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| On the Conditions for art in the Digital Network Environment Jānis Garančs Artists as benevolently inquisitive or fiercely rebellious "surgeons of hybrid reality" | |
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Introduction Just to be sure, I’d like to state at the outset that I’ll be discussing art in the environment of digital networks in general terms, which covers the "digitisation" and adaptation of various traditional genres (film, music recordings, photography, opera, video, etc.), as well as forms of art and creative experimentation that have been created in this specific environment and cannot even exist or be experienced without connecting up to the internet or other electronic networks (i.e., without the user’s involvement). In my view, it’s important to be aware of several characteristics that are increasingly setting apart expressions of the phenomenon of art in digital networks from all that has gone before. In this environment, there are at least three components of equal importance that I would call the forms of expression of artworks: the object (static or dynamic, developing), the environment (the infrastructure of the network itself and the statistics that characterise it) and the form of the experience (individual or shared). These come together in various proportions, together creating the artistic phenomenon. If we consider the traditional situation in art (the art market), where the relationships between the artist, the viewer and sometimes also an intermediary organisation (such as a museum) or a curator are characterised by mutual dependence, then there are indications that several forms of existence of art in a network are "freed" from intermediary institutions; the role of the curator is markedly reduced or disappears altogether. The network infrastructure partially or even completely replaces the institution as the setting or the curator as the organiser of attention or communicator. I won’t go into all the different aspects, where the apparent "liberation" of the artist and the viewer from intermediaries is sometimes replaced by other dangers – dependence on forces that play according to different rules altogether. I’d like to mention some of the conditions that influence the form of artworks, direct the development of network infrastructures at the present day and in the near future, and indirectly affect every institution that considers playing an intermediary role between artist and viewer. Multimedia on the net – the weaving of new matter Indisputably, a section of the traditional media are going to be superseded by net media – largely because of economic forces. TV, radio and satellite TV channels are becoming digital, and many of them are being adapted to distribution on the Internet. The new generation of cinemas are changing from equipment for showing reels of film to digital methods of distribution – data projectors and films supplied on broadband Internet. This growth of the electronic public space is occurring in conjunction with the saturation of this space and "tailoring" of the range of entertainment opportunities to the individual viewer. The actual digital product being disseminated is becoming multi-layered, automating the process of "tailoring". The latest technologies use algorithms to "fine-tune" the content, taking into account the viewer’s location, the technical characteristics of their access system and their range of interests. The viewing process itself involves interactivity, since your provider can easily find out what exactly you’re watching, what time of the day you’re watching, when you switch channels and what sequence you switch them in, so that you can be "rewarded" with advertising intended specifically for you, or offered some other product your provider’s database considers relevant to your interests. Such possibilities are immensely attractive for commercial companies, which, proclaiming the convenience of digital TV, "forget" to mention these more concealed aspects of privacy. Humanity’s appetite for the consumption of multimedia content is growing at an enormous pace. With the development of equipment, we’re being offered a wide range of ways to use screens (TV, computer, mobile devices, projection systems) and surfaces of various sizes to access this content, and this affects people’s everyday lives, their work and leisure. So far, the users don’t have the opportunity or the "tools" to deal with the complexity of the context of use, the incompatibility of different elements and even the chaos that prevails in terms of technical standards. Rapid technological change is bringing with it not only growing competition for the viewer’s attention, but also new ways of creating and disseminating content using broadband network systems. What we once imagined as a universe of 500 or 5000 interactive TV channels will probably be a universe of many, many more channels – an almost unlimited number – accessible through the new generation Internet. The creators of this material, whether major film, TV and multimedia corporations or individuals, will be able to create and disseminate their own "brand" of specialised content – images, sound, text and other information. Although broadband connections are already accessible to the public in many places, because of the above-mentioned difficulties the resources are not being fully utilised. With the increasing availability of photo and video cameras, computers and other equipment, individuals are generating an ever greater amount of digital material, intended not only for professional, but also private (family) use. All of these "presenters of content" also face the same problems of managing their material and adapting it to a variety of purposes, defending their rights against unauthorised access and manipulation, and protecting the privacy of both providers and consumers. Another great hindrance is the lack of generally accepted standards for visual elements, incorporating a description of movement, time, geometry and scale. Currently, an immense effort is underway to combine reality as recorded by the camera’s lens with computer graphics. The parameters of optical lenses (perspective and zoom factors) in different cameras, and those of computer simulations of perspective for imitating space, are sufficiently diverse to render very difficult or even impossible the creation of more complex scenes that require combining the movement of different objects or layers, different scales and different degrees of spatial depth among the various elements (deriving from various sources). Many try to circumvent this problem by applying extremely resource- intensive methods ("hand-crafting" each combined frame in turn), while others, those not seriously engaged in this matter, are entirely unaware of the existence of the problem or its evident causes. Since the eighties, in the course of making some excellent videos, Zbig Rybczynski, a video artist of Polish background, has been developing several innovative approaches to the creation of combined frames. With his company "Zbig Vision" in California, he continues to develop the MGiS (Moto-Geometrical Image Standardisation) concept, producing technical solutions so that artists can create "special effects", either in specially-equipped studios or through collaboration on the Internet, alleviating the combination of technical elements by the use of standardised optical, mechanical and algorithmic parameters for describing images. The boundaries between different elements – sound (music and the spoken word), visual elements (graphics), text (for example, song texts and information) and video (the image) are growing less and less distinct. Accordingly, new solutions are required for access, distribution, management and protection in an integrated and harmonious way, which must also be "transparent" to the many different users of multimedia services and systems. In order to cope with this in practical situations, where multimedia content is being created, processed and disseminated by artists, TV stations, museums, etc., common standards are being developed, intelligible to the software and hardware. Quite recently, MPEG-4 has become one of the leading standards utilised in the audiovisual data broadcasting industry, a standard that not only uses more effective data compression (ensuring higher quality on "thinner wires"), but also incorporates many other parameters that can be used by attached devices and databases, for the convenience of the authors and the viewers. These innovations also increase control over every visible, audible and contextual element. In the next-generation standards, MPEG-7 and MPEG-21, every component is like a separately controllable layer and can incorporate information about objects linked to it, so that the image or frame of film essentially becomes an Internet page or web with a whole mass of references. Moreover, this data can also include geometric objects, geographical coordinates, bibliographic references, information about previous users, etc. In terms of complexity, the object is coming to resemble an organic DNA molecule (or virus). With this brief description of several technological trends, I have tried to show how a new type of "fabric" is developing, a code connecting human realities. With an understanding of this, one can start to perceive the ways in which artists as benevolently inquisitive or fiercely rebellious "surgeons of hybrid reality" can strive to make use of "the properties of this new nervous system", altering the direction of change of the signal or even the directions of flow. In certain situations (without going into the technical aspects), museums and institutions will have great difficulty defining an "artwork" that can be "copied" or "conserved" in a specific format. A proportion of that which is going on in contemporary digital media art is like a flowing, pulsating process, where viewers and creators come together in a symbiotic interface, where interactivity and not entirely foreseeable improvisation prevails. The properties of the network environment itself will only be open to assessment after some time has passed. In my view, it is in this media-permeated environment that we are seeing the most interesting creative processes of the present age. In terms of interest or shock, they will possibly be outdone only by the revolution soon to come in biotechnology and nanotechnology. A future vision of smart environments: can the ever- present "eye" be trusted? Present and future network technologies are not limited to the possibility of sending ever-larger amounts of data between continents, between media companies and viewers, or between individuals and increasingly small devices that can be carried in the pocket or even in the body, circumventing central databases or the Internet. Increasingly important will be a variety of spontaneous, hybrid networks that operate within a particular city or indoor area. Such possibilities are already beginning to influence human behaviour in communication and leisure, and will lead to new creative experiments. One the projects I have periodically (slowly) been developing since 2001 is "Big Brotherhood Browser". (*1) (The name is a double reference to George Orwell’s novel "1984" and the TV reality show "Big Brother", popular in Western Europe in 2000–2005.) This is an imagined scenario about the earth, where every individual has a personal identity chip implanted at birth. This monitors a range of functions of the "wearer’s" organism (heart rate, blood pressure, changes in chemical composition, breathing, etc.), and, of course, records the person’s location, transmitting this information to state surveillance services. Subject to age restrictions, and if they obtain a licence, people can add supplementary functions, exchanging a wider range of sensor data with partners of their choice in a peer-to- peer network, or else in a partly anonymous global online data services "exchange". Part of society experiences events "through the eyes and ears of others" and watches multi-channel "reality TV" 24 hours a day, something that is partly illegal. The work is also a reference to a tendency that has been dubbed "sousveillance", in contrast to "surveillance": a setting in which the observed start to observe their observers and all end up in a situation of striving to observe the rest. The work is presented in the form of an interactive installation illustrating a possible port for "experiencing" such a network. As an artist initially engaged in painting, then in video and recently in computer-generated audiovisual virtual reality, I often ask myself to what extent I myself am creating the image and to what degree it is creating or leading me. The image has an exceptionally important role in historical civilisations and contemporary society, because it is an "intermediary" created (directly or indirectly) by humans in relationships with fundamental, abstract or absolute ideas, such as God, Nature, Truth and science. Art researcher Marie-José Mondzain writes in one of her essays on the conflicts concerning Byzantine icons that "truth is image, but there is no image of truth". Nowadays, with the development of photography, video, film, TV, optics, communication, computers, space technology, seabed exploration and materials science, we have come to see images and envisage concepts that were unknown to previous civilisations. We rely on certain images, such as personal photo albums, the TV news or scientific visualisation, but regard with suspicion and even indignation images created by advertisers, by the military or by artists, or simply by other cultures. On the other hand, the idea of the image as a reflection of reality or truth seemingly overlaps with, and at the same time may be contrasted with, the "simulacrum" (*2), i.e. simulation, which is the opposite pole to the stage of development represented by the original image. Accordingly, in our attitude towards that which we see, it’s very important to understand the mechanism by which images come about, to see the image "beyond" or "outside" of photography, the TV, the computer screen or the advertising poster. It’s a matter of whether we trust it, whether we’re not seeking in the image that which isn’t there (at the same time not seeing that which is most important!), and whether we can spot deception or even malevolent, brutal manipulation of ourselves. Some examples. An image of determined-looking men using an axe to brutally smash the glass protecting a museum exhibit – who turn out to be firemen saving the Turin Shroud from a fire; or an image seen in the camera of a US army reconnaissance plane, trusted by a bombardment operator, who accidentally kills a civilian transport column; or a video showing how a wonder-cure (or, more precisely, computer graphics manipulations) produce snow-white teeth, hair on a bald head or a waistline three times thinner. In the present age, artists (as well as politicians, business and terrorists) have unprecedented possibilities for using this arsenal of image-creation, truth-depiction and simulation. Have no doubts: we’re going to exploit these possibilities! I can recommend as thrilling and enlightening material, both for professionals and for a wider audience, the widely illustrated and systematised collections of essays "Iconoclash" (*3) and "Future Cinema" (*4) | |
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