Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Combine Laboratory (aka Combinatory)


Rauschenberg taught me that one sure way to supersede a predictable outcome is to unconsciously improvise your work's trajectory without looking back. Not that he did this with all of his work, but you could feel it in many of his performances whether they were focused on painting or techno art.

Rauschenberg recently died in his home on Captiva Island.

Back in 2005, after seeing his "combine" retrospective at the Met, I wrote:
Of course, it was after this major "combine" phase that Rauschenberg literally "plugged into" the Art+Technology scene where he started up E.A.T. with Billy Kluver. In many ways, his work suggests the coming together of recombinatory remixology with visual electracy (electricity/literacy).

Coming on the heels of Abstract Expressionism and somewhat connected to the early conceptual art readymades of Duchamp, Rauschenberg's early combines seem to take on an anti-drip actionary attitude, and one can only guess why he chose to assemble the various found objects that he used in his work. Personally, I dig the socks, comix, and taxidermy.

The date 1954 stood out quite a bit in the first rooms of the exhibition (perhaps this was resonating with that Cold Cut album "Let It Replay" that I played in my seminar last week, the track by the Japanese sound artist Cornelius where he plays with the history of the Moog synthesizer and his first Moog construction in 1954).

But will these works stand the test of time? I don't ask that question in terms of their relevance. That part is already clear. Is he in the canon? Yes - he is IN. But I mean literally stand the test of time. The newspapers are fading as are the colored fabrics.

His approach to improv was interesting. For example, his First Time Painting (and the ones after like Second Time Painting, etc.) were painting performances that the audience could see him making but they were not allowed to see the actual painting itself since the canvas was facing away from them. He had embedded an alarm clock in the canvas and once the alarm went off, he picked up the canvas and walked off stage without showing the work. You can see them in the Met, though.

Factum 1 and Factum 2 were responses to the spontaneity of the Abstract Expressionists. Nearly identical pieces created during two different time durations, when placed together, he seems to suggest that even improv has its game-plan layed out well before the performance takes place.

Is it possible to be improvisational within a preconceived conceptual framework?
To answer my own question: absolutely. It happens time and time again, most recently in 29 Inches and Immobilité.

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Sunday, May 18, 2008

Educating Artists, Digitally

Here's a new anthology that is just coming out and that I have an essay in:
Edited by Mel Alexenberg
ISBN 9781841501918/£29.95/$60/Hardback

In UK: Intellect Books / In USA: University of Chicago Press

“Mel Alexenberg, a very sophisticated artist and scholar of much experience in the complex playing field of art-science-technology, addresses the rarely asked question: How does the ‘media magic’ communicate content?” - Otto Piene, Professor Emeritus and Director, Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In Educating Artists for the Future, some of the world's most innovative thinkers in higher education in art and design offer fresh directions for educating artists for a rapidly evolving post-digital future. Their creative redefinition of art at the interdisciplinary interface where scientific enquiry and new technologies shape aesthetic and cultural values offers groundbreaking guidelines for art education in an era of emerging new media. This is the first book concerned with educating artists for the post-digital age, propelling artists into unknown territory.

A culturally diverse range of art educators focus on teaching their students to create artworks that explore the complex balance between cultural pride and global awareness. They demonstrate how the dynamic interplay between digital, biological, and cultural systems calls for alternative pedagogical strategies that encourage student-centered, self regulated, participatory, interactive, and immersive learning. Educating Artists for the Future charts the diaphanous boundaries between art, science, technology, and culture that are reshaping art education.

Contributors include:
Shlomo Lee Abrahmov, Israel
Mark Amerika, USA
Roy Ascott, UK
Michael Bielicky, Germany
Ron Burnett, Canada,
Carol Gigliotti, Canada
Diane Gromala, Canada
Wengao Huang, China
Eduardo Kac, USA
Lucia Leão, Brazil
Aaron Marcus, USA
Jill Scott, Switzerland
Bill Seaman, USA
Jinsil Seo, South Korea
Edward Shanken, USA
Yacov Sharir, USA
Ismail Ozgur Soganci, Turkey
Stefan Sonvilla-Weiss, Finland
Robert W. Sweeny, USA
Vinod Vidwans, India
Stephen Wilson, USA
More here.

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