[Nettime-bold] sculptural form in net.art

["jorn.ebner@britishlibrary.net" <jorn.ebner@britishlibrary.net>]

// <-- The following text is the draft of a talk I am going to give at FILE
in Sao Paulo this August. I would like to circulate this beforehand and hope
it is of some interest. The objective of this talk is to extrapolate some
notion of sculptural elements in net.art, in order to introduce my two works
for the Internet, "Life Measure Constructions" and "Lee Marvin Toolbox", at
the festival.
//-->


< SCULPTURAL FORM > < NET.ART >

<The internet, it has been claimed, ALTERS spatial experience of human
beings.> <Because it provides immediate communication access for users in
one area of the world with others in distant parts, offering mainly written
and pictorial exchange. Somehow the Distant has become a part of the
intimate surroundings, has infiltrated the Close-by in a way that telephone,
television, travel writing, novels in translation, or photo-reporting have,
it seems, not been able to. This condition seems to be mainly driven by the
temporal quality of the internet: the possibility to access information,
post it, and to exchange it in ways that create an unprecedented social
environment.(1)> <If the internet does provide a changed notion of space,
then what is its relationship to spatial art, that is Sculpture.>

<Time and space are an inseparable unit.> <The notion of a changed
experience of SPACE relies mainly on its temporal experience which
contributes to an enhanced conceptualization of space. The immediate
networking of servers spanning the globe constitutes the tangible
materialization within the world. As these nodes operate in parallel real
times, they seem to be accessible ŒsitesŒ where people can ŒbeŒ without
actually physically being there.(2) Emotional and social space may be
broadenend by connecting isolated humans to a community, bring friends and
family together when physically apart. Still the senders and receivers of
messages are tied to their locations, moving about at rates far less rapid
than bytes. A changed physical experience of space therefore is a different
matter.> <Two main situations can be distinguished: accessing the net at the
humanŒs local base and away from that base. As the human body doesnŒt move
when accessing the net, the immobility of online activity at home does not
involve any new experiences of location, as all the action takes place in
front of a screen that is most likely fixed to a particular area in a room.
If in a foreign place, access helps to connect back to home (such as
regulating heat in your Internet-House; or checking eMail accounts), and
constitutes a means to not feel isolated.> <Away from the known environment,
prancing in new surroundings, provides an unknown spatial experience in a
physical sense. Away from the known environment, immersed in online reality,
provides an unknown spatial experience in a conceptual sense.>

<Spatio-temporal experience and conceptualization have been the major
element of sculptural practice.> <SCULPTURE has evolved from an object-based
crafting to a form-related practice in time and space, embracing a wide
spectrum from social sculpture to installation works and fetishized objects
on plinths. For Joseph Beuys, for instance, creating form in a social
process was sculptural activity; for him, artistic activity aimed at
changing current understandings of art, society, and science - here, social
process is intrinsically an artistic configuration without particular site
but located in the interaction of human beings. Allan KaprowŒs Happenings
similarly brought together a socializing group which, more recently Rirkrit
Tiravanija extended to a more poignant political moment. These artistic
configurations relied on particular sites: the site of the Happening, or the
gallery space transformed into a temporary home. Franz Erhard Walther
understood his objects as works only when being worked with: activity and
object form a unified entity, which in turn point towards insights from
Physics.> <Time and space are an inseperable unit; consequently, activity
and object are ingredients of space-time existence.>

<Sculptural activity has strong presence in Art-in-public-places as physical
manifestations, temporary or intended to last, restricted to spatial
settings (cities, roads, land, water) and PUBLIC reactions (vandalism,
endorsement, opposition). The internet is a public space whose strongest
restrictions are not spatial or political borders but probably language
(hegemony of English) and financial backing (hardware, software, server).
Here, art can exist without impact on the spatially known enviroment of
people (but nonetheless be part of Public Art programmes, such as ³Hamburg
Ersatz³ by Christiane Dellbrügge and Ralf de Moll)(3).> <Any haptic spatial
experience is therefore limited to sitting, or standing, in front of a
mobile, or fixed, computer and peripheral machines. Online haptic experience
is relegated to a conceptualization of tactility; the eyes need to do the
work of skin. Furthermore, the spatial set-up of viewing art online is
usually restricted to the distance it needs for a viewer to reach a keyboard
and be able to decypher the screen (unless the work is being projected in a
gallery situation). Interaction is rather immobile, as viewers need some
form of technological gadget to make interaction possible, which in turn
requires physical close proximity to the gadget (at least for the time
being). By contrast, a viewer of sculptures in the offline world has several
viewing angles; a Richard Serra work such as the dismantled ³Tilted Arc³
provides a situation which sets up several spatial relationships, that are
physical, tactile and conceptual at once. The situation is, relatively
speaking, flexible and fluid. By contrast on the internet, this situation is
limited to fixed viewing angles and little tactile interaction.The
understanding of space is therefore a different one and, obviously,
net.artŒs intentions need to be, and are, different(4).>

<The internet, however, has sculptural form despite or because of its lack
of a centre.> <The placement of servers around the globe is a sculptural
installation. Ready accessability to a network has created a translocal
condition and shifted the understanding of centralized being. The immediate
home, urban or rural environment is connected to the potentially Everywhere,
but it needs the contact, the communication aspect, to actually establish
the networked Everywhere - then, it can become a visual extension of Here,
reaching out to There, making my location visible elsewhere; then, it helps
form social and political groupings. In doing so, the internet contributes
to an enhanced acceptability of MOBILE existences: mum and dad can see their
distant  offspring by viewing online photoalbums, emailing messages and so
forth. (Although, it rarely replaces an emotional desire of physical
proximity to a loved one, nor does it replace the usual desire for settling
down and staying put.) Social activity can now be conducted in social
isolation; it no longer requires physical proximity to humans - a process
which, in turn, centralizes the self.> <Net.art has been largely successful
in making this situation its topic: by highlighting the network visually; by
highlighting its technology; by utilizing its network; by employing the
viewer-userŒs active participation in the work. Yet I think, it hasnŒt
thrown the baton back to the viewer-users to refigure and ask themselves,
³Look at yourself³ (rather than ³Look at me³ and ³Look at this³ as it
usually asks). It hasnŒt produced a spatial situation that uses the
satellite existence of self as its premise to target oneŒs offline existence
on a base existential level.>

<Existence has sculptural form, because it is executed in a spatial
environment.> <The placement of urban or rural features; of objects in a
household; of furniture in a hotel room: they constitute sculptural
arrangements. LIFE, when lived with a minimum of self-reflection, is formed
in ways similar to an artefact. Art, on the other hand, can become an
operational tool for existence similar to a household object: by being less
of a representational device but more of a tool for self-reflection. As soon
as art assumes such a condition, it assumes material, sculptural quality.>
<Net.art, by assuming a conceptualizingly spatial role that operates as a
reflection tool for oneŒs existence, could then contribute to a physical
alteration in the experience of space.>



< LIFE MEASURE CONSTRUCTIONS > < LEE MARVIN TOOLBOX >

<The objectives for these TWO works were manifold. At first, I rather
innocently just wanted to create an online environment, more abstract than
imitating reality. Later, I wondered whether there is a means to create a
sculptural materiality online.> <Flash seemed to provide a visualization
tool that could replace the heavy text or photograph based work, that I had
seen online before.> <I wanted to avoid to produce another online version of
what I saw as a continuation of 70s Concept Art; but also wanted to create
something that did not look like website and design; something that lived by
its own rules.>

<³Life Measure Constructions³(5) evolved from sculptural practice.> <Objects
here are used as flexible configuration tools. Mostly abstract shapes, they
reflect on the relationship of objects for the construction of reality, as a
means to measure life, so to say. In this work, they can be placed in an
online ³allotment³ which becomes part of a stored landscape. Once stored it
can be changed by others, so that effectively, over the years the landscape
might change. Some of these stored configurations are called up when the
user accesses the work.> <As these graphic representations of objects are
movable, they have a sense of tactility via the hand moving the mouse, or
the fingers stroking the pad on a notebook. It is sculptural in the sense
that also these objects are moved around in a vaguely proper perspectival
view of imagined space, or IMAGINARY space.> <On screen a situation is
created that reflects spatiality and an individualŒs response; it also
reflects on an individualŒs behaviour towards givens: it could potentially
be vandalized.><To avoid the browser interface, the work uses a full screen
command.> 

<³Lee Marvin Toolbox³(6) was intentionally continuing from there: its small
window structure also deliberately avoids the browser interface.> <On the
other hand it develops a sculptural sense by opening as small items that can
be moved around on screen.> <It consists of several small components not
only in its visual structure, but also in the possibility to download its
fragments as standalone works of art, one pdf-eBook, one mp3, and nine
projector animation files.> <In subject matter, the work is dealing with
imaginary, EXISTENTIAL objects; the soundtrack, a re-recording of Lee
MarvinŒs ³Wanderin Star³, emphasizes an existence not fixed to a particular
location.> <Again space, and the construction of space, are being visually
conceptualized through specific forms available only in this medium.>



Footnotes:

(1) Bernd Guggenberger, Virtual City. Jetztzeitwesen in einer ³ortlosen³
Stadt, in: Ursula Keller (Ed.), Perspektiven metropolitaner Kultur,
Frankfurt/Main, 2000, pp.37-59, p.44.
(2) William J. Mitchell, Replacing Place, in: Peter Lunenfeld (Ed.), The
Digital Dialectic: New Essays on New Media, Cambridge/Mass., London, 2000,
pp.112-128.
(3) http://www.hamburg-ersatz.trmd.de
(4) Peter Weibel, Die virtuelle Stadt im telematischen Raum, in: Gotthard
Fuchs, Bernhard Moltmann, Walter Prigge, Mythos Metropole, Frankfurt/Main,
1995, pp.209-227, p.218
(5) http://www.lifemeasure.org
(6) http://www.leemarvintoolbox.net


sent by:
jorn.ebner@britishlibrary.net

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