Notes (Ongoing)
Through massive accumulation, abundance and accessibility created are structures that allow us to define static content, digital images for example, through accelerated measures. In other words, the language and systems circumscribing the internet are based on notions of speed and rapidness, working only on a progressive scale; downloading can only get faster and faster, Google search results must get to us quicker and quicker, etc.
While generally the actual content we consume and disseminate can understood to be “slow” static entities, in that a digital image or news article are fixed when experienced, the process of acquiring, seeking and distributing such content takes place in transitory space, and also seem to be based, on three consumptive modes, which implicate the perception and initiation of acceleration specifically within a network. They are:
1. Accessibility – Content must be ready and available to consume for little to no cost.
2. Abundance – Content must be available in large quantities, from various sources.
3. Accumulation – Content must continually aggregate and refresh, always to be replaced with more.
Example 1.
Let’s say we are looking for information regarding Leonardo Da Vinci. Finding his biography, ideas, translated texts, paintings, etc. proves to be considerably quicker, easier and more cost effective to find on the internet than it were, an art history class, bookstore, library or even museum. These latter resources are slower to acquire, navigate, afford, find and attend because they are “limited” to a tangible reality, i.e. one must have enough money to purchase the Da Vinci monograph, to enroll in a class, or perhaps the museum is too far away and one doesn’t have time to make the commute, etc. The language surrounding the internet then achieves it’s speedy applications from a quality, unknown to a physical reality —just as an offline reality contains qualities unknown to an online one.
We can observe then that acceleration on the internet, both described perceptively through language, as well as enacted quite literally through algorithmically determined, fast download, upload, search, share times, is specifically determined through one of the three cyclical modes of consumption, previously mentioned: Accessibility.
Accessibility
The first consumptive mode responds to an availability of content, or information. That is, something must be in view, wanted, desired, etc. in order for it be procured or sought after. For an accelerated pace to perpetuate and sustain itself, this availability of content must be obtained for a small, or next to none, cost. This mode of access seems to be most crucial in establishing a rapid pace of content consumption, and is what distinguishes itself from the “slowness” of a physical reality.
To be continued…
- Digital media, such as images, videos, .gifs, etc. are slow in that at the moment of experience they don’t move, they are fixed for consumption. However, such media is obviously transitory as well, seeing that one can download, upload, link and generally distribute such content throughout a network with ease.
- First, the internet is physical and therefore it too, is limited by a tangible, physical space through its storage and maintenance. These are our servers, cables, wifi devices, desktop/laptop computers and the monetized cost of electricity. Such materiality is often forgettable when we talk about computing and the internet, and perhaps rightly so. With this physicality in mind though, we can observe the way content is aggregated online, that being in an up to down, down to up fashion, a reference again, to a type of acceleration or flow, in this case a stream, or a river, however, these intrinsicies are largely informed by the motion of the human hand, more specifically a gesture of the finger. The mouse and scroll button are designed to intuitively and comfortably consolidate these up to down navigations, while horizontal movement of the finger proves to be naturally awkward and inefficient and thus the endless vertical scroll becomes what is most “naturally” productive, and quintessential of online surfing. Offline, in physical space, our relationship and understanding of art (viewing and installation), is literally less narrow.
- Oppositely, it’s interesting how video for example, a more “active” medium slows things down, especially through the interfaces it exists through on the internet (even in a technical context, it always exists inconveniently through third-party plugins). There is always a play button that requires a click to get things rolling and even then there is significantly more time investment on part of the viewer, arguably more than what an image and certainly what a .gif may ask for. Trecartin’s Riverofthe.net attempts to tap into these hyper accelerated spaces, and does so of course, not with images but with his favorite medium, video. Intentionally confronting the visitor with an automatically playing full screen video (abandoning the interface) and imposing limitations with a 10 second upload rule, a frenzied narrative is supposedly born through user participation. The encouragement of chance through the use of a three tag limit declaration creates an array of juxtapositions, and the 10 second upload rule allows for all the fast paced “edits”—following closely in vein to Trecartin’s own trademark productions.
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- Visits to the museum are often confronted with the impulse to see as much artwork as we can within a constrained period of time. A certain fear presents itself; the anxiety of knowing we might not ever get another opportunity to visit again. This seems to leave us with little time spent with the art we were afraid of missing in the first place.
- A kind of authority or legitimization is exemplified through museum, gallery and white walled spaces, in such a way that a visitor foreign to its context will allow themselves the satisfaction in knowing they got to see ‘Important Art’. This contentment is passive, as it often produces a lack of criticality, questioning and investigation. Is this what lends art to existing as a crossed off item on a checklist as opposed to a commitment?
- Excitement in seeing our favorite painting, sculpture, etc. is met not with the thrill of its contained content but with an impulse to satisfy a desire in seeing “something important”, seeing “our favorite”, etc.
- If understanding and appreciating art takes more than just a quick glance, warranting more contemplation and time investment from the viewer, then it could also be fair to conclude that museums are not the place to immerse oneself in art’s content. Sneaking attempts to snap photos, while making rounds through large crowds only seem to solidify a proof of purchase experience we long for in satisfying our own authenticity—though this type of digital validation can be observed universally and is not specific to the museum or gallery experience.
- This developed type of behavior, this crunch for time and picture as proof, is the product of many things, but the locations of these institutions must be taken into some account. Major museums tend to be located in major cities and countries and access to such may be widely limited to people situated outside of these places. For a museum or gallery trip to materialize, a generous amount of time and money is required from an individual, something many people simply can’t afford. Access and time is afforded by those who have the privilege in acquiring it; the effort to see art is not a priority.
- Using Plato’s Forms* for grounding, we can conclude that the ‘conversation’ elicited by an artwork is still clearly resonant after a museum or gallery visit. That is, every encounter with an artwork comes a need to cognitively or emotionally connect to it, on both a rational and irrational plane. It is through the anxiety of ‘never knowing when one will see this object again’ that an experience becomes engulfed in information extraction and appreciation; notes are taken, wall text is read, and it is post-visit that further research and understanding is initiated and sought after. Therefore, the content of an artwork, its ideas, its questions, etc. are carried out internally through a reinforcement of dialogue continued by documentation, historical/theoretical text, the internet, etc. It seems that with time, these ideas, feelings and ephemera extracted from the artwork replace it altogether, for the dialogue itself becomes the most accessible vessel through which engagement is granted an infinite number of times. An artwork’s physical existence is stifled under what it signifies. This observation of course speaks nothing to the relational qualities of exhibition space and objects as well as the value found in the translation of works from both online to offline and vice versa. More of this will be explored in a later essay.
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For example, the artwork, “Untitled” (Perfect Lovers) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres is a work consisting of two clocks on a wall set to the same time, but over time, slowly become out of synch with one another. It’s documentation and dispersal through a network, provides me with the opportunity to see, appreciate and attempt to understand its content without ever seeing it in person. I can spend as much time as I want with it undisturbed, without crowds, without time being the ball and chain to my visit. I also don’t have to feel self-conscious in front of the work because I now wouldn’t be blocking someone’s view if I stood to think a minute more. The desire to view the work in a physical context is lessened because of its infinite availability to me. This availability or access, i.e. the digital documentation of it, doesn’t destroy the integrity of its content, but destroys its necessity to exist in a physical form. In short, I don’t necessarily need to see the work offline because I have everything I need to enjoy and appreciate it provided to me already.
* An artwork, for example, is a sign that signifies a concept or idea. Through a mutated understanding of Plato’s Forms we can understand the physical manifestation of an artwork to represent merely the temporary existence of an idea. An artwork then becomes a vessel, or medium through which communication is extracted and language is made possible.
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Blind Mist is defined by its dual existences as both perpetual performance and tool for discovery. It’s interesting to approach the website in these two ways:
to assume the role of spectator, opting for hypnosis, watching images endlessly generate, or the other, the route of internet surfing, always in preparation to click the mouse for the advancement of more content, thus creating an endless discovery of “even more and more”. This first approach takes on a Dump.fm, Riverofthe.net and even Jogging kind of feel, platforms that don’t necessarily require direct participation, in that one can always just watch content flood in. The latter though, the participatory surf, requires two types of engagement:
1) The necessity and desire to click on images in order to access more content.
and
2) The reminder that someone must always be submitting more and more content to keep the system running.
These types of participation are motivated by a type of inquiry, or discovery, like Niko Princen’s A Sequence of Steps; one must commit to in order to collect. With Blind Mist, you choose to enter into a zone you have no direct control over, separating it from websites likeStumble Upon (required membership, preference filters, etc.). It mimics the “deep surf” i.e. link to link website hopping, in that it’s a seemingly unpredictable process, only with Blind Mist the user is able to contribute to the experience and the images don’t all exist in the art context, but, arguably within the ‘social sphere’.