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art action anamnèse esthétique, histoire et théorie de l'art contemporain @ |
revelint - revue électronique internationale
- Paris 2002-2007
Józef Bury, " Cyberspace and the Local
Illusion - Working notes, 2002-2004 ", pp. 18-22, in :
V Miedzynarodowe Spotkania Sztuki Katowice 2004 / 5th International
Art Meeting Katowice 2004, Galeria Sztuki Wspolczesnej BWA Katowice, Katowice
2006
Józef Bury
Cyberspace and the Local Illusion - Working notes,
2002-2004
The instinct of duration and the
feeling of the separateness of my body as well as everyday experiencing of the
world in the natural position confirm me in a conviction that I act and move in
a three-dimensional space, which is filled with objects. Then the various
techniques of grammetry and geometry allow me to define the shapes, dimensions
and positions of these objects, and to determine the topology of the place they
occupy. In this way my natural position, aided with at least the most
elementary knowledge, enables me to exist in the world and to recognise its
extent. [...]
In spite of the fact that the sight
seems to be the basic channel of information about the reality we live in, the
actuality of the separateness of being and existence of the external world are
continuously confirmed by work of the whole sensory apparatus. The function of
sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and balance is complemented with the work
of different receptors which allow me to sense temperature, humidity,
vibrations and proportions, but also various states of the organism, that is of
my own body. And just this simultaneous activity of all the senses enables me
to recognise properly the reality to which the perceived data do refer me.
[...]
The unrestrained force that pushes
me to make continuous observations is undoubtedly the remains of conditions of
the natural world in which the incessant evaluation of the situation and
continuous tracing the unfriendly surrounding had been the question of
survival. Surely other important sight sensations we do experience during our
childhood. The first reach of the hand towards the visible world, which is
subsequently confirmed by all other senses, thus informing us that this world
really exists is undoubtedly a fundamental experience. The credibility of the
image is also confirmed in the process of shaping the consciousness of our own
separateness and uniqueness of our body. The observation of shadow and mirror
reflection allows noticing that both our body and other objects can be
represented in a situation that can be visually perceived. These common
examples explain why, in spite of our knowledge that it’s only an image, we
subconsciously identify the image with the reality. Our later experiences of
the world prove us that the image unnecessarily laps with reality, however we
still have the pleasure to be consciously cheated. It’s the part of the game, a
therapeutic play allowing us to rest from the load of reality. It may, however
become a trap, when because of tiredness, the lack of time, the fears, desires
and frustrations we "remain" in the image. To remain in the image is
a kind of resignation to verify it, to identify the reality to which it refers
us (the history of unfaithful Thomas teaches us that the need of poly-sensory verification of the image is not only a question
of age). This resignation implies the belief, and hence the impossibility of seeing
the very picture and the mechanics of its imaging. This belief in the image
puts us in the situation of particular adoration (the trust, the fear of loss
and the necessity of return...), and therefore the weakness and cognitive
helplessness. This "stay in the image", I mean this relation of
dependence on the image, I call here the local illusion. [...]
From the cycle
"Interfaces" : Mise à jour de l'index
(Upgrading the Index), 2004; 15 secondes sur l'écran (15 Seconds on the
Screen), 2004 [Microperformance - PC, Digital photograph]
Within the broad programme of
informative control of biology and multilevel aspects of life the stake of the
development of new technologies of communication is the perspective of
controlling the immaterial spaces, the areas of dreams, desires, emotions and
imaginations, as well as the individual and collective past. [...]
The basic terminology that
determines the cyberspace reality – the Internet, Web, domain, gateway, site,
interface, online, including French terms of Toile, Réseau, borne, and
passerelle – is to a large extent the terminology of spatial geometry. It is
reflecting the absence of time in the virtual network in which just we are the
spiders awaiting for vibrations evoked by our visiting
the interfaces. Other salient features are the specific "flatness",
the lack of "thickness", and also a cartographic, almost horizontal
structure of such configuration, what is usually characteristic for the surface
of a map or just a horizontally laid picture. The notions of speed and fluency
(of the surfing) which usually determine the dynamics of the Internet show
rather at a glissade on an unlimited ice sheet, which under the influence of
warmth of the moving body (sight?) melts the epidermis of its cover, thus
uncovering the fragments of life that are imprisoned in a frozen and timeless
existence. The "warmed" fragments are then projected, as if they were
the images of fata morgana or mirages, onto the surface of the interface. [...]
The flatness, speed, fluency,
simultaneity, temperatureless brightness, subliminal stimulation, as well as
the scentless and mono-sensory character of the visual channel (aided with the
sound band which isn’t, however, a verifying channel) are the components if the
climate of the cyberspace. [...]
The risk of "staying in the
Internet" is a modification of the category of place, time and distance,
the dissociation of time and space, and in the end, the loss of the
time/spatial reference data of experience, or a kind of achronic topological
hysteria. This includes the multiplication of sites, the timelessness of places
of virtual journeys, the subjectivity of the time of stay, the overlapping (the
simultaneity) of time, the tele-presence, i.e.
simultaneously in a few "sites", and the mediated distance of live
and in situ experiences. The experience modified in this way is
accompanied by the virtualisation of the space-time continuum (the
impossibility of localisation of the site, and time incommensurate with the
"paced" distance) as well as by the uncontrollability of the source
of emission and of the credibility of transmitted data (it is impossible to
confirm the experience with the whole sensory apparatus). In result we get the
chronic local illusion and the inhibition of cognitive processes. The
apparently poly-sensory reality – accessible through the mediation of
vision-helmets and touch pads and screens – is a reality experienced
"out" of the body, that is beyond the reach of the sensory apparatus.
The illusion is possible thanks to the de-materialisation of the space-time
continuum, or the digitalisation of topological co-ordinates and physical
states of the matter (the movement of air, temperature...) as well as their
modelling – that is a "translation" into sight incentives. The
gesture made in the virtual space is visually controlled. In spite of many
promising attempts to include other sensory channels
in the technology of communication, there is still a long and
"bright" future before the visual channel. [...]
The efficient "moving"
within the virtual reality – the only materialisation of which is its
incarnation in the image on the edge of interface – is conditioned by working
out new cognitive attitudes that are dependent on redefinition of the time
dimension of the cyberspace and based on the effective methods of attesting the
image. [...]
Microperformance
à deux mains (Microperformance for two hands), 2000. From the cycle "Seuil-scopie" (Thresholdscopy).
[scanner, RVB digitalisation]
The above-mentioned notes are to a
large extent a result of thinking that accompanies the performance practice and
traditional production of the image. I mean painting as covering and
overlapping, or as a filter that permeates the vision in time measure. I mean
long exposed photography as a way of experiencing the world by means of
technical apparatus implying the perception, cognition, memory and record of
variable reality, as well as performance treated as the subjective and
poly-sensory experience of the space-time. Therefore the signification of these reflections – which are
by no means any exhaustive analysis – consists in the fact that their origin is
situated within traditional artistic practice enriched with everyday banal
relations with new technological reality that stimulates the spontaneous and
intuitive acceptance of changing environment. Therefore I incline to claim that
even the most classical artistic experiences undertaken today (dance, singing,
painting, sculpture, architecture...) differ from those we practised before the
era of the Internet and new technologies of communication just in this
awareness of the state-of-the-art. Creating traditional painting in the
situation when we are aware of the methods of production, recording and
transmission of the digital image, as well as experiencing the space-time of
performance when it is enriched with the consciousness that there are sensors
able to catch the movement and record it in the language of digits, should be
included in the forms of multimedia art (the Internet art, computer art).
The project of recording
man’s movement by means of three-dimensional analysis of the co-ordinating
signs placed on the model. 1984-1985
Today this awareness is more than
ever indispensable in artistic practices that use the archaic technical gesture
or the very artist’s body or only the reality that is "at the reach of his
hand". In many papers and programmes of artistic education I have already
formulated the postulate of participation of the artist in the research work in
the area of new technologies (Katowice Meeting is one of the attempts to
realise it). In this commentary I’d like to draw the attention to the need of
supporting the experiment in natural position. In contact with only the
everyday and private practice of new media, this can be also a source of new
competence. Not only the interface design and the Internet art are here at
stake, but also the shared creation of the Internet. Within the widely
understood culture of the Internet era, the Internet art and the Internet-aware
art inscribe in the same project of working out new forms of collective
intelligence indispensable for co-creating the virtual space we could live in.