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[Maurizio Bolognini, From interactivity to democracy. Towards a post-digital generative art, Artmedia X
Proceedings, Paris, December 2008; in French: De l'interaction
à la démocratie. Vers un art génératif post-digital,
in Ethique, esthétique, communication technologique, Edition
L'Harmattan. Paris,
2011, pp. 229-239]
In examining some trends and prospects in generative art and software
art, which also relate to my work as an artist, I would like to start
from three general considerations, without losing sight of
the basic question posed by the conference: what meaning should be
given to art today, and in particular to neo-technological art. The
points I want to examine are the following:
1) Artistic production is becoming post-digital. In particular, what we
call software art has now long passed through the experimental phase
and has entered the diffusion phase; this is reflected both in the
proliferation in the use of software in artistic production and in
its growing integration into design.
2) Neo-technological art is not a set of homogeneous practices, but
appears rather as a complex field converging around three main
elements (the art system, scientific and industrial research,
politico-cultural media activism). This applies both to new media art
as a whole and to software art. So a reply to the questions raised by
the conference should take each of these tendencies into account.
3) Finally, I would like to look more specifically at the possibility of
further developments in generative art. The evolution of the
technological image, from photography to software art, follows a
precise line: the static image becomes dynamic, it becomes a process,
which as such is exposed to the action of external events and thus to
the participation of the public in more or less advanced forms. I
believe that the forms of this participation can be a decisive
element in offering generative art and software art possibilities of
development that will continue to be interesting.
1. Post-digital artistic practices
The post-digital character of contemporary artistic production is
reflected not only in the shift in some artists’ interest
towards other technologies (such as bio- and nanotechnologies) but
also in the pervasive presence of digital technologies. The first
phase of neo-technological art – experimental, pioneering,
research-based – is now being followed by a phase
of diffusion.
This
becomes particularly evident if we look at performative software
and tools used to manipulate audio and video data, now being employed
by a great number of artists: Max, Pure Data, vvvv (Vier Vau),
Processing, etc. Some of these instruments make it possible to
program using visual interfaces (graphic objects) instead of textual
interfaces. This makes them more attractive and helps multiply the
number of both artistic and commercial applications: the generation
of audiovisual output, live media, vjing, and right on up to
installations which enable the monitoring of electro-mechanical
devices or the use of sensors to receive input from outside. While
the use of compiled programming languages presupposes that the
artists have a specific interest in technologies, systems based on
graphic interfaces are often also used by artists for whom digital
technologies are no longer a distinctive element.
This
post-digital trend is likewise evident if we consider another aspect:
the spread, through the new technologies, of aesthetic content at the
margins of artistic production. There are works of locative media art
which are now indistinguishable from non-artistic, management
applications for the visualization and monitoring of certain data
(for example, systems that survey and represent in real time the
movements around the city of users connected to the mobile phone
network). Analogous comments can be made about net art, which cannot
always be distinguished from on-line content (user-generated
content) produced and spread on the Internet by non-artistic
users.
Similarly,in generative software art we are witnessing on the one hand a
spilling over towards entertainment, and on the other a growing
integration with design. Process-based design and algorithmic
architecture have now passed through the experimental phase and begun
to have practical uses which typically belong to the phases of
spreading the results of research.
These
introductory reflections are already sufficient to bring us back to
the opening question. Quoting Naum Gabo and the Manifesto of
Realism (1920), the conference presentation raises the question
as to what today are the meaning and utility of artistic research and
in particular of neo-technological art. The first reply lies in the
fact that the question was not raised 10 years ago. It is raised
today because neo-technological art is emerging from the experimental
phase, and hence some of its potential is being attenuated. More
specific considerations can be made by distinguishing between various
tendencies in neo-technological art as a whole and in software art in
particular.
2. Software art between art system, scientific research and media
activism
For a long time neo-technological art, or new media art, was considered a homogeneous area of
research, albeit divided into various manifestations, usually
classified according to the technologies employed: software art, net
art, virtual reality, etc. This was also suggested by the fact that
almost all neo-technological artists shared a common denominator:
their self-referential relationship with the new technologies,
considered crucial because they were at the origin of epoch-making
transformations (cultural, economic, aesthetic and political). This
is, however, not enough to identify a homogeneous area of research.
It seems to me that for over two decades now so-called new media
artists have been moving on a territory that centres on three
different elements:
1) media activism,
2) scientific and industrial research,
3) the art system.
Of course, many of these artists’ works are connected to one or
more of these elements, but the distance from each of them seems to
be an interesting factor in describing artistic production. I do not
intend to go into this distinction with reference to the various
manifestations of neo-technological art (on this subject, see M.
Bolognini, Postdigitale, Carocci, Roma 2008), but I shall
mention software art (I use the term here in the broad meaning of
software-based art and the aesthetics of programming), to which many
different things can be traced back, from applications of artificial
intelligence to browser art, from code poetry to generative art:
– Let us look first of all at digital
activism. In this case software art, especially on the
Internet, has touched on important
questions - such as copyright and security -
experimenting with the re-use and the manipulation of existing
software, the alteration of web browser interfaces, the
corruption of data, the aesthetics of failure etc. These are almost
always low-tech works, involving practices of deconstruction and
appropriation. Politico-cultural media activism is the
essential reference point in understanding this software art.
– On the other hand, there is a kind of software art that is closer to
scientific and industrial research. This is the art of those who deal
with artificial intelligence, three-dimensional animations and
simulations, and industrial design, which often uses high-tech
resources and laboratory technologies, producing sophisticated
software. In these cases the approach is sometimes so “constructive”
as to blur the distinction between artistic and technological
research.
It is obvious that these two approaches differ in their nature and
meaning. What used to be the point of all this, and what is
the point of it today? Initially these art practices were useful to
focus on the potential of the new media and their impact on the
operating conditions of cultural production; later they helped us to
understand, criticise and innovate the technologies both from the
inside (the part closest to scientific and industrial research) and
the outside (the part closest to activism). I am not sure whether
this is still very important. Certainly it used to be more so in the
developmental phase of these technologies. Activism on the Internet,
in particular, produced the most interesting works in the second half
of the 1990s – in other words in the crucial years of the
development of the Web.
– Then there are the works and approaches which are situated closer to
the art system, ranging from those that focus on
changes in the spatial-temporal flows produced by digital technologies to those that
relate to
the production of images. In this latter case software
art means primarily generative art, in which the artist establishes
the functioning rules of devices (dispositif,
apparatuses,
machines) which are designed to work
autonomously. Generative art serves to produce unpredictable results,
both when it is based on mathematical instructions contained in a
code and when it uses other procedural rules. In the first case I
think it is useful to distinguish: device-oriented generative
practices, which focus on the generative process and
device, by using software in a more conceptual and speculative way;
and outcome-oriented generative practices, which privilege the end results
(which are sometimes purely decorative visualisations which spill
over into VJ culture). With the current spread of software for the manipulation of audio and video data, and
generative production in real time, this tendency is growing fast
(and this is not a marginal development as it seems to affect art as
well as architecture: see for example the 11th Venice Architecture
Biennale, Architecture Beyond Building).
What used to be the point and what is now the point of this art?
As an artist I do not need art to have a foundation. It is enough for it
to be there as a convention and a context (spaces, resources,
audience) in which I can experiment with things which otherwise would
have no legitimacy or visibility. Likewise with the new technologies,
art is interesting to the extent to which it is a kind of “free
zone” in which it is possible to carry out experiments which
would be unfeasible elsewhere. What art has to offer (and software
art is no exception) is the possibility to understand things in a
different way, shifting boundaries, departing from established
functions: art is more interesting when is at the edge of meaning.
In the last analysis it is this that distinguishes device-oriented
experimental practices from outcome-oriented diffusion practices,
in neo-technological art in general and in generative software art in particular.
But in this case there is another aspect to be considered: this is the emergence
of an effectual art, linked to device-oriented art
practices. There are now many artists who see the symbolic and
metaphorical dimension of a work as of little importance. With
digital technologies, the work is beginning to move beyond the
symbolic plane. It affects the device, the reality rather than
the representation of reality. It is also interesting that this trend
towards an effectual art seems to bring together radically different
approaches in neo-technological art: on the one hand, there is the
aesthetics of the machine, for example with generative installations
making digital devices to work to no symbolic purpose, in a minimal
and abstract way; on the other, there are more cutting and topically
relevant works of digital activism. This is a trend that might change
the very nature of the aesthetic experience.
3. Public generative art: from interactivity to democracy
Let us now consider the third question: the opening up of the generative
process to the action of the public.
For some time now a certain number of curators and critics who are
interested in digital culture have tended to put in the background
the differences between media art and new media art (between
technological and neo-technological art), often using very reasonable
arguments about the need to avoid putting too many limits on the
content of exhibitions and also on the careers of artists. We can
readily agree with these arguments (which are perhaps a further sign
of the current post-digital trend), but as long as we do not forget
the specific nature of neo-technological aesthetics, which is linked
first and foremost to the possibility of delegating our own action to
devices that can operate autonomously, enabling us to take on the
role of both artist and spectator.
Computer-based technologies make available something which moves in the direction of
transcending the artist, creating a disproportion
between the artist and his/her work. This is what suggested referring
neo-technological art to the aesthetics of the sublime,
which, in the 18th century, was linked to the grandness of natural phenomena. It
must be borne in mind that the technological
sublime does not belong to media art; it belongs to the art of the new
technologies. It is a new version of the sublime in which, for the
first time, the disproportion that we perceive between us and the
external world can be partly controlled, fenced in, produced
artificially, to the point of becoming experiment and spectacle, and artwork.
Generative software art is the most evident example of this
possibility.
In his reflections on neo-technological aesthetics, Mario Costa (Il
sublime tecnologico, Castelvecchi, Roma 1998; Dimenticare
l’arte, Angeli, Milano 2005) not only identifies the technological sublime as
the essential question, but places the accent on the “socialised
consumption of the sublime”. This aspect has always been of
particular interest to me, since I see the experience of the sublime
as more attractive for the artist than for the public, precisely
because the artist has the chance to pass instantaneously from the
role of artist to that of spectator.
This possibility, though, could be shared with the public by introducing
into generative art some forms of interactivity, thus experimenting
with a more widespread consumption of the sublime.
To explain this better, I would like to make reference here to one of my
own works.
Almost twenty years ago I began working on my Programmed Machines,
computers designed to generate unlimited flows of random images,
which I programmed and then left to function indefinitely. At
first there were very few computers, then in the 1990s there were
hundreds of them and many are still at work. In
1992 I also began to seal
some of these computers (closing the monitor buses with silicone) in
such a way that they continued to produce flows of images which
no-one would ever see. In doing
this I did not consider myself as an artist who created certain
images, but as one who was using the images produced by these
installations to cover limitless surfaces and to generate out-of-control infinities: I wasn’t interested
in the quality of the images but in their unlimited dimension.
(This can be considered as a fairly atypical example of software art, in
which the device is activated in a way which is minimal and abstract.
It is a use of the digital technologies which is certainly closer to
the art system than to scientific research or media activism, and
indeed these works have found more space in artistic institutions
than at festivals).
1. Maurizio Bolognini, Installations
of Programmed Machines.
Courtesy MLAC, Rome; Villa Croce Museum, Genoa; CACTicino,
Bellinzona, CH;
PAN-Palace of Arts, Naples
In 2000, I began to connect some of these computers to the mobile phone
network (in particular in the series of Collective
Intelligence Machines).
This enabled me both to redefine the device
by including the action of the public, and to connect, again via the
telephone network, various geographically distant locations, making
interactive and multiple installations. In this case the flow of
images was made visible by large-scale video-projections and the members of the public was able to
modify their characteristics in real time, by
sending new inputs to the system, using the mobile network Short Message Service (SMS) from their own phones.
This was done in a similar way to certain applications used in
electronic democracy (Fig. 2).
What I had in mind was art which was generative,
interactive and public.
2. Maurizio Bolognini, CIMs: interaction structure
3. Maurizio Bolognini, Untitled (CIMs series): interactive, multiple
installations, coordinated across the mobile telephone
network. Courtesy Villa
Croce Museum, Genoa; Musei Civici, Imola
Going beyond this example, the opening up of the generative process to the
action of the public is a possibility that still has to be tried out.
I mentioned at the beginning that the evolution of the technological
image (from photography to digital generativity) follows a trend: the static
image becomes dynamic; it becomes a process, a flow, which as such
can be opened up to the action of the public.
Of course there can be different degrees of involvement in this
participation: the action of the participants can be restricted to
providing random input (by means of presence, the voice, movement,
and various types of signals) which the system takes into account; or
each person can express preferences, giving a direction to random
changes produced by the generative process (as in so-called
evolutionary art); or again, and this is the case that interests us
most, the participants can act inside a device of collective
intelligence based on advanced participation technology.
It seems to me that this last possibility has not yet been sufficiently
explored. There are perhaps two main reasons:
– The first is that software artists have continued to think of programming
codes more than the operating structures of which they form part.
In short, they have almost always sought to reflect on the social
and cultural implications of software starting from the software itself.
A different approach is possible if we assume that what is important is
not the “code” as such but the “device”,
which is made not only of hardware and software but, in the case of interactive applications, also includes the communication structure between
the people involved. From this point of view it becomes evident that
there is no clear-cut dividing line between the technological device
and the processes it activates.
– The second reason is that telematic art has addressed the theme of
participation and collective intelligence (one of the most used concepts in the 1990s) through abstract
declarations of intent which rarely corresponded to an interest in
the functioning of the communication techniques deployed (their
efficiency, their limitations, and the obscure dimension which links
individual and collective intelligence).
More interesting in this context is the way in which the concept of
collective intelligence was used in the first off-line,
extra-artistic experiments conducted in the 1970s, where it was
already clear that collective intelligence is not simply the sum of
the individual intelligences that generate it but is a separate
device activated by specific techniques of communication. Especially interesting are also participation technologies taken from
electronic democracy (such as real time opinion-convergence
techniques and interactive decision-making) which are based upon three main
features: recursive structure, feedback and statistical response (see
M. Bolognini, Democrazia elettronica,
Carocci, Roma 2001): in interactive installations (for example the Collective Intelligence
Machines), this means that
anybody can continually change their mind and send new inputs, can see the corresponding output in real time, and in so doing they contribute to decisions that start up new cycles of images with different characteristics.
Up to now those who have dealt with interactive media installations have concentrated on human-machine
communication (vertical interaction), neglecting any form of collective intelligence (horizontal interaction). I think that this could be now reconsidered to produce a leap in
quality in interactive art, almost a change from interaction to
democracy, that is, from interaction to decision via interactive
decision-making. A point that
I’d like to emphasise is that
a generative process based on collective intelligence can be even more surprising and
obscure than a generative process based solely on software. I think
this opens up the possibility of generative art which is interactive
and public, in which even the instability and the technical
limitations of participation devices (which in this context are bound
to be used and misused, open to everyone) can represent an
interesting aspect. I am thinking of installations at the crossroads
between generative art, public art and mobile electronic democracy
(participation technologies via mobile communication).
A similar kind of generative art continues to make reference to the
aesthetics of the sublime, to that disproportion (and disjunction)
between artist and artwork which I referred to earlier. But here this
disproportion is not only software-driven, it does not simply concern
the relationship between participants and the digital device
(hardware and software), but between each of them and the expanded
device (hardware, software and
the public) of which they form part. This has ethical and aesthetic implications
which perhaps (to
come back to the subject of the conference) could give
meaning and direction to the current spread of generative production.
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