blinded with science

Lev Manovich, master coiner of phrases like Flash Generation and author of the widely read The Language of New Media (2001), presented a preview of his soon-to-be-released DVD Mission to Earth (MIT Press) at the Chelsea Art Museum yesterday. Asked to summarize Manovich's contribution to the field in one or two sentences, Assistant Professor at UiO Andrew Morrison wrote that "Lev Manovich's work consistently evinces diverse knowledge of software, cinematic discourse and digital media arts in proposing ways in which new forms, structures and expressions coalese. His focus on sampling and looping in 'data-art' as he terms it have provided core concepts for approaching the recombinatorial character of creative and emergent artistic expression." In conjunction with Manovich's talk, a panel that included new media curators Barabara London from MoMA and Christiane Paul from Whitney discussed technology and art for an audience of about 100 people.

Manovich (who looks nothing like this picture of Thomas Dolby) has labeled the genre of his new DVD "soft cinema"; unlike film or other analogue media, custom software generates variable layouts, text scrolls, music, and video clips in real time from a large database to coincide with the story's plot as it is read aloud by a narrator. In contrast to the narrative (the story of a woman sent to earth twenty years ago on an exploratory mission from another planet), which is the same and repeated every 15 minutes, the "software generates the aesthetic" by making more or less random selections from the video database for each sequence. Different versions of every scene thus appear in different windows on the screen each time the narrative is heard, allowing the subject, as his collaborator put it, to "construct his or her own meaning" (sorry Lev, but that cliché provoked the title here). This reflects the contemporary status of identity in a global, consumer society, according to Manovich, conceived as a constant stream of intersections - or samplings - from a global set of databases.

This implies a real shift, Manovich argues, from the metaphor of identity as a montage; although the genre montage bears resemblance to soft cinema, it is conceptually and structurally quite different; no longer a composite of disparate elements, identity in today's society actually "functions" differently. In other words, like all visual representations in new media art, there is a front and back.

Unfortunately, this line of reasoning is not included in subtitles in the actual work, and while soft cinema may be algorithmically generated it is also deceptively linear because of the ordered system of narrative. This explains why (some)"new media theory" is interesting while new media works often are not. As Christianne Paul commented, if she had walked into the gallery and watched the film for a few minutes, she would have walked out thinking "nice movie." She also would have missed the whole point, because it is the concept realized in the technology - the relation of coincidence to narrative that represents a new kind of logic - that is the significance of the work.

OK, it is interesting to explore connections between narrative, meaning and the shifting visual representations in this work. But perhaps more importantly, it points out how new media works demand a certain knowledge about process, and how that knowledge can make a fundamental difference in how a work is appreciated or understood. This knowledge about how to look, as Baudrillard and others have pointed out, is equated with social power in our digital culture. Another interesting take on the relationship between technology and historically developed ways of making and seeing is explored by Jonathan Crary in Techniques of the Observer.

Other aspects of technology in art were discussed at the event as well, such as artists working with the politics of metadatabases and archives, and the possibility of making representations where NO information is withheld. A lively and interesting discussion that lasted almost three! hours, I left with the feeling that there was lots more to be said. All in all, a great way to spend a rainy Saturday New York afternoon.

space travel in chelsea

In the midst of the proliferation of 80's art in Chelsea galleries these days, it is possible to duck into the back of CUE Art Foundation on 25th Street and be transported to a dimly lit, soothing, pleasant place that smells good and where serious work is being done - important work if you are considering time travel and some of the practical implications that involves. This is the laboratory of artist Thomas Ashcraft, who shares his ongoing scientific work in cataloguing and displaying all manner of artifacts he has developed for possible encounters of the third kind.

Curated by Bruce Nauman, this show allows visitors a luxurious exploration of minute, exquisite, inventions developed by the artist in response to specific requests to the "lab." Cast in bronze, fashioned in wire, and collected in vials, the typewritten labels bearing recent dates explain the various specimens' unique functions: Thinker's Gum, for example, was developed for staving off hunger, prolonging thinking sessions, sustained illumination, and giving traction. Although we don't know who The Thinkers are, all of the displayed objects seem to have been developed to accommodate specific needs when making intergalactic trips.


The laboratory is the opposite of a modern, hi-tech, antiseptic setting, however, and the total immersion in a world where the artist is consumed with making and archiving seemingly irrelevant objects that nonetheless acquire a sense of importance reminds me of Ilya Kabakov's Garbage Man installation. The use of wood, vellum, and natural materials and the dramaturgy of the installation narrative also sharply contrasts with the slick metal and plastic forms of objects in Matthew Barney's Cremaster universe, even though there is something otherworldly going on in both. Ashcraft, aka "Tom from HelioTown," has in any case conquered this little part of the Chelsea universe.

lectures at columbia

On a more blog-friendly note (I just had to get that academic load off my desk yesterday), I was surprised to overhear Norwegian spoken behind me last night at a lecture by Guggenheim curator Jon Ippolito at the Art and Technology series. One of the women speaking Norwegian was from Oslo, the other was actually speaking Danish, and they were both art history students at Århus University doing internships at galleries in Chelsea. They were very enthusiastic about the art history program at Århus, which integrates other required courses into the overall study plan (like a "real" degree program). It's pretty much the opposite in Oslo, she explained, where art history classes must be picked up here and there as you go along.

Anyway, Ippolito is an artist and professor at Still Water, the New Media program of the University of Maine at Orono. He's a lively, quick talking, young guy who appears on programs of international conferences for new media art, like ISEA. Last night he spoke about his efforts to promote new solutions to intellectual property issues that were in the true Internet spirit of sharing (or what media giants call cheating). An example of a potentially effective and realistic copyright process for the future that he championed was one developed by Creative Commons. Judging from the discussion afterwards, the artist audience seemed most interested in 1) how to do "subversive" projects on the net and still avoid going to jail and 2) how to make money with their work without going to "the dark side" of commercial conniving.

The other talk I attended this week at Columbia was T.J. Clark's, the second in a new lecture series at the art history dept. dedicated to the heritage of Meyer Shapiro. Just as disorganized, overcrowded (200 people attend these talks in rooms built for maybe 100) and late to start as the first, I was disappointed by an uninspired reading of David's The Rape of the Sabine Women using structuralist anthropologist Levi-Strauss' taboo concept as interpretative framework. I know, its art history and all, but yawn.

museum musings

How do museums foster meaningful encounters with works of modern and contemporary works of art? When does language stop being useful and start interfering with the experience of works of art? These are not museological questions by mere coincidence; they are philosophical positions in ongoing critical reflections on modernism as well as contemporary art. Sven-Olov Wallenstein recently wrote about how schemes of visual analysis are related to historical understandings of the autonomy of art. In modernism, for example, the view of a medium’s aesthetic essence relied on a notion of a pure visuality. In contrast, contemporary artists pragmatically use media or genres that best suit their intentions, and the reciprocal relationship between artist/institution and the importance of discourse is openly acknowledged.

The collaborative, intermedia character of art today affects curatorial and educational practices alike. In what seems a deliberate reference to MoMA's re-opening, the Whitney has moved to counter exhibition practice "organized on a 19th-century chronological/media-based model" by establishing new kinds of curatorial positions that intentionally work across medium distinctions. And educators in museums with modern and contemporary collections grapple with the problem of how to balance art historical "information" that may enrich experience with a desire to encourage visual and critical thinking skills.

In other words, as in art theory, the role of language in mediating and disseminating art persists as a subject of inquiry in museum education. As artist Andrea Fraser (on right) acts out in her performance A Gallery Talk, museums have historical, political and cultural baggage, linguistic and semiotic signs of all kinds, that are manifestly conveyed through exhibition narratives, starting from the institutional framing contexts and down to the wall texts alongside selected works. Unfortunately, sociological analyses of these narratives tend to remain at the macrolevel of institution critique (Solhjell, Bennett, Duncan), portraying the art museum as a place determined by nineteenth century more or less hegemonic state forces that engulf any real sense of social agency. In newer museum research, a sociocultural perspective regards discourse as a mode of action and takes a different, closer look at what happens on a micro-level of social interaction. Perhaps most importantly, there is a focus on examining more closely the conditions and construction of institutionalized art narratives at the level of activity.

In museum education, there are different perspectives on the role of language in mediating art. Some art educators, including those trained at MoMA, subscribe to Visual Thinking Strategy (VTS), which generally considers art historical content as a mediating obstacle; scholarly publications and academic, theoretical concepts are not meaningful for many visitors and discourage the development of visual, or looking skills. Other art educators, like Chief Curator of Education Danielle Rice at Philadelphia Museum of Art, endorse making information from art historical “experts” available – without this information Rice maintians, too many modern and contemporary works would remain incomprehensible for museum visitors.

Art scholars have other concerns, with some cautioning against “dumbing down” art historical texts as a means of appealing to visitors, arguing that it renders invisible the specialized scholarship that makes exhibitions popular in the first place. By making the academic discipline of art history disappear behind its products, public awareness and along with it financial support of the academic discipline is also reduced. Another perspective is represented in the book Whose Muse?, with chapters written mainly but not exclusively by museum directors who insist on unmediated visual experience; engaging with works of art as individual objects through prolonged attention promotes a sense of wonder, they argue, and demonstrates the primacy of vision over a curator’s thesis.

press event at MoMA

Press from around the world had more than enough space on the cavernous 6th and uppermost gallery floor, dedicated to temporary exhibitions, to watch Director Glenn Lowry present the unassuming star of the show, architect Yoshio Taniguchi. Correspondents and photographers, including an above average representation of Japanese (and Norwegian!) reporters, spent the next few hours roaming the new galleries, which increase the museum's exhibition space by almost 4,000 square meters. The highly advertised opening extravaganza for the public is tomorrow, Saturday, November 20th, when visitors will have free access from 10 to 10. After that it's an incredible twenty bucks to get in!

I spent most of my time in the painting and sculpture galleries on the 5th and 4th floors. These spaces bear little resemblance to the previous linear, structured arrangement of boring rooms that Caesar Pelli gave us in his renovation in the 80's, yet there is a similar sense of intimacy. The design and mounting of works on the 5th floor in particular is - I hate to gush - aesthetically impeccable. The architecture's generous and well-proportioned volumes allow just the right feel of space for viewing familiar works indelibly associated with the "best collection of modern art in the world" (I don't know how many times I heard that today). The movement through the galleries of early modern art on this floor is as clear as the canons of early modern art history that Curator John Elderfield unapologetically presents to the public: straightforward, comprehensible, opening onto other contained spaces to provide juxtapositions of related historical "-isms," and only occasionally penetrated by views onto the sculpture garden and cityscape of midtown Manhattan. It is hard to imagine the story of early modern art being told in a more seductively conclusive manner, with Picasso pretty much positioned as main character from beginning to end.

The painting and sculpture collection is presented chronologially on the 4th floor as well, but reads more as a "favorite hits" experience for MoMA enthusiasts, with "Oh good, I was hoping they'd still keep the Pollocks next to the Rothkos" - kind of comments heard. Standing near a large group of Japenese correspondents taking each others' pictures in front of Jasper Johns' flag and target paintings, I was taken with a small grouping of paintings in an early Legér style that included one by Le Corbusier. It reminded me of how MoMAs founder, Alfred H. Barr, Jr, championed the capital letters of International Style in the late 20s after his sojourns in Europe and Russia. I haven´t made it to the arcitecture department exhibition, that will have to wait 'til next time, as will my next blog over the weekend about the ground floor galleries for contemporary art, where new acquisitions are presented.

moma and thanksgiving

Coming: MoMA's re-opening and Thanksgiving in the same week. A reminder of what is still good about being in New York during this post-election mind-numbing funk. It used to be just the thought of not being in Norway in November would be enough to quell my uneasy state of American anti-Americanism. But this week, with images EVERYWHERE of macho Marlboro smokin' soldiers killing anything in the path of "bringing democracy to Iraq," nothing less than the prospect of a large helping of comforting modern masterpieces and stuffed turkey will do the trick. With all the trimmings, thank you.

I'm looking forward to writing about the new MoMA for the electronic Norwegian art publication kunstkritikk.no. Hopefully, the museum's fresh start will shake off my flashbacks of Vietnam and the 70s and create the kind of buzz, if only for awhile, that electrified the city in the 80s when I lived here last: the newly emerged (and short-lived) art scene in the east village, Schnabel's plates at Mary Boone in Soho, Holzer's truisms at bus stops and Times Square, rumors of Basquait chained in the gallery owner's basement, Warhol at Odeon - well everywhere, actually, and Haring's graffiti before it became boutique material. Ancient history, clichés tinged with yuppies, Reaganism, and the fatal ignorance of aids, OK, I admit it, but can you really hold such reminiscence against someone who survived the transition to living in Norway in the 90s? Wonder if the story of modern art over at MoMA has changed as much as I have.

looking back and forward

Since I used my blog time this week to write a short article on the MoMA opening for kunstkritikk.no, I've been reading some other blogs and online reviews about the event to catch up on the past few days. Among my favorites is Jerry Saltz's column in the Village Voice. In his booklet What happened to art criticism? (2003), James Elkins critiques Saltz's "positionless position" as an art critic, but acknowledges that his approach has granted him "any number of wonderful insights." I think Saltz's call on the problem of space in the galleries of the remodeled MoMA is interesting, and helps answer my own question about why the 4th floor galleries - with all of the masterworks by Johns, Pollock, Rothko - on and on - didn't seem to have the same dynamic interplay experienced on the floor above. Without enough space to really explore and present other lesser known (for example, female) artists, there will likely be more of a need to play it safe with the public pleasers.

Even though modernism never really took off in Norway, maybe we'll get to have these kinds of discussions when the new National Museum of Art opens, supposedly, in a few years. Unfortunately, most of the time is spent quibbling over things like who should design it, where it should be, who gets to be in it, and in the name of full democratic participation, what it should look like. Needless to say, nothing ever really happens because nobody can agree and architects have learned to run the other way. Of course I have been away for six months so I guess I'll have to do my homework and see if the contemporary art museum is any closer to getting out of the old bank building. It's not really fair to make comparisons with world class art museums, especially in terms of collections; on the other hand, it's not only inevitable but probably good for us to take a critical look at some of our "local" museum practices and what's going on in the rest of the world. This will be my next blog project starting this weekend.

For other blogs following the opening, and some nice installation photos see
artsjournal

artblog