MEDIALITEIT / MEDIALITY | jrg./Vol. 32 (2011) nr. 3  for English, please see below
Het medium heeft een eigen agenda De titel van dit nummer, Medialiteit, verwijst naar de gecompliceerde status van artistieke media. De vanzelfsprekendheid waarmee de Schone Kunsten werden afgebakend, heeft in de loop van de twintigste eeuw plaatsgemaakt voor discoursen waarin artistieke media telkens opnieuw worden benoemd, bewapend en bevochten. Het definiëren van artistieke media hangt immers nauw samen met het in- en uitsluiten van kunstvormen en heeft dus gevolgen voor carrières en canons. Deze dynamiek trad in de negentiende eeuw aan het licht met de opkomst van de fotografie en bereikte een voorlopig hoogtepunt in het Amerikaans modernisme van de jaren 1950 en 1960. De ideologie van mediumspecificiteit, die kunstenaars aanzette tot het werken vanuit de intrinsieke ‘logica’ van het gebruikte medium, werd vervolgens ontmanteld. Zo beschouwde John Baldessari het medium als een middel (een van de letterlijke betekenissen van het woord) om een idee zo goed mogelijk vorm te geven. Rosalind Krauss benadrukte dat een enkel of gecombineerd medium een specifieke betekenis kan krijgen wanneer de kunstenaar het doelbewust toepast.
Om vat te krijgen op het almaar complexere mediabegrip benaderen kunstenaars en academici media steeds vaker aan de hand van het concept ‘intermedialiteit’. Ginette Verstraete laat in haar overzichtsartikel zien hoe intermedialiteit in verschillende vakgebieden wordt toegepast om culturele artefacten vanuit een brede invalshoek te bestuderen. De precieze uitgangspunten en bevindingen verschillen echter aanzienlijk per discipline, met als resultaat een waaier aan onderzoekingen naar de begrenzingen, de uitwisseling en de geschiedenis van media. De artikelen in dit nummer wortelen in deze rijke theoretische voedingsbodem, maar brengen vooral de concrete implicaties van verschillende media in kaart. Artistieke media zijn geen aanwijsbare zaken, maar tijd- en cultuurgebonden begrippen die verwijzen naar materialen, technieken, kunstwerken en naar weer andere ideële constructen zoals geschiedenis. Toch kan worden verondersteld dat artistieke media in een pure vorm bestaan en dat zij kunnen worden toegepast, gecombineerd, ingekapseld of getransformeerd tot een nieuw medium. Zo doet Laurence Schmidlin verslag van de kruisbestuiving van de teken- en beeldhouwkunst in de jaren 1960 en 1970. Hieruit blijkt dat kunstenaars zochten naar nieuwe vrijheden ten opzichte van een historische mediumspecificiteit. Ook toont Schmidlin hoe kunsthistorici en -critici verschillende media aanwendden om een begrippenapparaat te vormen. Roel Griffioen behandelt een meer manipulatief gebruik van media in zijn artikel over Le Corbusiers Vers une architecture. Hij toont aan dat Le Corbusier fotografische beelden selectief en stelselmatig inzette om 'zuivere' architectuur te verbreiden. Het vermogen van fotografie om een waarheidsgetrouw beeld te produceren komt verder aan bod in Jens Schröters artikel over referentiality. Sommige hedendaagse kunstenaars laten verschillende media bewust en openlijk wringen om daarmee de perceptie van de beschouwer te beïnvloeden. Tanja von Dahlern analyseert een recent videowerk van Gerard Byrne waarin geschreven tekst, video en re-enactment samenkomen. Zij laat zien hoe Byrnes gebruik van verschillende media leidt tot een gelaagde mis-adaptation van een futurologisch kringgesprek dat in 1963 plaatsvond. Daniël van der Poel onderzoekt het videokunstwerk Immersion van Harun Farocki. Het werk draait om Virtual Iraq, een geavanceerde computersimulatie die getraumatiseerde soldaten door middel van herbelevingen leert omgaan met hun oorlogservaringen. Immersion tart het realiteitsbesef van de kijker middels een misleidende montage van ‘virtuele’ en ‘echte’ beelden. Een artistiek medium kan worden ingezet voor doeleinden die verder losstaan van kunstzinnige overwegingen. Leen Bedaux doet verslag van de implicaties van mail art, een kunststroming rond het medium van poststukken. Gedurende de Koude Oorlog stelde mail art kunstenaars in staat om geopolitieke krachten te ontwijken en in relatieve vrijheid een netwerk te vormen. Een medium kan tevens zelf veranderen onder de druk van het krachtenveld dat de kunstenaar tracht te beïnvloeden. Sami Siegelbaum beschrijft de politiek die schuilgaat achter de protestposters die in mei 1968 de muren van Parijs bedekten. De posters komen voort uit de behoefte aan een vorm van ongemedieerde communicatie die de bestaande sociale en ruimtelijke infrastructuur ontstijgt. De kunstenaarsbijdrage is ditmaal van Gert Jan Kocken. In een uitgebreid interview gaat hij in op de totstandkoming en betekenis van zijn werk. Hij gebruikt fotografie om onderwerpen uit verschillende tijden en plaatsen bijeen te brengen. Zo creëert hij constellaties van overwegend documentaire beelden rondom historische keerpunten. Deze beelden zijn niet eenduidig, maar verschaffen verschillende, vaak onverenigbare gezichtspunten op beslissende gebeurtenissen, waaronder de Beeldenstorm en de atoombomaanvallen op Japan. Daniël van der Poel
Jesse van Winden
The medium has an agenda of its own The title of this issue, Mediality, refers to the complex state of artistic media. In the course of the twentieth century, the ostensibly self-evident demarcation of the Fine Arts made place for a variety of discourses that repeatedly defined, armed, and disputed artistic media. The practice of defining media implies subsequent processes of inclusion and exclusion, and therefore yields consequences for careers and canons. These dynamics became apparent during the rise of photography in the nineteenth century, and reached a provisional apex in the 1950s and 1960s in American modernism. The ideology of medium-specificity, which urged artists to work from the intrinsic 'logic' of the chosen medium, was debunked. John Baldessari, for instance, approached the medium as a means (one of the literal meanings of the word) to best give form to an idea. Rosalind Krauss stressed that a single or combined medium can obtain a meaning of its own when applied purposefully.Artists and scholars are increasingly employing the concept of ‘intermediality’ as an entry point into the contemporary entangled domains of artistic media. Ginette Verstraete shows how intermediality is being used within various disciplines to explore cultural artefacts from different angles. However, the specific principles and results vary considerably per field, resulting in a wide spectrum of research into the demarcations, exchange, and history of media. The articles in this issue are rooted in this fertile theoretical soil, but above all they shed a light on the concrete implications of different media. Rather than tangible objects, artistic media are concepts embedded within historical and cultural contexts. They refer to materials, techniques, and works of art, and to other ideal constructs such as history. Still, we can presuppose that artistic media exist in some pure form, and that they can be applied, combined, encapsulated or transformed into new media. Laurence Schmidlin’s account of the exchange between drawing and sculpture in the 1960s and 1970s, testifies of artists’ explorations into new terrain beyond a historical medium-specificity. Schmidlin goes on to show how art historians and critics employed various media to realize a novel vocabulary. Roel Griffioen discusses a more manipulative use of media in his article on Le Corbusier's Vers une architecture. He points out that Le Corbusier instrumentalized photographic images selectively and repetitively to advance his allegedly pure architecture. Jens Schröter's article on referentiality further investigates photography's capacity to produce a truthful image. Some contemporary artists intentionally and overtly generate friction within or between media(, in order to influence the viewer’s perception). Tanja von Dahlern analyses a recent video work by Gerard Byrne, in which written text, video, and re-enactment collide. She shows how Byrne’s use of different media results in a layered mis-adaptation of a futurological roundtable discussion held in 1963. Daniël van der Poel investigates Immersion, a video installation by Harun Farocki. The work centres on Virtual Iraq, an advanced computer simulation that helps traumatised soldiers deal with their war experiences by having them relive traumatic events. Immersion challenges the viewers’ sense of reality by means of a deceptive montage of ‘virtual’ and ‘real’ imagery. An artistic medium can also be employed for objectives that are not necessarily artistic themselves. Leen Bedaux reports on the implications of Mail Art, an artistic movement that used postal items as its medium. During the Cold War Mail Art enabled artists to evade geopolitical forces, allowing them to form a network within an environment of relative freedom. Vice versa, media themselves can change under pressure of the very force field an artist is intending to influence. Sami Siegelbaum delves into the politics behind the protest posters that lined the Parisian streets in May 1968. The posters emerged from the desire for a type of unmediated communication that could transcend the existing social- and spatial infrastructure. This issue’s featured artist is Gert Jan Kocken. In an elaborate interview he discusses the creation and signification of his work. Kocken uses photography to compile motives originating from different times and spaces. He creates constellations of mostly documentary images that revolve around historical turning points. These images are ambivalent and generate multiple, often incompatible perspectives on decisive events, such as the sixteenth-century iconoclasm or the nuclear attacks on Japan. On behalf of the editorial board we would like to thank the authors and artists involved for their efforts in putting together this new bilingual issue of Kunstlicht. Daniël van der PoelJesse van Winden
Geselecteerde artikelen / Featured articles Interview met Gert Jan Kocken / Interview with Gert Jan Kocken De kunstenaarsbijlage werd verzorgd door Gert Jan Kocken. Daniël van der Poel (Vrije Universiteit, destijds hoofdredacteur Kunstlicht) ging met hem in gesprek over het gebruik van fotografie in zijn historisch-politieke werk. ‘Door middel van fotografie kan ik iets laten zien zonder dat het medium afleidt van het eigenlijke onderwerp.’ lees het volledige interview met Gert Jan Kocken hier This issue’s featured artist is Gert Jan Kocken. Daniël van der Poel (VU University Amsterdam, retiring editor of Kunstlicht) conversed with him about the use of photography in his historic-political work. ‘By means of photography I can show anything without the medium distracting from the actual subject.’ read the full interview with Gert Jan Kocken here (Dutch)Sami Siegelbaum: Authentic mediation. Art, media, and public space in May ‘68 Tijdens de studentenopstanden in Parijs, in mei 1968, bezetten demonstranten een universiteitsdrukkerij. Ze doopten het om tot het Atelier Populaire, en de politieke posters die daar werden gedrukt worden vaak gezien als emblematisch voor de periode. Siegelbaum laat zien hoe deze posters ten onrechte een reputatie hebben gekregen van onmiddellijke en authentieke overdracht van nieuws en ideeën. lees het volledige artikel hier (Engels) During the Paris students’ revolts of May 1968 protesters occupied a print studio. The witty political posters that were produced by Atelier Populaire are often seen as emblematic for the period. Siegelbaum shows how these posters have inaccurately gained a reputation of immediate and authentic transmission of news and ideas. Roel Griffioen: Imaging purity. The rhetoric of the photographic image in Le Corbusier’s Vers une architecture Le Corbusier begreep al vroeg hoe de mogelijkheden van fotografie aan te wenden waren om zijn ideeën over architectuur over de hele wereld bekend te maken. Een van de mogelijkheden was ze te fingeren. Roel Griffioen laat zien hoe de ontologische relatie tussen het beeld en het object is veranderd na het rethorische gebruik van fotografie in Le Corbusiers belangrijke werk Vers une architecture. read the full article here (Engels) Le Corbusier quickly understood and instrumentalized the possibilities of photograpy, in order to make his ideas on architecture known all over the world. Among which, modifying them. Roel Griffioen shows how the ontological relationship between the image and the object has changed after rhetorical use of the photography in Le Corbusier's key publication Vers une architecture. read the full article here Samenvattingen / English abstracts Leen Bedaux Mail Art. Een sociaal netwerk voor de kunst Mail Art. A social network for the arts Mail Art is a 1970s art movement that involved visual artists, performance artists, writers, poets and curators. It was initiated by people who disregarded the prevailing artistic conventions and started to send parcels and stencilled art publications around the world by post. Mail Art was a fundamentally innovative organisation mode which allowed participants to breach the barriers that divided Western and Eastern Europe. Bedaux suggests that Mail Art can be seen as a precursor to the present digital networks because it was a system that was publicly accessible and its aim was to give everyone the opportunity to express themselves. It was also a democratic system of communication in the sense that it strove for the equality of sender and receiver. Bedaux analyses Mail Art’s potential and context citing two examples from the manifestation I am (International Artist Meeting) which was held in 1978 in Warsaw. Finally, he deals extensively with the views expressed by Ulises Carrión (whose views differed from some of his fellow artists) regarding the struggle between Mail Art and the forces of society which he dubbed the Monster. Tanja von Dahlern Revisiting the future. Strategies of transformation in Gerard Byrne’s 1984 and Beyond 1984 and Beyond (2005-2007) is a work by video artist Gerard Byrne showing a literally transferred re-enactment of a roundtable conversation on the future originally published in 1963 by Playboy. As opposed to most adaptations in a new medium, 1984 and Beyond does not conceal its derived nature. The actors struggle to express in a natural way the lines that were originally edited from spoken language to fit the written medium, and being Dutch, all do so with a distinct accent. To speak about the future through a variety of anachronisms brings to the fore an intricate dialogue between past and future, mediated by a layered artwork that evaporates any sense of the present. Von Dahlern uses this case to show how a disrupted viewing experience directs attention to the functioning of the different media and the transformation process. Thus, reuse and transformation changes the character of the source material and dominates the formal aspects of the adaptation. Roel Griffioen Imaging purity. The rhetoric of the photographic image in Le Corbusier’s Vers une architecture
In the 1920s, photography played a crucial role in the construction and promotion of modern architecture. Evolving printing technology and distribution infrastructure, combined with the internationalization of intellectual and cultural discourses, gave photographic representations of architecture an advantage over architecture itself. It allowed ‘the cathedral [to leave] its site to be received in the studio of an art lover,’ as Walter Benjamin remarked. What effect did this have on the ontological relationship between the image and the object? By analysing Vers une architecture (1923), arguably Le Corbusier’s most important book and indisputably a key document in the historiography of the Modern Movement, Griffioen shows how the architect-author skilfully mobilized photography to establish the ideal of a ‘pure’ architecture. Griffioen uses this case to explore the question whether architectural photography functioned as a pedestal to showcase the actual architecture or in fact demote the building to an appendix of the image. Daniël van der Poel Shell-shocked again and again. Regarding Harun Farocki’s Immersion Immersion (2009) is a twenty-minute video by Harun Farocki which shows a psychologists’ workshop held in 2009. In the workshop, therapists demonstrated Virtual Iraq, a therapeutic computer simulation that helps Iraqi war veterans to recover from PTSD. Virtual Iraq allows a patient to relive critical experiences in an immersive virtual reality while a therapist provides verbal guidance. Immersion’s complex two-channel montage consists of scenes set in the actual workshop (where therapists role-played Virtual Iraq sessions) and in Virtual Iraq (as seen by a ‘patient’). These two diegeses are often juxtaposed which tends to frustrate the viewer’s immersion in either of them. Using Bolter and Grunsin’s medium-oriented concepts of immediacy and hypermediacy, Van der Poel identifies how and when Immersion variously ‘pulls in’ and ‘pushes out’ the viewer. However, he finds that the empathic relations between the viewer and the various actors present within Immersion create affects which interfere with the medium’s effects. A subsequent, more detailed analysis of Immerion’s diegeses and actors points to Farocki’s deliberate use of both effect and affect in order to confuse the viewer’s perception of reality and fictitiousness. Van der Poel considers this confusion a starting point for further exploring Virtual Iraq’s curious interlacing of war, videogames and psychotherapy. Viewed as such, Immersion fits with Farocki’s other recent works which deal with the way computer image technology gradually influences man’s view of himself and his surroundings.
Jens Schröter Analogue/digital. Referentiality and intermediality Schröter challenges the dichotomy between so-called reality and manipulation that underpins the ongoing debate on the authenticity of the (digital) photographic image. He argues that this dichotomy is based on two false assumptions: that there is such a thing as an ‘untouched’ image that truthfully represents reality, and that manipulating an image will remove it from reality. Citing examples from the fields of astronomy and physics, he demonstrates how photographic images in science are manipulated precisely because this increases their referentiality – that is, the way an image points to a fact in reality in a comprehendible manner. Thus, the claim that analogue photography is more ‘truthful’ because of its rather strict causality (as opposed to digital photography which allows for easily manipulation) is flawed. The very need for manipulation can also be deduced from the fact that a photograph, analogue or digital, needs to be made in a specific manner and under certain circumstances in order to effectively represent an aspect of reality (e.g. it should not be underexposed, overexposed, blurred, et cetera). Schröter points out that regardless of these shared characteristics of analogue and digital photography, the technology and manner of circulation differ between them. In many cases, photographic referentiality requires additional textual contextualizing which ties the two types of photography to certain discursive practices and thus to historical and social conditions.
Sami Siegelbaum Authentic mediation
Laurence Schmidlin The intermediality of drawing. Towards a theory of reception? The artistic discipline of drawing has seen a major accumulation of forms and usage since the 1960s. No longer confined to the support of paper, nor even necessarily to the act of inscribing, the notion of ‘drawing’ has come to be manifested indexically as well as metaphorically. Schmidlin shows how drawing has been historically reframed to an intermedial category, initially as a function of an overall shift towards a reinforced consciousness of space. This implied a detachment from the traditional material configuration of the medium, and at the same time, an aperture onto an infinite blow-up of the appropriate size of a drawing. Such works aren’t merely drawings but also show sculptural features, while sometimes the sculpturality of a work overrules its influences from drawing. Schmidlin explores the reception of these changes and detects a broadening of the usage of the medial category to the point where ‘drawing’ seems to be used as an allusion. Not only the historical development, but also the critical discourse, has left and continues to leave its mark on what we perceive as drawing.
Ginette Verstraete Intermedialities. A brief survey of conceptual key issues Intermediality refers to the various interrelations between and within the arts and media. While the term is associated with media studies, Verstraete argues that most research in the field of intermediality is conducted in closely related fields such as literary studies, art history, and philosophy. Intermediality allows researchers in these fields to deal with (digital) media that cross or fall in-between traditional disciplinary borders. Verstraete provides on overview of eight principles that shed light on the meaning and application of intermediality within such diverse fields of study. These principles are: i) medium versus intermediality, ii) relation to disciplinary topics, iii) disciplinary historiography of intermediality, iv) geographical historiography of intermediality, v) intermediality versus multimediality versus transmediality, vi) political implications of intermediality, vii) plurality of intermediality.
Context
Extended Drawing, Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht  foto: Peter Cox / BonnefantenmuseumUntil January 15th, Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht shows Extended Drawing. The exhibition is concerned with the reciprocal approach of the painterly and drawing media, a theme that has proved to be more natural in practice than in theory, as Laurence Schmidlin relays in her article 'The Intermediality of Drawing. Towards a Theory of Reception?'. Extended Drawing shows works by Sol Lewitt, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra and Robert Mangold. All four artists have explicitly addressed the meaning of artistic media in their work. The Bonnefantenmuseum shows a number or quotes on the walls. read the full quotes here Recensie fotografiefestival The Second Act / Review photography festival The Second Act Onlangs vond in Vlaams Cultuurhuis de Brakke Grond The Second Act plaats, een festival met een tentoonstelling en activiteiten waarin op zoek wordt gegaan naar vernieuwende manieren om fotografie te begrijpen: het bevroren beeld als ambachtelijk proces, als onderdeel van een transitionele gebeurtenis en geschiedenis, als vermomd theater. Hierbij wordt opvallend vaak juist gebruik gemaakt van andere media en bewegend beeld, zodat er via de omtrekkende beweging van 'fotografische' associaties een beter beeld kan ontstaan van de aanleiding en de implicaties van dat fotografische. Kunstlichtredacteur Jesse van Winden schreef voor Metropolis M een lovende recensie van dit inzichtelijke festival.  Recently, a festival called The Second Act took place in Amsterdam's Vlaams Cultuurhuis de Brakke Grond. A manifestation with an exhibition and activities in which progressive modes of rethinking photography are displayed: the frozen image as a process of manipulations, skills and circumstances, as part of a transitional series of events and histories, as theater in disguise. Often, different media and moving images are used to discover what it means to work 'photographically', and so giving a scope of an 'expanded photography'. For Metropolis M, Kunstlicht editor Jesse van Winden recently wrote a favourable review of this insightful event. |
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Adres |
Kunstlicht |
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ISSN |
0921-5026 |
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Bank |
5859646 |