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CONTEMPLATING
THE ART OBJECT IN CYBERSPACE CULTURE
by Roman Verostko
TECHNOLOGY AND THE ART OBJECT.
With
the monumental growth of arts activities in cyberspace it is heartening to know the
semi-annual Computerkunst exhibition at Gladbeck continues the tradition of showing art objects. Let
me add a few brief thoughts to the importance of
cultivating the physical art object in today’s fast changing
cyber culture.
Just
as electronic publication leaps forward, the printed word, as a tangible
graphic object, emerges with
ever greater value as the preferred medium for recording our culture. Even
those who boast the virtues of electronic communication seek to appear in
print to document their work. It is noteworthy that “Wired
“ magazine lavishes its resources
in the production of a printed
magazine. The graphics of this publication
exhibit glaring design
devices to suggest being “wired” but, in fact, the publication’s
seduction lies in the fact that it is a lavishly illustrated
physical graphic object. How many of its readers have ever even looked at
the publication’s URL?
Recently
I have worked with my colleague, Jean Pierre Hebert, towards the
realization of some of my work via a “virtual pen plotter”. This
procedure allows us to create a cyberspace version of a “pen plot”. My
art images can only exist as physical pen plots
without this “virtual” pen plotting procedure. But it is the
“pen plot”, namely the physical object, that we value above all. The
virtual plotter exists only to serve us in broadening the technology for
“plotting” the object.
“What
features of our experience
compel us to embrace the “fine art object”?
From
my earliest memories as an artist I had been drawn to feel a kind of
spiritual kinship with the materials with which I worked. There are
signposts that led me to an almost reverent awe for my studio materials
and tools (Note
1). In my 30 years of teaching I have shared this perspective with
students. But recently I have
been disheartened by an emerging trend that seduces some artists to
abandon the art object or to view its creation as an obsolete practice.
There are "many mansions" in Art Heaven and surely digitized
images in cyberspace occupy one of those mansions but they do not displace
the venerable place occupied by the “fine art object.” While there may
be information sites in cyberspace that exist as "art" we must
be careful not to confuse an "art site" with a site that
represents art objects that exist in the physical world.
Thousands of arts images on the internet are digitized
reproductions from originals in other media. Copies, especially copies
across media, are not equivalent to the originals. Cyberspace museums may
have reference value, but their images, as art, can be more deceptive than
slides.
Yes, I would agree that
cyberspace has brought new dimensions and possibilities to the creation of
art. In this cyberspace culture a unique reality emerges and those who
cultivate that space are evolving a culture whose art has qualities and a
presence that differs from that of the “art object”. While I respect
and support the work of colleagues who have been working towards a fine
arts presence in this cyber garden I want to stress most emphatically that
this does not mean that the value of the “art object” has been in any
way diminished. On the contrary we are more in need of the art object
today than we were before the advent of cyber culture.
Let
me emphasize these two rather obvious facts which bear importantly on how
we cultivate the arts in the emerging cyber culture:
-
Internet
arts sites that are presented as works of art in and of themselves
must not be confused with those sites that represent or point to art
objects that exist in a different medium elsewhere, such as in a
museum or in a private collection. The Mona Lisa, as it appears at the
Louvre’ web site, is not the same thing as the Mona Lisa you
experience in the Louvre. The map and the territory are not one and
the same reality.
-
The
fact that one may create art whose existence as art remains entirely
within the sphere of cyberspace does not diminish the value of
creating and experiencing art objects in three dimensional space.
Our
respect and sensibility for the materials and things of the earth remains
fundamental to the very ground of our “being” here on the earth. The
relation of our body to the objects and “stuff” we encounter in our
daily lives provides the essential ingredients for the quality of our
lives and our spiritual well-being. By spiritual, I mean our state of
consciousness and the wholeness of being that we experience. We are
fortunate when we have learned to “see” the texture and inner beauty
of the commonplace objects. A culturally rich society achieves this
through its art objects – the treasures that embody
sensitivity to the qualities of materials, mass, and space in the
visual arts.
The
ability to contemplate the page of a manuscript, a crafted object, a tree,
a flower, to my mind, cannot be separated from the art objects in our
daily culture. And it is this reverence, or at least respect for the
things of the earth, that I view as related to how our culture values the
objects it creates.
The
tradition of contemplating the fine art object has been threatened by the
deadening effect of image-bombs. Relentlessly assaulted with swiftly
changing arrays of sound and image our numbed senses become defensive.
Cheap wasteful copies via ink jet printers, fax machines, and copiers
abound. Desktop published flyers with trivialized hybrid images and clip
art jam our mailboxes. Occasionally you get a "computer art"
announcement or magazine feature with just about the same kind of
aesthetic vacuity. In the current high tech milieu the contemplation of an
original art object is becoming extinct - and in some instances unwelcome.
Cyberspace culture aggressively excludes quiet meditation,
contemplation, and inward turning via our tangible physical environment.
The touch or feel of the texture and presence of objects, the caressing
sounds of nature, the voices of human presence, or the movement of bodies
in physical space have been the spiritual triggers so celebrated in our
great art and literature. How do these "spiritual triggers" fare
in cyberspace culture?
Even
in our museums you have to be careful, else you end up interacting with
screen presentations rather than the "real" art. Seduced by the
"map" you never get to the territory.
A reproduction of an "other" reality is not the same as
the "other" reality. The
original work of art is frequently a remarkable and exceptional
"other". Walking in
the woods is different from seeing a video made by someone walking in the
woods. The difference is indeed "remarkable"!
SIGNPOSTS.
Let
me point to some past experience that may help us adjust our bearings as
we navigate cyberspace. It
would have been in 1939, at the age of ten, when I saved pennies and
bought an oil painting set from a Montgomery Ward catalogue. To me the
brushes, the paint, and the canvas were extremely valuable and you can
imagine how I cared for every ounce of paint and cleaned each brush.
But my respect for the materials wasn't simply a consequence of
frugality, although that was certainly a factor. Something much richer and
something more profound was given to me.
Almost
from the moment I began painting I became aware of the "magic"
of the materials - the way they became transformed if you managed them
right. When things worked
well the materials underwent a "magical" transformation. And, I
quickly learned, this applied to other media like stone, paper, and wood. Since then, I have had this same experience with works of art
throughout the world - the transformed stone of the cave Buddhas in China;
the paint in the "Mystic
Lamb" at Ghent; the clay of a Hopewell pot; and the ink in a
Carolingian manuscript.
Cultures
throughout the world have an inner sense about the precious objects they
create. So certain art
objects are handed down from generation to generation. Even when
"meanings" of these objects have been lost they are still
treasured. A Zhou Dynasty bronze and a Lindesfarne "carpet page"
are both greatly admired even by those who know nothing of their motifs or
content.
INTO
THE FUTURE.
Over
fifty five years later, as I reflect on those first
"transforming" experiences, I wonder about our changing
perception of the "art object" today. Those who have been deeply
moved by the power of the art object recognize that a cultural renaissance
today requires deep level transformation of our high tech experience.
Although the computer provides form-generating power for the artist, the
artist's task may not have changed much.
We
have passed through the beginnings of cyberspace as a place for the
artist. Those watching the scene know that the banal and the trivial
abound. But we also see serious young artists whose work holds promise for
the future. They may be tempted by the "barkers" and "side
show artists" to stray from their course.
My
concerns are somewhat related to the perennial problem of the emperor’s
new clothes. Too frequently I see our younger generation of artists
rushing headlong into the future without assimilating the beauty of the
present. We have tended to replace the value of becoming a master with the
value of embracing the new for the sake of the new.
While
I recognize the value of embracing new technologies I do not see the
technology itself as the goal or the object.
The technology has a value only in as much as it serves our goals
as artists. Too frequently we are seduced by the technology and the goal
of our work as artist is replaced by a fascination for the technology. At
that point, I believe, the spiritual; value of our art is threatened.
Here
are several brief notes for young artists entering today’s exciting high
tech environment:
Master
the medium.
In
my generation we tended to view art as a series of
“movements” with no artist ever wanting to be caught anywhere except
with the “avant-garde”. In this milieu the concept of “master” or
“school” suffered. The artist was seen primarily as the prophet of the
“new” and art was valued more for innovation than for the quality of
its “art” (how well it was made).
I
advocate that we awaken a search for today’s equivalent of the age old
idea of the “master” as embodied in the Renaissance master (Massaccio),
the medieval master (Ghiselbertus) or the Chinese Shufa master.
Technologies change swiftly and artists get caught up in this frenzy.
How does one become a master in this context? Too often we expect
results in terms of hundreds of hours. We too easily forget that the old
apprentice method required thousands of hours which meant years rather
than months. The quality of the work can then be measured and seen by
one’s peers.
Goals
and purposes.
I once asked Barney Newman “why do you create art”?
“To create a world to be in”, he responded.
This liberated me. From that moment on I knew that I would always
work towards a body of work that would add something of value to my
everyday world. I would want
to create work that lifted up the human spirit, work that would be
beautiful and enjoyable to experience, like a well kept garden. In our art
schools, in the past generation, we tended to diminish the value of
creating and crafting something for its own sake, for its beauty, and for
the integrity of its own existence.
Works
that evoke a sense of the beautiful and wonderment of existence are in
themselves sufficient . Can we not seek to create work splendidly!
Artists have a role in pointing to the beauty of the commonplace -
in the grace of a beautiful vase, a flower, a rich fabric, the song of a
bird.
So
those who work in cyber space are challenged to create work to lift us up
from the humdrum daily routine. They
are challenged to charm us by gaining a master’s skill in the use of
cyberspace technology and to show us superb abilities that make us want to
experience the work again and again. In this milieu we hope to have those
who allow room for accepting mystery without any fear of the
unknown.
Gladbeck’s
Computer Art exhibitions have been contributing to these ends and, in
doing so, has been making a valuable contribution to the evolution of the
“noosphere.” (Note 2).
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