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.