correspondance

interview with Niina: art & technology
  • place: Preston, VIC, Australia

18::March::2011 16:59 → permalink

Niina has been researching art and technology for some years now. We met when I was teaching my old netculture class at the Media Lab in the University of Art and Design Helsinki back in 2000. I participated in her research for her PhD then, and … now

Ei Niina — this is all I could manage, it’s impromptu, but honest, with a bit of humor mixed in… a little complicated, as there’s no time to write an essay about what world-view lies behind the answers. You might want to reference http://www.neoscenes.net/hyper-text/text/pixel.html an article I wrote for Pixelache in Helsinki in 2007 — the same year I did a workshop there too http://www.neoscenes.net/projects/pixel/index.php

you could also check out:

http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/ and search on
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/?s=network
or so…
even
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/archives/date/2001/11

> 1.What changes have happened in your work and practices as an artist during the
> last ten years? Do you think your relationship with technology / or the way you
> use technology /has changed during this time?

My practice has widened intensively to take on a tough challenge of the entire techno-social system we are embedded within, are part of. Yes, this includes my relationship AND my understanding of the relationship between all flows that are the substance of technology. This also includes all aspects of life governed by techno-social protocol. When I use (a) technology I understand what I will both lose and gain when using that particular protocol. Using a technology is in fact, a changing of flows of energy that we are embedded in, part of. We are not separate in any way from everything else!

> 2.What kind of different phases in your life have you experienced as an artist?
> Do you work as a full-time or part-time artist? Or do you, for instance, only
> occasionally engage in artistic activities or organize exhibitions?

Problematic word, artist. But words are only poor representations of states of relation with the Other. I have moved through numerous label systems, engineering, science, geophysics, extractives industry, traveler, teacher, facilitator, friend, foreigner, native, chariot-racer, driver, passenger, and occasionally, mixed in a constantly-changing soup, artist, watcher-of-the-sky, swimmer, etc, etc…

> 3.How do you finance your work, career as an artist?

I don’t beg. I accept housing, a place to sleep, food (especially when I get to learn something in the kitchen or even do the cooking myself, I make some excellent Buffalo Marinara Sauce); I advise people on a variety of areas of my expertise — the optimized use of technology, as well as How Things Work, to return more control to their immediate locale and other. I talk to younger people who are participating in social ‘education’ processes, where I help them to understand its protocols, and how to perform more open protocols as participants in the entire system.

from them I learn what it is to be human.

Occasionally, money intersects my social existence. Not much , but enough — I’m still (as of this second) alive, so, enough cash, apparently.

> 4.What do new technologies or digital technologies mean to you as an artist? How
> would you depict the role of technology in your artistic work – and in the art
> world in general?

Language is a technology, or the basic protocol that drives technology, there is no such ‘new technology’ and there is no engagement within the continuum of human relation which is not fully formed by the flows that techno-social systems impress on everyOne. A wide-energy exchange between the Self and the Other follows pathways that are affected by the entire techno-social system. That system has change its ability attract our life-time in ever more effective ways, to be sure. But once one understands that process, it is possible to precisely decide which flows to partake in and which flows to avoid or simply pay no attention to.

> 5.You are an artist and work in the field of the arts, but do you also work or
> associate with other (closely related) fields? Do have difficulties in combining
> or reconciling these fields or areas with your work as an artist?

Field, like the label of ‘artist,’ is a set of protocols ‘recognized’ by certain people who then put their faith into those protocols and generalize what they mean. I will talk with anyone. And listen carefully to what they say. Each of them are on different paths, though, incrementally, and the labels are simply of no interest to me, except maybe in the instance that people are forced to make labels for themselves. That can be quite revealing…! Sometime I find it difficult to understand why some can’t see the obvious, but I do know that the obvious is deeply relative. I think a good understanding of thermodynamics would improve people’s abilities to make good decisions about their lives.

> 6.What does networking mean to you as an artist? Are you networking
> “electronically”? What kind of networks or forums are you involved in?

Networking is engaging two or three, maybe more people in a shared and open flow of energy. But since we are all engaged this way, with those people who we share our presence with, we are networking. Perhaps in Indra’s Net or some such relative world…

> 7.During the past ten years, have you noticed changes in those instances that
> you work and collaborate with (associates, partners)?

I think I engage people more intensively now than I did some years ago, at the same time, I stand further back, out of the ‘market’ and rather like to spend time in the desert, walking, and watching, just hanging out. I find I have plenty of good stories to tell when I am back as an urban being — teaching, or just living (with people). I like to know about peoples lives in the broadest sense, I like to interact with their families when possible. I (mostly) find it a pleasure to share presence with people. Especially when that presence is expansive, without limit, and open.

> 8.How much do you know about author’s/copy rights? Are you familiar with the
> contract practices relating to copy rights? How do you see the question of
> authorship in the context of new art forms and digital technologies? Are
> copyrights supporting and/or limiting artistic expression?

I know about Human Rights, and the myriad ways which nation-states and other techno-social powers (de)form those. But I also am aware of Human Obligations which people should pay more attention to — the grasping of Rights replaced by the practice of filling obligations with the immediate (or remote!) Other.

> 9.Do new technologies increase, extend or in some way limit the possibilities
> for aesthetic or artistic expression? From the artist’s point of view, what new
> or different do they bring to artistic work and practice?

Again, ‘new technologies’ has a completely relative meaning, at best. It’s all about finding a particular pathway with which to share presence between the Self and the Other. Where no possible shared pathway exists, there is a sad life, eh? How close to death is a lack of human connection! I believe Martin Buber has a good model for the world — it is the intersection of the Self with the Other is the source of all reality and life. There is an infinite range of pathways to choose, each with its unique possibilities and each with a certain loss. We can never fully express our own experience to an Other, no matter the pathway. It is in being open to receive expressions outside our own experience where we come to face the unknown and to learn from it and to change within ourselves and with that, our perceptions change, and the world changes.

> 10.How and what do you communicate or interact with the audience? What is the
> role of communication in artists’ work today? What does interactivity mean to you?

I am only a participant in life, so artist-audience, ah, it seems so … quaint an idea… but it’s all just about human encounter, more or less mediated by the techno-social mediation which shunts our energies onto rigidly-defined pathways… A less defined way of exchanging energies give rise to potential “Temporary Autonomous Zones” which, dynamically, provide space for creative action. It is at the intersection of the Self with the unknown (or the Other) which becomes the space of interactive being.

> 11.Are there other, even more relevant or topical, issues that should be asked
> about art and technology now in the year 2011? What are these?

How did we arrive here?

and

What does thermodynamics imply?

and

USE LESS ENERGY!

> Any comments and criticism towards these questions are also welcome!

While I understand that they have to follow certain academic scripts and protocols, well, what can you do! Although a more open conversation about these things might be a bit more fun…! over some good food…

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Letter to Dan (RIP)
  • place: Reykjavik, Iceland

29::November::1990 18:08 → permalink

Well. Dan

“Lethargy is simply frozen violence”

What else? I sit in the middle of the Arctic Night (The middle always remains the same, no matter how long the night is). Waiting for sleep to fill my head, looking at a CRT screen. Eyes are getting crippled by the stress of focusing. Goodnight.

The next day late morning. All is gray. When I develop film here I notice the lack of contrast, especially after Colorado. The Light is different. I have taken to capitalizing the first letter of Light, and I have also quit using the Lord’s name in vain you know? Two changes from my previous life. You can look forward to wonderful things like this happening when you finish graduate school.

The work you sent arrived a bit worse for wear, and surely to the perplexity of the customs/postal people. They keep a close monitor on my post here, almost all packages are checked… A bit disturbing, but also amusing…
(more …)

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