Mysticism and Technology
The powerful aura that today’s advanced technologies cast does not derive solely from their novelty or their mystifying complexity; it also derives from their literal realisation of the virtual projects willed by the wizards and alchemists of an earlier age. Magic is technology’s unconscious, its’ own arational spell. Our modern technological world is not nature, but augmented nature, super nature, and the more intently we probe it’s mutant edge of mind and matter, the more our disenchanted productions will find themselves wrestling with the rhetoric of the supernatural.
Pg 48. TechGnosis – Myth and Mysticism in the age of Information
Erik Davis. Serpent’s Tail; New edition edition (12 Nov 2004)
Aim
It sometimes seems like technology has taken on a role in society whereby it is there to evoke a sense of reverence, wonder and excitement and to captivate the imagination. There has grown a kind of mysticism about the technological wonders of the 21st century, this is sometimes apparent in the language that is used in naming software and it’s features I.e. DVD Magic, Installation Wizard, Magic Wand; while such examples are obviously a simple means of marketing and promoting a software product as being exceptional in some capacity, I feel this is also symptomatic of a genuine belief which is rooted in the collective imagination, a belief, or a desire to believe in the potential of super natural experiences and a misguided faith in modern science and technology to fulfil this need.
‘It seems as if in some ways the technological commodity has replaced the religious icon within western culture as being a material signifier of potentialities beyond the mundane and natural/material.
I wish to consider the de-materialisation of art work and artistic process in the digital age, in relation to ideas about the body being the root of anxiety, an anxiety which we first encounter at birth when we become aware of our physical needs and experience the trauma of realising our status as dependant on forces beyond ourselves. This in-turn relates to the Freudian notion of a death instinct as rooted in a desire to escape/transcend the anxieties of physical existence.
I think this desire to escape physical existence might be inherent in the ideal of ’Digital’ and I think this ideal might be communicated through digital technology itself in ways which can influence the creation/interpretation of art work.
It is ultimately the relationship between technology and mysticism that I want to study and manipulate through my research and artistic practice. This mysticism that I refer to could also be described as the super natural, the meta-physical or the hyper real. It relates to the realm beyond the real, and phenomena unaccountable to the laws of perception and nature.
I hope to further demonstrate and exploit the atmosphere of mysticism which I believe to be inherent in the technologies and media structures central to my practice. (Digital video and sound production).
I intend to do this by creating multi-media installation work, that presents itself as being ‘high tech’ or technologically avant-garde while also evoking a timeless, infinite space that is unpredictable and irrational. This interface will be governed by both the programme that I create and the greater forces beyond our sense of understanding.
‘A techno-mystical video and sound interface’, is the description of my final piece that I want to offer.
Objectives
I intend to study the Romantic movement and figures such as William Blake who challenged the founding principles of empirical reasoning, and sought to question and re-negotiate the values that championed the ‘age of enlightenment‘.
By studying the art of the romantics, I will gain insight into ways of questioning that move beyond rationality. This rationality is part of our social conditioning, I feel that to move beyond this would call for a process of unlearning and unmaking, a process of disassembling and de-linearization.
It is a process such as this that I want to introduce within my creative practice.
Programming environments such Action Script, Java and Pure Data offer new ways of imagining the video construct. They offer an openness and can create a sense of unpredictability in the way that content is presented. Through experimentation with algorithmic methods of video editing, I intend to overcome a sense of finality in my video/sound works.
Through this project I would like to enhance my practical understanding of Video and Digital Video. I want to gain a more holistic understanding of these formats, and to re-appraise my relationship/connection with them in light of these discoveries.
Through study I will extend my knowledge of Experimental cinema/Video Art/Expanded Cinema while utilizing the library collections of UAL and also the British Artist’s Film and Video Study collection at Central Saint Martins, I intend to specifically study artists who purposefully evoke a mystical spiritual atmosphere through their work and who I feel exploit an inherent atmosphere of reverence or enchantment in technology to achieve this; Bill Viola, Nam June Paik, Bruce Nauman, Kenneth Anger, Rafael Lozano Hemmer, Stellarc might be good examples here.
Rational
My feeling is that as people are becoming more at ease with digital technology and as there is a new generation emerging that were born into a ‘digital age’, the way that we relate to computers is changing and the role of technology itself is changing, I feel an increasing sense of mundane about digital technology, for me, the sense of novelty has worn off.
Besides this I feel that the perspective of this culture is overtly empirical, and I find it upsetting that processes of rational deduction are generally accepted as the standard means of locating truth.
Digital art is an umbrella term used to describe art works that are dependant on the functions of computer technologies. Some form of computer functionality is a requisite for Digital Art to exist, digital art is ultimately a trade off between computer functionality and human creativity.
Our understanding of computers, as with all other machines, is informed based on how they perform functionality. When digital art works represent computers as uniform, rational and predictable then they somehow inherit those same values. I want the functionality in my work to be a performance of unpredictability it should seem irregular and disjointed. This for me is where a sense of creative play can find its way into my practice.
All of the theoretical discussions within this proposal so far, while important to me, are only useful as a point of departure, since it is not ultimately the analytical mindset that I am intending to explore and develop but rather the imaginative one, and as my project progresses I hope that I will be able to communicate feelings and atmosphere through aesthetics and visuals, while relying on the world of deductive meanings less.
Methodology
I want to conceptualise processes of conscious experience and more particularly temporal experience, I am interested in the idea of a heightened reality through an implosion or fractalization of time; time that collapses in upon itself, there are theories and ideas that relate to this within some meditative disciplines, also expanded experience and the psychedelic movement and also some theories within ontology, phenomenology, nihilism and cosmology. These interests will be explored and documented both through study and research and through practical work that utilises; the Loop, Sonic Feedback, Cut and Paste, Fractals, Repetition, and also mechanical and digital methods of achieving ’the suspended moment’. These themes lend themselves well to discussions of a post-modern visual culture that is said to be incapable of referencing beyond itself and functions on the basis of signifiers pointing only to other signifiers in a process of infinite refraction.
The basis of how I construct my images; is a process of appropriating aesthetic/symbolic qualities from a range of religions, myths and superstitions and using them freely and arbitrarily to enrich my own art work. In a more general sense this could also be seen as a cultural/theological cutting and pasting of sorts, and also a kind of ‘grotesque mimicry’ or a parody of the way culture, technology, mythology and theology evolve in general.
Above all else I believe in the symbolic significance of actions of artistic creativity and my focus is on artistic processes rather than art products, I intend to experiment as freely and as much as possible while presenting successes and failures simultaneously.
Digital video and sound production have been my major pre-occupation for some years. Until now the processes of recording and capturing have been the most appealing.
The database of video that I have created feels like a burden, the question; what to do with this work? Always feels like a discomforting afterthought. Through a utilization of programming techniques I would like to give life to this database material, to find a new way of ReMembering my work so that it can occupy a place in my present imagination as opposed to being an uncomfortable reminder of the past.
The media interface that I design will display and compare works within my media database in an unpredictable manor, this is a strategy to give life and a sense of openness to work that feels resolved and dead. I hope that once this interface has been created, I will discover a more holistic process of artistic video and sound production, one where my present and past endeavours are enriched by each other rather than being in competition.
It is a new approach to my practice that I am hoping to discover through this M.A course, the methodology that I develop through my studies will be the most important thing that I take away with me. Essentially I am trying to design a methodology that will create balance and a greater sense of purpose in my working life where until now; the past, the present and the future have felt dislocated and out of touch with one another. By a shift in focus from the finished art product, to an open database of creative material, I believe I can create a greater sense of purpose in my continued artistic practice.
Unit 2 Action plan
February 2011 Learning about programing techniques and outlining potential methods of realizing the programmatic requirements of my project. Continued study of the symbolism within both technical and mystical strands of culture. Recording new work and pruning my existing database of material.
March 2011 Adopting a chosen programing technique and applying it fulfil my requirements . Continued study of symbolism within both technical and mystical strands of culture. Recording new work and pruning my existing database of material.
April 2011 Applying programming to my database of work, and launching a beta version of my interface. Continued study of symbolism within both technical and mystical strands of culture. Recording new work and pruning my existing database of material. Working with class on the design, promotion and production of our show.
May 2011 Continued study of symbolism within both technical and mystical strands of culture, recording new work and pruning my existing database of material, fine tuning my programme and media interface. Working with class on the design, promotion and production of our show.
June 2011 Continued study of symbolism within both technical and mystical strands of culture, recording new work and pruning my existing database of material, fine tuning my programme and media interface. Working with class on the design, promotion and production of our show.
July 2011 Recording new work and pruning my existing database of material, fine tuning my programme and media interface. Working with class on the production of our show. Working in 3d workshop, installing my interface into a physical space.
August 2011 Setting up degree show.
September 2011 Beach
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