Contemporary Magazine has two articles online that particularly interested me: Ryoji Ikeda and an overview of Ars Electronica.
This discussion of Ikeda’s reflections on technology, nature and philosophy are indicative of our current cultural situation, which I often consider as a renaissance. This is partly due to the way the Internet has changed art by decreasing the barrier to distributing your own work: it’s as if we’re experiencing a cultural rebirth without even realising it (perhaps blinded by the technological fetishists and practical applications):
Video images of landscapes are progressively abstracted into a language of data, while fragments of text punctuate the onscreen projections, blurring the lines between nature, science and philosophy. This is both image and anti-image, abstraction and absolute representation, the transformation of the image into pure maths, yet at the same time creating a new aesthetic.
The article on Ars Electronica is particularly apt in light of my current explorations in software art. Some of the comments are representative of “digital art” as a whole, in that it is becoming less self involved and more contemplative:
If the symposium felt a little stuck, this year’s many exhibitions made it clear that digital art has turned a corner. The best works consciously distanced themselves from the whizz-bang obsession with technology itself, moving towards a more contemplative vision, where technology served as an invisible vehicle for pure aesthetic experience.
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Over the last few days, I’ve found some wonderful netlabels, and The Wire arrived yesterday with The Wire Tapper 12! Coincidentally, one of the netlabels entertaining me this week was Zero Moon, and one of their artists features on The Wire Tapper 12. I think I heard about this label on the Microsound list a while ago, but I neglected it for some time.
Another coincidence, the superb Mosca release on Suicide in Installments sounds a lot like music I composed in a dream the other day. In the dream I was using vinyl to slow down records which I looped on my computer. This somehow reminded me of the stuff on Daft Punk’s Interstellar 5555 as well. Mosca’s release ‘arcwelder ep’ alternates between ambient tracks (that remind me of an ‘aesthetics of failure’ discussion I had recently) and more rhythmic pieces. This is similar to the blueprint I had for a release that never happened… I’m inspired by Mosca’s release so perhaps it might.
Minlove, a netlabel and resources for reviews begs for my attention, it was bookmarked but not forgotten! They don’t have many releases (two by Christian Meinke at the moment), but point towards to high quality material in their reviews section. I like the way This track gradually builds up into a hypnotic, techno track.
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Casey Reas is an advocate of software art, one of the creators of Processing, and quite prolific in his output. He wrote an overview of Processing for Ars Electronica, and several other papers.
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My friend Stuart gave me a link to J-Star 04 at the Brighton Film Festival (sat 27 nov, 6.30pm, at the duke of york’s).
Continually the freshest contemporary moving image work and style from Japan’s finest talents, incorporating anime, motion graphics, music videos and brand new moving image explosions not seen outside of Japan. A highly influential and eclectic mix of the very latest innovations from rising talents and established masters, featuring P.I.C.S, W+K Tokyo Lab, Mashima Riichiro, and more.
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Filtro have four releases so far, which vary from experimental ambient sounds to house-inspired tracks.
Filtro strikes in the netlabel catalogue to generate collective, sounding and graphic projects to distribute them on the net for free. The aesthetic of Filtro is close to the sound textures generally found on intelligent dance music, minimal techno,
micro house, ambient music and dub.
I have a few releases off the Toytronic label, and generally enjoy them, so I jumped at the chance to listen to the Intelligent Toys 2 compilation at work today. All of the artists on it are well known, from Lackluster to Ulrich Schnauss, and these tracks are all exclusive to this compilation. This is not only a high quality release, but the whole thing is up on archive.org! This is perfectly well-suited to Sunday mornings and Winter commuting.
Here’s a review on Igloo.
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Last night I visited The Charterhouse in Farringdon to see FM3, Gavin Starks and Iris Garrelfs. My girlfriend managed to introduce herself to Gavin, and we had a chat about the techniques he used to produce his music. He said he was using a Korg Kaos pad, and his own software (I think this was related to his piece inspired by the discovery of the first double-pulsar system). I commented that a lot of similar music lacks emotional impact, and that we enjoyed his performance because of the emotional quality of his works, and he strongly agreed with this.
Iris Garrelfs’ performance was also interesting. She kept using simple rhythms (I noticed her nodding to these intently from behind her ibook), which seemed to have the effect of coalescing her sometimes chaotic sounds.
Another thing, I noticed Gavin Starks works for Consolidated Independent, which I’d read about recently in Sound on Sound:
We have definitions within our platform of all these different services, and their file and metadata requirements, their packaging format and their delivery method,” explains Paul Sanders, co-founder and director of state51 and Consolidated Independent. “We’ve done the engineering and built all the intelligence into our platform, so we can simplify the process hugely from a management point of view. We haven’t yet encountered two on-line services that have the same metadata requirements …
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Steve Sacks discussed his Bitforms gallery and approach to digital art distribution in an article for Ars Electronica, 2003. He begins by saying:
I started bitforms to explore the realms of digital art. To redefine categories and levels of artistic engagement. To discover new art. To educate both new and old school collectors.
…
The types of work we show include: Reactive sculpture. Data visualization. Sound and video installations. Digitally derived sculpture. Photo manipulation. Mixed media. Software art…
He discusses ‘framed software art’ and ‘unframed software art’. Framed software art is “The software is typically unique and embedded in a frame or custom housing“, and unframed software art: “can be framed or displayed in any way the collector desires. The art can be interactive and passive. Networked and stand-alone.”
Whether an artist presents their work in a conceptual frame or not depends on the nature of the work itself. Sacks is concerned with the perception of digital art, so the creation of Bitforms and similar galleries in some ways counters opinions such as:
… the “screen saver” comparison. Society has chosen to consider screen savers with very little regard—they are temporary visuals. Another challenge for the legitimacy of this type of art.
I experience this type of comparison when I share web-based art with friends. They often treat the works as toys or distractions, instead of trying to determine what the artist is trying to achieve. In some ways I think distributing digital art on the web often fails to take advantage of the medium. Dynamic websites became popular in the 1990s because people could create a dialogue others within communities who used the sites. Therefore, I’d like to see digital art allow people to discuss the art and potentially talk to the artist themselves. Whether or not this should be done or will be successful depends on the nature of the art itself.
Sacks leaves us with this promising conclusion:
Software art is empowering. Engaging. Endless. Whether or not it becomes a valuable collectable, I am convinced that it will be a part of the art nomenclature. Its beauty and possibilities are too alluring. The artists are too talented. And the world deserves a new creative outlet.
Bitforms
The gallery’s website is here. I took some time reading about each artist and looking at their works. The mediums used are diverse, from digital photography/sculpture (3D printing, selective laser sintering) to interactive software art displayed on LCD screens. The artists are incredibly prolific:
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I had a sleepy musical adventure this morning over breakfast. Someone was discussing @c on a mailing list, I was so sleepy I can’t even remember who or where, but somehow I found this video. The audio is by @c, and is quite an epic and interesting piece. There are sounds in it which remind me of Meam’s CD/DVD release on Skam last year. The video is by Lia.
This quote is from cronicaelectronica:
Pedro Tudela is a plastic artist, musician and lecturer at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto (Painting department).
Miguel Carvalhais is a designer, musician and lecturer at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto (Design department).
Lia is a digital artist and graphic programmer based in Vienna, Austria.
I think what makes @c immediately interesting is their use of rhythm. They seem to keep a pulsing theme for large durations of their works, with a wide variety of sounds littered around to keep you surprised.
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Re-move is a selection of abstract audio/visual interactive works. Some of them have hidden depths, the 10th one in particular. Although, I accidentally had some other music playing and I found myself having more fun trying to synchronise Re-move with that than the sound Re-move creates.
Dextro contains a huge amount of similar interactive pieces. If you let some of them run for a few minutes they create amazingly intricate structures.
I found Dextro and Re-move from the links on Lia’s site (also see Turux).
I believe sufficient depth in interactive audio is lost when using Director/Shockwave/Flash, even one of my favourite web-based art/toys (Looptracks) has evident technological limitations. There are ways around this, such as using Java synth software, although these can require plug-ins which may put more casual viewers off. Conversely, the artist may consider this to be a good thing in some circumstances (especially if feedback through a forum or comments system is available - you can weed out the troublesome vocal majority).
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