Opening the World of Digital Art @lesmansart-blog - Tumblr Blog

Even the president of the United States is involved in the remix culture. Where will this end?

Dutch electronic art festival

DEAF 2012 was held in Rotterdam. As the folder tells us: ‘’Deaf serves as a public forum and meeting place for young creative talent as well as established professionals whose work focuses on our contemporary technological culture.

This year the exhibition presented project presentations, symposium and performances. There was a lot of interaction with the audience. The top of the iceberg was a workshop.

The Theme this year was: The Power of Things. This is because nonliving things play a bigger role than they did before. Some examples: food we eat influences our everyday mood, our daily rhythms are effected by the changing climate. Nonliving aspects of live are becoming more important. The meaning of the exhibition was to break down the boundary between living and nonliving things in life. The artworks confront the audience with the living within the nonliving.

An example of such an artwork is Notion Motion, made by Olafur Eliasson. He’s a Danish-Icelandic artist. This work is one of his large-scale installations. Water is a nonliving material thought it moves and therefor you can say it maybe lives in a special way. A sponge moves up and down really slowly and it makes wrinkles in the water that you can see on the wall behind it. The visitors are also important in the artwork. People who walk by are also shown on the wall through their silhouette. You could say that the visitors and the sponge together bring the water alive.

Another example is the Sandbox made by Driessens & Verstappen. It’s a big bog where visitors can look in. Two things we didn’t know that lived are made alive. The visitor sees sand and wind. The wind creates new hills and slopes by its blowing. Things we normally see as nonliving became living. That’s The real power of things.

Leslie

#dac12

Do you know who's watching you?

In today’s class we’ve went back to the first class of DAC about the panopticism in relation to the digital culture. The gaze and the power are intertwined with each other. You know you are being watched (even though you cannot always see the watcher) and you internalize that gaze. You start to behave yourself in a good way because you know you’re being watched. In today’s society this idea of surveillance has much to do with privacy. Surveillance does include a lack of privacy. But what does privacy actually mean? According to Richard A. Spinello privacy is built up of three elements: solitude, secrecy and anonymity.

Now I’d like to apply those aspects to the topic of the last few months: the privacy of Facebook. What is visible on this social network? And can we know who’s watching us? Or is it may be possible to look back to those with powers?

The picture above shows the development of the lack of privacy on Facebook. The scientific reliability is doubtful, but I think it is possible to use at this moment. In 2005 there was not much visible for everyone, only your gender and picture. But in 2010 everything is visible, for the entire Internet. Where does that leave our solitude or anonymity? Everyone (the whole world) can see who we are, what we do, with who we are, and what topics we discuss on our walls. Of course, you know this will happen if you join Facebook. But I always liked to think that I had the choice to choose the people who can see my profile. Unfortunately, that option has disappeared. There is no longer a choice to not tell people who you are: everyone knows it. You can no longer be alone, because everyone can see your profile. And everyone can see your pictures and posts, and in that way they can glance at your thoughts. Everyone is watching us, but we don’t know the faces or powers that are watching us. They can be family, or friends, but they can also be new employers, sales companies, lover boys, etc. We don’t know it, and therefore Facebook has a weakness for misuse.

On the other hand, Facebook offers a sousveillance. This is the reverse of surveillance: we can look back to the ones with powers. We’re not only being watched, we can watch too. We can watch our friends or family on Facebook and see what they are doing. We can check out the Facebook of our new employers and see the things they do. The last years it became even possible to watch on the Facebooks of sales companies. This bottom-up surveillance can be useful: it shows things that are hushed by those powers, it makes visible what normally stays hidden and it’s trying to break the power of those major institutions.

In conclusion, I don’t think it’s possible anymore to only see Facebook as a bad thing. Facebook has offered us a new sort of Panopticon. There is no longer only top-down surveillance, but also a bottom-up way. There is no longer an escape possible from surveillance. What we need to do, is developing a new system or society where it is possible to protect our privacy again. Suggestions?

Mannick

#dac12

The important concept used in today’s class must be haptic visuality.This term has been introduced by Laura Marks in her text ‘Haptic Visuality: Touching with the Eyes’. She claims that in the world of digital there has been a movement away from the human body. Marks tries to put the body back in his place, close to the human being, where it belongs. She critics the fact that every medium is based on the visual sense only. There are more senses. All determine our perception of the world. Marks tries to go further than only the visual. She also includes audiovisual, touch, taste etc. This is haptic visuality. Haptic visuality is about seeing from a close range, about a personal engagement and about intimacy. We need to allow people to come closer, so that they can transform us. Every sense contributes in this “touching with the eyes”: it’s a more affective way of seeing.

The concept of haptic visuality is been used in many different ways, like in adds (“sensorial sensations”) or in health care. Haptic visuality is used in an experience economy: we buy things because of the experience they evoke. One of those experience economy are the cinemas. By cinemas I don’t mean the cinema as an art, but the cinema as an industry. In the last years the cinema has been expanded with 3D-technologies. Films are shown in three-dimensional. This technology literally brings the image closer to the viewer. There is no longer a sense of distance between the image and the viewer. We almost get the feeling that we can touch the images on the screen. In combination with the audiovisual aspect of movies, we use more than one sense.

However, 3D-technologies aren’t new anymore. It’s now even possible to see movies in 4D, 5D, 6D or 7D. The dimensions in which we can watch a movie are extended. We cannot only watch and hear the movie. We also can smell what the characters are smelling, or taste what they taste. We can feel it if a character falls or gets hit. With those technologies it is possible that it rains in the cinema, or that the wind blows through your hair. The medium ‘film’ is no longer based only on the sense of seeing, but also on other senses, like taste and touch. There is no longer an optical visuality. There is no sense of distance, no analytical way of seeing, no scientific understanding. The objectivity has disappeared. Instead, there is an immersion. You’re losing yourself in interaction with the images on screen. There is no clear distinction between you and the other: you’re being pulled into the experience of watching the film. It’s like the commercial says: “Amaze them in a thousand ways”.

- Mannick

#dac12

What does this image say about the difference between space and place?

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We all live everyday in virtual environments, defined by our ideas.

Michael Crichton

Place and space. Identity and disembodiment. All these notions were meant in yesterday’s class of Digital Art and Culture. They seem like notions that fit cultural studies, but what are the connections with digital culture? Digital technologies offer a new form of reality: a virtual reality. Those virtual environments differs the relation between space and place. To refresh our memories: place has more to do with a more physical, local presence. Space is more fluid, it’s more abstract and philosophic. In our “real” reality there is no space. Everything is bond to one fixed place. It is not possible to be at two places at the same time. In this reality your identity is also fixed to one place. Who you are has very much to do with the places you live. On the web, in a virtual reality, it’s different. There is a notion of mobility, called nomadism. This contains that your identity is not connected to one specific place, but can be all over the world. You can change your identity, at least, that is what people think. But still, who you are on the Internet has much to do with who you are in reality. In both real and virtual spaces people are still asking about your background: who are you, where do you come from etc. Those questions are attached to places (country, language, age). Even space has to deal with boundaries. Of course, this raises a lot of questions and problems. I mean, is it possible to be someone else on the web? Can we change our identity online? I think that it’s not possible to be another person. There are people who are trying to escape their real lives, by becoming someone else online. But still, they can’t escape the real life for good. The web hasn’t developed so far, that it is possible to live only online. We still need a real life to supply our needs, like food. This means that people still need to have an identity in the real world. Your reality will always be a part of you, even if you try so hard in becoming someone else. We cannot become someone else, we can only pretend to. Our identity is something that is always visible, both in reality as in virtual reality. You cannot live without your body, because that’s the place where your body is located in.

Mannick

#dac12

Made by 3d printer (the clothes and accessories, not the woman)

What if everybody would be famous?

Andy Warhol told us: ‘’In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes.’’ They are two explanations for this quote. Or Warhol meant that everybody would be famous for fifteen minutes and then it would be over, or every individual will be famous for fifteen minutes and then another person will come who will be famous for fifteen minutes.

But what IF everybody would be famous.

So imagine that everyone in the entire world is a celebrity, which means that everyone knows each other. Especially because of television, internet and social media, everybody would know one another. You never meet strangers. You recognize all the people on the street. Would everybody want each other’s autographs? Would there be more paparazzi and magazines about celebrities? Perhaps it all would be so normal to be famous, people wouldn’t care about it anymore.

If we look at the really little towns in, for example, the Netherlands, we see a similar thing happening. Everybody knows each other. Your neighbor knows that you’re going to that particular school, you’re friends with that particular person who is the daughter of people he also knows. In such little towns, we could say, everybody is famous or no one is, because we all are ‘’real brain twister’’. You don’t need paparazzi in such a village, but people still gossip. They say that most of all in such little villages people gossip the most. They all seem to want to know about the daughter of the doctor which got pregnant at 18. Or the neighbor who slept with the widow from the corner.

I think if everybody would be famous it would be the same as in such a little village as described above. It depends on how you are, but a lot of people seem to want to know just everything about everyone.

Maybe Andy Warhol was wrong, maybe everyone is already world famous. Only in his or her own world, for example his or her little village, school, work, sports club, etc.

Maybe it’s more weird to ask: what if we weren’t famous?

Leslie

#dac1

Because John Cage became 100 this year, there was a exhibition about him in Vienna in the Museumquartier. All kinds of artist made sculptures, painting but most of all happenings dedicated to John Cage. The man who is known for his music, but also his silence. The artwork we see here is called Flickr Page. The artwork is a big screen where a lot of people have their own square showing their activities. Some of them are playing an instrument, others are singing. They all make some kind of music for John Cage.

In this piece of art we see absence presence. People are present in the virtual world, but not in the physical world. We only see the screen with the projections of the people. There is also timeless time. The projections aren’t live so we don’t have to deal with time. Maybe the little movies were shot eight days ago maybe three years ago, we just don’t know. I think they weren’t shot at the same time. The only thing that matter is that when we stand before the screen we see different people making music. For the visitors the people are there at that particular moment, and that’s the only thing that counts. Different times are combined together. As a result we have them together in the same time. The same thing is happening with the space were in. The visitor is in some kind of a museum and the people on the screen are part of it. Of course the performers aren’t really in the museum but their virtual I is there. It’s the same as with the time phenomenon, they all shot their piece of movie in a different space. Some shot it outside, others in their bedrooms or living rooms. The thing is, it doesn’t matter at all because of the big screen in the museum, and everything comes together to the visitor.

We can compare this lack of time and space to nomads. They’re switching from space and time all the time. There isn’t a solid fundament which stays the same. In the digital world we see such flows, flowing around and never stop, just flowing.

Leslie

#dac12

lesmansart-blog

Welcome to Perez Hilton

Famous because of being famous. That’s one of the things that’s has been mentioned in the class of today. Celebrity Culture. What is the relation between this sort of culture and Digital culture? It’s like Perez Hilton. He’s famous because of his blogs. His blog, Perezhilton.com, is known for posts covering gossip items about celebrities. And because of the fact he is writing blogs, he’s famous. Perez Hilton has become a product, a product that you can sell. He is visible in the media. It is not that he has a talent for writing, he is not a literary accomplished author. He’s just known for the fact that he likes to talk negative about celebrities. His starting point wasn’t the real life, it was virtual from the beginning. Well, it worked, because everybody knows him now. And he became famous in real life. Now I’m wondering, is there a possibility that I’ll be famous too? I am writing those blogs, about Digital Art and Culture. I’m therefore being covered by a digital medium: the web. Can I be famous on the Web? And will this mean that I become famous in the real world too? It’s a risk, but it’s worth a try.

Mannick

artlessonsfrombrittandnatha-blog

I am sure you could become famous by writing these blogs. But the problem with these blogs is that they contain information that doesn’t appeal to a broad audience. The things you discuss are about one specific theme and you are a scientific writer in this case. When you wanna become famous, I suggest you start posting video’s and photo’s of yourself in a look like Kim Kardashian. Oh, and don’t forget to add a lot of drama.. Nathalie

lesmansart-blog

Well, thanks for your advice. Here ends my dream about becoming a famous blogwriter. But I know you're right. Unfortunately, I don’t write about Kim Kardashian, the Pfaffs, talent shows like Holland’s Got Talent, Holland’s Next Top Model etc. Does this mean that our opinion about celebrity has become superficial? I mean, I don’t remember any people who became famous because of writing a blog about science, or something serious. Neither have people became famous because their reality show had subjects like art, history etc. Well, the drama lacks in my blogs. And also, my name has no similarities with Paris Hilton, and Perez of course has. It is obvious that the celebs mentioned in today’s class had nothing profound to add. The only reason they became famous, was thanks to their looks, their personality… It’s because they are visible in the media. And me, and my (I hope) interesting blogs about Digital Art and Culture aren't visible. They live in a cult of nothing, in a cult of meaningless fame. So perhaps it is good that I’m not one of those guys. And well, according to Andy Warhol, my time will come. "In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes". And if not, then I will change my name in something like Perez Hilton or Kim Kardashian.

Mannick

#dac12

A sign of celebrity is that his name is often worth more than his services.

Daniel J. Boorstin

- Celebrity as a product and not as a device.

#dac12

Famous because of being famous. That's one of the things that's has been mentioned in the class of today. Celebrity Culture. What is the relation between this sort of culture and Digital culture? It's like Perez Hilton. He's famous because of his blogs. His blog, Perezhilton.com, is known for posts covering gossip items about celebrities. And because of the fact he is writing blogs, he's famous. Perez Hilton has become a product, a product that you can sell. He is visible in the media. It is not that he has a talent for writing, he is not a literary accomplished author. He's just known for the fact that he likes to talk negative about celebrities. His starting point wasn’t the real life, it was virtual from the beginning. Well, it worked, because everybody knows him now. And he became famous in real life. Now I'm wondering, is there a possibility that I’ll be famous too? I am writing those blogs, about Digital Art and Culture. I’m therefore being covered by a digital medium: the web. Can I be famous on the Web? And will this mean that I become famous in the real world too? It’s a risk, but it’s worth a try.

Mannick

#dac12

Traditional vs. Digital

Can we say that the discourse of traditional art is still valuable in the discourse of digital art? This is one of the things we’ve discussed in today’s class of Digital Art and Culture. Of course, there is a difference between traditional art and digital art; at least, that is what we assume. However, it’s hard to define what those differences are. And, moreover, does traditional art and digital art also have similarities? I’d like to fake a discussion between a supporter of the traditional art (let’s call her T.A.) and a supporter of the digital art (D.A.). What would they say to each other in their debate?

T.A.: Until the 1990’s the traditional discourse have been the dominant discourse in the art world. This is the discourse we used in painting, sculpture and other traditional art. Museums used aspects of this discourse to name their exhibited objects.

D.A.: Yes, that’s true. Museums needed to use labels or classifications, so that they could inform visitors about the exhibited objects. But I don’t think it is possible to use these labels for digital art. Digital art isn’t the same as traditional art.

T.A.: What is digital art? I mean, it’s hard to define, I know. I like to assume that traditional art is about painting, brushing, about canvas, about something tangible, something that has to do with arts and crafts. But what about digital art?

D.A.: Well, just like traditional art, digital art is complex. It has a lot of different aspects and characteristics. Important is the use of digital technology, as a medium or as a tool. But that is something to save for another discussion. Digital art is changeable; it’s dynamic, customizable and interactive. It’s clearly not the same thing as traditional art.

T.A.: Then I’m wondering, can the classification of digital art be the same as digital art?

D.A.: What do you mean?

T.A.: I mean, when a museum (or digital museum) presents their objects of arts, it names a lot of aspects that provide information about the artwork. I’m talking about the artist of author, the origin, the year and title of the artwork, the materials and techniques, the ownership and the location etc. Can we use those classifications in digital art as well?

D.A.: That’s a good question. I mean, the artist of author is already an complex concept. Who is the artist in a digital artwork? Is it the programmer? Or is it a collective? I mean, most of the time, digital art is interactive. I think that the author or artist in digital art is the combination of the programmer (or founder) and the audience or participants.

T.A.: And that’s the first deviation. In traditional art it’s (almost) always the artist himself.

D.A.: Indeed. Another dubious thing is the origin. What is the origin of a digital artwork? Does the origin lays in the person who started the program or invented the idea?

T.A.: And what about the code?

D.A.: That’s a good one. Perhaps the origin of a digital artwork is the code, or language. Digital art is always about programming and a code (or data). But maybe we should get rid of the notion of a source of origin?

T.A.: ‘Getting rid of it’ will make it easier… But then you still have things like the dimensions. Would that be bits and bytes? Digital art and Internet art doesn’t have physical dimensions, they are virtual.

D.A.: Digital art is a process, not an object. And that’s where the museums come in. Museums (or online museums) are trying to exhibit objects. But digital art isn’t an object, it’s a process. The traditional discourse has his fundaments in this assumption that art is an object.

T.A.: Indeed. Traditional art is about objects, and so is the traditional discourse. We can’t say the same about digital art.

D.A.: Digital art is a process. So let’s not try to use the traditional discourse in a digital art area. That’s impossible and therefore useless. It’s time for a new discourse, a discourse focused on digital art.

T.A.: I couldn’t agree more. And let’s preserve the traditional discourse, so we could use that to label and classify traditional art.

D.A.: I think we reached a conclusion!

- Mannick

#dac12

factoryart-blog

An interesting question: If film remediates theatre, how do nature-documentaries relate to theatre? Because although nature-documentaries might possibly be partially staged, we can safely assume that (for instance) a lion isn’t in fact a salmon playing the part of lion. So where does the nature-documentary fit in? There is a simple solution to this problem. Film doesn’t automatically remediate theatre. Film remediates photography (which in turn remediates painting). In the case of a nature-documentary, film remediates the photography of nature, only with moving images (well, we all know film is just a lot of frames, but to the naked eye, it’s a moving picture). I’m not saying film isn’t a remediation of theatre as well. Movies, and especially early movies, are a remediation of theatre, or better yet, a remediation of photography of theatre.

Factory art (Can you show me to the party?): Look at me, I'm a lion!

In this example of nature documentary I noticed that everything, every medium, is in fact a remediation. A nature-documentary is a remediation of film and photography, and therefore a remediation of theatre. And photography is a remediation of painting, and perhaps also a remediation of sculpture. Of course, this is easily explained by the scheme of Van Driel: A-R-I-A. Every new medium relates to an older medium, because every new medium has a fase of imitation (or remediation). A new medium appears in relation to another media. We think it's new because it relates to other media, but has something extra.

This means that every medium is connected with each other. But where is the origin? Is there even an origin? I mean, if every medium is a remediation of another medium, where do we start? It's like the chicken and the egg, who was first? There was a moment in history that a medium came into being, there must be, because now, in the 21th century, we have media. But if this "first" medium was indeed a medium, then where did it relate to? There was no older medium, because it was the "first" medium. I think the first medium is an collection of a different forms of communication systems, like human behaviour, writing, talking in smoke, etc. The first medium doesn't relate to an older medium, but is a "remediaton" of the way people acted and communicated in real life. So, eventually, that means that even the newest media, are a remediation of something in real life. And real life has changed, because of the introduction of new media. It's all a vicious circle...

Mannick

#dac12

artlessonsfrombrittandnatha-blog

No words

Scientist Mcluhan comments the basic model of communicating, which is about a sender having a message and sending it to a receiver and vice versa. Mcluhan states that the model is not this simple, because he thinks communication is not about the message, but all about the medium that is used. Form is more important than content. While this theory is aimed at media, it is also correct when we look at the way humans communicate with each other. The American psychologist Mehrabian has shown in research that in expressing our feelings the actual words are only a very small part of the message. Our body language, facial expressions and the tone of our voice are 93% of the actual message. It is not hard to understand why communicating on a broad level with different media works the same way. We will show this theory is valid by giving you an example. Look at the sentence ´What did you do today?’. The medium we are using right now only uses words and that makes clear that because of the fact we only have the words we don’t know what is behind this question. When a woman says this to a guy in ‘real life’, the tone of her voice, body language and facial expressions would clarify the message. When the woman is very happy and pronounces the words with a high musical voice, while smiling, the guy would know she is interested in his activities of that day. On the other hand, when she says the sentence with an angry expression on her face, both her hands on her flanks and with an irritated voice, the guy senses that she is really mad. She could have said any other sentence, but with the same physical expressions he would get her message and he would know she was very unhappy. Britt and Nathalie

lesmansart-blog

I like the way you think. I agree with you on the fact that body language is an important factor in a conversation. But now I'm wondering, since we live in a period with social media etc., what about written language? In a 'real-life' conversation, you can see each other while talking, and therefore you can see the facial expressions, the body language, the way they look etc. But in social media, like Facebook, a conversation is reduced to words. We can't see the way people look when they are writing a post or when they are updating their status. So that means that the message in social media is only words. Those words are the message. Or is social media the message? And then I'm already refuting my statement. Like McLuhan says, and Nathalie also, the message is the medium. Perhaps, the medium is even overrating the message. The content isn't important any more. But what is the form in social media? Social media are, especially in this particular time, very important in (almost) everyone's life. Can we change the basic communication model? Is it no longer: sender - (message) - receiver? What would it be then? Sender - social media - receiver? This means that social media shapes the message in a particular way, like McLuhan says. What will be the consequence if social media becomes the message? A loss of privacy? A loss of contact in 'real life'? Or is it good that social media becomes the message? Maybe it will be an addition in our lives. With social media it's easier to make contact with your friends: you can chat, you can leave a post and you can show pictures of yourself. But I do think that it's important not to make social media our whole communication system. We still need to go out there, to meet people in real life. And that's where body language, facial and physical expressions are still important.

Mannick

#dac12

M-Maybe he became ill and couldn’t leave the studio!

By Roy lichtenstein

Looking at the art of Roy Lichtenstein we see a painting, but at the same time we see a little piece from a random comic book. In terms of Digital art and culture, Roy is playing with different media and therefor playing with hypermediacy. Normally we see painting as a different medium than literature, or more specific: comic books. In the Pop-art of Roy Lichtenstein we see that these boundaries become less solid. In this artwork ‘’M-Maybe he became ill and couldn’t leave the studio!’’ we see Lichtenstein referring to different kinds of typical aspect of comic books. We see the so called Ben-Day dots. We link these dots to comic books because in the 50’s and 60’s they were used in the printing process. In that way de printer could add different kinds of color to the image. To see these kinds of dots in a painting is weird and not normal for us. Normally it belongs to another kind of medium. Second of all we see the big and black contours of the image, that’s also a typical aspect of strips, so are the bright and pure colors that are used. We don’t see any mixed colors in the painting. Also the speech balloon is really awkward in a painting. Again, it doesn’t belong in the medium painting. Most of the time we don’t see words in a painting. Lichtenstein is working this out by adding a speech balloon, or thinking balloon if that’s what a good name for it.

Lichtenstein works a lot with this kind of hypermediation. There are much more works of him which are also very interesting. In some of the works he even used words as: ‘POW’ or ‘WHAMM’ which we see in comic books.

In Short, in Lichtensteins work we see hympermediacy. Boundaries of media who perhaps were once more solid become more flexible in his art.

#dac12

Tinguely

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