Turn the power off!

To recap the elements of electronic art, if we throw ourselves to the extent of the utmost analysis, finally we can reach to the electricity. Is it really impossible to imagine the artwork with interactivity and other machinic traits, but without electricity? And can’t we engross ourselves to create the interactive art form without electricity? I think it is not different from premising the illusion without artificial light. Regardless of the machinic traits which comes from the computing machinery and reality-augmenting devices, still we have chance to inquire the new media art without electricity. And still questions are remained. Is this question worth to ask in the area of new media art?

Let’s go back to the moment of the invention of internet. The inter-textuality that is regarded as bloomed from the advert of internet, was exactly mentioned by Bartes for more than 20 yrs before the internet age. In the same context, it makes sense that the retinal art in the age of computing machinery has its own aesthetic or philosophical concepts and novelty and has theoretical background.

The traits of new media art are always investigated from the aspect of electronic devices. But if those materialistic traits are engenders from the newness which lies inside the immaterial characteristics, It will be possible to re-posit the hidden aspects of electronic art as result of socio-cultural changes.

Richard Baquié. Sans titre. Étant donnés, 1°) la chute d’eau, 2°) le gaz d’éclairage (Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, 1991)

컴퓨터기반 시각예술작품에 나타나는 들뢰즈의 안면성

컴퓨터 기반의 시각예술작품은 상호작용성을 획득하기 위해 다양한 종류의 입력장치를 가지고 있다. 그리고 이렇게 받아들인 신호를 처리하여 시각적인 결과물을 다양한 종류의 스크린에 투사한다. 관객의 적극적 참여가 필요하다는 점에서 컴퓨터기반시각예술작품은 예술작품에 대한 새로운 시각을 요구한다. 기존의 시각예술에 비해 컴퓨터기반시각예술작품은 매우 동적이다. 프로그래밍을 이용한 상호작용성은 관객의 행동에 다양한 방법을 반응한다. 센서를 통해 입력된 신호는 컴퓨터의 처리를 거쳐 면에 투사된다. 사용자의 반응은 컴퓨터 처리 과정에 개입하여 투사된 결과에 영향을 준다. 이러한 일련의 과정은 얼굴이 반응하는 과정과 동일하다. 얼굴은 타인의 시선, 움직임에 반응하여 표정을 바꾼다. 표정없는 얼굴은 다른 사람을 마주하면 표정을 드러낸다. 이러한 과정은 컴퓨터 기반의 시각예술작품이 기능하는 것과 많은 유사점을 가진다.

A computer-based interactive art as a white wall / black hole system in Deleuzian understanding

For Deleuze, the white wall / black hole system represents the intersection of two axes, signifiance and subjectification.

Signifiance is never without a white wall upon which it inscribes its signs and redundancies. Subjectification is never without a black hole in which it lodges its consciousness, passion, and redundancies†.

Usually, the audiences in interactive art believe that they are manipulating the artwork by themselves. Every sensing device which is connected to the computer system detects human activity so precisely that the computer system as an artwork functions as programmed by artist. At a glance, this system undoubtedly gives the right to operate the artwork to the audience. Moreover, the fact that the artwork does not function until the audience starts to act gives more probability to that belief. But the odd thing, in the view-point of software engineering, is that the audience is not so much an active subject as an adopted catalyst. As a participant, spectator, operator, whatever, the person who is involved in the interactive art behave as a set of pseudo-class. Basically, modern computer program is executed on the basis of the philosophy of Object Oriented Programming. In this concept, every behavior which is done by the audience is formulated by the programmer. As a result, the boundry of audience’s behavior must be narrowed. During this process, audience’s regulated behavior can be translated as a pseudo class in the whole program. For Deleuze, the problem of expression reveals on the point where the subjectfification and the signifiance intersects. At this point, the white wall / blackhole system start to work as an abstract machine which is called as the face.
Thus, we can restore the matter of expression to the white wall / black hole system. In the computer-based artwork, every sensing device became the black-hole that carries out the process of subjectification. Also, every represented

Before the audience reacts to the artwork, the artwork itself is just an expressionless face. Regardless of the fact wheather the computer-based artwork has its subjectivity or not, through the inclusion of audience to artwork (white wall / black-hole system), the artwork starts to function as a field of subjectification and signifiance. In this state, the artwork has its specific expression (visage) which is differentiated by the audience.

† Deleuze, Guattari, and Massumi, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (University of Minnesota Press, 1987). p.167