overcrowded / Presentation Emmanuel

Is "digital art" Western ? Digital art or the utopia of "world art"?

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Oral presentation of Emmanuel Mahé, Orange France Telecom R&D
Beijing, 2006-10-20

Art Everywhere, Global and Chinese perspectives for innovation Conference.

Plan :

Introduction
- Artistic practices and analyses : sociology of art, technical approches…
- Creation of new visions

1) Tekhne-logical arts

2) Digital art : the birth of a world art ?
- Artistic figures (Europe & China)
- Aesthetic dimensions

3) Relationship between R&D and Art
- Subject of analyse & Innovation method
- Construct new communications hypotheses Relationship between R&D and Art

4) Examples (conclusion)
- Artistic projects : "oneminutefree", "umbrella.net", etc.
- Innovation : "Data forest"

Introduction

Digital Artistic practices should not be analyzed solely from a sociological point of view (uses, discourse and “cultural horizons”), neither should they be analyzed from a solely technical viewpoint (analysis of the technical apparatus, interfaces, hardware, software etc…). Rather, they must also be studied and discussed using their essential element: the creation of innovative approaches/tools, the production of “open forms,” the creation of the conditions for new uses and of yet uninvented techniques… The observation of (and the participation in) these creative processes is a fundamental for those businesses who specialize in innovation and anticipating future uses and technologies. In the domains of the web and telecommunications, the creations of artists or experimental designers will probably lead to tomorrow’s new methods of communication.

The Sociology of Art is, of course useful for understanding for example the manner in which the social status of the artist evolves over the years, how it changes according to different cultures. Analyzing the public (how art is perceived) is also important because this shows how artists include the spectator in the medium, whatever it happens to be (a film, video, interactive installation or network…). The technical approach is also an important tool for analyzing innovation, a subject which particularly interests us here, at France Telecom.

I suggest we put aside all of the aforementioned methods, although difficult to ignore, for the moment. This, for two reasons: to avoid the traditional (and artificial) separation between the analysis of application and technical analysis, and to play down the comparative or “cultural” approaches.

In this seminar in Beijing, it is tempting (and I must confess to having in part ceded to temptation) to compare “Oriental Art” and “Western Art,” to try to understand their “cultural specificities,” their own modes of existence with all the simplifications that implies. One type of art does not exist – art is, rather a multitude of artistic practices which sometimes contradict one another, even within the same country or culture. This is precisely what makes artistic practices interesting. They resist (both in the good and bad sense of the word) the different cultures from which they arose. They often free themselves from their creators who are only a vector or a hub in an innovation network which is greater than them.

Artistic practices are not the only ones to resist: Michel de Certeau, a French anthropologist, clearly shows, through his description of the techniques of braconnage (poaching), how certain social uses also resist by bending or bypassing established rules or by local interpretations.

If we had to look for a constant in artistic creation, it could be this: these practices do not always resist “against” but rather “for” - for the opening of new paths, for the creation of new visions, for the invention of new lifestyles…

In order to study the variations and mutations, we need to discover what the constants are (in order to remove them). I suggest we try to understand what the status of art is in China and in Europe, even though we may be too caricatural – understand not what determines artistic practices or works (they are not predetermined), but rather what symbolically defines artistic practices in each of these “cultural horizons”. This will allow us to understand how “digital art” could be “worldwide” and not universal, in spite of the different human histories fostering it.
I will be talking about different artistic practices whose authors or collective authors are not Chinese (I have a lot to learn here, in China). It will be up to each one of you to relate these practices with your own or those practices you are familiar with.
Far from denying the cultural specifics and policies (and they are numerous), I suggest we firstly examine artistic practices in their relationships between techniques and uses, which form what I call a “tekhnê-logy.” After defining this concept, I will introduce a hypothesis for discussion because it is probably controversial or maybe over simplistic (by design, I assure you!)
Artistic practices make use of ICT as primary elements in the creative process (production, dissemination and response), giving rise to a field in Art which maybe common to all Art (Chinese, European…) and yet is very heterogeneous.

In conclusion, I will come back to the necessary implications for the field of Social Science and technical Science in the analysis of the processes of innovation in Art in relation to research and development, but in proposing the idea that these scientific approaches should be accompanied by an approach which might at first seem far removed from our concerns: philosophy and the study of Esthetics.

(In the ppt, I included a few web links to sites describing artistic practices)

1- Tekhne-logical Arts

Before describing our artistic examples, we need to specify the underlying idea behind the classification "tekhne-logical arts." Some contemporary artistic practises make technology and technique components of the creation process (upstream and downstream). Artists from different backgrounds such as Atau Tanaka, Sadie Benning, Magali Desbazeille, Siegfried Canto, Marnix de Nijs, Edwin van der Heide, Eric Sadin, Olivier Auber, and others, work with and on technologies which they use.

The word "technology" comes from "tekhne" (art in Greek) and from "logos" (thought). "Technique" means a practical method, skill, or art applied to a particular task, a working method (a mountaineer’s technique or a violonist’s technique for example, i.e. an extremely normalized and codified use), but also the associated tools and "real" technical devices (engineers for example establish a "state of the art" to become aquainted with recent developments of a particular technique), whilst the word "technology" encompasses the associated texts and the underlying theoretical basis. Here, I do not adopt a rigid distinction between technique and technology because it is either carries social determinisms, or technical determinisms [S. PROULXS]. To avoid this rigid division, we indicate some artistic practises as either being "tekhne-logical" and not specifically technical (electronic, videographic, numerical, etc.) or as being specifically technological (pure texts on technique). They thus involve technical uses (using a computer, a video camera, etc.) as much as their social uses and texts as well as their accompanying imagery or structure. Tekhne-logical art produces technical machines ("installations" and "devices" are terms frequently used in the field of the contemporary art) which are also social machines . [G. DELEUZE]

"Tekhne-logical” art is unlike any other homogeneous artistic field. It is characterized by a heterogeneity of its practical as well as its theoretical approach, but it is unusual in that it specifies not only one social space (with its symbolic systems) but also the places, the topos, where we can examine artistic practices of diversion and the appropriation of contemporary technological devices. We thus prefer this broad definition instead of more strict definitions, commonly used by some critics and artists ("video art", "digital art", "computer art", "Net art", “interactive art", etc).
This art is not defined so much by the techniques used (they are countless) than by its propensity to consider the technique, to test it, and, we could say, "to feel it". Using technical devices or technical communication objects, or creating them, is part of the process of artistic thought in action. "Tekhne-logical art" is creating a theoretical and practical field, one that is critical of contemporary techniques and technologies.

2- “Net Art” or “Digital Art” in China, Europe and the USA: the birth of a world art?

I will begin by a brief explanation of how art, from a socio-symbolic point of view may be defined in Europe and in China.
The artistic figure, as constructed over a few centuries in Europe (principally since the 15th century) has today broken up in a number of different ways (as is explained in the book by Yves Michaud, “Art in a state of flux”). The old ideas of specificity and autonomy which were linked to the former artistic disciplines are questioned by attitudes, discourse and the practices of contemporary creators (artists, experimental designers…). There is a real proliferation of “non-artistic” creation and experimentation on the Web, a multiplication of places to expose outside museums and galleries, a redefinition of the frontiers between spectators and authors, putting the idea of “the author” and of copyrights into question.
Art in China has not developed as an autonomous subject (contrary to Modern European Art, for example) but rather as an æsthetic and social practice. Artistic assemblage exists in China of course (and is very powerful) but in a different form. Paradoxically, a specific “artistic field” is beginning to appear as new (and necessary) Modern Art exhibition and production sites are born. However, this could be better explained as necessary for “Chinese artistic creation” to exist both regionally and throughout the world at large.

I will not continue this schematic and reductive comparison between artistic practice in China and in Europe since the question of cultural differences (and therefore how we see two supposed invariants) demands a deep knowledge of both cultures. This comparison has been criticised, as I explained in the introduction. I will therefore end my first point here.

Moving forward, here is a possible hypothesis :

Artistic “tekhne-logical” practises (Net Art, Digital Art etc...) :

a) Are part of the breakup of Art in the West (this is neither an effect, nor a cause – it is one of the components of the mutations now at work)

They correspond to traditional Chinese artistic “Philosophy” (no specific artistic frontiers).

We can see, not the beginnings of one unified field which could be called “Globalised Digital Art” or “World Art”, but the emergence of common principles (“watered down” Art, an Art of process) even if they are translated culturally in different ways: Art is not enclosed in a specific category or is it in its’ own space, it can arise and be produced in diverse and unforeseeable ways.
These “principles” are not norms or new rules to respect (a “discipline” with its own values), they are transformation vectors. Maybe one of these transforming forces has contrary effects: they contribute to the disappearance of the idea of Western Art (questioning the author, the authenticity, the originality...) as well as encouraging the growth of an artistic field in China which did not exist beforehand (the growth of new networks and places linked to Contemporary Art and Technological Art). These contrary effects are “only” culturally and politically specific – they are important of course but they must not hide another dimension: the creation of a new “æsthesis”: the production of reality (in Nietzsche’s sense of the word). This brings us to the second hypothesis, which will serve as an open conclusion:

b) (second hypothesis) The implications of collaborations between artists and R&D should not be limited to the Social Sciences (Sociology, Ergonomics, Psychology...) and the Technical Sciences (Information Science, Cognitive Science...) but they should also be extended to the æsthetic dimension (Philosophy).
Artistic practices not only create “new” technical apparatus and “new” uses (innovation processes close to those in R&D), but they produce new perspectives on our habitus, our perceptive frameworks, our technical habits... The productions of shifts (in the sense of deconstructions, not just "detournement") help us understand the “societal paradigm” (I do not really like this term, I prefer “regime”) on which we depend and its’ current evolutions. Deleuze, inspired by Foucault, describes the transformation we are now seeing of the individual into the dividual and the replacing of the chronology of life (life as sequences corresponding to closed environments) by a modulation of interwoven lives (dechronization of periods in life, breakup of identity, open and smooth spaces).
We need to consider all these new “forms” affecting us in order to understand current mutations (especially sociotechnical mutations). This may be an essential element for us to be able to think and practise innovation and anticipation.

In the field of telecommunications, by changing practises, changing discourse – we are moving from the “flux” metaphor to that of “moist media” (according to Roy Ascot).
Telecommunications are only part of a greater ensemble which is being totally changed: architecture, social practices, bodies, human relationships, both with others and one’s self, techniques, landscapes, the barriers and relationships between human and non-human... (see Latour, Foucault, Simondon...). Art is one method amongst others (such as philosophy, fundamental scientific research...) we can use to understand changes happening now, helped by sociology and technical science.

3. The relationship between R&D and Art happens at two levels:

LEVEL 1 :

Artistic practice and related fields (such as design) as an object of research to find solutions either in terms of uses or technical solutions:
Subject of analysis (measure the effects between IT and uses, understand the social mechanisms, etc)
Innovation method (collaborations between artists and engineers , multidisciplinary cooperation, etc)

LEVEL 2 :

Artistic practice and related fields (such as design) as a subject of research to create new problematics, to ask new questions:
hypothesize objects, in the sense of “research hypothesis”
construct new communications hypotheses
use these new hypotheses to create new models which may be used for creating services, fundamental research etc.

4. CONCLUSION : Artistic and social innovations examples

Last year in Dashanzi and then at the Medialab in Madrid, I presented the different ways in which socio-technical forms are evolving and developing. These changes are showing us that a new concept is developing: invisibility is becoming a socio-technical form in itself. We are moving from a concept of visibility to one of invisibility. So-called invasive technologies (atmospheric transmissions like Wi-Fi, intangible interfaces etc.) and miniaturisation methods (RFID, nanotechnologies etc.) are making technology less and less visible. As a result, our personal space is becoming more and more technical and the ways in which we use things are also experiencing such changes. In line with other telecom operators, mobile phone manufacturers are working on 'invisible' mobile phones (teeth implants or a telephone bracelet etc.).
I will use several examples to illustrate how we can intersect the analysis of these new (namely artistic) services and the latest R&D innovations.
Although many artists are supportive of this new invisibility concept, they are nonetheless exploring the other end of the spectrum. They are creating new ways (techniques and uses) to make visible what is at the moment invisible and to make audible what is no longer audible. In this way, they are not resisting progress, just modifying it; they are redefining forms. These are the people who are the driving force behind these current developments.
Some examples:

With 'One Free Minute' the answer machine on a mobile will become public: you leave a message and then it is played out in the street. Individual messages will become collective and audible to everyone.

"Umbrella.net". Umbrellas equipped with transmitters, receptors and screens are creating physical micro-communities. When several people get close to each other and there is contact, the umbrellas change color. The umbrellas incorporate different coloured LED's (red to signify "searching for contact" and blue to signify "contact established"). "Umbrella.net" makes informal communication largely invisible.

"Track the Trackers" offers people the opportunity to locate video surveillance cameras in public places, hidden surveillance networks are being made visible.

In their own way, non-artistic uses are fighting in a constructive way against the virtual aspects of networks. For example, Wi-Fi 'picnics' are organised: "virtual communities" can be found in a square or a public garden, near a Wi-Fi 'hotspot' where users can be physically in the same place whilst still being connected and able to use their laptops.

Such uses (artistic or not), do not fight against but contribute to the emergence of related forms, emphasising this new concept of invisibility. On the other hand, they give a new form to passive invisibility (with no form).

From these observations, the "Design, Research and Customer Relations" research team at France Telecom have created the data forest project to make Wi-Fi 'hotspots' visible in towns in a light and sound 'bamboo' form. The function of these 'bamboos' would be to facilitate physical exchanges by allowing people to connect to the network. The 'data forest' would not only allow people to connect to the network but also to interact from one forest to another via videophone. In this way, we are trying to think about and experiment with new communication forms, in terms of use and technique, as are designers, artists and anonymous scientists.


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