André Hillas
We have not met our Genius and most likely will not. We do not want to meet our Genius, and if we do, will be forced to encounter the tasks Genius looks after, which would be too overwhelming to handle. Our Genius is a given to us at birth, a guardian angel that is separated from us, yet exists within us. It deals with the issues our Ego and conscious mind wish to not worry with. The pumping of blood, digestion of food and movement of muscles are under the control of Genius. Small decisions are made by Genius, like the side we part our fringe or what colour shirt we wear. There is no logical reason for it, but it must be that way; our Genius demands it. We have to please our Genius, and in turn, we please our self. To meet Genius is too confrontational, as we would find and discover the thousands of insignificant things Genius takes care of. Genius “protects us from enclosing ourselves within a substantial identity and shatters the ego's pretension to be sufficient unto itself.” Genius is impersonal to us and acts as a guardian. It is essential to us, without it we would not be able to function as human beings.
The etymology of ‘genius’ has developed from its original Latin meaning to the contemporary understanding of the term. Contemporary linguistics talks of a genius as someone worthy of great honorific value, and often very aged, or dead. To claim genius status is for only a select few. It also talks of mental intelligence or achievement, rather than of physical success (ie, sport). The hero and genius sit in a similar space of worship, yet they are not the same thing. A hero is recognised for a particular achievement, whereas a genius is seen as an overall intelligence. This is not the genius of concern however. The Genius of concern is the impersonal being that exists within each person, but does not belong to us.
Genius is of the mind, yet the mind is not aware of it. Giorgio Agamben writes that our mind is “a force field of tensions whose antithetical poles are Genius and Ego. This field is traversed by two conjoined but opposed forces: one that moves from the individual to the impersonal and another that moves from the impersonal to the individual. The two forces coexist, intersect, separate, but can neither emancipate themselves completely from each other nor identify with each other perfectly.”
When comparing Freud’s analysis of the ID and Agamben’s explanation of Genius, a similarity is made that both the ID and Genius act of the unconscious mind. The ID works on instinct, with the aim of avoiding pain and gaining pleasure. It seeks to find what we desire most, without concern for consequence. In the ID, "contrary impulses exist side by side, without cancelling each other out.... There is nothing in the ID that could be compared with negation... nothing in the ID which corresponds to the idea of time."
Like ID, Genius exists without the initial influence of Ego. Genius is less instinct based, and more of a guardian that makes small choices and provides advice for our benefit. Agamben’s Genius talks mainly of an external god, or genii, that exists in us. It is our personal caretaker. Genius’s origins in Roman culture refer to a god, a spiritual figure who watches over us.
When concerning our self with contemporary society, it is difficult to avoid the constant surveillance we are under. At any one point, guards, public servants, security, CCTV and staff may watch us. Whether we are being watched live is not an issue; it is the possibility of being watched which affects our behavior. Jeremy Bentham designed a prison named the Panopticon, which allowed the guard to look in on all inmates in their cells at any one time. The design was a circular building, with a guard tower in the centre and cells around the outer walls. The blueprints were architecturally designed so that inmates were not able to see if they were being watched. Bentham’s design functioned in such a way that inmates would practice self-discipline for fear of being caught
Michel Foucault wrote of the Panopticon as the ideal form of punishment. In his book Discipline and Punish; The Birth of the Prison, he analyses and interrogates the different forms of punishment and disciple through the modern age. He looks at torture and public executions as the old form of punishment. His contention is that these forms of punishment slowly died out because the public became disenchanted with the state-based power of discipline. Where public execution and torture used to be a spectacle of entertainment, it had become a place in which the people would feel sympathy and admiration for the victim/criminal. This begun to create conflict between the masses and the state in which riots often took place in support of the prisoner. Foucault writes that due to this, public execution was non-economical and the political cost was too high. Thus, a gradual shift to prison occurred as the new form of punishment.
Foucault’s argument is that this new form of discipline was not confined to prisons, and it begun to exist across society in schools, hospitals, military institutions and factories. His argument is that a power play between hierarchical ranks emerged. This in turn created “docile bodies” that are people who function in the factories, hospitals, etc. He writes that in order for docile bodies to be controlled, the institution must practice constant surveillance on them, which in turn internalizes individual discipline within the workers. He writes that this molding of discipline must come without excessive force, and through observation. With this in mind, Foucault found Bentham’s Panopticon prison to be the ideal prison as it functioned on surveillance, rather than physical force. Foucault argues that the unequal gaze of guard and prisoner causes inmates to self-discipline and in turn, behave while incarcerated.
“Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.”
Foucault writes of Bentham’s theory that “power should be visible and unverifiable.” In the Panopticon the prisoner will always have the central tower of the Panopticon in sight, but never be sure when he is being looked at. Bentham’s planned for venetian blinds to be installed over the windows in the central tower, as well as zigzagging partitioned walls, rather than doors. This ensured no light was changed by the opening of doors, and no sound was made, thus protecting the guards position.
Foucault’s praise of the Panopticon’s efforts to internalise self-discipline through its method can be seen in a broader societal context today. His question “Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?” discusses the similar way in which many established institutions we use are aligned along similar principles of control and power. The doctor sits higher than the nurse, who in turn instructs the patient on how to behave in hospital. The CEO directs the head of areas, who direct the area supervisors, who direct the supervisors, who direct the floor workers in a factory.
The panoptic gaze exists in the street with constant surveillance under CCTV cameras, police, guards, security and the public. We live in a constant state of surveillance under the panoptic gaze. Like the Panapticon, we are unsure whether we are being watched at any one point. The constant threat of possibly being caught of a crime sways us from committing, nor entertaining the though of committing such crimes. This method of control is used tactically by police with regard to the operation of booze busses. Although aware that there may not he a high percentage of catching drunk drivers at certain times, buses and random breath tests are set up at all hours to scare the population into obeying the rule for fear of being caught. The Panoptic eye acts 24/7 with regard to police control of society.
We are content living in a panoptic society, yet it does concern us somewhat. Through institutions like schools and hospitals, an order is placed, and should one wish to partake in an activity, they must only follow in suit. At school, a child is submissive to their teachers and parents, who impose rules and processes they must follow. This structure is aimed at providing direction for the child, who will achieve success if they follow. When stimulated, the child will excel at a fast speed, learning and developing vital skills. When bored or under stimulated, the child will seek alternative ways of expression to entertain themselves. This often comes out via fits of rage, crying, yelling or ignoring instructions. These actions can be largely attached to the ID’s call for amusement. This natural drive for attention is somewhat balanced out by the child’s Super Ego, which in turn is modified by the Ego as the middleman. The child’s actions are still largely affected by the ID, which will prove through the sight of the childs emotions.
When following in suit, our Ego is often satisfied with the structure provided for us. We are not always affected by the Panoptic gaze that is placed upon us, but sometimes it can we overwhelming. CCTV cameras are coined by industry as protective devices, intended for our benefit. This description is often enough to satisfy us. At times however, our Genius notifies us that all is not at equilibrium. It informs us that we are a victim of surveillance. If a man sits alone at a train station, the stationmaster is aware of his every move via the CCTV screen in his office. The man is unaware if he is being watched at that point, however the lack of people around indicate to him that the station master may have seldom tasks and is watching him for entertainment. At this point, a power play exists whereby all power lies psychologically with the stationmaster. The man’s Genius is aware of the situation, and as his guardian, informs the man of his unsafety in that position. Agamben writes of Genius as a being that is impersonal to us. As a secondary being, it is under the Panoptic gaze that Genius finds itself informing us of our position of safety. Genius is not pleased in an unsafe position, and to please our self, we must first attend to Genius’ needs.
“If it seems to be identified with us, it is only in order to reveal itself immediately afterward as more than us, and to show us that we are more and less than ourselves.”
Agamben would argue that the Genius of a prisoner in Bentham’s Panopticon would be on constant high alert. It would be aware of the uneven gaze at all times, and in turn, would advise the prisoner on how they should behave. Although this is unpleasant for the criminal, Foucault argues that this is a successful method of control. Agamben writes that we should please our Genius to satisfy our personal wellbeing, however a penitentiary institution is not intended to be a place of comfort. Foucault would support the Genius’ discomfort in the Panopticon.
We modify and change our behaviours in society based on the Panoptic gaze. Josh Harris predicted this in his experiment “Quiet” in late 1999. Harris theorised that with the development of the Internet, we would begin to put more of our lives on public display until we self-consume ourselves. In Quiet, Harris built an underground bunker in which over 100 people lived, with no exit, for 30 days. It was broken up by the Police in the early hours of New Year’s day at the turn of the millennium. CCTV cameras filmed the participants at all times and each participant had a personal TV in their sleeping-cubicle in which they could watch other participants. They were given free accommodation, food, alcohol, firearms and drugs. Harris aimed to make anything possible for the participants. The beginning of the experiment witnessed timid behaviour by the participants as they were highly-concious of their constant surveillance, however as time passed, they begun to lose interest in the Panoptic gaze as they became used to it; nudity, verbal and physical fights, sex and social groups begun to form. By the end of the 30 days, much resemblance of society had been lost as the participants were acting out in seek of attention. The participants were psychologically tortured by the no-rules setup of the compound, and the heightening crescendo of madness. Through Quiet, Harris proved how willingly we are to trade our privacy for the connection and recognition we desire. He predicted a social movement before the rise of sites such as Myspace, Twitter, Bebo, Friendster and Facebook.
Harris followed Quiet with a secondary project where he and his girlfriend lived under 24 hour electronic surveillance at home. He had cameras and microphones installed in every part of his house (including the fridge and toilet) which were streamed live to a website where viewers could interact with Harris and his girlfriend via chat. Much like Quiet, the project was successful in its infant, novelty stage. However, through the progression of the project it caused tension in the relationship between the couple. After fights, the couple would log on to separate computers to see with whom the viewing public had sided with. The relationship had become a performance of sorts, for an online audience. After a period of time, the couple ended their failing relationship and Harris’ girlfriend moved out. Harris continued the surveillance while living alone for a further 2 months, yet the dwindling number of fans (numbers went from over 2000 logged in at certain points, to 10) and sadness caused by the failed relationship caused his slide into depression. At this point, he ended the project. Like Quiet, Harris proved that a life lived in public becomes too external for the person involved, and inevitably will fail.
“Lions and tigers used to be kings of the jungle and then one day they wound up in zoos - I suspect we're on the same track.”
Harris chose to ignore the advice of his Genius in both experiments he conducted. Through doing so, both lead to a downfall, and ultimately, failure. His ID was dominant in the experiments as it called for attention and greed from his fans. Although somewhat balanced out by his Ego, his persistence after failure proves his choice to ignore the advice given to him by his Genius. Post break-up, he made a conscious decision to keep the website live, even though he knew it was affecting his mental wellbeing. If we live too much of our life in public, it will no doubt have negative effects on us.
Our understanding of Genius as a word is limited. The contemporary etymology behind it deems a genius to be of great honorific value. The Genius as a personal guardian is not widely understood by the population. We understand the concept of Genius, however label it differently. Christians refer to Genius as a guardian angel and in Iranian angelology, it is referred to as Daena. Regardless of our definition, Agamben’s analysis of Genius is seen as separate to Freud’s ID and Ego. As Agamben writes, our antithetical poles are Ego and Genius, yet neither can exist without the tension provided by the other. When concerned with the Panoptic gaze that is ever present in contemporary society, Genius plays a role as a guardian. Genius informs us of our position in relation to the ‘guard’ of Bentham’s prison. It functions as a protective third eye. This is present in the analysis of prisoners who practice self-discipline for fear of being caught. Their Genius informs them of risks they must not take, and in co-operation with it, their actions are modified to please it. We understand our Genius to be an impersonal protector that deals with details our mind wish not to concern itself with. Although we never meet our Genius, we interact with it via our choices to heed its advice. When living under a Panoptic gaze, our Genius is increasingly important to us as a third eye.
24.10.11
THE UNBECOMING OF REAL LIFE AND OUR PROGRESSIVE SHIFT INTO THE ONLINE WORLD
ANDRÉ HILLAS
The growing popularity of the Internet has encouraged us to engage with communities abroad, based on content, rather than geographic location. As a new media source, its interactive nature is being defined by the users, who invest vast amounts of time and money into its infant stage. Website genres have emerged, with users self-diverting from their homepage to their favourite sites on a daily basis. A strong emphasis in the online world lies in interaction between users, which fuels the viewer’s circulatory experience when browsing. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter demand our regular updates, and we thrive on the ‘news’ our friends provide us, which we return to them. Our chance to be of semi-celebrity status is realized through this process. Second Life is an experiment of human interaction in a virtual space. In this environment, users meet each other via their online ‘avatars’ and often develop relationships with users they have not, nor will ever meet in real life. Some Second Life users reach a certain point in their gaming, where the amount of time spent in their virtual lives can impact on their real lives. Here a grey area exists which blurs the distinction between the real and non-real. Through vast progressions in technology and the Internet, we have begun a progressive shift into our online personas.
Second Life is a virtual game that has no missions or goals. It is a virtual platform that aims to replicate real life to a certain extent. In it, players interact with each other, build property, design their avatars (individual humanoids each user has to represent them in the game) and travel around the Second Life universe. It is free to play, however, if players want to add features to enhance their user experience, they must exchange real life currencies into Linden dollars. With Linden dollars, they can buy land, houses, clothes, body parts for their avatars (ie. wings and reproductive organs) and other items, such as access to private areas. The game is one of a very small number that has no specific aims. This allows a large amount on user imagination to enter into the playing platform, and many exciting creative opportunities emerge. A large number of art galleries exist in Second Life. They are built by players and in many galleries, artists will pay the gallery owner to have a show. The show is accompanied by an opening, where players meet to socialize, drink, eat and view the art. Although this is a virtual environment, there are many aspects of the real that exist within this experience. The artist still spends time creating the art. The gallery still has to finance and run a real-life business. The people at the opening have to dedicate time out of their day to congregate in a place for the opening. All these factors epitomize what it is to live in real life. It is hard to label Second Life as a completely virtual experience.
In 2006, Philips Design set up an island in Second Life that players could visit and interact with. The purpose of the island was “to gain feedback on innovation concepts, engage residents in co-creation and obtain a deeper understanding of potential opportunities in this virtual environment.” Philips’ press release upon the introduction of Philips into Second Life stated that is was their “philosophy that design should be based around people and grounded in research. It also corresponds to Philips Design’s firm belief that the future of design lies in the co-creation of products.” It was therefore a natural step for the company to be one of the first to leap into the virtual world road test new ideas and concepts on an online audience. The process involved various methods of interaction. Tours were hosted around the island; ‘Ideation Quests’ were held, which involved the viewer interacting with the space and responding accordingly with ideas and feedback; meetings and gathering to discuss ideas and proposals were held on a regular basis; submissions of user-created buildings/plans was available as well frequent discussion forums. The approach by Philips was very loose in order to allow the users full freedom in the way they handled their personal experience. This environment contrasts largely against rigid market research that is regularly employed by companies to gauge consumer feedback. Philip’s “belief that the future of design lies in the co-creation of products” discards the notion of separation between production and the consumer.
The term ‘prosumer’ can be applied to the Second Life audience that participated in the Philips projects. The term combines the idea of the producer and consumer as one and was coined by the company Widality Services, a mobile app company. The success of companies such as Widality rely on the prosumer to tell the producer what they want, so they can in turn consume it. It is a new roundabout way of production many new technology companies thrive on, which invariably leads to success. A large majority of websites operate in a similar fashion with users logging in to leave comments, responses, discussions on forums, links, reactions and ratings. YouTube offers the viewer 13 ways to respond to a video; like/dislike, add to favourites, watch later, my top 5 videos, add to playlist, share, link, your reaction, comment, video response, link to uploader’s channel (where more options exist), like/dislike comments or continue to linked videos. These options are placed strategically to ensure users respond accordingly, which may provoke another response, which ensures more feedback, etc. This is a form of marketing that exists all over the Internet. ‘Surfin’ the web’ has become a controlled process, directing the user from page to page, site to site. Websites point us in the direction they want us to go rather than allowing user-lead experience.
Philips’ predicted this form of user experience ahead of time in 2006 when the Internet was less structured than it has become in the last 5 years. In 2006, sites like MSN, 4chan and Myspace were market leaders, yet the sites were stagnant environments that weren’t as user friendly to navigate. Philips’ approach ensured a positive experience for users that were familiar with Second Life as a platform. Philips’ was mildly successful in the feedback it gained from its users. In June 2008, Philips posted on their Second Life blog that at the height of a particular tour of the island, more than 30 people followed a guided tour of the island. Although Philips claims 30 to be a large success, the figure is fairly low compared to the average 45,000 users that were logged in at any one point in early 2008. The information gained from feedback was no doubt valuable, however it was not the defining point of the project. Rather than judging the statistics as a success rate though, Philips success lies in its innovative approach to prosumerism. In this respect, the Philips entry to Second Life was a very successful venture, as it bridged a gap between a large corporate company and its market.
Deakin University’s art school takes advantage of Second Life as a platform with its own art island. Here, students submit real life artwork to galleries, create virtual art in Second Life, have meeting and tutorials and view online shows. In this example, Second Life has been transformed from a game to a learning tool. It was set up in 2008 by a Deakin lecturer, Gary Hayes, and since has been constantly added to. It now boasts many buildings, all with purpose rooms and functions, and is on display 24/7. However, it is closed to the general public and only Deakin students and staff can visit the private island.
Contrary to Second Life, social media sites such as Myspace, Bebo and Facebook demand a more truthful representation of their users. These sites aim to replicate the real person that creates a profile in their likeness. We post images, videos and status updates intended to imitate our personality and physique. On Facebook, our contacts are for the most part, friends and family we have met in real life. The website is used as an extended address book that thrives on the interaction between users, with the opportunity to make contact in a multitude of ways. One can post a status update, in which friends comment on, or if they are lazy, they can click a button that will ‘like’ the status for them; one can email; one can post videos, photos and links to other websites, all with the added option of further comments, links and likes; one can post directly on other people’s pages; create pages, events, etc. The site is designed meticulously to ensure a constant looping process as users circulate through the content, returning to the home screen, just to circulate again. This guarantees hits, which in turn, creates money for Facebook through advertising.
Our obsession with online popularity fuels OSM (online social media) sites and has encouraged us to share with the world very unimportant information that typically would not be classed as news. Western culture is celebrity obsessed, with trash TV and magazines winning audiences over educational programs or news. Britney is sought after more than our leading researchers or philanthropists. OSM encourages everyone to have their 15 minutes of fame, which further supports this culture. We are then left with an online world that trades quality for light entertainment.
Ryan Trecartin deals with notions of celebrity, fame and the online world in his work. His video “P.opular S.ky” (2010) blends new media aesthetic with acting replicating the hyper-real paparazzi world that glorifies and trades on celebrity status. The actors wear copious amounts of make up, absurd costumes, and sport cheap wigs and fake glasses. The work is a 40 minute long mash up of content designed to overwhelm the viewer so that no linear narrative can be read. Trecartin uses imagery derived from Second Life and similar games, images and .gif’s from large corporations gleaned from their websites, screen shots from Photoshop, sporadic text, stock images from Getty Images and 3D animations. The video layers these kinds of images and videos over each other, rushing on and off screen at a very fast pace. This is coupled with an overwhelming soundtrack comprised of the actors voices reading lines such as “The next time you see me, I’ll be able to play every instrument in the world. Trust.” that make no sense, demonic music and sounds, as well as re-edited script that is constantly repeated throughout the video. The work is of such a nature that the viewer does not know where to begin. The fast pace nature and rapidly changing content ensures a true representation of the nature of celebrity culture, which is inherently linked to our personal strive for fame online. The fast pace nature of the Internet is well understood by all online users, however when it is synthesized in an artwork, it is a reflection on how twisted it has become. Sites such as Twitter and Reddit guarantee that information is only important for a short period of time, often only a few hours. This contrasts to the pre-internet era where news was relevant for few days, considering the slower distribution of newspapers and preparation of radio or TV shows. Trecartin’s hyper-real characters represent western society’s need to glorify an extended sense of what is ‘real.’ This take on fame is extended in trash magazines such as ‘Who’ or ‘Woman’s Day.’ Our celebrities are not honest representations of the community. Trecartin glorifies our obsession with this culture, yet critiques it for its insanity.
Cory Arcangel looks at our obsession with online fame and popularity in his works “follow my other twitter” (2011) and “Sorry I Haven’t Posted” (2010). In follow my other twitter, the viewer follows a link from Arcangel’s personal website, which automatically searches the phrase follow my other twitter in Twitter.com. The results are a list of people that have recently tweeted that particular phrase. The artwork is live and ever changing. The joke relies on a particular kind of Internet humour that appears often in online forums and sharing sites. Because of this understanding and reference to the place it came from, the work stands as a strong critique on out obsession with Internet fame. Sorry I Haven’t Posted is a blog in which every post has been has gleaned from other people’s blogs. All the posts are of the same nature, with the author apologizing for not having posted in a while, and continuing on to discuss their usual content and banter. The work looks at the people’s conceited views of themselves online, and mocks their faux fame. These bloggers do not need to apologise for not posting, because no one actually cares that much to begin with. For the most part, bloggers don’t owe anything to their readership, as it is often very small, and their blogs are usually personal records aimed only at glorifying themselves anyway.
We seem to be constantly after a larger audience, who we can preach our personal ideals to. Yet the people we preach to are just as real to us as an imagined being, considering for the most part we will never meet them. This is the crux of Internet culture. Arcangel’s works are laced with a detached sense of irony that echoes a love for this community, yet at the same time, judges it on its humorous nature.
Our progressive shift into the online world has seen the human motivation for attention materialized. It has also seen the corporate world try to keep up and introduce measures to control and benefit financially off our desire to be noticed. Online, we hold multiple personas. Some are representations of ourselves closely linked with our real life, yet some are more distant, such as the avatars we create for ourselves in Second Life. The Internet is a place for new opportunity, and as long as we have the motivation to gain the attention we so crave using our online personas, it will live on.
The growing popularity of the Internet has encouraged us to engage with communities abroad, based on content, rather than geographic location. As a new media source, its interactive nature is being defined by the users, who invest vast amounts of time and money into its infant stage. Website genres have emerged, with users self-diverting from their homepage to their favourite sites on a daily basis. A strong emphasis in the online world lies in interaction between users, which fuels the viewer’s circulatory experience when browsing. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter demand our regular updates, and we thrive on the ‘news’ our friends provide us, which we return to them. Our chance to be of semi-celebrity status is realized through this process. Second Life is an experiment of human interaction in a virtual space. In this environment, users meet each other via their online ‘avatars’ and often develop relationships with users they have not, nor will ever meet in real life. Some Second Life users reach a certain point in their gaming, where the amount of time spent in their virtual lives can impact on their real lives. Here a grey area exists which blurs the distinction between the real and non-real. Through vast progressions in technology and the Internet, we have begun a progressive shift into our online personas.
Second Life is a virtual game that has no missions or goals. It is a virtual platform that aims to replicate real life to a certain extent. In it, players interact with each other, build property, design their avatars (individual humanoids each user has to represent them in the game) and travel around the Second Life universe. It is free to play, however, if players want to add features to enhance their user experience, they must exchange real life currencies into Linden dollars. With Linden dollars, they can buy land, houses, clothes, body parts for their avatars (ie. wings and reproductive organs) and other items, such as access to private areas. The game is one of a very small number that has no specific aims. This allows a large amount on user imagination to enter into the playing platform, and many exciting creative opportunities emerge. A large number of art galleries exist in Second Life. They are built by players and in many galleries, artists will pay the gallery owner to have a show. The show is accompanied by an opening, where players meet to socialize, drink, eat and view the art. Although this is a virtual environment, there are many aspects of the real that exist within this experience. The artist still spends time creating the art. The gallery still has to finance and run a real-life business. The people at the opening have to dedicate time out of their day to congregate in a place for the opening. All these factors epitomize what it is to live in real life. It is hard to label Second Life as a completely virtual experience.
In 2006, Philips Design set up an island in Second Life that players could visit and interact with. The purpose of the island was “to gain feedback on innovation concepts, engage residents in co-creation and obtain a deeper understanding of potential opportunities in this virtual environment.” Philips’ press release upon the introduction of Philips into Second Life stated that is was their “philosophy that design should be based around people and grounded in research. It also corresponds to Philips Design’s firm belief that the future of design lies in the co-creation of products.” It was therefore a natural step for the company to be one of the first to leap into the virtual world road test new ideas and concepts on an online audience. The process involved various methods of interaction. Tours were hosted around the island; ‘Ideation Quests’ were held, which involved the viewer interacting with the space and responding accordingly with ideas and feedback; meetings and gathering to discuss ideas and proposals were held on a regular basis; submissions of user-created buildings/plans was available as well frequent discussion forums. The approach by Philips was very loose in order to allow the users full freedom in the way they handled their personal experience. This environment contrasts largely against rigid market research that is regularly employed by companies to gauge consumer feedback. Philip’s “belief that the future of design lies in the co-creation of products” discards the notion of separation between production and the consumer.
The term ‘prosumer’ can be applied to the Second Life audience that participated in the Philips projects. The term combines the idea of the producer and consumer as one and was coined by the company Widality Services, a mobile app company. The success of companies such as Widality rely on the prosumer to tell the producer what they want, so they can in turn consume it. It is a new roundabout way of production many new technology companies thrive on, which invariably leads to success. A large majority of websites operate in a similar fashion with users logging in to leave comments, responses, discussions on forums, links, reactions and ratings. YouTube offers the viewer 13 ways to respond to a video; like/dislike, add to favourites, watch later, my top 5 videos, add to playlist, share, link, your reaction, comment, video response, link to uploader’s channel (where more options exist), like/dislike comments or continue to linked videos. These options are placed strategically to ensure users respond accordingly, which may provoke another response, which ensures more feedback, etc. This is a form of marketing that exists all over the Internet. ‘Surfin’ the web’ has become a controlled process, directing the user from page to page, site to site. Websites point us in the direction they want us to go rather than allowing user-lead experience.
Philips’ predicted this form of user experience ahead of time in 2006 when the Internet was less structured than it has become in the last 5 years. In 2006, sites like MSN, 4chan and Myspace were market leaders, yet the sites were stagnant environments that weren’t as user friendly to navigate. Philips’ approach ensured a positive experience for users that were familiar with Second Life as a platform. Philips’ was mildly successful in the feedback it gained from its users. In June 2008, Philips posted on their Second Life blog that at the height of a particular tour of the island, more than 30 people followed a guided tour of the island. Although Philips claims 30 to be a large success, the figure is fairly low compared to the average 45,000 users that were logged in at any one point in early 2008. The information gained from feedback was no doubt valuable, however it was not the defining point of the project. Rather than judging the statistics as a success rate though, Philips success lies in its innovative approach to prosumerism. In this respect, the Philips entry to Second Life was a very successful venture, as it bridged a gap between a large corporate company and its market.
Deakin University’s art school takes advantage of Second Life as a platform with its own art island. Here, students submit real life artwork to galleries, create virtual art in Second Life, have meeting and tutorials and view online shows. In this example, Second Life has been transformed from a game to a learning tool. It was set up in 2008 by a Deakin lecturer, Gary Hayes, and since has been constantly added to. It now boasts many buildings, all with purpose rooms and functions, and is on display 24/7. However, it is closed to the general public and only Deakin students and staff can visit the private island.
Contrary to Second Life, social media sites such as Myspace, Bebo and Facebook demand a more truthful representation of their users. These sites aim to replicate the real person that creates a profile in their likeness. We post images, videos and status updates intended to imitate our personality and physique. On Facebook, our contacts are for the most part, friends and family we have met in real life. The website is used as an extended address book that thrives on the interaction between users, with the opportunity to make contact in a multitude of ways. One can post a status update, in which friends comment on, or if they are lazy, they can click a button that will ‘like’ the status for them; one can email; one can post videos, photos and links to other websites, all with the added option of further comments, links and likes; one can post directly on other people’s pages; create pages, events, etc. The site is designed meticulously to ensure a constant looping process as users circulate through the content, returning to the home screen, just to circulate again. This guarantees hits, which in turn, creates money for Facebook through advertising.
Our obsession with online popularity fuels OSM (online social media) sites and has encouraged us to share with the world very unimportant information that typically would not be classed as news. Western culture is celebrity obsessed, with trash TV and magazines winning audiences over educational programs or news. Britney is sought after more than our leading researchers or philanthropists. OSM encourages everyone to have their 15 minutes of fame, which further supports this culture. We are then left with an online world that trades quality for light entertainment.
Ryan Trecartin deals with notions of celebrity, fame and the online world in his work. His video “P.opular S.ky” (2010) blends new media aesthetic with acting replicating the hyper-real paparazzi world that glorifies and trades on celebrity status. The actors wear copious amounts of make up, absurd costumes, and sport cheap wigs and fake glasses. The work is a 40 minute long mash up of content designed to overwhelm the viewer so that no linear narrative can be read. Trecartin uses imagery derived from Second Life and similar games, images and .gif’s from large corporations gleaned from their websites, screen shots from Photoshop, sporadic text, stock images from Getty Images and 3D animations. The video layers these kinds of images and videos over each other, rushing on and off screen at a very fast pace. This is coupled with an overwhelming soundtrack comprised of the actors voices reading lines such as “The next time you see me, I’ll be able to play every instrument in the world. Trust.” that make no sense, demonic music and sounds, as well as re-edited script that is constantly repeated throughout the video. The work is of such a nature that the viewer does not know where to begin. The fast pace nature and rapidly changing content ensures a true representation of the nature of celebrity culture, which is inherently linked to our personal strive for fame online. The fast pace nature of the Internet is well understood by all online users, however when it is synthesized in an artwork, it is a reflection on how twisted it has become. Sites such as Twitter and Reddit guarantee that information is only important for a short period of time, often only a few hours. This contrasts to the pre-internet era where news was relevant for few days, considering the slower distribution of newspapers and preparation of radio or TV shows. Trecartin’s hyper-real characters represent western society’s need to glorify an extended sense of what is ‘real.’ This take on fame is extended in trash magazines such as ‘Who’ or ‘Woman’s Day.’ Our celebrities are not honest representations of the community. Trecartin glorifies our obsession with this culture, yet critiques it for its insanity.
Cory Arcangel looks at our obsession with online fame and popularity in his works “follow my other twitter” (2011) and “Sorry I Haven’t Posted” (2010). In follow my other twitter, the viewer follows a link from Arcangel’s personal website, which automatically searches the phrase follow my other twitter in Twitter.com. The results are a list of people that have recently tweeted that particular phrase. The artwork is live and ever changing. The joke relies on a particular kind of Internet humour that appears often in online forums and sharing sites. Because of this understanding and reference to the place it came from, the work stands as a strong critique on out obsession with Internet fame. Sorry I Haven’t Posted is a blog in which every post has been has gleaned from other people’s blogs. All the posts are of the same nature, with the author apologizing for not having posted in a while, and continuing on to discuss their usual content and banter. The work looks at the people’s conceited views of themselves online, and mocks their faux fame. These bloggers do not need to apologise for not posting, because no one actually cares that much to begin with. For the most part, bloggers don’t owe anything to their readership, as it is often very small, and their blogs are usually personal records aimed only at glorifying themselves anyway.
We seem to be constantly after a larger audience, who we can preach our personal ideals to. Yet the people we preach to are just as real to us as an imagined being, considering for the most part we will never meet them. This is the crux of Internet culture. Arcangel’s works are laced with a detached sense of irony that echoes a love for this community, yet at the same time, judges it on its humorous nature.
Our progressive shift into the online world has seen the human motivation for attention materialized. It has also seen the corporate world try to keep up and introduce measures to control and benefit financially off our desire to be noticed. Online, we hold multiple personas. Some are representations of ourselves closely linked with our real life, yet some are more distant, such as the avatars we create for ourselves in Second Life. The Internet is a place for new opportunity, and as long as we have the motivation to gain the attention we so crave using our online personas, it will live on.
The Décor of Data
André Hillas
With the rising popularity of the Internet over the last 15 years, artists have found their practices engaging and intertwining with this new media. Because of its many capabilities, it can be used for a variety of avenues. It is used as a display space, an advertising agent, an information centre, a gallery, a networking opportunity and a communication tool. The large majority of galleries and art spaces are now based on the web, whether it is on a private website, social networking site, blog or online magazine. Artists also have taken advantage of such opportunities with personal websites, blogs and facebook pages. The Internet thrives on viral communication between online circles. In this respect, many collaborative projects have existed solely on the Internet. Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July’s website learningtoloveyoumore.com is a project where the artists set tasks for the public, who then upload their responses. The final artwork is an online archive of thousands of images, text, sound and video, posted by over 8000 participants. It does not exist in one part anywhere except online. Zach Shipko is an artist whose practice lies solely online. Like Learning To Love you More, his work belongs in a virtual database, and is not viewed in a traditional gallery or space. His website hosts a main page, with links to his artworks, which vary from emails, to photo collages, to video works.
The archive has existed in various forms over human existence. The pre-archive existed before the concept of the archive had been invented. This is seen through archaeological digs and rock sediment. At this point, humans had no intention of documenting the past for future generations. The next developmental stage of the archive was the fixed archive. This was history determined by the powerful members of society. Kings, wealthy businessmen, the church and the educated wrote history books. They filtered out what they believed to be important and essential to human history and knowledge. The archive was represented in books, art, song, stories and architecture.
Within the same timeframe the age of enlightenment was taking place, the personal archive came to fruition. A personal archive documents the lives of individuals through collected objects and documentation. This archive included collections of photographs, family heirlooms, jewellery and general items of importance. This ran parallel to the fixed archives of libraries and predetermined history.
Manuel DeLanda writes in his essay The archive before and after Foucault, that before Michel Foucault, the archive was a “depository of cultural materials sedimented through time,” referring to the fixed archive. DeLanda writes that it was those with power and money that defined the archive, and inevitably history. Foucault writes that throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, humans begun to develop personal records via medical, educational and prison files as well as passports and other documents. With this more individual approach, the archive began to be used “no longer as a monument for future memory, but a document for possible use (Foucault)” and “the turning of real lives into writing is no longer a procedure of heroization; it functions as a procedure of objectification and subjection (Foucault).” Humans are now in the fourth stage of the archive – the post-archive. The fixed archive and personal archive saw the immortalisation of history through collected pieces of information and for the most part, was left untouched. In the post-archive stage, humans are constantly re-writing the archive, adding and subtracting where it is seen fit. Wikipedia has now replaced the traditional encyclopaedia as an initial reference point. Readers do not read the text of educated scholars or writers, rather, they read information collected and collaborated by the public. Topics that would not be deemed of enough importance to be placed in the encyclopaedia appear in Wikipedia, with their content often changing on a daily, or even hourly basis. Upon completion of the 2010 ALF Grand Final, it took only minutes before Wikipedia had edited it’s page to include Collingwood’s victory over St Kilda. Facebook is a personal archive that includes tampering on a regular basis. With every new status update, or added picture, it sends older information deeper into the depths of cyberspace. Although this information still exists within the archive, in years to come it will become harder to access, and will be lost.
Boris Groys writes in What carries the archive and for how long, from Information is alive: Art and theory on archiving and data retrieval, that “the role of the archive comes to include representation of life outside the realm of the archive.” The archive is a reflection, an image of what the real world is like, yet because it is a reflection, it can never exist in the real.
“If at first one accepts that the pictures collected in museums should represent the world beyond the museum, then one will very quickly realize that, on the contrary, these pictures find themselves there exactly because they differentiate themselves favourably from the broader realm of general opinion, since they have been particularly well painted by particularly good painters or they are particularly well framed or particularly expensive.” He references an example of a well-painted cow: “One wants to save, for example, a picture upon which a cow is particularly well portrayed, whereas the fate of the cow is of interest to anybody.”
The library is a traditional form of an archive. In it, one finds books by educated writers and reference points for documented information. It lies in a fixed state; the only form of update is the addition of a new book or new edition of an old book. The library however, is used as a tool to further develop and improve on the pre-existing archive. The research process draws information from a variety of sources (books/internet/articles), develops and stretches the ideas from these sources, and provides new sources as reference points. De Landa’s essay is an example of this, as he references the writing of Foucault to further develop his own work.
The library and Wikipedia function in very different ways to display the same information. In Wikipedia articles, the authors, for the majority, are not scholars, nor hold university qualifications or training. The library has information immortalised on pages of books, which can be read only, rather than edited. Wikipedia encourages and thrives on community involvement, it is an archive created by online networks. In this interactive form, no information is set in stone, and can be changed by the minute if need be. This is the height of the post-archive.
Andy Warhol’s time capsules are an example of a personal archive. From 1974 to 1987, he filled 612 boxes with evidence of his daily activities. Train tickets, photographs, newspapers and presents from friends are examples of the items he collected. Groys’ writing suggests that although Warhol’s items are on no great value, once placed in the archive, they take on a new importance as tactile memories of a specific point in history.
Alexei Shulgin’s website easylife.org is a homepage hosting a range of hyperlinks to his artworks and group projects. Working in the art group ‘net.art’, Shulgin places dominance in his art on the use of technology as a means to create art. Aesthetic principles bear little relevance at all to his final outcomes. A hyperlink on easylife.com takes you to “386 DX (1998 -)”, a work where a Microsoft computer plays a MIDI track alongside a synthesized ‘text to speech’ singing in time. He organised the computer to play hits such as ‘Smells like teen spirit (Nirvana)’ and ‘California dreaming (The Mamas and the Papas)’ live in various places; at nightclubs, busking on the street, for artist’s talks and in galleries. Shulgin develops technology to replicate the human capacity to operate, thus questioning the validity of human motivation. If a computer is capable of playing music for us, what is the purpose of paying for live bands, or listening to music that is not played perfectly in time/tune? As much as the artwork raises these issues, Shulgin has placed it within a comical setting. This is evident in a particular online video he posted, with 386 DX playing live at a club, music blaring, smoke machines filling the room with cloud, a lighting bonanza and yet, no crowd. The humour exists in the filming, as it focuses on a solo computer, atop a plinth on a large stage. Looking at the work with hindsight, it has been severly outdated over the last 12 years, with the ascension of MIDI recording in home-based recordings, and the updating of Microsoft systems. It is still evident however, how groundbreaking the computer synthesized technology was in 1998.
easylife.org also links the viewer to “FuckU-FuckMe (1999)”, an advertising page for a hardware unit which enables the user to have sex with their computer monitor. Users can either use a FuckU-FuckMe M (male) of FuckU-FuckMe F (female), which they attach to their 5.35” slot on their PC. “When you start remote sexual intercourse with your partner using FuckU-FuckMe(tm) the system will transmit all your actions to his/her genitalDrive and precisely reproduce them in real time.” Like 386 DX, the work is created as a joke, seen in the ‘how to use’ diagrams of animated humans conducting intercourse with their PC towers. If one tries to order a FuckU-FuckeME, they are linked to a further page. On it, text automatically scrolls inside a window, and through the placement of characters, the text represents a naked female dancing. It is somewhat similar to the females found on the case of a pornographic DVD, website or advertised in the classified sections of newspapers. This particular use of text as an image-maker has been used heavily within the net.art group as an aesthetic device that references computer code and internet data. This can be seen particularly in net.art artist Vuk Cosic. Much of his work uses moving text characters to create moving images. Visually, the strong contrast between a harsh green text and black background honours early computing and programming (later to be adopted in the Matrix films). In various videos, he has reproduced the killing scene from Albert Hitchcock’s Psycho, a scene from Star Trek and short clip entitled “Deep Throat” all in the green/black style. Later works included a collaboration produced by Shulgin’s 386 DX alongside Cosic’s videos to produce videos with sound. One of Alexei Shulgin’s dancing ladies on FuckU-FuckeME web page:
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The net.art movement embraced online networks, coding, the aesthetically tacky nature of data, viruses and hacker culture. As seen through Shulgin’s works, a heavy weight on humour exists. The humour exists because this type work is so far removed from traditional notions of art, that is can only exist with a detached irony. jodi.org is a collaborative project between artists Joan Heemsker and Dirk Paesmans, who work under the title Jodi. Their work centres on programming, software art and human relation to the computer. Every time the website is viewed, a different artwork/webpage is shown. An example of a specific work: all that can be seen is black background, with a single black ‘X’ in the top centre. The X is invisible as it the exact same colour as the background, and the only way to find it, is to highlight the whole page. The user is not told to do this however, and it is their own initiative that guides them. If the X is clicked it automatically downloads a file. Once opened, it automatically accesses the PC’s terminal/data entry and inputs a code that crashes the computer. This form of art appears throughout the net.art movement. It raises issues regarding hacking and viruses online. These phenomena’s rely on the viral nature of users online, and are spread via P2P sharing programs such as Limewire, torrents or rapidshare.com.
Like Shulgin and the other net.art artists, Zach Shipko works with a lo-fi aesthetic on his website zachshipko.com incorporating emoticons (smiley, yellow faced, internet icons) as a reference point to contemporary Internet culture. His website is set up in a similar fashion to home pages of a net.artist, with hyperlinks to his artworks. He is currently practicing however, rather than in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. With this in mind, the approach to the ‘kitsch’ in eCulture has changed. For the net.artists, coding was aesthetically determined as kitsch; for Shipko, this is old news. As a part of the second wave of Internet art, rather than green/black imagery and coding as frequently used motifs, Shipko uses youtube, photoshop and email as tools to create his art. “i’m not ok(i promise) (2010)” is a digital collage including self-taken pictures of a ‘scene queen’ (teenage girl with peroxide and pink hair, lots of make up and piercings) and Miley Cyrus in a myspace style, Danny Devito and a man with a pink milk moustace, all placed overlapping each other with the Windows’ green field and menu bar as the background. The collage mocks teenage drama and self-identity issues online, through obvious imagery and the intentional use of myspace photography. Myspace photography refers to self portraits (photographed by the subject, without use of a tripod – usually held above the head to hide the photographers arm) are usually taken by teenagers, aimed to advertise their physical features and make themselves appear prettier than they actually are. “moving a penny less than an inch with a fork (2008)” is a four second youtube video in which we see a tabletop with a penny on it, then a fork enters the screen, pushes the penny a centimetre, then exits the screen. Through its simplicity, the work mocks youtube ‘how to do’ video clips. It also shows with a detached sense of irony the alarming amount of useless videos clogging up the online archive. Other videos on his youtube account mock other trends in online video posting. In “tearing u apart (2010)”, he films his friend play his self written song on bass called ‘tearing u apart’ while Shipko eats a packet of chips. Another called “I'd give it all away. Just to have somewhere to go to. (2010)” shows a cat playing with a pair of Oakleys, while a metal song fills out the soundtrack. Both videos mock youtube fads, yet it questions whether these videos are separated from the fads themselves, with the knowledge of what they are, or, are they fully involved?
Unlike traditional art, Shipko’s work fully encourages audience participation and involvement. Even in contemporary galleries that encourage audience participation, often people hold back because of restrictions the environment puts on them. While online, within the comfort of ones own home, the viewer will not often hesitate to leave a comment or post a link to a website on their facebook page. Being an active viewer within the art is essential to the success of Internet art. People have become conditioned to expect a level of involvement online, so if a work does not encourage at least a small level of exchange between artist and viewer, it will often be ignored or washed over.
Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher’s collaborative project learningtoloveyoumore.com relies fully on audience participation to create the artwork. The project (2002 – 2009) was a website in which the artists set tasks for the online community to complete, and post their results online. Such tasks were Repair Something, Draw the news and Take a photo of your parents kissing. The project started out slowly, however with the rapid growth due to viral sharing and the constant popularisation of the Internet in homes, the project involved 8000 participants by the last of 70 tasks. This project shows how the Internet has changed a community from geographical boundaries, to boundaries of interests. The collaboration did not require the contributors to have met each other in person, let alone even know each other.
The art community has embraced the Internet as a means of information, connection, news and display. In the post-archive society, nearly all galleries or art spaces will now have a website with news, upcoming shows, an archive of past shows, documentation of shows (photos/video), information and contact details. Uplands Gallery in Prahran or Anna Schwarz in Melbourne city are testaments to this. On these sites, you can browse the galleries online, and if you can’t make it to the location, most shows are documented in pictorial form. This allows the public to better access galleries abroad, rather than reading about selected shows in catalogs and books, many months down the track. Some galleries also use blogs as a means to an online homepage. This is a free option, as the URL comes free under a host website. Blogs tend to be used more by artists run spaces because they lack the funds to run a website. Hell gallery in use their blog hellgallery.blogspot.com and Platform theirs, platformartistsgroup.blogspot.com to promote upcoming shows, advertise openings and post pictures of works.
Publications such as magazines now exist online, either in part (selected articles, images) or in full (magazines wholly online). UN magazine is an online magazine, which produces very few hard copies. The cost of printing is subsidised by allowing readers to download free copies online and revenue is made through advertising. Artists have also taken advantage of the Internet as a means to display and produce work. Their use varies, and can range from a home page with links to work (Ryan McGinley: ryanmcginley.com), a display space for an artists work (such as a blog or personal website) or a facebook page with information, photos of work and show information. Simon Perichich uses a facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/REAISISN-ART/148310601864534?v=app_4949752878&ref=sgm after transferring over from blogger (simonpericich.blogspot.com) because it encourages user participation more than blog websites. On facebook, he can have a personal relationship with fans, who can post on his wall, ask him questions, comment on recent artworks, be invited to shows, etc. Blogger does allow interaction, but not in the same capacity as facebook or youtube, with only minimal comments accepted. Like Perichich and McGinley, a majority of artists have turned to the Internet as a form of display and advertising. In the same respect that an artist run initiative aims to give power to the artists, the Internet does so even more, because there are no middlemen between the viewer and artists. It is a tangible medium capable of almost anything.
The online world requires viral sharing and interaction to take place. It has been designed to encourage communication between users. It encourages interaction between the consumer and provider. Without it, the system would be hopelessly flawed. The art world has understood the capabilities of the Internet, and since its popularisation, has pushed its boundaries. Unlike a fixed archive, the Internet is a constantly changing hub of information. User participation ensures its content is always relevant, and users decide what is important and what is not. As a display tool, it encourages a give-take relationship between the artists and the viewers. Leaving comments and rating out of 5 stars is of invaluable importance to art makers. Everyone now has the power to be a critic. The information provided on gallery websites ensures clients are able to access the information on a space, even if they cannot view it. With the natural movement of media through viral aesthetics, the artists immersed in this culture will keep with the trend. The Internet has made a large impact on the way data and information is shared, accessed and edited. The archive is now a tangible object, which is determined by everyone.
With the rising popularity of the Internet over the last 15 years, artists have found their practices engaging and intertwining with this new media. Because of its many capabilities, it can be used for a variety of avenues. It is used as a display space, an advertising agent, an information centre, a gallery, a networking opportunity and a communication tool. The large majority of galleries and art spaces are now based on the web, whether it is on a private website, social networking site, blog or online magazine. Artists also have taken advantage of such opportunities with personal websites, blogs and facebook pages. The Internet thrives on viral communication between online circles. In this respect, many collaborative projects have existed solely on the Internet. Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July’s website learningtoloveyoumore.com is a project where the artists set tasks for the public, who then upload their responses. The final artwork is an online archive of thousands of images, text, sound and video, posted by over 8000 participants. It does not exist in one part anywhere except online. Zach Shipko is an artist whose practice lies solely online. Like Learning To Love you More, his work belongs in a virtual database, and is not viewed in a traditional gallery or space. His website hosts a main page, with links to his artworks, which vary from emails, to photo collages, to video works.
The archive has existed in various forms over human existence. The pre-archive existed before the concept of the archive had been invented. This is seen through archaeological digs and rock sediment. At this point, humans had no intention of documenting the past for future generations. The next developmental stage of the archive was the fixed archive. This was history determined by the powerful members of society. Kings, wealthy businessmen, the church and the educated wrote history books. They filtered out what they believed to be important and essential to human history and knowledge. The archive was represented in books, art, song, stories and architecture.
Within the same timeframe the age of enlightenment was taking place, the personal archive came to fruition. A personal archive documents the lives of individuals through collected objects and documentation. This archive included collections of photographs, family heirlooms, jewellery and general items of importance. This ran parallel to the fixed archives of libraries and predetermined history.
Manuel DeLanda writes in his essay The archive before and after Foucault, that before Michel Foucault, the archive was a “depository of cultural materials sedimented through time,” referring to the fixed archive. DeLanda writes that it was those with power and money that defined the archive, and inevitably history. Foucault writes that throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, humans begun to develop personal records via medical, educational and prison files as well as passports and other documents. With this more individual approach, the archive began to be used “no longer as a monument for future memory, but a document for possible use (Foucault)” and “the turning of real lives into writing is no longer a procedure of heroization; it functions as a procedure of objectification and subjection (Foucault).” Humans are now in the fourth stage of the archive – the post-archive. The fixed archive and personal archive saw the immortalisation of history through collected pieces of information and for the most part, was left untouched. In the post-archive stage, humans are constantly re-writing the archive, adding and subtracting where it is seen fit. Wikipedia has now replaced the traditional encyclopaedia as an initial reference point. Readers do not read the text of educated scholars or writers, rather, they read information collected and collaborated by the public. Topics that would not be deemed of enough importance to be placed in the encyclopaedia appear in Wikipedia, with their content often changing on a daily, or even hourly basis. Upon completion of the 2010 ALF Grand Final, it took only minutes before Wikipedia had edited it’s page to include Collingwood’s victory over St Kilda. Facebook is a personal archive that includes tampering on a regular basis. With every new status update, or added picture, it sends older information deeper into the depths of cyberspace. Although this information still exists within the archive, in years to come it will become harder to access, and will be lost.
Boris Groys writes in What carries the archive and for how long, from Information is alive: Art and theory on archiving and data retrieval, that “the role of the archive comes to include representation of life outside the realm of the archive.” The archive is a reflection, an image of what the real world is like, yet because it is a reflection, it can never exist in the real.
“If at first one accepts that the pictures collected in museums should represent the world beyond the museum, then one will very quickly realize that, on the contrary, these pictures find themselves there exactly because they differentiate themselves favourably from the broader realm of general opinion, since they have been particularly well painted by particularly good painters or they are particularly well framed or particularly expensive.” He references an example of a well-painted cow: “One wants to save, for example, a picture upon which a cow is particularly well portrayed, whereas the fate of the cow is of interest to anybody.”
The library is a traditional form of an archive. In it, one finds books by educated writers and reference points for documented information. It lies in a fixed state; the only form of update is the addition of a new book or new edition of an old book. The library however, is used as a tool to further develop and improve on the pre-existing archive. The research process draws information from a variety of sources (books/internet/articles), develops and stretches the ideas from these sources, and provides new sources as reference points. De Landa’s essay is an example of this, as he references the writing of Foucault to further develop his own work.
The library and Wikipedia function in very different ways to display the same information. In Wikipedia articles, the authors, for the majority, are not scholars, nor hold university qualifications or training. The library has information immortalised on pages of books, which can be read only, rather than edited. Wikipedia encourages and thrives on community involvement, it is an archive created by online networks. In this interactive form, no information is set in stone, and can be changed by the minute if need be. This is the height of the post-archive.
Andy Warhol’s time capsules are an example of a personal archive. From 1974 to 1987, he filled 612 boxes with evidence of his daily activities. Train tickets, photographs, newspapers and presents from friends are examples of the items he collected. Groys’ writing suggests that although Warhol’s items are on no great value, once placed in the archive, they take on a new importance as tactile memories of a specific point in history.
Alexei Shulgin’s website easylife.org is a homepage hosting a range of hyperlinks to his artworks and group projects. Working in the art group ‘net.art’, Shulgin places dominance in his art on the use of technology as a means to create art. Aesthetic principles bear little relevance at all to his final outcomes. A hyperlink on easylife.com takes you to “386 DX (1998 -)”, a work where a Microsoft computer plays a MIDI track alongside a synthesized ‘text to speech’ singing in time. He organised the computer to play hits such as ‘Smells like teen spirit (Nirvana)’ and ‘California dreaming (The Mamas and the Papas)’ live in various places; at nightclubs, busking on the street, for artist’s talks and in galleries. Shulgin develops technology to replicate the human capacity to operate, thus questioning the validity of human motivation. If a computer is capable of playing music for us, what is the purpose of paying for live bands, or listening to music that is not played perfectly in time/tune? As much as the artwork raises these issues, Shulgin has placed it within a comical setting. This is evident in a particular online video he posted, with 386 DX playing live at a club, music blaring, smoke machines filling the room with cloud, a lighting bonanza and yet, no crowd. The humour exists in the filming, as it focuses on a solo computer, atop a plinth on a large stage. Looking at the work with hindsight, it has been severly outdated over the last 12 years, with the ascension of MIDI recording in home-based recordings, and the updating of Microsoft systems. It is still evident however, how groundbreaking the computer synthesized technology was in 1998.
easylife.org also links the viewer to “FuckU-FuckMe (1999)”, an advertising page for a hardware unit which enables the user to have sex with their computer monitor. Users can either use a FuckU-FuckMe M (male) of FuckU-FuckMe F (female), which they attach to their 5.35” slot on their PC. “When you start remote sexual intercourse with your partner using FuckU-FuckMe(tm) the system will transmit all your actions to his/her genitalDrive and precisely reproduce them in real time.” Like 386 DX, the work is created as a joke, seen in the ‘how to use’ diagrams of animated humans conducting intercourse with their PC towers. If one tries to order a FuckU-FuckeME, they are linked to a further page. On it, text automatically scrolls inside a window, and through the placement of characters, the text represents a naked female dancing. It is somewhat similar to the females found on the case of a pornographic DVD, website or advertised in the classified sections of newspapers. This particular use of text as an image-maker has been used heavily within the net.art group as an aesthetic device that references computer code and internet data. This can be seen particularly in net.art artist Vuk Cosic. Much of his work uses moving text characters to create moving images. Visually, the strong contrast between a harsh green text and black background honours early computing and programming (later to be adopted in the Matrix films). In various videos, he has reproduced the killing scene from Albert Hitchcock’s Psycho, a scene from Star Trek and short clip entitled “Deep Throat” all in the green/black style. Later works included a collaboration produced by Shulgin’s 386 DX alongside Cosic’s videos to produce videos with sound. One of Alexei Shulgin’s dancing ladies on FuckU-FuckeME web page:
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The net.art movement embraced online networks, coding, the aesthetically tacky nature of data, viruses and hacker culture. As seen through Shulgin’s works, a heavy weight on humour exists. The humour exists because this type work is so far removed from traditional notions of art, that is can only exist with a detached irony. jodi.org is a collaborative project between artists Joan Heemsker and Dirk Paesmans, who work under the title Jodi. Their work centres on programming, software art and human relation to the computer. Every time the website is viewed, a different artwork/webpage is shown. An example of a specific work: all that can be seen is black background, with a single black ‘X’ in the top centre. The X is invisible as it the exact same colour as the background, and the only way to find it, is to highlight the whole page. The user is not told to do this however, and it is their own initiative that guides them. If the X is clicked it automatically downloads a file. Once opened, it automatically accesses the PC’s terminal/data entry and inputs a code that crashes the computer. This form of art appears throughout the net.art movement. It raises issues regarding hacking and viruses online. These phenomena’s rely on the viral nature of users online, and are spread via P2P sharing programs such as Limewire, torrents or rapidshare.com.
Like Shulgin and the other net.art artists, Zach Shipko works with a lo-fi aesthetic on his website zachshipko.com incorporating emoticons (smiley, yellow faced, internet icons) as a reference point to contemporary Internet culture. His website is set up in a similar fashion to home pages of a net.artist, with hyperlinks to his artworks. He is currently practicing however, rather than in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. With this in mind, the approach to the ‘kitsch’ in eCulture has changed. For the net.artists, coding was aesthetically determined as kitsch; for Shipko, this is old news. As a part of the second wave of Internet art, rather than green/black imagery and coding as frequently used motifs, Shipko uses youtube, photoshop and email as tools to create his art. “i’m not ok(i promise) (2010)” is a digital collage including self-taken pictures of a ‘scene queen’ (teenage girl with peroxide and pink hair, lots of make up and piercings) and Miley Cyrus in a myspace style, Danny Devito and a man with a pink milk moustace, all placed overlapping each other with the Windows’ green field and menu bar as the background. The collage mocks teenage drama and self-identity issues online, through obvious imagery and the intentional use of myspace photography. Myspace photography refers to self portraits (photographed by the subject, without use of a tripod – usually held above the head to hide the photographers arm) are usually taken by teenagers, aimed to advertise their physical features and make themselves appear prettier than they actually are. “moving a penny less than an inch with a fork (2008)” is a four second youtube video in which we see a tabletop with a penny on it, then a fork enters the screen, pushes the penny a centimetre, then exits the screen. Through its simplicity, the work mocks youtube ‘how to do’ video clips. It also shows with a detached sense of irony the alarming amount of useless videos clogging up the online archive. Other videos on his youtube account mock other trends in online video posting. In “tearing u apart (2010)”, he films his friend play his self written song on bass called ‘tearing u apart’ while Shipko eats a packet of chips. Another called “I'd give it all away. Just to have somewhere to go to. (2010)” shows a cat playing with a pair of Oakleys, while a metal song fills out the soundtrack. Both videos mock youtube fads, yet it questions whether these videos are separated from the fads themselves, with the knowledge of what they are, or, are they fully involved?
Unlike traditional art, Shipko’s work fully encourages audience participation and involvement. Even in contemporary galleries that encourage audience participation, often people hold back because of restrictions the environment puts on them. While online, within the comfort of ones own home, the viewer will not often hesitate to leave a comment or post a link to a website on their facebook page. Being an active viewer within the art is essential to the success of Internet art. People have become conditioned to expect a level of involvement online, so if a work does not encourage at least a small level of exchange between artist and viewer, it will often be ignored or washed over.
Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher’s collaborative project learningtoloveyoumore.com relies fully on audience participation to create the artwork. The project (2002 – 2009) was a website in which the artists set tasks for the online community to complete, and post their results online. Such tasks were Repair Something, Draw the news and Take a photo of your parents kissing. The project started out slowly, however with the rapid growth due to viral sharing and the constant popularisation of the Internet in homes, the project involved 8000 participants by the last of 70 tasks. This project shows how the Internet has changed a community from geographical boundaries, to boundaries of interests. The collaboration did not require the contributors to have met each other in person, let alone even know each other.
The art community has embraced the Internet as a means of information, connection, news and display. In the post-archive society, nearly all galleries or art spaces will now have a website with news, upcoming shows, an archive of past shows, documentation of shows (photos/video), information and contact details. Uplands Gallery in Prahran or Anna Schwarz in Melbourne city are testaments to this. On these sites, you can browse the galleries online, and if you can’t make it to the location, most shows are documented in pictorial form. This allows the public to better access galleries abroad, rather than reading about selected shows in catalogs and books, many months down the track. Some galleries also use blogs as a means to an online homepage. This is a free option, as the URL comes free under a host website. Blogs tend to be used more by artists run spaces because they lack the funds to run a website. Hell gallery in use their blog hellgallery.blogspot.com and Platform theirs, platformartistsgroup.blogspot.com to promote upcoming shows, advertise openings and post pictures of works.
Publications such as magazines now exist online, either in part (selected articles, images) or in full (magazines wholly online). UN magazine is an online magazine, which produces very few hard copies. The cost of printing is subsidised by allowing readers to download free copies online and revenue is made through advertising. Artists have also taken advantage of the Internet as a means to display and produce work. Their use varies, and can range from a home page with links to work (Ryan McGinley: ryanmcginley.com), a display space for an artists work (such as a blog or personal website) or a facebook page with information, photos of work and show information. Simon Perichich uses a facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/REAISISN-ART/148310601864534?v=app_4949752878&ref=sgm after transferring over from blogger (simonpericich.blogspot.com) because it encourages user participation more than blog websites. On facebook, he can have a personal relationship with fans, who can post on his wall, ask him questions, comment on recent artworks, be invited to shows, etc. Blogger does allow interaction, but not in the same capacity as facebook or youtube, with only minimal comments accepted. Like Perichich and McGinley, a majority of artists have turned to the Internet as a form of display and advertising. In the same respect that an artist run initiative aims to give power to the artists, the Internet does so even more, because there are no middlemen between the viewer and artists. It is a tangible medium capable of almost anything.
The online world requires viral sharing and interaction to take place. It has been designed to encourage communication between users. It encourages interaction between the consumer and provider. Without it, the system would be hopelessly flawed. The art world has understood the capabilities of the Internet, and since its popularisation, has pushed its boundaries. Unlike a fixed archive, the Internet is a constantly changing hub of information. User participation ensures its content is always relevant, and users decide what is important and what is not. As a display tool, it encourages a give-take relationship between the artists and the viewers. Leaving comments and rating out of 5 stars is of invaluable importance to art makers. Everyone now has the power to be a critic. The information provided on gallery websites ensures clients are able to access the information on a space, even if they cannot view it. With the natural movement of media through viral aesthetics, the artists immersed in this culture will keep with the trend. The Internet has made a large impact on the way data and information is shared, accessed and edited. The archive is now a tangible object, which is determined by everyone.
18.10.11
4.10.11
Proud 2011
I had this work in a group show at VCA Margaret Laurence Gallery, titled Me having fun at the beach.
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About Me
- Andre Hillas
- André Hillas is a visual artist practicing in Melbourne, Australia. He attained his BFA (Drawing) at The Victorian College of the Arts in 2011 and is currently completing a BFA (Drawing) (Honours) at The Victorian College of the Arts. More at www.andrehillas.com