Artists have always been quick to utilize new technology. From the printing press to the airbrush, scientific advancement has led to the creation of new tools for creativity. In exchange artists provide scientists with the conceptual tools enabling them to continue making the discoveries that lead to technological advancement. And so the wheel turns.
In the 21st century we rely heavily on complex technologies such as the Internet in just about every sphere of our existence. So it’s fitting that the first Global story of 2006 will use some of that mind-bending technology to inform you of what’s happening at the cutting edge of contemporary art.
An attempt to cover the full spectrum of high-tech activities that fall under the arts umbrella is as likely to succeed as a stick-insect trying to break-dance across the Sahara Desert. It’s too big a task. Instead, here’s a sneak preview of three artists/artist collectives working in very different terrain, revealing some of the most innovative ways artists are using technology to realize their vision.
One of the most exciting ways technology has benefited the arts is by increasing opportunities for interaction. In recent decades the pipe dream of falling into and becoming immersed in the world of a painting has been getting closer to reality through the development of interactive media. Renowned London-based artist-group Blast Theory is skewing boundaries of perception even further by creating games that are played online in a virtual city, and on the streets of an actual city, at the same time.
In Uncle Roy All Around You ‘online players and street players collaborate to find Uncle Roy’s office…before being invited to make a year long commitment to a total stranger.’ It sounds trippy and it is. Street players, who have to pay to ‘enter’ the game, are given a handheld computer, which they then use to send and receive messages to online players who help them follow the clues that will lead them to Uncle Roy’s office. Online players can follow street players’ movements in an exact model of the real-space environment accessible via the Internet.
For both online and street participants Blast Theory’s description of the game-play is reminiscent of an old Orson Welles movie, or even the acclaimed but seriously strange existentialist TV series The Prisoner, circa 1967. Near the end of the game, street players are asked a series of questions leading to a proposition: ‘Somewhere in the game there is a stranger who is also answering these questions. Are you willing to make a commitment to that person that you will be available for them if they have a crisis? The commitment will last for 12 months and, in return, they will commit to you for the same period.’
The game’s creators say it ‘investigates some of the social changes brought about by ubiquitous mobile devices, persistent access to a network and location aware technologies.’ If nothing else it is certainly a novel way of rediscovering the city you live in.
The rediscovery and reappraisal of things we take for granted is the raison d’être for New York collective Amorphic Robot Works (ARW). Formed in 1992 this multi-talented group of artists, engineers and technicians works to create robotic performances and installations that attempt ‘to uncover the primacy of movement and sound.’
Managing Director, March Ruch, says: ‘as there is a beauty and elegance in movement itself, there is equally potent an experience in watching a machine (human or organic in form), struggling to stand, attempting to throw a rock, or playing a drum. These primal activities, when executed by machines, evoke a deep and sometimes emotional reaction.’
ARW’s back catalogue of more than 100 interactive and computer-controlled human and abstract machines, includes the Foetus to Man clock, featuring a larger than life-size bronze figure of a man whose arms act as the hour hand. As the hour progresses to twelve, the man moves from a foetal position to stand fully erect. The sculptural timepiece was commissioned by the City of Lille in France, where it is currently on display.
Someone who shares ARW’s appreciation and enthusiasm for robotic art is Eduardo Kac, although he is better known for creating Alba, a bunny rabbit that doubles as a torch. In the late nineties Kac, (pronounced Katz), pioneered transgenic art.
However, Kac achieved his greatest notoriety and acclaim in 2000 when he injected the reproductive cell of a bunny rabbit with the green fluorescent protein (GFP) that had been discovered by scientists in 1990. Although injecting it with GFP, extracted from a phosphorescent jellyfish, had no effect on the bunny behaviourally or morphologically, it meant that when exposed to certain blue light, Alba would glow fluorescent green.
Perhaps surprisingly some of the biggest critics of Kac’s work have been scientists who argue that his disregard for the ethics that govern genetic research has put the continuation of their own work in jeopardy. Be that as it may, Kac’s brand of artworks making use of cutting edge science and technology has been exhibited worldwide, helping to stimulate and nourish public debate.
In 2004 when the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota hosted the gene(sis) exhibition, featuring work by Kac, the museum described its aim as ‘to encourage public discourse and cultivate a deeper understanding of genomics and its relationship to contemporary culture and life.’ In curating the exhibition, University of Washington’s Henry Art Gallery Curator, Robin Held didn’t just engage with artists. Over the course of the three and a half years it took to pull the exhibits together, Held had extensive contact with scientists, including senior staff working on the Human Genome Project.
Perhaps in the future the distinctions between science, technology and art will be no more than a figment of our virtual imagination.
