Han Hoogerbrugge

dynamo
Curated by Valentina Tanni and Domenico Quaranta
Online exhibition organized as part of the event epi-démia: tre giorni di arte contemporanea a Palazzo Nuovo. Torino, Palazzo Nuovo, October 11 – 13, 2004.

epi-demia.org

dynamo è una rassegna di progetti in rete che intende verificare alcune declinazioni del concetto di contaminazione. Un concetto forse fin troppo generico, dato che l’arte, da sempre, è contaminata o contaminante. E la net art ancora di più. Ha detto il duo olandese Jodi.org nel 1997: “C’è questo slogan hacker: ‘Amiamo i vostri computer’. Anche noi entriamo nei computer della gente. E avere accesso al computer di qualcuno ci onora. Sei molto vicino a una persona quando sei sul suo desktop.” A 7 anni da quella storica dichiarazione, il senso dell’arte in rete è tutto qui.
Per questo, non è facile selezionare questa o quella declinazione del concetto di contaminazione. Ne abbiamo scelte tre, che ruotano attorno ai concetti di “genere”, di “virus” e di “disciplina”. Il primo e il secondo termine non esigono troppe spiegazioni: si tratta, rispettivamente, dell’ibridazione tutta postmoderna tra generi e livelli espressivi e della contaminazione informatica per eccellenza, quella dei bug che infestano la rete. Quanto alla terza categoria, la net art ha dimostrato lungo tutta la sua vicenda una grande disponibilità a ibridarsi con altri saperi specifici, e con altre categorie di attività: la politica, l’attivismo, l’economia, il diritto, le biotecnologie, il marketing, lo spionaggio… Abbiamo pescato nel mucchio, e ne è uscito il pesce più strano, quello che raramente ha avuto occasione di combinarsi con ciò che normalmente intendiamo per arte.
[Domenico Quaranta & Valentina Tanni]

>>> “genere”

Han Hoogerbrugge: Hotel (2004 – ongoing)
http://www.hoteloscartangoecholima.com/
Hotel è un filmato interattivo in flash, che ha come protagonista un Dottore esaltato ed evidentemente schizofrenico. Il Dottore gestisce una clinica privata che sottopone i suoi pazienti, rigorosamente volontari, a una serie di curiosi – e pericolosi – esperimenti, volti a verificare le conseguenze che i “freak accidents”, gli incidenti inaspettati, hanno sulla nostra psiche. Hotel ci guida nei labirinti dell’ospedale, e in quelli della psiche del Dottore, attraverso una serie di episodi allucinati, che mescolano l’estetica del fumetto psichedelico degli anni Settanta, la comicità slapstick e un gusto fortemente pittorico nel bianco e nero generale in cui spiccano deliranti momenti di colore (come le pillole che, cliccate, aprono improvvise parentesi di assoluta follia). In chiusura di ogni episodio, un vero e proprio fumetto a puntate si sofferma invece sulla personalità del Dottore, sul suo labirinto privato.
Animazione interattiva, Hotel traduce il click in un mezzo di scoperta, non in uno strumento per seguire una propria linea narrativa all’interno di una struttura ipertestuale. Il che significa, in sostanza, che l’autore ha il pieno controllo della narrazione, manovrando dall’alto i nostri movimenti e inducendoci di volta in volta a sfiorare, a cliccare o a impazzire…

Han Hoogerbrugge, olandese, è considerato uno dei maestri assoluti dell’animazione in flash. Approdato alla rete dal fumetto nel 1996, ha al suo attivo tra l’altro la celebre serie Neurotica e la clip interattiva Flow, musicata da Wiggle. Il Cyberart Festival di Bilbao l’ha omaggiato di recente di una importante retrospettiva.
[Domenico Quaranta]

Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied: Zombie & Mummy (ottobre 2002)
http://www.zombie-and-mummy.org/
Zombie & Mummy: come dire, la strana coppia della rete. Nati dalla collaborazione tra la net artista russa Olia Lialina ed il musicista – programmatore tedesco Dragan Espenschied, i due personaggi sono dal 2002 i protagonisti di una serie di brevissime strip, disegnate con tratto incerto su palmare per poi essere inserite in piccoli frame, aperti nelle situazioni più diverse. Zombie & Mummy sono la tipica coppia di amici, che vanno a nuoto, si intrufolano in una beauty farm, visitano un museo e celebrano il Natale. Tutto ciò lo fanno in Rete, il che significa, da un punto di vista formale, che le loro storie si innestano sulle homepage di altri siti, o in pagine che riutilizzano, come in un vero e proprio collage, immagini e “forme” recuperate qua e là in rete. Così la pagina della loro unica fan ha il tipico aspetto della home amatoriale, con sfondo rosa e cuoricini, e il loro amore per Banderas viene dichiarato in una pagina barocca, zeppa di foo del celebre divo. Le loro avventure sono pervase da un’ironia di bassa lega, mentre raffinatissima è la regia che, dall’alto, ne studia lo scenario e la successione, e che “detourna” qualsiasi tipo di interfaccia. Insomma, attenti a quei due.
Il progetto è ospitato dal sito del Dia Center of the Arts, che dal 1995 porta avanti un prestigioso programma di commissioni ad artisti che lavorano in rete.

Net.artista russa, Olia Lialina fa parte del nucleo storico della net.art. Ha fondato Teleportacia, la prima galleria di arte in rete, e a dispetto di chi sostiene che la net.art sia morta, continua a regalarci bellissimi lavori. Dragan Espenschied, tedesco, è musicista e programmatore. Dal 2002 è artist in residence alla Art.Teleportacia Gallery.
[Domenico Quaranta]

Mongrel: Unconfortable Proximity (2000)
http://www.tate.org.uk/netart/mongrel/home/default.htm
Commissionato in occasione della ristrutturazione del sito web della Tate Gallery, Unconfortable Proximity è una versione imbastardita dello stesso. A un primo esame l’interfaccia non sembra cambiata di molto, solo la piccola etichetta nera “mongrel” (in inglese, “bastardo”) ci spiega che c’è qualcosa che non quadra. Ma basta entrare nella collezione per essere testimoni di una fastidiosa adulterazione, che storpia i capolavori settecenteschi che costituiscono il vanto della Tate. Quello che Mongrel ha fatto non è altro che un avvicinamento, nella stessa immagine, di due livelli di solito distinti, quello dell’arte alta e quello della realtà. Partito da una riflessione sulle condizioni della plebe nel ‘700, quella stessa plebe che ha prestato le sue forze alla costruzione del tempio dell’arte inglese, il collettivo inglese fa collidere due livelli dell’immagine, due estetiche, due concezioni dell’arte. Ma quello che stupisce ancora di più è il fatto che questo senso di fastidio non nasce dall’utilizzo di immagini urtanti: si tratta semplicemente della nostra banale materialità, che prevede anche qualche ruga, qualche escoriazione, qualche pelo, qualche neo; ma che affiancata alla bella materia pittorica ne svela tutta l’artificiosità, e traduce efficacemente la mistificazione di un’età che solo indossando un bel paio di paraocchi possiamo definire “dell’oro”.

Mongrel è un collettivo di artisti e attivisti inglesi che, partiti dall’arte di strada, sono approdati precocemente ai nuoi media. Tra i loro lavori si contano installazioni interattive, videogiochi modificati, e software come Heritage Gold, una sorta di Photoshop che sostituisce ai soliti comandi delle funzioni “razializzate”.
[Domenico Quaranta]

k-Hello: Infowarmation (2004)
http://www.k-hello.org/infowarmation/itindex.htm
“Infowarmation è un sito web che consente di inserire le notizie di un telegiornale o di un quotidiano, effettua un confronto fra le percentuali di notizie dedicate alle varie nazioni ed il numero dei loro abitanti, individua una predominanza informativa di alcuni stati rispetto ad altri, e visualizza una mappa del mondo in cui gli stati che hanno poca copertura mediatica vengono “attaccati”.
Una guerra in cui il campo di battaglia è la nostra visione del mondo (mentale) e in cui le armi sono le fonti di informazioni. Tanto più queste sono corrette ed equi distribuite, tanto meno vi saranno “attacchi” di alcune nazioni contro altre.
Supponiamo che nel mondo ci siano solo tre stati e si parli solamente dei primi due. Il terzo nella nostra mente inizierà a scomparire, e’ come se i primi due stati conquistassero il terzo. Questo il principio alla base del progetto.
Infowarmation permette, tramite login, a chiunque, di osservare nel tempo la propria visione del mondo, e può essere utilizzato per valutare le proprie fonti di informazioni. Chi ottiene uno scenario in cui, a lungo termine, regna la pace, può considerarsi vincitore.”
[k-hello.org]

K-hello si autodefinisce “una piattaforma sperimentale gestita da un gruppo di tecnocreativi che propone progetti originali applicati ai nuovi media”. All’art pour l’art contrappongono il software come processo mentale, che “gira nella mente di chi legge”: elegante come una freddura e completamente inutile.

>>> “bug”

0100101110101101.org: Vaticano.org (1998)
http://0100101110101101.org/home/vaticano.org/spoof/index.html
Risale al dicembre 1998 un autentico capolavoro della contaminazione, nonché il primo, storico colpo di stato in Rete. Acquistato il dominio www.vaticano.org, localizzabile su un server canadese, un ‘commando’ comincia a copiare fedelmente le pagine del sito ufficiale del Vaticano, e dopo essere intervenuti sui testi, a caricarli sul falso sito. La gente ci va, legge e se ne va convinta di aver visitato il sito ufficiale del Vaticano. Se legge con attenzione, può rendersi conto che il Papa sembra fare discorsi un po’strani, ma diamine, è il Santo Padre, e la sua parola, si sa, è infallibile. E se si dichiara favorevole all’aborto, alla legalizzazione delle droghe, al libero amore, avrà le sue buone ragioni. Pare che, nel giro di un anno, 4 milioni di persone siano cadute nella rete tesa dagli 0100101110101101.org. Il sito era indicizzato benissimo, e dietro di esso il solito commando garantiva la sua piena funzionalità. Quando il Vaticano se ne accorge, cerca di risolvere il problema senza far esplodere il caso, ma non ci riesce ed è costretto a mettere un avviso sul sito ufficiale.
Oggi il falso sito è archiviato all’indirizzo www.0100101110101101.org. Ma chi crede che tutte le piaghe siano state curate, vada a farsi un giro all’indirizzo www.vaticano.org. Troverà un cielo paradisiaco, con sovraimpressa la scritta: il sito ufficiale è www.vaticano.va.

0100101110101101.org è un collettivo di hacktivisti che ha firmato nel corso degli anni una serie di azioni clamorose, che vanno dall’invenzione del falso artista maledetto Darko Maver (arrivato perfino in Biennale) al recente Nikeground, un falso mediatico montato ad arte per mostrare l’invadenza delle multinazionali, e per appropriarsi di un marchio che è già di chi lo usa.
[Domenico Quaranta]

Jodi.org: Wrongbrowser (2001)
www.wrongbrowser.com/
Wrongbrowser permette di scaricare una serie di navigatori alternativi, che propongono un output della pagina completamente anomalo rispetto ai browser tradizionali come IE e Netscape. In questo senso, il progetto si presenta come l’ideale coronamento del lavoro portato avanti da Jodi dal 1995 in poi. Un lavoro tutto incentrato su un radicale e sistematico sovvertimento dell’interfaccia, sul ribaltamento delle relazioni tra superficie e livello profondo del codice, sulla limitazione dell’usabilità e la vanificazione dell’interattività, e su un’estetica low-tech contrapposta all’high-tech corporativo. Con Wrongbrowser, l’errore si sposta dalla pagina al programma che la legge: non è più il programma standard a leggere correttamente un codice “sbagliato”, ma un programma “sbagliato” che fa a pezzi le pagine tradizionali, fino a intaccare la stessa metafora della finestra. Ma non si tratta di semplice sovversione: come i numerosi browser alternativi approntati dai net artisti, Wrongbrowser vuole mostrare che, nel digitale, l’interfaccia è solo uno dei modi di interpretare i dati a disposizione, e che distruggendo le interfacce tradizionali, si possono ottenere risultati impensati, e non meno interessanti, se non altro da un punto di vista artistico: così, privato della loro destinazione utilitaria e informativa, il contenuto di una pagina web può diventare un dinamico quadro astratto.

Jodi.org è un nome ormai entrato nella storia della net art. Fondato nel 1995 da Joan Heesmerk e Dirk Paesmans, il collettivo ha elaborato negli anni il suo inconfondibile stile, passando dalle pagine web ai browser, dai videogiochi modificati all’installazione.
[Domenico Quaranta]

EpidemiC: downjones sendMail (2002)
http://epidemic.ws/downjones/index.php
downjones sendMail nasce dalla risposta a una domanda: qual è il danno massimo che un virus informatico può compiere? La risposta è un semplice programma di posta, di cui EpidemiC propone online una demo innocua. Perché downjones è veramente pericoloso, tanto più perché non produce alcun danno evidente, almeno a livello informatico. Si limita semplicemente a inserire, in un messaggio di posta, uno spezzone di frase, abbastanza generico da potersi confondere con il resto, ma capace nello stesso tempo di seminare il dubbio sul resto del testo, o corromperne il senso. Un virus invisibile, perché non viene rilevato dagli antivirus, e perché non agisce sul mezzo, ma sul messaggio. Io mando un contenuto, il ricevente ne riceve un altro. Immaginiamo che A. chiuda una mail alla sua fidanzata B. con un bel “ti amo”. E che downjones ci aggiunga un bel “ma non ne sono certo”.
Ecco la risposta alla fatidica domanda: il danno massimo è quello che va a intaccare una relazione umana, sia essa un rapporto di lavoro, personale o diplomatico. Se un virus del genere venisse diffuso, non saremmo più sicuri di nulla di quanto riceviamo.
Mettendo in dubbio la nostra fiducia nell’inalterabilità dei dati, downjones rende evidente la centralità della comunicazione, e i pericoli derivanti da un’alterazione del suo flusso.

EpidemiC è un collettivo di professionisti diversi, per lo più programmatori, basato a Milano. Sostenitore della bellezza del codice virale, è autore tra l’altro, in collaborazione con 0100101110101101.org, del celebre biennale.py, diffuso in occasione della Biennale 2001: un virus come opera d’arte, che si accontenta di farsi riconoscere (e ammirare) dagli antivirus.
[Domenico Quaranta]

Luca Bertini: Vi-con
http://www.vi-con.net
Il nome nasce da un baco del sistema di scrittura automatica T9, che scrive “Vi-con” quando noi cerchiamo di scrivere “ti amo”. E l’amore è il cuore di questo progetto, che racconta la storia di due innamorati che si cercano per la rete. Si chiamano Yazna e ++, e sono due virus. Non sono pericolosi, sia chiaro: sono troppo impegnati a cercarsi per fare dispetti al nostro sistema operativo. Se arriva Yazna, per esempio, si intrufola in determinate cartelle, cerca i segni della presenza dell’altro, e se non li trova, lascia un segnale del suo passaggio e riparte verso altri computer. Lo stesso fa ­­­­++. Il loro amore è potente, ma se si trovano va incontro a tutte le variabili dell’amore: così, i due possono lasciarsi, congiungersi in un unico essere o fare un figlio. Il tutto seguendo la loro programmazione, il loro destino.
Il sito web ce li presenta, e racconta la loro storia. Possiamo credergli o no: i codici sono online, non resta che provare. Ma forse è meglio lasciare che facciano da sè, sperando magari che scelgano come letto di nozze il nostro computer.

Luca Bertini vive a Milano, dove ha fondato DFM (Design for Money), una società di graphic design attraverso la quale finanzia i suoi progetti artistici. Tra questi ricordiamo 800-178969, un vero numero verde che cerca di stabilire con i chiamanti una relazione privilegiata.
[Domenico Quaranta]

>>> “economics”

Carlo Zanni: Ebaylandscape
http://www.zanni.org/ebaylandscape/
“Dipinge paesaggi e programma ritratti”, dice Carlo Zanni nell’autopresentazione in terza persona reperibile sul suo sito. Ebaylandscape smentisce solo apparentemente questa affermazione. È difficile definirlo qualcosa di diverso di un dipinto, anche se i colori non sono certo i soliti acrilici. A prima vista sembra un paesaggio-collage, con un cielo arioso, delle stelle, una catena di montagne sullo sfondo e dei bambù in primo piano. Un collage, peraltro, in continuo cambiamento: le stelle si accendono e si spengono, il cielo cambia colore, le immagini che colorano i fusti dei bambù vengono sostituite da altre. Le dinamiche di questa trasformazione ci vengono spiegate dalla breve introduzione: il colore del cielo è determinato dalla lettura del numero IP degli utenti connessi; le stelle sono gli utenti connessi, le montagne sono un grafico che segna gli alti e i bassi di eBay, e le immagini che riempiono i bambù sono succhiate dall’homepage della CNN, e cambiano ogni volta che la stessa si riaggiorna.
Ebaylandscape contamina la tradizione figurativa del paesaggio e un semplice processo di network, ma anche il mondo dell’immagine e quello dell’economia. Il risultato è un “paesaggio di dati”, che visualizza i due flussi invisibili su cui si regola la nostra vita quotidiana, quello dell’informazione e quello dell’economia; e nello stesso tempo riflette sulla nostra identità di navigatori in rete: ci muoviamo tranquilli nella convinzione di essere l’uomo invisibile, quando siamo più vistosi di una stella nel cielo.

Carlo Zanni vive tra Milano e New York. Il suo lavoro si situa all’intersezione tra programmazione e rappresentazione. Nel 2002 ha organizzato un dibattito online dedicato alla vendibilità della net art, questione a cui ha risposto recentemente con Altarboy, un server che è anche una scultura, su cui gira un’opera che esiste solo quando il server è connesso.
[Domenico Quaranta]

Davide Grassi e Igor Stromajer: Problemarket.com (2003)
www.problemarket.com
“I problemi sono dei catalizzatori di energia. In questo senso, hanno un valore, per cui possono essere messi sul mercato”, dichiara Problemarket. com. La borsa dei problemi nasce in Slovenia nel 2000, per iniziativa di due artisti che si reinventano imprenditori, Davide Grassi e Igor Stromajer. L’azienda va subito incontro a un rapido successo, con l’apertura di filiali in tutto il mondo. Quello che mette in vendita sono, appunto, problemi: i grandi problemi collettivi, come le repressioni al G8, la guerra in Bosnia e il conflitto di interessi, ma anche i problemi individuali, che chiunque può proporre per una valutazione. Ovviamente è tutto un gioco, ma la finzione è impeccabile: la borsa ha una propria valuta, il PRO; ha un listino e un indice, e investe con profitto nella promozione aziendale, come dimostrano i video e i comunicati disponibili online. È una finzione, ma la cui plausibilità, in un mondo in cui tutto ha un potenziale valore economico, sconcerta e fa riflettere. L’azienda ha anche una filiale italiana, basata a Milano e diretta da Antonio Caronia. La sua missione è quella di promuovere la ricerca sui problemi dei media, e il suo nome, guarda caso, è PROmediaSet.
Davide Grassi è un artista italiano attivo a Ljubljana, Slovenia, dal 1995, dove dirige Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Arts. Il suo lavoro ha un’intensa connotazione sociale, ed è caratterizzato da un approccio intermediale. Igor Stromajer, capo del Consiglio di Supervisione di Problemarket, ha collaborato in varie occasioni con Aksioma. è autore, tra l’altro, di Ballettika Internettika, una esplorazione della danza online.
[Domenico Quaranta]

Etoy
http://www.etoy.com/
etoy è uno dei nomi più famosi della net art, e senz’altro uno di quelli che più hanno contribuito a ridefinirne le regole. Dopo un breve periodo di incubazione, nel 1995 fa il suo sensazionale ingresso in campo con una performance formidabile, messa in atto attraverso una serie di programmi che rapiscono migliaia di navigatori dai motori di ricerca e li dirottano sulla loro homepage. Nel 2000 guida la Toywar, una guerra di autodifesa che nasce dall’attacco di una grande multinazionale, eToys, decisa a lasciare il collettivo senza dominio. etoy mobilita tutta la rete, regala ai suoi soldati una missione e un immaginario (rigorosamente ispirato agli storici omini della Lego) e vince la guerra, facendo crollare le azioni dell’e-store fino a costringerlo a ritirare la denuncia.
Qui etoy compare però non per quello che ha fatto, ma per quello che è. Nato come collettivo di attivisti, etoy si trasforma ben presto in una vera e propria corporation, le cui azioni eclatanti non sono vendute come opere d’arte, ma quotate in borsa. Come tale, l’azienda si dota di un marchio, di filiali all’estero (di cui una, ci informa il sito, ha sede proprio a Torino), e di una propria estetica aziendale, che evolve dal look uniformante dei mitici agenti etoy del commando originario: pantaloni di pelle nera, giubbotti arancioni, occhiali a specchio, valigetta e zucca rigorosamente rasata.
[Domenico Quaranta]

Josh On: They Rule (2001)
http://www.theyrule.net/
L’idea portante di questo web-project può sembrare a prima vista piuttosto banale, ma come spesso accade è proprio la sua disarmante chiarezza a colpire, il suo essere diretto, spoglio, oserei dire dimostrativo. Il meccanismo su cui si basa è quello del disvelamento di una realtà esistente che si avverte l’urgenza di conoscere e mostrare, non occulta, ma di sicuro misconosciuta. Theyrule.net… è una mappa del potere. Essa illustra, attraverso un’elegante e funzionale interfaccia in Flash, gli organigrammi delle maggiori corporation internazionali individuando le “poltrone” che contano e le insospettabili connessioni che spesso le uniscono tra loro. I presidenti, gli amministratori delegati, i componenti delle grandi aziende vengono rappresentati tramite semplici sagome maschili o femminili, in giacca e cravatta o tailleur, tutti dotati dell’immancabile valigetta. E il loro ‘peso’ aumenta proporzionalmente al loro potere. Cliccando sulle icone è poi possibile avviare una ricerca su Google, visitare il sito dell’azienda o curiosare tra le donazioni effettuate da ognuna di queste personalità. Il progetto permette anche agli utenti di interagire contribuendo alla costruzione di nuove mappe o aggiungendo note e osservazioni. L’interattività si spinge ad un livello più profondo considerando che durante la costruzione del progetto il suo autore, Josh On del gruppo Futurefarmers, si è avvalso della collaborazione e dei suggerimenti di decine di persone tramite un newsgroup di Yahoo completamente dedicato a Theyrule. [...]
Theyrule, come il videogioco antimilitarista Antiwar Game, sempre dei Futurefarmers, sembra dimostrare che anche uno strumento come Flash, spesso oggetto di polemiche scatenate dai ‘puristi’ della Net Art per la sua estetica accattivante, può essere una piattaforma stimolante e supportare la realizzazione di progetti interessanti e assolutamente fuori dagli standard della grafica commerciale.
[Valentina Tanni, giugno 2002]

Josh On, nato in Nuova Zelanda nel 1972, vive a San Francisco. Fa parte del collettivo Futurefarmers.

Nullsleep, New York Romscapes

GameScenes / Videoludic Scenaries

curated by Domenico Quaranta
as a section of Piemonte Share Festival 2005, Turin (Italy), Palazzo Cavour, February 24 febbraio – March 1, 2005.

Featured artists: Mauro Ceolin (ITA), Jeremiah Johnson aka nullsleep (USA), John Klima (USA), Martin Le Chevallier (FRA), Gonzalo Frasca – Newsgaming (URY), Selectparks (AU), Antonio Riello (ITA), Josh On (USA), Carlo Zanni (ITA), Brody Condon (USA), JODI (NLD), Kinematic Collective (USA), RETROYOU (ESP), Eddo Stern (USA), Josephine Starrs & Leon Cmielewski (AUS), TWCDC (USA), 8bitpeople (nullsleep’s selection); Micropupazzo (ITA – DE); Role Model (Johan Kotlinski, SWE); Tonylight (ITA); Oliver Wittchow (DE); Gameboyzz Orchestra (POL).

Piemonte Share Festival

Exhibition images (Picasa)

Gamescenes (2005)

Press Release:

During the last twenty years, videogame imposed itself as a new cultural form, becoming object of papers and academic research; and as the product of a true cultural industry, which has overcome the cinema industry. It was almost inevitable, therefore, that others artistic and cultural forms would try to start an affair with videogame, in a way that still remains to be studied. Videogames showed literature new narrative techniques, electronic music a new sound; they filled our imagination with new spaces, new landscapes and new icons. But, most of all, the videoludic industry invented and experimented,beforehand on scientists and artists, the forms and languages of the interactive media. It is spreading its own ideology, an ideology that not all gamers are accepting undiscerningly. It is creating new life spaces, new communities, new identities, even a new economy that has nothing to do with virtuality. GameScenes wants to offer to the PIEMONTE_SHARE_2005 public a selection of works capable of showing the different forms of artistic experimentation that are in someway connected to the videoludic horizon, gathering artists, musicians and writers that look at videogames as an important reference for their activity. The event will feature a conference and an exhibition. The conference will gather Alessandra C (writer), Jamie D’Alessandro (journalist), Matteo Bittanti (expert in game studies), Alessandro Ludovico (writer and founder of Neural magazine) and Molleindustria, independent game designer.

The exhibition will open with a performance by Tonylight, Italian artist and gameboy performer, who wants to bring game boy to public spaces using his SolarAudioBag, a portable loudspeaker which functions thanks to a solar panel. The Gameboy, converted into a music synthesizer and used to play music by a keen experimental scene called “gameboy music” or “8 bit music”, will be the first character of the exhibition’s soundtrack, featuring tracks by nullsleep (USA), other members of the 8bitpeople community and major artists on the international scene.

The exhibition will feature the different ways artists relate to the world of videogames, representing a broad spectrum of almost historical works and recent experiments: paintings and prints that adopt a videoludic aesthetic, such as the Solid_Landscapes by the Milan artist Mauro Ceolin and the New York Romscapes by J eremiah Johnson a.k.a nullsleep; artist’s videogames, as Jon Klima’s The Great Game, on the Afghan War, or Fur’s Painstation consolle and Vigilance 1.0, a game on videosurveillance by the French artist Martin Le Chevallier; modified games, from Jodi’s Wolfenstein version of Lialina’s My Boyfriend Came back from the War to the works by the spanish artist retroyou, to the great 9/11 survivor, on the Twin Towers’ disaster, by Kinematic Collective; politically engaged videogames, from Newsgaming’s September 12th to TWCDC (Together We Can Defeat Capitalism) collective STOP BUSH! All works that show, time and time again, that videogame is changing our way of looking at the real world, and introducing to our collective imagination new narratives and new landscapes; but also that it could become, from an instrument of the cultural standardization and idelogical conditioning, a device for information, report and fight.

GameScenes.Conf
Alessandra C – Jamie D’Alessandro – Matteo Bittanti – Alessandro Ludovico – Molleindustria – Oliver Wittchow.

GameScenes.Performance
Tonylight (ITA); Oliver Wittchow (DE)

GameScenes.Soundtrack
8bitpeople (nullsleep’s selection); Tonylight (ITA); Oliver Wittchow (DE); Gameboyzz Orchestra (POL).

GameScenes.Scapes
Mauro Ceolin (ITA), Solid_Landscapes, 2004; Jeremiah Johnson aka nullsleep (USA), New York Romscapes, 2004.

GameScenes.Games
John Klima (USA), The Great Game, 2002; Martin Le Chevallier (FRA), Vigilance 1.0, 2001; Gonzalo Frasca – Newsgaming (URY), September 12th, 2004; Selectparks (AU), Acmipark, 2004; Antonio Riello (ITA), Italiani brava gente, 1997; Josh On (USA), Antiwargame, 2001; Carlo Zanni (ITA), Average Shoveler, 2004.

GameScenes.Mods
Brody Condon (USA), Suicide Solution, 2004; JODI (NLD), My Boyfriend Came Back From the War, 2000; Kinematic Collective (USA), 9/11 survivor, 2003; RETROYOU (ESP), retroyou_nostalG, 2002; Eddo Stern (USA), Deathstar, 2004; Vietnam Romance, 2003; Sheik Attack, 1999/2000; Josephine Starrs & Leon Cmielewski (AUS), Bio-tek Kitchen, 1999; TWCDC (USA), STOP BUSH!, 2004.

If we leave aside its historical precedents, Software Art, in its classical definition formalized by the Jury Statement of “Transmediale 2001” [1] and extended by Florian Cramer [2], saw the light in 1997 with The Web Stalker of the English Group I/O/D and with the theoretical speculation started by one of the software authors, Matthew Fuller. Right from this first example and definitions, Software Art reveals its radical nature. The fact itself of transforming software from a mere instrument into “subject” and “contents” of a cultural and artistic reflection represents a Copernican revolution liable to be considered as heresy. Similarly heretic is the idea of adopting a language (HTML), a protocol of communication (HTTP) and the whole system of cultural objects (the web) and make them visible in a form that contrasts with their own original function. Software Art is radical even in its most harmless and politically neutral manifestations; when, in addition, it overturns the structure of the browser in controversy with the standardization of its interfaces, and when it adopts a slogan that sounds like: “software is mind control, get some”, then the controversy turns into poetics, the prime mover of a creative process.

RADICAL SOFTWARE is an exhibition including some recent examples of radical software. The name pays explicit homage to the magazine founded by Ira Schneider and Beryl Korot in 1970, that had the merit to combine, for the first time, political considerations and use of the media (in that case mainly video and television).

But, if the deep nature of these projects is political, the initial target of the subversion they put into effect is rarely so; and, even when it is, the blow it receives is never direct, but it is the ultimate consequence of an attack directed elsewhere, similar to a bullet hitting the mark after being diverted by a series of obstacles that are as many primary targets. This is the case, for example, of Bush Bot 0.4, of the ROVERBOTICS Group: which, after insinuating doubts – with the support of manipulated images – that George W. Bush may be a cyborg, demolishes his politics, creating the software that nourishes his totally artificial intelligence, allowing people to talk to him and even dictate his new speeches, through a simple chat system. No doubt Bush is the target, but the blow is struck by drawing on a by now classic story – Simulacres by Philip K. Dick – and by parodying artificial intelligence algorithms. In the same way, Mc Donald’s Videogame, of the Italian game factory Molleindustria, attacks the famous fast food chain, by subverting the form, by now highly widespread, of advertising videogames. Where Next, realized by the same Molleindustria in collaboration with the advertising agency Guerrillamarketing, attacks the spectacular way adopted by the media when presenting terrorism and their ferocious abuse of forms of betting games and the most common advertising tactics as well as that extraordinary instrument of location that is Google Earth, with a type of political incorrectness that is directly proportional to the implications of what it reports. Both these products are very distant from Software Art from a formal point of view and yet they are very close to it from a conceptual point of view.

Different is the case of GWEI (Google Will Eat Itself), realized by UBERMORGEN.COM in collaboration with Italian Alessandro Ludovico and Paolo Cirio, that takes to the extreme consequences the algorithm of capitalism entirely adopted by Google, but it does that to induce one of the powerful companies in the world to devour itself in an extreme form of digital cannibalism. The critical scope of Software Art doesn’t even spare the culture of shared knowledge based on hacker culture and the activism of the media. Un_wiki, by Wayne Clements is a very simple software that limits itself to retrieving and making visible the log file with contents refused by the open and democratic community of Wikipedia: a crafty speculation on the paradoxes of a system that matches the maximum opening made possible by the software and a substantially oligarchic structure as the only guarantor of the contents quality.

Antimafia (2003), of the Italian group [epidemic] is instead software that automates and coordinates collective actions. Based on a “peer to peer” action, it makes it possible to share hacking actions without any intervention from the user – apart from the activation of the programme – and without a leader that coordinates the action. It might seem the definitive solution to the problem of the effectiveness of protests online, the “killer application” of net activism; in reality, the first victim of this programme is activism itself, deprived of any human components and above all of leadership. Which justifies the strange story of this project, rejected and censored by the same community it was meant for. A censorship which was actually caused by an error of perspective: if Floodnet, software made available to a community for a collective action online, was in every respect a work of net.art, Antimafia, read in that light, failed miserably; if it is re-read as Software Art, instead, it hits the mark splendidly, showing that “the code is not harmless” and revealing the weak point of activism that withdraws when it discovers that it can be really dangerous.

If Antimafia is a subversive interface disguised as commercial software, emulating the “packaging” of famous security software, most Software Art projects make the interface the object of subversion. This is an attitude inherited from the first net.art. from JoDi which tears the browser to pieces in controversy with corporative hi-tech. The premise is that standard interfaces convey a specific ideology, and that defacing, violating, reconstructing them in new forms can be a form of re-appropriation and liberation. I/O/D’s motto, “software is mind control, get some” very well explains both Peter Luining and Italian K_Hello’s formal games as absolutely harmless conceptual experiments in practice, yet capable of pulling down in a moment the castle of metaphors on which the graphic interface with windows is based. In the same way Scream by Amy Alexander manages at last to give us the satisfaction of a physical outlet (in this case, a scream) that can produce immediate repercussions on the stability of the interface.

Others contest the surface, the froth of the data, like Slavic Marketa Bankova with Scribble, software that superimposes “graffiti” to the CNN homepage, with the same pleasure as a child destroying the Lego castle he has just built. This is the case of Super Mario Movie, where Cory Arcangel breaks the world of Super Mario into pieces and follows its fall with satisfaction, turning the horizontal flow into an endless vertical collapse, and depriving the game of any possible interaction. A subtle subversion, that disguises itself behind the pleasure of fruition but isn’t less radical for that.

Finally, entirely focused on language is the operation carried out by ][MEZ][, one of the best heirs of the code poetry tradition. For ][MEZ][ language, even the usually immediate language of a blog is a programming code that can be disassembled and reconstructed, being aware that if the Net has something to share with Babel, this is the confusion of languages. For this reason her “mezangelle”, an idiom that merges natural language with IT code, becomes part, on one side, of the great tradition of language experimentation going from Dante to Joyce, and, on the other side, picks up a great lesson from Dada and Surrealism, i.e: discussing a society means firstly to attack its logical and rational structure, exactly embodied by the language.

[1] “…software art has the potential to make us aware that digital code is not harmless, that it is not restricted to simulations of other tools, and that is itself a ground for creative practice.” In F. Cramer, U. Gabriel, J.F. Simon Jr., “Jury Statement”, 2001, online at http://www.transmediale.de/01/en/s_juryStatement.htm

[2] “… software art could be generally defined as an art: – of which the material is formal instruction code, and/or – which addresses cultural concepts of software…” In Cramer, Florian, “Concepts, Notations, Software, Art”, March 23, 2003, online at http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin

][MEZ][
_[net]blog to log][ah!rhythm][_, 2006 - http://www.livejournal.com/users/netwurker/
][Mez][ presents her blog as “a reverse-engineered weblog - read: _bio_log_ as opposed to a standardized weblog”. In order to write it, you’ll need the “mezangelle”, which is the polysemic idiom that ][mez][ employs by adjusting her natural language into a hybrid form through remixing code. She began this process with e-mail art in the early 90s.

[EPIDEMIC]
AntiMafia, 2003 – http://epidemic.ws/antimafia/
It appears as commercial software for Windows, with a GPL licence. It is based on the “peer to peer” programme, but instead of sharing files, its users share protest actions. WSomebody launches a campaign, the others join it, the programme does the rest, in a form of direct democracy bypassing any mediation or leadership.

AMY ALEXANDER
Scream, 2005 – http://scream.deprogramming.us/
Small software that, when activated, introduces in the application bar an icon modelled upon the Scream by Munch. It stays quietly there until the machine, for some reason, makes us angry. And we scream. Then the machine echoes our rage or our anguish and, as it happens with the masterpiece of Symbolism, our scream “pervades the whole nature”.

CORY ARCANGEL (BEIGE) + PAPERRAD
Super Mario Movie, 2005 – http://beigerecords.com/cory/
Super Mario falls endlessly into a world broken in a thousand pieces by a few code: Cory Arcangel tunes up his electronic swan song to the landscape of our childhood, accompanying it with an 8 bit sing-song and giving at the same time a lesson on can produce a 15 minute video without wasting more than 40 kb of space.

MARKETA BANKOVA
Scribble, 2005 – http://www.initialnews.com/scribble
An ironical defacement of the CNN homepage, Scribble superimposes on it are half way between urban graffiti and scribbles we draw absent-mindedly, them in real time according to the contents of the news. The project uses a drawings that are picked up according to the key words offered by the news, be further extended, thanks to new drawings proposed by the users.

WAYNE CLEMENTS
un_wiki, 2006 – http://www.in-vacua.com/un_wiki.html
Software that retrieves and visualizes the log file containing inclusions “rejected” by the democratic system of Wikipedia: a consideration on the contradictions existing between the apparent democratism of the software, that allows everybody to load contents, and the substantial oligarchy of the community.

GUERRIGLIAMARKETING.IT + MOLLEINDUSTRIA.IT
Where-next, 2005 – http://www.where-next.com/
A web page that makes it possible to bet on the place of the next terrorist attack, locatable through a service of Google Earth. The winner is awarded with a T-shirt with a photo of the attack and the caption “I PREDICTED IT!”. A strong reaction to the spectacular representation of terrorism and expectation of new attacks, induced by the media.

PETER LUINING
Window, 2005; Giant Cursor, 2005; 100 windows, 2005 – http://works.ctrlaltdel.org/
Window opens a transparent window, through which one can see what is underneath and work on it; Giant Cursor installs a cursor-pointer of abnormal size, but perfectly working; opens about a hundred empty pages in sequence. Three minimal software products that can be immediately de-coded, absolutely useless: but capable of revealing, like few others, the conventional metaphors that curb our experience about digital space.

K-HELLO
Wasteoftime, 2003 – http://www.k-hello.org/wasteoftime/itindex.htm
Author of disrespectful and paradoxical conceptual software, K-hello invites us to an unjustified waste of time (and space): fragmenting a text that we inserted into hundreds of Web pages. The text is legible only by putting the pages into a grid but our computer was not up to understanding it: an experiment of extreme dissociation between form and content, but also in codifying the message in a form whose key to decrypting is just one: patience.

MOLLEINDUSTRIA.IT
McDonalds Videogame, 2006 – www.molleindustria.it
A Flash Videogame Sim City Style, where the video player plays the role of the manager of McDonald’s, busy with the management of the whole “assembly line” of the multinational, from production, to sales and marketing. An overturn of the logic of videogames used for advertising purposes.

ROVEBOTICS
Bush Bot 0.4, 2004 – http://www.bushbot.ath.cx/
For who might have been impressed by Bush’s “cyborg-like” behaviour, this is the programme governing actions and speeches. Based on an old chat system, the software makes it possible to chat with Bush as well as to offer him new material for his speeches.

UBERMORGEN.COM featuring ALESSANDRO LUDOVICO & PAOLO CIRIO
GWEI [Google Will Eat Itself], 2005 – www.gwei.org
Or: how to buy oneself Google with its own publicity. GWEI is an organization that avails itself of the support of a series of sites, subscribers of the Google service Adsense (advertising links where the subscriber earns a sum for each link clicked by its users) and of software that manipulate the programme to increase the number of clicks received by Google. The money is reinvested in Google shares, bought and then distributed among the users, after subscribing to GTTP Ltd. (Google To The People Public Company) In other words, Google is becoming slowly but relentlessly devoured by its users, who take the money paid for advertising.

Epidemic, Antimafia

RADICAL SOFTWARE

curated by Domenico Quaranta

PIEMONTE SHARE FESTIVAL 2006 – LIMITLESS
TORINO, ACCADEMIA ALBERTINA, 08.03.2006 – 12.03.2006
web. http://www.toshare.it/ – mail. info@toshare.it

Featured Artists: ][MEZ][, [EPIDEMIC], AMY ALEXANDER, CORY ARCANGEL (BEIGE) + PAPERRAD, MARKETA BANKOVA, WAYNE CLEMENTS, GUERRIGLIAMARKETING.IT + MOLLEINDUSTRIA.IT, PETER LUINING, K-HELLO, MOLLEINDUSTRIA.IT, ROVEBOTICS, UBERMORGEN.COM featuring ALESSANDRO LUDOVICO & PAOLO CIRIO.

Images of the exhibition (Picasa):

Radical Software (2006)

Catalogue text (english)

Limiteazero. Photo Marius Watz

Published in Domenico Quaranta (ed), C.STEM. Art Electronic Systems and Software Art, Teknemedia, Turin 2006. Catalogue of the exhibition, Turin, June 1 – 2, 2006.

GENERATIVE ( I N T E R ) VIEWS
Recombinant conversation with four software’s artists

DOMENICO QUARANTA: What is, for you, generative art?

MARIUS WATZ: Generative art is an art practice where the artist uses a set of rules or systems to produce the artwork, usually with some degree of randomness or autonomy. The system is not just a tool, but an artwork in its own right. Instead of a single static object, the process becomes the work. In my own work it means that instead of drawing a picture I create a piece of software that can draw a million pictures, based on rules that I define and experiment with to produce organic results. Some of my works I call “drawing machines”, in reference to the fact that they use dynamic models of kinetic behavior, which can be compared to the act of drawing.

ALESSANDRO CAPOZZO: I think we can distinguish two profiles, depending on the perspective, methodological or poetic, that we want to use. I believe we can talk of a generative method, when the focus shifts from the project and the realization of an artwork, to the definition of systems able to autonomously produce the artwork, systems which are characterized by processes and rules able to adapt to given conditions and to reproduce themselves. This approach is not only typical of computer systems: if we consider it with a certain degree of openness, we can see it as a carsic river, which tends to re-emerge from time to time, especially in music. We must, for example, think of the integral postwebernian serialism, or, for some aspects, to the renaissance isorithmic techniques.
For sure, the fact of delegating to a machine the repetitive tasks connected with calculation, made emerge new creative potentialities, among which there are the generative poetics and aesthetics, which have, for me, a peculiarity: generative art doesn’t want to achieve realism or mimesis, but, by composing and making sensible complex systems, it stimulate us to reflects on their analogies with our lives.

LIMITEAZERO: even if we never performed an “orthodox” kind of generative art, we’ve always found interesting to initiate processes, where the machine would hold a relevant role, would not be a simple instrument with predictable results, but it would rather be involved in the production of the aesthetic element, by making its own choices, even if, of course, limited in a predetermined set of possibilities.
The ideas of recurrence and minimal variation in a repetitive process are fascinating, and are the concepts on which is based our work at C.STEM.

FABIO FRANCHINO: Generative art is not, as the term would suggest, an aesthetic or a stylistic movement.
I like to think of it as a way, as an attitude, used in order to achieve an expressive goal. In this sense, generative methodologies acquire a higher value, because it is possible to apply them to different creative, expressive and also commercial fields.
About ten years ago, I was trying to create music with the computer, and I did some experiments with the sequencer, where some samples, with different durations, were crossing each other, originating an ever changing pattern. At that time, I didn’t know anything about codes and programs, but, afterwards, I understood that, without realizing it, I was already trying to explore a non-linear creative practice.

DOMENICO QUARANTA: The ’900, from Duchamp on, has been the century of “de-skilling”, of art refusing technical ability and craft. On the opposite, New Media Art seems to have started a process of “re-skilling”, which is to influencing also other artistic practices. What is your opinion about it? Which role do you give, in your work, to computer programming?

ALESSANDRO CAPOZZO: I don’t see the ’900 as a monolith, it is true that it has been the century of Duchamp but also, quoting Boulez, the time of the “artisanat furieux”.
New Media derive directly from this “furious craftwork” of the XX Century, an artistic syncretism that has been alimented by cinema, photography, design and electronic music.
In such a variety, computer programs offer a common language able to go beyond the borders which separates different artistic practices, an idiomatic approach to digital media, whose output is the code: at the same time matter, formal organization and trace of the creative process.

LIMITEAZERO: We control and manage the whole building process of our objects, from the concept phase to the project, up to the assembling moment. Programs play a fundamental part in the project, are its heart, its nevralgic centre. The fact that we write the code, without filtering this phase through the work of experts, means that we are looking for the connection with the hardware, that we control the different knots that we’ve projected and we build the connection nets, both in a strictly mechanic and in a philological sense. The code is a structure in itself, a plastic and composing element, which requires rigor and order, attention and sensibility. Building an ordered code is like projecting a piece of architecture: it has an entrance, an incipit, variants that need to be named and built in a clever way, algorithms forming small satellitar micro systems and becoming an organism through the strings that bind them in a meaningful “mechanic” whole. It is a deterministic and aesthetic process and, for sure, an exercise of methodological discipline.

MARIUS WATZ: I think we are seeing a return of craft in many forms of art and design, but the idea that the artist must possess all skills necessary to produce the work has been discarded. But for most generative artists, programming skills are a requirement, because their artistic material takes the form of software processes. Paradoxically, the computer code takes the role of both canvas and brush.
For myself, code is the most natural expression of my creative process. I have never used another artistic tool, so it feels like a spontaneous and organic mode of creation for me.

FABIO FRANCHINO: there is no doubt that programming art requires technical knowledge. Nowadays, it is impossible to think to employ mathematics in art, without knowing well its potentialities and its limits.
At the same time, we can say that is becoming more and more easier to approach this technique, thanks to the creation of tools that have made programming easier and thanks to the community of artists, like the one about Processing, who share sources and knowledge.
I don’t consider myself as a programmer, my code isn’t clean and rigorous at all, but I’ve managed to find a balance between my ability and what I want to obtain. I find the “re-skilling” process a necessary step; probably in the next future we’ll see a new phase of new media art’s de-skilling, where the artwork’s concept will take over technical ability, and maybe it will denigrate it.

DOMENICO QUARANTA: We could say something similar about the idea of beauty, which is starting again to be considered as an important element, especially in generative art ,- which, in fact, has some links with design. What do you think about it?

MARIUS WATZ: I don’t think generative art is necessarily looking to design, even though the results are often more graphic than the work seen in most contemporary art. I myself have a background working as a designer, but I find that I work and think very differently when creating art and design. However, I would agree that there is a current coinciding interest in ornament and formalist aesthetics both in generative art and current design. It must be the zeitgeist, reacting to the Modernist (and Hypermodernist) reduction of the last few decades. My own work certainly follows in that vein, with the creation of beauty being a definitive goal. But note that beauty is as ever in the eye of the beholder. I see generative art as related to much of the work done in the 60s with system-based art, natural references would be Minimalism, Conceptual Art and perhaps most importantly Op art.

ALESSANDRO CAPOZZO: The aesthetic search is important for new and young expressive forms, like digital art.
I believe that if we want to go beyond the pioneering and “pre-linguistic” new media’s phases, when we’ve inevitably tended to apply paradigms drawn from other disciplines, we can’t avoid the step to find new and autonomous aesthetic canons and to pursue their practical experimentation.

FABIO FRANCHINO: Generative practices offer, compared to linear techniques, a further creative possibility, the capacity to obtain results which we wouldn’t have reached using a logical and mental “traditional” process.
In generative art, like in every new art, the main goal is the idea of beauty, because it’s the primordial tension pushing us to take decisions. To go back to the previous problem: we are really talking of a new media art, where there are few boundaries and an open range of possibilities.

LIMITEAZERO: if ’900 vanguards, and I’m talking mainly of electronic, have privileged a rigorous methodological sense often not balanced by an equivalent aesthetic result, my impression is that contemporary generations are not being flattered by aesthetic, and are, anyway, able to express a surprising capacity to go in depth.
I don’t know if generative art is really connected with design. Maybe it has found in design a temporary place of decantation, a transitional ambient where it can position itself, while waiting to define its own autonomous identity.
When we talk of design, we must refer to a field that is not based anymore on the criterion of “taking out” beauty from an industrial process, but rather to a big “beauty factory”, where the projecting process doesn’t represent a value in itself.
Generative processes, and they’re not the only ones, repropose the question of process, the complex of operations that produce a final result. Independently from their degree of complexity or refinement, elaborate algorithms constitute simultaneously a methodological and structural skeleton, in relation to the final result, especially if we think of the fact that the product wouldn’t exist, without the performance of the process.

DOMENICO QUARANTA: Music plays an important role in your art, like in most of generative art: an element that you like in most of generative art: an element that you electronic arts, the beginning of video art. Why?

LIMITEAZERO: In our work music doesn’t play a main role, but the concept of sound was present in many things we did. Electronic music is surely one of the fields we draw on, one of the systems we refer to with great interest.
Electronic music, in the last decades, has manifested a more and more evident tendency towards the creation of a visual scenery. Concepts like “synestesy” are coming back from vanguard’s work and are now part of the more recent experimentation. Probably, this has happened both because of the hybrid background of its protagonists and because of the use of a medium. Kim Cascone, quoting a famous mcluhanian concept, affirms that tool and message are close to coincide, and this means that the availability and the diffusion of sound elaborator tools, and the subsequent assimilation on large scale of their projectual logics and use’s modalities, offer the nucleus from where the aesthetic model starts.
In other words, in electronic music, the employment of tools and of a medium, leads to the development of a method, and of a final result, strongly influenced from the use of the tools themselves. The same dynamic is present in electronic art, in design and in architecture, slowly constituting an homogeneous whole of elaboration rules, which inevitably tend to influence each other and to converge towards a shared aesthetic result.

ALESSANDRO CAPOZZO: I mostly have a musical background, I would feel its influence even if my activity would be different from what it is today. I believe that the influence you’re talking about is so strong for two reasons: musicians have been the first to use electronic as an artistic instrument and, secondly, music offers models of formal organization of time which are much more refined than the ones that can be produced, nowadays, by other time based media.

MARIUS WATZ: Electronic music has been an inspiration for me since very early on, in many ways it would be correct to say that I started working visually in an attempt to express what I experienced in early house and techno music. My hedonist tendencies certainly have their roots in that period. But more importantly, electronic music is a reference because it often tries to express a synaesthetic experience where multiple senses combine, becoming a single coherent sensory space. In my work with algorithmic structures this sense of synaesthesia is strongly present, at least for me. I attempt to express non-verbal experiences through form, color and movement the same way a musician might use complex layering of sounds.

FABIO FRANCHINO: I’ve always listened to music, and I keep on listening it in large amounts. I believe that it has an influence on many of the things I do in my life.
In the past, I played music, and the very first years of my creative awareness were devoted to musical composition. Obviously, this had an influence on my attitude, which even then was adopting rather unconventional methods. I usually listen to music during every step of my work, and maybe it has an unconscious influence on the final result. I hope to have the time, in the future, to work on some musical experiments through programming, a kind of research that I just tempted till now.

LINKS:

Marius Watz (Norvegia) – http://www.unlekker.net/
Limiteazero (Italia) – http://www.limiteazero.com/
Alessandro Capozzo (Italia) – http://www.abstract-codex.net/
Fabio Franchino (Italia) – http://www.abusedmedia.it/

Published in Domenico Quaranta (ed), C.STEM. Art Electronic Systems and Software Art, Teknemedia, Turin 2006. Catalogue of the exhibition, Turin, June 1 – 2, 2006.

GENERATIVE ars
by Domenico Quaranta

After almost fifty years since the term has first appeared, generative art is still, for the public of art, a mystery. Not that it is difficult to understand it, it is more true the opposite: the problem seems rather to be able to place it within the contemporary art scene. Figures such as Casey Reas, Ben Fry, Joshua Davis, Yugo Nakamura, Marius Watz, John Maeda, Philip Galanter or Golan Levin, who move freely from art to pure programming and to visual design, keep astonishing the public, and the fact that the term “generative art” is used also in relation to music, poetry, architecture and industrial design, doesn’t certainly help to solve the problem.
Personally, I believe that the problem resides exactly in the term, or, more precisely, in the way it is normally understood. The succession, over the XIXth century, of artistic expressions like Pop Art, Minimal Art, Conceptual Art, Digital Art and so on and so forth, induces us to think that Generative Art should be read in the same way: as a style’s expression, as a trend, as a variously compact movement of artists. In order to understand generative art, it is necessary to step back, to take into consideration terms like “ars combinatoria” or, more in general, to consider the Latin meaning of the word “ars”, rather than the present meaning of it. Like the Greek “techné”, the Latin word “ars” indicates a technique, a structured whole of rules and acts that allow to produce something. Generative art is, in fact, a technique, a method, a practice, a way of proceeding. This element is present in all the definitions of generative art, but it would probably deserve to be finally given more relevance. We must consider, for instance, the definition, which has become by now canonic, proposed by Philip Galanter in 2003: “Generative art refers to any art practice where the artist uses a system, such as a set of natural language rules, a computer program, a machine, or other procedural invention, which is set into motion with some degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a completed work of art.” This definition, which is appreciable under many aspects, is still emphasizing too much the term “art” to be really considered comprehensive, but it represents a good start.

A technique, then: which can be, at the same time, used by an artist, a musician, an architect, a scientist, a designer. Sometimes, we can find all these roles gathered in the same person, but we must be careful: as Marius Watz says, “I work and think very differently when creating art and design”. A technique which is based on the application of a system’s internal rules – being it, as Galanter notices, ordered, unordered or complex – in order to produce something. A technique which pre-exists to the computer era, but which has received from their birth, a crucial stimulus. A technique which has many times re-appeared in the world of art, and for the definition of which the artists have given a remarkable contribution, but also a technique which is not only artistic; and which, in his present declination, arises from the gathering of different fields, from algorithmic composition, to digital animation, from underground rave scene and vj culture to architecture. A technique – and this need to be said for those who attribute to this word a denigrative connotation – which is above all a philosophy and an instrument of knowledge.

At this point, we can size the horizon, and say that, from now on, we will talk of the artistic use of generative methods, and, in particular, of the generative art where the instructions consist of an information code performed by a computer. This brings us to a first question: is the work of art the process or the result? The generative program or the generated work? This is a difficult question. My answer is: the first, the second, or both, according to what the author wishes. As Philip Galanter notices, “what generative artists have in common is how they make their work, but not why they make their work or even why they choose to use generative systems in their art practice”. Galanter, like others, insists on the process, linking generative art to the long tradition of procedural art; some others point out at the result, even if it may be considered more interesting the position which, like Marius Watz’ one, includes both the two possibilities: “The artist describes a rule-based system external to him/herself that either produces works of art or is itself a work of art”.
For this reason, the use of generative methods is essentially neutral, it doesn’t have any particular ideological implications. Nevertheless, this method is able to challenge in a very interesting way contemporary art, pushing it towards a deep innovation.

First of all, the use of generative methods tends to redefine, in a completely new way, the figure of the author. We said that generative art is based on a process which, “set into motion with some degree of autonomy”, produces a completed work of art. In other words, there are two acts of creation, one following the other, and two distinct “authors”: the person who choose the system that must be used and writes the program – the instruction set, the algorithm – to be performed; and the person – or the thing – that materially performs the program. The person that we keep, even if with some doubts, considering as the author, only writes the instructions, that are performed – with a margin of interpretation which can be considered relevant – by somebody or something else. The author, therefore, sets into motion a process which develops itself autonomously, and, often, in an unpredictable way, under an amazed gaze. We seem thus to deal not as much with an artist, considered in the way we usually do, but rather with a minor God, who activates a system and then watch it coming to life.
In effect, we are not very far from truth. Generative art proposes again, after many centuries, the idea of art, seen as an “imitation of life”, but it tends to imitate not as much life’s external appearance, but rather its dynamics. We must go back to the starting problem, the question of an author who seems to share, and sometimes to give away, his role with or to a machine. Which one of the two is the artist? And, above all: can a machine produce an artwork?

There is an interesting work by Casey Reas, which helps us to answer the question. MicroImage, presented at Ars Electronica in 2003, is an installation where the same code runs on three machines, positioned side by side. The code is the same one, but the output is completely different, because it changes every time that is performed. The artist has written the code, but the machine has a wide margin of operative freedom. Nevertheless, the artwork is neither the code written by the artist, nor one of the endless outputs proposed by the machine: it is the complex of the idea, the code and the output, organized in the form of an installation. At least in this case: because Casey Reas can choose – as he did – to isolate an image, to decide that this has an autonomous aesthetic value, to print it and sell it as a work of art; or to record one of the endless productions of the code and propose it as a video animation. Or, more, as Sol LeWitt used to do with his Wall Drawings, to say that the idea – fix in a form trough a determined set of instructions- and not one of its endless realizations, is the work of art. The author is dead, long life to the author!

If the author delegates to the machine the material performance of the program, we may, as a consequence, think that the author himself wouldn’t need to have any particular artistic abilities. In these terms, generative art, may look as the highest point of the “deskilling” process started by Duchamp and carried on by contemporary art. Nevertheless, if we think carefully, generative artist, must possess a skill, and in a very high degree. All the artists using generative methods are skilled programmers, and are proud to be so. The code that they write is not hidden, but is placed in a prominent position. Here we see emerging again the figure of the artist as an artisan and the attention paid to work’s manual side in contemporary art. This manual aspect has its roots in a very deep knowledge, which imply a reflection on the complex systems’, on computer theory, and so on and so forth. In other words, generative art is able to rejoin the fracture between theory and practice, between “the painter as a beast” and the philosopher artist, who has dominated the XIXth Century.

Finally, there is another system of values, hated by XXth century art, which the use of generative art has revalued: art as a search for beauty, as a reflection on form, as a process of knowledge. The aesthetic judgment is often present in generative art, in relation both to the code, and to the final result. Generative art seems to have learned from pop culture – one of the ground where it has its roots, through electronic music, animation and pop culture – what art, for a century, has tried to forget: that to work on form is not a sterile aestheticism, escape from reality, trendy superficiality, but an extraordinarily powerful way to investigate our time Beauty is also the beauty of nature: generative processes often imitate its mechanism, and help us to get to know them, if you think, as Galanter notices, that “the universe itself is a generative system.”

All the thing that we’ve said until now, about generative art in general, can be verified in the artist practice of the artists gathered for the first edition of C.STEM. In all the cases, we deal with artists that operate in the space of intersection among different creative fields, and who, often, have a difficult relationship with the world of traditional art. This is caused, on one side, by the well-known weariness towards new media experimentalism, and, on the other side, by the already mentioned difficultly to place generative art in a precise position, and by the innovative elements that we’ve listed, which, paradoxically, makes this, under some respects hedonistic, art, more radical (and more difficult to understand) than the art which uses the new media in a more conceptual and ideological way. It is possible that, when it will be able to appreciate the deep link between generative art and the work of famous masters like John Cage, Sol LeWitt and Hans Haacke, and to understand its innovative force, the world of contemporary art will welcome these kind of quests.

In the meanwhile, the artist don’t waste their time complaining. Marius Watz is a Norwegian artist who has started his career at the beginning of the Nineties, creating visual animations for rave concerts. From this practice, and from his activity as a designer, originates his exaggerated and baroque aesthetics, which is deeply different from the majority of generative art, which, from the aesthetic point of view, looks mainly at the minimalistic and western geometric abstractism’ s tradition. To Philip Galanter, who proposes “a maximal art with minimal means”, Watz opposes his caustic sentences, like “more is more” and “there is no culture like pop culture”; the boasts superficiality and hedonism, but under this surface there is an awareness that makes his work, not that much a mirror of his culture of reference, but rather a distillation, and a reflection on it; he says of his work: “My visual style tends towards extremes, taking color strategies and form systems that clearly have an origin in the pop culture, but are exaggerated to the point where conventional aesthetic expectations break down. I work with code as a way to create visual systems, exploring the material qualities of different algorithmic approaches, seeking to surprise myself as much as anyone else.”
Surprise is an important component in the poetics of generative art, where the artist, as we’ve seen, is often an enchanted observer of a process, which develops in unpredictable directions. This is more true when, as in the case of the work of Fabio Franchino, who comes from Turin, the casual components of the process are underlined. The project Kinetoh consists of a series of studies on sign, form, color, able to produce images of a very high definition. Franchino activates them, and he leaves the process to develop, slowly, on his computer’s screen, hour after hour. From time to time, he goes back to observe it, and, if he finds a particularly surprising, or just beautiful, configuration, he fixes it on a frame, transforming it, afterwards, in an autonomous artwork. The artist guards for himself a world, which was born in front of his eyes, limiting his role to the act of giving us the fragments which, for him, represent the more significant images. In the introduction to the project, Franchino quotes a sentence by Edward del Bono: “Chance doesn’t have limits, imagination instead has some.” Kinetoh is a collection of memories of a travel to the unknown land, situated on the boundaries between imagination and chance’s potentialities. If Watz’s work is loud and excessive, Milanese Alessandro Capozzo‘s work reveals a sober, rigorous and minimal aesthetics. The chromatic aspect is reduced to the minimum, with a preference for pale colors, which are often juxtaposed to brighter ones (but always following a two-color selection). Forms position themselves in nets, lines’ aggregations, arborescent patterns, and often develop following organic dynamics, obtained through the use of artificial life’s algorithms.
Capozzo’s one is an aesthetics of the code, but if, on one side, it shows its own mathematical and algebraic nature, on the other side, it reveals a delicate musicality,a poetry of the ephemeral, which arises from life’s detailed observation: like in Exuvia (2006), an installation created in collaboration with Katja Noppes, that plays on the uncertain limit between life and its pale “shroud”, and whose title refers to larvae’s exoskeleton.
The dimension of the installation seems to suit also the Milanese duo Limiteazero (Paolo Rigamonti e Silvio Mondino), whose self-definition is that of a studio of architecture, media art and media design. Interested in the mediation between virtual and real space, Limiteazero occasionally uses generative methods in order to give life, to quote the title of one of their work, to “active metaphors”, able to make senses able to perceive, through sounds, forms and colors, the constitutive elements and the structures of immaterial spaces. Again, the reference point is life, even if here organic life is replaced by the life of the network and of the world beyond the mirror that is, for us, the space of bits.

C.STEM

Art Electronic Systems and Software Art
TURIN, 32 Dicembre / AB+ Club
JUNE 1 – 2, 2006

ORGANIZATION: 32 Dicembre
COORDINATION: Fabio Franchino
PRODUCTION: Teknemedia.net
CONFERENCE: Domenico Quaranta
WEBSITE: cstem.it
CATALOGUE: Edizioni TeKnemedia.net

CATALOGUE TXTS:

GENERATIVE ars – by Domenico Quaranta

GENERATIVE (INTER)VIEWS. Recombinant conversation with four software’s artists – by Domenico Quaranta

ARTISTS:

Marius Watz (Norvegia) – http://www.unlekker.net/
Limiteazero (Italia) – http://www.limiteazero.com/
Alessandro Capozzo (Italia) – http://www.abstract-codex.net/
Fabio Franchino (Italia) – http://www.abusedmedia.it/

PICTURES:

- Abusedmedia’s Flickr Set. Photos courtesy Andrea Macchia

- Marius Watz’s Flickr Set

PRESS:

- Regine Debatty, “C.STEM conference”, in we make money not art: Part 1 (June 3, 2006) and Part 2 (June 6, 2006).