried to merge the spheres by incorporating readymades and appropriation and abstract ideas and other aspects of “life” into their work, but they failed because these parts of life just became part of the “art” sphere once someone of proper authority (an artist) said they were – the spheres never merged, their separation actually became more distinct because suddenly there was a hierarchal difference between a snow shovel in a museum and a snow shovel in your garage. And I think artists liked that authority, to put themselves in a higher intellectual category. Many artists I feel are very defensive of their belief that not everyone can be an artist and think of detournement as a sort of threat. For me though, that in itself is not a dangerous idea at all. Of course it depends on how one defines “artist” and I’m certainly not here to make definitions… but for me, art is about expression of experience and communication with others and I think that’s something everyone is capable of and should engage in. Humans, as a species, are natural artists because we are creators and teachers and meaning-making-machines. The problem is the romanticized ideal of the artist as soooooo different and soooooo misunderstood and soooooo important. And I think Debord does have this pretentious air around him, that he is right and most people are just slavish imbeciles, but what I like about him is that he negates the idea of artistic genius. The artistic genius elevates themselves above everyone else and instead of relating to others they block themselves off. And then, what is the point besides the superficial image and status of “artist?” And furthermore, if everyone defines themselves as an artist based off of this concept, then nothing is being said. Even where something could be said, nothing is because they’ve closed themselves off from relating to anyone. It’s not that the individual shouldn’t matter but capitalistic structure and invisible hands when it comes to art doesn’t really work.

I think in a lot of ways the concept of individualist originality is naïve because our experiences are not original, they are reflections of occurrences created by history and culture. Shit doesn’t just happen. And if you’re striving to be original, you’re just denying this for your own gain, for the status of the artistic genius. I think Debord is right when he says we have to go beyond a notion of personal property in terms of creative production, especially when it comes to copyright. Once we experience something it becomes our reality, and sanctions that forbid us the right to use this material denies us the right to effectively express that experience. It’s dishonest. This is not to say that anything should be taken from its original source, replicated, and redistributed without any new meaning, because that’s dishonest too, not so much in terms of theft but everyone experiences an object differently. You have something new to bring to that work just because you are a different person than the one who originally made it. Plus otherwise it’s kinda fucking boring and stagnant. I also have always thought that the whole argument about “what is art” is pretty boring and stupid but on the other hand, if we have these terms “art” and “artist” that imply a differential status (which they always will as long as they have a distinctive nature from the rest of the world – language itself always carries status) I guess it does matter somewhat so I like that Situationist art doesn’t exist. I also liked Bourriaud’s mention of the potential of alternative narratives for constructed situations, where “postproduction artists do not make a distinction between their work and that of others, or between their own gestures and those of viewers.” His elaboration of a Duchamp quote I think is very important: “‘It is the viewers who make the paintings,’ Duchamp once said, an incomprehensible remark unless we connect it to his keen sense of an emerging culture of use, in which meaning is born of collaboration and negotiation between the artist and the one who comes to view the work. Why wouldn't the meaning of a work have as much to do with the use one makes of it as with the artist's intentions for it?” Remix becomes a mass collaboration not only between artists through the use and reuse of each others’ work but through viewers’ use and experience of the work, and how they understand it based on past experiences, and how it will impact future experience in other aspects of their lives. The viewer therefore becomes as integral to the work as the creator, I think anyway, and maybe that makes them artists, which is neat. The webspinna performance was a good example of this and a really enjoyable experience by using sounds provided to other people, reacting to the sounds other people had chosen, and the experience of the work as a whole, how familiar sounds became unfamiliar or completely changed when taken out of context.

Fuckin’ rad.

Okay, I’m done. Total ramble. Sorry.