Final Tutorial Assignment
*Disclaimer: I made use of a radical character to produce this piece of writing, it does not represent the views held by me, Andrew Purdon*
Post Digitalism Manifesto
(This piece is written Post Digitalism high priest, Rick Andmortar, a radical traditionalist thinker from Highville, Texas).
In an age overcome by a digital presence, Post Digitalism offers the artist a space to disconnect and displace a work within the context of the digital space.
The movement aims to re-traditionalize work and bring artwork back to a specific process of research, investigation and execution.
The digital age has borne a stage of postmodernism, where art critiques, mocks and pays tribute to what is already known and discovered. This is as a result of overexposure to information, everything is connected, and so is everyone. Hence, original ideas do not exist. Everything is inherently a response to something that has come before, a constant evolution of preexisting ideas. While this is helpful for the world to keep on progressing, there is opportunity for a movement to exist parallel to society, but isolated. This would mean that two plains of advancement can occur
The digital age, brought to the masses in the early 20th century through the use of the printing press and the radio wave. This originated the idea of a cultural identity on a massive scale, and made it easy for cross culture collaboration and appropriation. While appropriation is a practice as old as the Roman Empire.
Research into possible artworks focuses on innovation independent of the digital space, a return to originality and away from interpretation. Isolation is key. For an artist to truly engage in the work, they must alienate themselves from the digital(and thus, society) and must rely heavily on their senses and minimally on the mind. Inherently the mind exists within context, knowledge is only relative.
An important part of the research process is an acceptance of originality regardless of its validity. It is said that regardless of how many ideas one feels to have originated, someone has thought of the idea before. In this vein, should one alienate themselves to a large extent, their ideas would start becoming organic and innately original. Regardless of whether or not one shares a similar or identical work to another artist, as long as the two artists have remained completely digitally and societally isolated, both works would be valid, as both of the artists would have had different processes in order to come to the final piece. It could be said that the analysis of two works in relation to each other would be of value because it would reveal base similarities in the human perspective regardless of context and nurture.
One might argue that as a result of the isolation, a work loses validity in the context of a society so firmly set in a highly digital understanding. However, post digitalism aims not to relate to the viewer within a specific context, but rather at the level of a base understanding of the human and animal experience and connection with the world.
It is true that one can never be truly separated from technology, as materials for art making are affected by technological advances, but putting a specific time threshold on the definition of the materials used in the work, enables the artists to use materials which come a context but not an explicitly digital context. For instance, any art materials would be allowed if produced before the invention of the graphic user interface.
A group of committed believers have banded together to purchase a large portion of land (+- 1 million ha) in the Australian outback. This land will be used for large scale experimentation on offspring of the group. Each of the offspring will be raised in isolation with one guardian. The stipulations are as follows: each child will be raised without speech, clothing and creature comforts. The only allowed goods will be things necessary to survival. From the age of three, each child will be put in an enclosed space, with various tools and surfaces for four hours a day. This will increase by one hour every two years, until they are working for 14 hours a day. Each year, different materials will be introduced making sure that there is progression to the learning. The children will be able to access their past works at will, but will not be able to tamper with them. Taking culture and community away from the children will strip bare the creativity in their genes. Work will be created like never before and this work will open up a whole new realm for society to peer into.
As a group of absolute enthusiasts, we believe that the psychological sacrifices made by our offspring are warranted by the opportunity presented to society, to have insight into what the world would look like post “self obsession”, post “information overload” and post digital. These subjects will never be seen or surveilled, their work will simply be documented and studied by institutions around the world. The only human interaction the children will have (besides their guardians) is for the purpose of reproduction, at the age of 21 years old, this is to ensure the continuation of the experiment and to allow for the evolution of the children’s genetic makeup. It is our hope that the children have some level of understanding of their sacrifice, that by taking them back to a place where anything is possible, they will be create extraordinary things or recreate something in a more effective way. We hope that human curiosity causes the offspring over many generations to act as a sounding board for humanity, a place where industry leaders can look to for inspiration as well as mistakes and undiscovered parts of the human potential.
While movements in the past have been classified in relation to one thing or another, post digitalism is classified as the return to instinct, a return to impulse and a return to the human’s need to create. It is imperative that a space is created for humans to start again, to rediscover and to discover the previously undiscovered. If no space is given for this movement to thrive and evolve, the extinction of the human race will be imminent!
As starting point for this movement, and to highlight the dangers of over exposure to mass culture and the digital, three artists will each spend a year in a hotel room, not interacting with the outside world. Each artist will be constantly exposed to a different type of digital media:
Artist 1: Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter)(without the opportunity to post anything)
Artist 2: News (Newspaper, News Channels and Websites)
Artist 3: Entertainment (sitcoms, movies and books)
During this time the artist will only have access to art materials and will have to make 2 works a day for the entire period. At the end of the year, each artist will have a show exhibiting the works chronologically to illustrate how their perspective was warped over time by technology.
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