TECHNOLOGY WILL LIBERATE US//
Lecture with Joanna GeldardREADING LIST:
//DIGITAL CURRENTS AND ART IN THE ELECTRONIC AGE, LOVEJOY
//THE WORK OF ART IN THE MECHANICAL REPRODUCTION (PENGUIN CLASSIC, ILIMINATIONS), WALTER BENJAMIN
//ART IN THE AGE OF MASS MEDIA, JOHN WALKER
//SIMULACRUM AND SIMULATIONS ,JOHN BAUDRILLARD (1981)
//Art and it's immergence with design.
Primarily looking at art to see where it is converged with design through technology.
What are possible new develops with our design practice with the aid of technology?
SUMMARY
//Techonological conditions can affect the collective consciousness.
//Technology trigger important change in cultural development.
//Walter Benjamin's essay 'The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction' (1936) significantly evaluates the role of technology through photography as an instrument of change. (RETROSPECTIVE IMPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND DESIGN, AND LOOKS FORWARD. PAST AND FUTURE REFLECTIONS. STILL AS SEMINAL WORK TODAY).
MATERIALISM//HOW IT AFFECTS THE WAY WE OPERATE AS A SOCIETY
TASK
- Draw a doodle
- Faithfully copy this
- And again...
- And again
* Walter Benjamin claims that copying become transforms (repetitions, etc) not necessarily the same as the original- distinct. Either a work in it's own right, or an image representation of the original. His evaluations of copying are essential in art, design and media to evaluate the relationship born from this "copy" scenario.
Who is imitating, who is reproducing?
Many artists and designers who use the reproduction method, and many critically discuss the use of repitition.
* Machine Age; Modernism
Walter Benjamin and the mechanical reproduction
* The age of technology and art.
* Parallel and specific to new developments; a duality expressing the zeitgeist (the spirit of the age is reflected in the modernist society).
* Dialectical (positions are taken over one idea) due to the copy, reproductive nature and the role of the original.
* The aura and uniqueness of art.
* Because of technology (emergence of technology) there is now such thing as "the original"- no need to think about originals and copies before the emergence of technology. It is only because of technology that we have to consider the original, it's uniqueness and the "aura"- the original remains distinctive no matter how many times it is faithfully reproduced or copied.
PHOTOGRAPHY
//The beginning of the technological relationship with art and design.
Graphic Design//RODCHENKO
JOHN BERGER//THE WAYS OF SEEING, Walter Benjamin, thought and critique of photography
1929 Man with a Movie Camera//image
The camera eye represents technological progress and it's faith in it//
KARL MARX
Maholy Nagy, 1926- series of photograms created//Spoons & Utensils. Photographic paper with objects on top, exposed to light.
Early experiments with photography and technology.
BENJAMIN- parallels, Freud and Marx (the economic of new political models- the value of a work of art, technology changes the value of a work of art)
* Photography has overturned the judgement seat of art- a fact which the discourse of modernism found hard to repress.
Consumerism can cause the value of reproductions to be changed. (Copies, reproductions add value- consumed as valuable) Distorted media and celebrity endorsement also increase value.
Marx foresaw this, he saw industrial revolution would lead to a larger consumption of art and design.
* Technology moves one thing into a different context, which alters value.
* Freud is the forerunner of Dada and Surrealism- the material aspects of technology, and what they offer us.
KINETICISM
- Capturing movement
PHOTOGRAPHY//Etienne-Joules Marey (photographer)
Chrono-photography, assess movement- the precursor to cinematography.
Measuring space, time and place in a technological age, and how we portray them.
Understanding these measures evaluate the dematerialisation of art.
Moving image moves away from form and moves into the realm of pure image- can be replicated, reproduced, and transformed.
With photography comes the dematerialisation of art and design- don't need to deal with an object at all.
RICHARD HAMILTON
(1922, collage and montage)
"Just what makes today's homes so different, so appealing?"
Collage to create image.
With technology, images and objects are ordered, coded and styled.
This is the beginning of the development of art and design merging together.
Art images are now part of graphics, textiles, fashion and advertising because of this merge.
Design increases throughout this period within art.
KARL MARX & TECHNOLOGY
* Associated with the term technological determinism. How technological determines the economical production factors and affects social conditions.
* Logical relationship between tech and how it affects social conditions and economics.
Technology and enterprise.
A tool for progress and also alienation.
DIALECTICAL ISSUES
* Technology drives history.
* Technology and the division of labour (how labour is divided in technological, machine age- not seeing their work through from the beginning to the end- this has an effect of separating us from creativity).
* Materialist view of history (linked technology with capitalism and production).
* Technology and capitalism and production.
* Social alienation of people from aspects of their human nature as a result of capitalism.
ELECTRONIC AGE; POSTMODERNISM
POST MODERN/POST MACHINE
* Many electric works were still made with the modern aesthetic.
* Emergence of information and conceptual based works.
* The computer a natural metaphor.
* A spirit of openess and industrial techniques.
* Collaborations between art and science (emerges out of technology, flows across boundaries of distinct forms of art and design. Technology allows you to shift one idea across to another context).
COLLABORATIONS BETWEEN ARTISTIC FORMS
* Douglas Rosenberg- Falling/Falling, Video Instillation (multimedia).
The emergence of video and multimedia work through this age, itself, becomes an object.
Text projections on cloth and body- just see the silhouette.
Deconstructivist style- material broken down through image, text and projections.
Feminist attitudes to breaking down and re-understanding the female body.
"TRUE MATERIALISM IS WHAT YOU LEARN, NOT WHAT YOU EARN"
SIMULATION AND SIMULACRUM
* It is the reflection of a profound reality.
* It masks and denatures a profound reality.
* It masks the absence of a profound reality (can become reality in it's own right).
* It has no relation to any reality whatsover; it is it's own pure simulacrum (what is virtual, and what is not? what is real, and what is understood as real).
- Claims that the copy of simulation, itself, becomes real.
- Art within art- copies and replications- is the digital work a work in it's own right?
BENJAMIN talks about society as an allusion of what is real- a structure and a system.
Fundamental innovations in thought and image which has crossed over with art and design.
In innovations where we cross dimensions.
NAM JUNE PAIK
* Innovative use of what is real/what isn't real?
* Views of panopticism- who has the position of power? The allusion of power.
JOHN WALKER AND ART AND MASS MEDIA
* Art uses mass media (1990-2000).
* Art in advertisements.
* The artist as media celebrity (Eg Andy Warhol- no longer just art, but now replicated for design purposes).
DIGITAL AGE/POST DIGITAL
MARGOT LOVEJOY; DIGITAL CURRENTS
* Digital potential leads to multimedia productions.
* Technological reduction of all images so they are addressed by the computer.
* New contexts created as a result.
THE HUMAN RACE MACHINE
* Morphing technology (utilised by FBI) examining characteristics in the human face by morphing.
MULTIMEDIA WORK
* Interactivity
* Performance
* Transdiscplinary
* Time, Space and Motion explored in art and as art
* Collaborations
HYPERREAL; REALITY BY PROXY
what is real, and how do we project with what is real?
CONCLUSION
* Art comments on the ideaology of every day life
* Art can be expressive of the progressive
* Technological tools can blue the line between art works and commercial design production (lines are blurred)
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