Blurb about my work 3.0

What would it be like if our brains had a ‘Shuffle’ feature; If we could experience the world as a de-contextualised succession of moments and impressions? Would we find serenity in the blissful waves of meaningless stimulation, or would we become consumed by the void of nothingness between sensory pulses?

 

Paik’s T.V Buddha and Lacan’s theory of the Mirror phase.

Found some footage of an installation of the T.V Buddha piece  by Nam June Paik. Originally exhibited in 1974.  I really like this amateur documentation,  the guy waiving in the background of this Youtube clip somehow draws out the sense of humour which I think is often overlooked when people consider this work, which was born from the same mischievous ‘hacker’ spirit as all Paik’s work.

Beyond this though, the work is literally about eastern philosophy meeting western media. And statuesque idols of old colliding with ephemeral electronic images in the present,  unfortunately the light hearted almost kitsch appeal of the work to contemporary audiences,  might overshadow a more serious consideration of what Paik was exploring here.

What is it about this narcissistic Buddha statue that is interesting?

One answer to that might come from considering Lacan’s theory of the mirror phase. The Mirror Phase , occurs  in child development roughly between six and eighteen months. This is believed by Lanan to be an important part in our social development. In the Mirror phase the child first discovers an ex-centralized image of them self, an image that relates to the self, but that does not contain the self or provide any solutions to the problems posed by the physical world. The reflected image can not resolve the search for identity that is sought, and a sense of uncertainty soon fills the void between the embodied sense of self and the reflected one, a crack thus becomes apparent in our general sense of self awareness. And so the child’s first awareness of his/her own image is an awareness characterised by a split. This is supposedly when the need for language arrives, language being a tool to fill the gap between the embodied sense of self and the ex-centric mirrored self in symbolic terms. Based on Lacan’s ideas then we can view language itself as an interface that performs a functional mediation between both our centric and ex-centric notions of self.

‘The Human being has a special relationship with his own image – a relation of gap, of alienating tension’ Jacques Lacan The Seninar. Book II. Pg 323

Interestingly Paik’s T.V Buddha video work was produced as a spontaneous gap-filler for an empty space in his fourth show in the Galeria Bonino, New York.

Maybe Paik did not fill the gap but was instead filled by the gap, and in closed circuit video  saw something that interacts with the gap fundamental in our sense of self awareness.

Paik’s T.V Buddha is like a sad joke, as the statue Buddha attempts to stare through the screen into infinity his vision is blocked by a symbolic reminder of his own physical situation in the world,  the T.V in it’s efforts to exert it’s own physical statuesque presence in imitation of the Buddha can only fill the void within itself by an ephemeral imitation of superficial appearances . The two entities become entangled and consumed by each other.

TV Buddha (1974) Closed Circuit video installation with bronze sculpture. image from http://www.paikstudios.com

Thoughts about interface.

What is interface?

The word face has a variety of different uses, in language we make reference to the face of a clock, or the face of a problem and we refer to those who are two faced and thus people whose dishonour is somehow metaphorically suggested my their extra-face.

The face beyond the face, then it would seem is an idea that evokes some sense of distrust, deception, darkness.
And so from the face beyond or the extra face, we come to the interface.
What is Interface?
This word is so common and in it’s general usage it seems to describe the organizational structure, the agent which directs and controls an encounter. In technological terms we make frequent reference to the Graphic User Interface or Gui being the visual system that regulates and organizes interaction between a user and the device they are using. It would seem then that the notion of functionality is a key feature in what we think about when using the term interface.
For arguments sake, lets say that the interface is in some sense a solution, a solution that enables one entity to engage with another. This text for example could be seen as an interface that mediates between the writer and the reader. But what if a problem could also be a form of interface? and what if dysfunction could also be a feature of an interface?
The interface in this sense could be the action which mediates between an intention and a result (or in other words a problem or a solution).
To take things a stage further we could isolate discussion within the realm of the human subjective experience, and thus talk of the present as being the interface of past and future.

I believe certain artworks are at war with their own interface because of the way they disrupt time and place, while sharing a desire to absorb empty space and dysfunction within themselves. I see this as a prominent feature of artwork from the expressionist era and also much art work from the digital era.

Abandoned Essay – Expressionist interfaces.

Here are is some work I did for an essay, which I have put on the back burner for a while. Figured I might as well post it on my blog as evidence of work or a thought process that did not take flight.

How dysfunction can evoke emotion within digital art?

Abstract
This study firstly attempts to identify some key features within the historical movement of German Expressionism which reached it’s peak during the 1920s.
I will consider expressionism within the mediums of Painting, Theatre, Literature, Architecture, Dance and Sculpture in order to establish a rudimentary overview of this wide branching art movement.
I will start to push Expressionist Cinema into the main focus of this study by analyzing the role of editing, set design, and movement within the early silent films of Fritz Lang, F.W Murnau and G.W Pabst.
I will look at some of the philosophy that was contemporary and influential to that era of art history, notably the works of Fredrick Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger while briefly discussing some metaphysical ideas about perception, and of ways in which time defines space and location, in relation to theories of Timelessness, and nowhere.
I will illustrate some ways in which these great expressionist filmmakers where concerned with such metaphysical ideas.
I believe certain artworks are at war with their own interface because of the way they disrupt time and place, while sharing a desire to absorb empty space and dysfunction within themselves. I see this as a prominent feature of artwork from the expressionist era and also much art work from the digital era.
I will look at Lev Manovich’s Soft Cinema project, Mike Figgis’s Timecode, the Work of Raphael Lozano Hemmer, David Em and Dave McKean, while I explain how and why a new kind of expressionism is achieved when artists from a contemporary, digital culture, express soul and feeling through a decoration or exaggeration of the interfaces they employ.
I will conclude by suggesting some answers to my initial question and I will explain how the expressionist interface might be seen as a prominent feature among much Digital, or/and New Media Artworks
Key Words: Expressionism, Interface, Dysfunction, Subjectivity, Negative Space, Digital Art.

Defining the Art Object as Symbolically Significant, Sensuous, Manifold.

The need to externalize oneself, to achieve recognition from the other, and self recognition through the other, are needs intrinsic to embodied subjectivity, if therefore, it can be shown that certain kinds of artefacts fulfil these needs in a distinctive and positive way, then we would rightly assign to them (whatever ostensible, social or utilitarian functions they may serve) a universal significance in the ecology of human experience. In this study I shall claim this status for Art.; as Symbolically Significant, Sensuous, Manifold.

pg 10 Art and Embodiment: From Aesthetics to Self-consciousness
Paul Crowther
Publisher: OUP Oxford; New edition edition (5 April 2001)

Summary of Wittgenstein’s proposal

‘In Other Words.

Whatever we describe, it cannot be the subject self, for as soon as we describe it, we externalise it and make it part of ‘our’ world, standing over there against us. The self cannot describe itself, unless it tries to make itself an object. And if it tries to do that, it loses the very essence of it’s selfhood. ‘

 

pg 54

 

 

Teach yourself Philosophy of the Mind. Mel Thompson Publisher: Teach Yourself Books; New edition edition (26 Dec 2003)

Doubting the validity of the external.

”When work loses it’s tangible, palpable quality, loses the character of the transformation of matter by human ingenuity, it becomes wholly abstract and interpersonal. The intense subjectivity of modern work, exemplified even more clearly in the office than in the factory, causes men and women to doubt the validity of the external world and to imprison themselves, as noted in the previous chapter, in a shell of protective irony.”
Pg 102
The Culture of Narcissism
Christopher Lasch

W W Norton & Co Ltd; New edition edition (15 Jan 1979)