Engaging in dialogue (day 163)

CODE Dialogues happened yesterday.  I didn't blog about it because I needed a break to get clear on what stood out for me about the event.

Bruce Ferguson started the day with a pretty heavy talk on the responsibilities of being an artist working with technology in the context of a world where many things are not working optimally.  There is still a tech divide.  The disparity of, say, access to the web, is pretty glaring when you see it on a map.  He was basically pointing out that artists have a role in working with technology in a way that highlights the inflection points of tech as creative and destructive.   He was pointing out that culturally we are still pretty clumsy at discerning what we should do with tech, and how we should do it.

It was a nice segue into the next talk about urbanism, technology and participation.  Alexandra Samuel did a great job moderating a fairly difficult group of panelists.  The discussion found its legs I think on the discussion about interaction vs. participation.  My feeling was participation in this case was perhaps meant in the sense of 'engagement'.  The difference between interaction and participation then centres on commitment to a larger dialogue for which the artwork or technology becomes an entry point.  Many interactive artworks are still very much about entertainment and spectacle.  And in some ways, people expect that.  As it becomes more mainstream I think we'll see a shift in emphasis to work that provides deeper ways to engage.

As I was getting ready for Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's talk during the break, the discussion in the morning started to worry me.  His work is so much about play and grand gestures.  It can be hard to relate his work to social responsibility.  There was some controversy about 'Vectorial Elevation' being enacted in Vancouver both because of the cost of installation and the amount of power needed for the lights.  Especially in the context of the Olympics where the cost/benefit analysis continues to trigger a lot of anger.  Rafael himself is not one to emphasize political issues in discussion about his work.  I was super nervous.

In good form, he started his talk with Mexican music to lighten the mood.  He went on to describe a series of recent work from his relational architecture, shadow box, and sub-sculpture series.  I was really glad that he finished his talk with Voz Alta, a work to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Tlatelolco student massacre in Mexico in 1968.   It is by far his most political work and I think highlights the potential of participation at a visually grand scale.   It was about owning a space and speaking out, involving the memory of the buidings and geography directly.  It was not about 'alien memory' as he often states of his relational architecture work.

I started with a question about the tension between large scale public installations and political overt work.  Creating large public installations often requires official permission and sanction so may limit the range of expression possible, yet the potential for impact is high.  He spoke about the fact that the work in Mexico was commissioned by the students at the University.  They were able to mount the work independent of government control.  It made me wonder if this would even be possible here.  He spoke about needing to compromise but not giving in on crucial points of the work.
I followed up with a question about Vancouver and why Vectorial Elevation, if he could have done a Vancouver-specific work what would it have been.  He didn't answer the second part of the question but talked about Vectorial Elevation as being ideal for the Olympics because of its possibility for cross-country and international participation.  Hard not to agree with that.
I then addressed the controversy more directly and asked about the need for such large scale work.  Why spend such large sums when there are more pressing social issues to be solved.  He spoke about the power issues with his work and said that people usually felt more comfortable once he told them that the power needed to run his piece for the entire duration of the exhibition was equivalent to three hockey games.  He also mentioned that the controversy noticeably quieted down once the piece went up.   He ended it with support for the fight to re-establish arts funding in BC.  People clapped.   Thinking about it now I think I would have rephrased my question.  I framed it in the context of the Olympics and NASA, things that are expensive but appeal to a hopeful sense of unity, exploration, out of the reach of the practical grittiness of life.   I think I would have asked his opinion more directly about how such endeavours help or hinder the possibilities or motivation of solving some of the more gritty issues of living in society.   Because that is the tension.  When I experience a work like Vectorial Elevation, am I suddenly more optimistic about world unity, world peace?  By highlighting the best of human nature, do we give ourselves a push to work all the more harder to solve the problems?  Or is it a distraction, a diversion?  I suppose anything can become a way to hide from responsibility.   When the question is framed about money I think it hides a category mistake.  Many of the social issues we face are about process, not money.  It apparently takes 75K per year for the government to take care of one homeless person.  Clearly, money is not the issue.  Still if we devoted all the energy and human resources that was devoted to the Olympics towards alleviating suffering in the Downtown Eastside, I'm sure we'd see progress.   Where people are willing to devote energy is the real issue.  It also helps that the Olympics has a definite end point, a goal.
Anyway, that is the real discussion that I would have liked to have with Rafael.  I still don't know what he thinks about it.  I sensed he wasn't going to go there with me.  He spoke eloquently about his work and process but stayed pretty clear of its potential impact.
I'm sad I didn't get to ask him about the question about Augmented Reality.   But I think he would have been against the personal and commercial nature of it.  Over the time I spent with the documentation of his work, and at the dialogue, it became clear that he is very much about people physically engaging with each other and the space.  He's a very social person and fun is very much part of his motivation.

Ok enough with the blow by blow.  I felt terribly uncomfortable up there.  Even though it was supposed to be a dialogue the nature of the setup made that difficult.  I think I would rather do radio.

A song for this post.

Shadowing Rafael (day 161)

I spent many hours familiarizing myself with Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's thought patterns today.  I didn't have the luxury of speaking to him so I googled him and read books about him and watched videos and read interviews.  Mercifully, there was lots of repetition.  I need to know a bit about Rafael because I'll be responding to his talk tomorrow at CODE Dialogues.  It occurred to me that I could go in cold, or warm I guess...because I already knew some things about him but I think the preparation will be worth it.

Some of the things I take away from my research:

• He does not like the term "collective intelligence" (Pierre Levy),  prefers "connective intelligence" (Derrick de Kerckove).  This seems to be a reaction to the utopian ideas behind collective intelligence.   We agree.
• He currently has two streams of work: relational architecture, and sub-sculptures.  Relational architecture being transformations of public spaces to promote new relationships and sub-sculptures being about dynamic and chaotic systems.
• Likes the idea of being surprised by public participation.
• Works off of Duchamp's premise that "Le regard fait le tableau" (the gaze creates the painting).  Loves the dialogue between artwork and public.  Sees artwork as having awareness.
• Likes the idea of temporarily changing public spaces, putting it back into the hands of the public, subverting the usual commercial or political purposes of such spaces.
• Is inspired by current scientific thought.
• Likes to reveal the mechanisms of surveillance, even in his own work.
• Shadows are an important aspect of many of his works.

Some of the questions that came up for me:

• Vectorial Elevation is a work that has been enacted in other locations.  If he could do a work specific to Vancouver, or one that more specifically involved its architecture, what would it be?
• In Vectorial Elevation, how does the delay affect the piece.  How would real-time interaction change the piece?
• Why shadows?  I have my own ideas but it would be nice to hear him talk about it.
• The tension between analog and digital in his sub-sculpture work.
• What does he think about AR?  A lot of his work is about making the virtual visible in grand public gestures.  I wonder what he might think about the private nature of most AR work (as in one device, one person...each having their own view of the world).
• Would like to hear more about spin-offs from his work (open software, other tech).  He said in an interview that if artists had the budget of the defense department they would produce more innovation.  I tend to agree.  But I think that applies to a lot of fields.  The defense department is overvalued.
• Sound does not feature prominently in his work.  Or at least does not seem as deliberate in most cases.  Why is that?  Does he see that changing?
• Would love to hear his thoughts on the claustrophobia that can result from computer work.  His work is so spacious, it seems an antidote to email apnea.

Who knows what will happen tomorrow.  I'm happy to keep an open mind and work with him to create a great public dialogue.  Somehow I have a feeling he won't make it hard.

A song for this post.