Post-Internet – what's next?

Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Money. art after social media era

admin — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 12:42:41 +0000

In honor of the Rockefeller Foundation and Mr. Michael Naimark
In 2003, Michael Naimark completed his research on media art commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation. The purpose of his research was to delineate how the field of new media has been accessed and explored by international corporations and, conversely, the practices that transpire within the realm of art. Additionally, it also intended to trace out the advancements new media has made since its inception, both formally and conceptually. In this sense, his project can be viewed as a research-oriented investigation into the history of new media – a project whose pertinence derived from a long-awaited need for communication from different sides.
Our present exhibition seeks a more intimate interpretation of how different fields, cultures and media can co-exist, and how technology, science and aesthetics can better integrate – independent of the reality fabricated by the mainstream world – with concurrent social processes. Attempting to identify and locate different aesthetic senses within the sphere of culture and technology, it intends to generate public resonance through the exploration of everyday life, fashion trends and collective consciousness. Furthermore, our exhibition wants to provide visual, cultural and practical evidence for the aforementioned notion of integration while seeking to channel the future toward a certain direction. Viewed under this dual perspective, our exhibition is both a product of culture and the pathmark for its becoming. The function of the image is not only limited to the conveyance of meaning or the creation of common resonance, but the manifestation of its own history and logic. If the image can generate its own context and narrative, then the encounter between the image and its beholders, whether in the form of telling a story or judging based on logical inference, would then necessarily involve the existence of a space or interface, which can assume virtual, physical and other forms. Yet, when the exhibition drifts away from its context, and enables the emergence of non-image based scenarios or situations, then the types of resonance this process creates will also begin to swift. Far from being a result of a one-sided demand, this co-existence between image based encounters and potential trajectories that lead beyond them is generated by the exodus of image and parallels, equivalences and possible points of connectivity that transpire within it. Perhaps this is a simplification of what non-image based exhibition entails; the latter, as an inherently ambiguous trend of visual culture, is constantly being regurgitated, glossed over and invaded by other conceptual formulations. This contextual exodus is not the same as its cancellation, but preparing oneself for the surprise that happens beyond the contextual webs of culture, knowledge and experience. Here, the key question is not comprehension or miscomprehension, but concurrent unfoldings that have been obscured by the act of viewing – a premise that implies the departure from subjective standpoints. If a painting is a story, or the reality which you perceive is in fact a deception, then all its essential relationships would be contingent upon your presence or having been present, in which case, one’s absence could constitute the total reversal of the previous state of affairs – becoming the story, deceiving reality instead of being deceived by it. Different from Zˇizˇek’s account of love, which is by nature violent, love is the description of a phenomenon, which, in itself, has no properties. As our society becomes more complex and multivalent, we are not only faced with different interpretations of contemporaneity, but also new descriptive systems of reality created by the multiplication, overlapping and invasion of meaning. Our exhibition wants to identify contemporaneity in its multivalent character, contain it in the realm of art for appreciation and research.
Is the reality of the Chinese people something entirely unique? Viewed from a geo-historical perspective, it is located in the Far East, thus in a position likely to be associated with having an objective and multi-centered perspective, yet different from this assumption, it is commonly associated with values, beliefs and ambitions typical of a nation state. If the historical development of China has its own logic, or reconfigures itself through the dialectics of communism, then its cultural uniqueness both in terms of transmission and originality should be unquestioned. Yet, once viewed as a part of a whole along with other countries, its cultural tradition can be seen as a resource shared by all humanity. Thus any contribution by an individual at a certain region can never be simply perceived as a valuable asset or property of some emerging nation state. We are placing our emphasis on China due to an attempted linkage between event and geography, rather than purported cultural uniqueness or questions of legitimacy.
From the founding of the New Media Department by the China Academy of Art in 2001, to the 2002 Multimedia Art Asia Pacific Festival (MAAP), the development of new media in China has been closely linked with video art. Starting with Zhang Peili’s first video works in 1988, new media has gradually expanded its horizons and incorporated elements from different fields under its purview, forming a synthetic identity that bridges video, design, architecture and performance. Reaching a distinct stage in 2005, new media art in China began to create a different cultural landscape by tapping into newly-emergent forms of communication such as the micro-blog and other internet-based mediums. These developments gave rise to a language that, by generating points of connectivity across a wider social spectrum, blurred the boundary between the real and the virtual.
Yet what constitutes new media art is still an unanswered question. For instance, the appearance of computer, internet, and art forms based on them (both software and hardware) all figure into the broader conception of new media. Other technological means linked with the genesis and renewal of new media include: the invention of radio, which expanded the realm of communication and information distribution; the Theremin and other audio equipment that can be manipulated by electricity; films, including its precursors, such as the daguerreotype, all crucial to the reproduction of images. In addition, the emergence of computer technology and practices that accompanied it, such as robot art, bio-art, social media and hacker-initiated social interventions, all fall under the umbrella of art forms that, based in the field of new media art, connect with art’s long term commitment to the transformation of culture. Here, new media attests to a specific form of integration that connects the evolution of media and medium with conceptual and social realities.
What is new media art? This is a long-term proposition that has to be constantly redefined and pursued. It does not change as new forms of media are developed, nor does it exclude older forms. Under today’s growing complexity, the horizon of media art is ever-expanding thanks to the development of media archaeology. Like contemporary art, it also needs to be incessantly questioned and explored. Consequently, artists and the development of new media art are both caught in a state of constant transformation – unstable and undecidable. Thus contemporary art and new media art both share the quality of ambiguity and multivalence, which necessitates that it achieves its cultural legitimacy through specific strategies of communication that bypass the confines of traditional modes of presentation. But this does not hinder new media art from assuming different forms such as video art, film, animation, interactive art, virtual reality, augmented reality, robotic art, bio-art, radio art, information art, internet based art, computer art, digital art, game art etc. Though these identities and forms overlap, they share a logical connection based on time and event.
The present exhibition references the above notion of new media art in its unique relevance to public space; it is an encounter and a reason to be together. The project takes place in K11 (Shanghai), a place of high esteem in commercial culture, located in one of the busiest areas in Shanghai. This project not only points to the newly emerged public and commercial space, but also the deteriorating notion of the museum space. As society grows more community-oriented and art more closely linked with everyday life, art gradually becomes unchained from its privileged position and the conceptual systems that used to define it, so what is the future direction of art? Before this question can be answered or clearly defined, art for the time being will simply dwell in the here and now. Perhaps the time when “everyone is an artist” envisioned by Joseph Beuys will never arrive, but this does not obstruct the emergence of alternative, sometimes anonymous, modes of participation. The exchange and dialogue created therein is precisely a response to the space, it can be everywhere, or right in front you; it can be a museum, a virtual space, an elevator, or in the data fluxing through electric circuits.
Our undertaking is fundamentally different from institutional critique and resistance against the commercialization of space prevalent in the western discourse. This difference is mainly determined by one’s interpretation of alternative space. Using the emergence of contemporary Chinese art as a starting point, from the Star Group exhibition in the small garden outside of the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) in the ‘70s, the different pioneering practices of the ‘80s New Wave Movement that experimented with non-art spaces, including basements, people’s apartments and public parks – places that are not artificially constructed and isolated from the environment of daily life (like a sanctuary of art), to private museums and government-supported art spaces prevalent since 2000, all of these practices must address and problematize the very existence and legitimacy of the museum space. If the legitimacy of these spaces is derived from their nominal signification, then any space can be a museum, and any public space can be a gathering place of contemporary art. But such subsumption cannot go both ways, since a museum is not the equivalent of a commercial venue, just as many museums now try to introduce the notion of public space and the social into their space in order to move beyond its traditional limitations. A museum can be a nightclub, a place of celebration and banquets; it can be occupied and contested. As the museum endows legitimacy to these activities, the idea of the museum returns once again to daily life as a part of the public imagination (like a public square). But can this kind of everyday life be deemed necessary? Or as one of its possible modes guided by specific processes of conceptualization?
This exhibition therefore intends to bring contemporary art to a wider audience, out of traditional models such as the white box, the black box, the yellow box or any other determinations proffered by the discursive systems of art.
Art has always evolved and renewed itself with the changing of the times and technological advancement. The discovery of aesthetic insight by the artist and the formation of collectivity are now moving in the same direction, if we temporarily suspend the question of how the art system influences the artist, then the most tangible way of envisaging this coming convergence is the creation of new encounters between the artist and the audience through the blurring of the constraints the art system places on space. Encounter here is not an extension of daily life or public space, but the moment in which space and time shine forth. When contemporary art is liberated from sphere or space, will not the humanity, emotion and imagination of the individual find resonance with the other in this simplicity? If its technique, medium and forms of expression can all be mobilized as interface, art only needs to find an excuse to unfetter itself from the city, the everyday, cutting-edge technology, low level income and other annoyances, thus assuming an antagonistic stance toward everything. But this antagonism cannot change anything but its own internal reality. Art is a formless form; it is a kind of anticipation and meditative silence.
One of the key propositions of this exhibition is the finitude of truth and freedom. I believe that both are open to the multiplication of divergent perspectives and tend to switch their meaning according to context, though this does not entail or presuppose a cynical or defeatist outlook. Rather, it is a way of looking at the world in which one’s critical distance is kept intact. Similarly, I do not want to make any assumptions about whether art in this case is closer to freedom or truth. As social conditions grow more complex, which kind of existence can be considered simple and pure? Raising the question in this way does not insinuate that it is fictional, since this existential status is necessitated by the very notion of existence as one of its possible modes. I prefer to describe the current state of the art world intuitively, which makes art move closer to its anticipated or perhaps imputed simplicity and purity. Truth and freedom are constantly opened up by the exploration of medium and the turning of the world. They are paradoxical sometimes; sometimes one can have both.
I like a statement by the filmmaker Hou Xiaoxian: “I still have faith in human kindness.”
I hope there will always be ways for self-reflection and self-awareness during our pursuit of independence and freedom. It does not have to take the spotlight, but simply be preserved as an underlying expectation or encouragement. This sobriety will not change with the altering of commercial or political circumstances, and independence is not a politicized stance in my opinion – just as I do not believe in a singular truth; our lives are always relational, but our natures vary.
If we approach this issue from the perspective of the artist, then is this just another festival, or something else – the festival to come? If one resorts to notions of gathering and encounter prevalent in the discourse of relational aesthetics, or simply as a celebration, then, without a question, the art here does disappoint, or that it constitutes, in a totally unexpected manner, the site where each participating artist manifests his or her individual practice. Under this light, art is not exhibited with any agenda or created to fulfill certain ideological demands; on the contrary, it is and should always be a quiet and reticent power.
If the exhibition mediated by the curator, artists and artwork only constitutes a specific system of complexity within many larger, more encompassing social systems, then why show art at all, and make it into a site or a clue that unfolds as art encounters the beholder, the masses or the public? The depth and sense of time demanded of an artist should be extended to the viewers. I have a hard time imagining people visiting this exhibition often, nor is it likely for them to dwell on a non-identified, out of the ordinary encounter. In the same way as repeatedly looking at an object or a film, the difference being the focus of the viewers throughout the exhibition will have to be scattered. They must explore, for themselves, art works that are not beholden to the simple act of being seen, but that which have to be discovered and perceived through different experiences, environments and times. Here I reject the invisible or classical museological presentation, but hope instead that this exhibition can be a process of mutual exploration and letting-happen among the curator, the artist and the public.
Perhaps I have overestimated what an exhibition can do, perhaps this is just the beginning.

Post-Internet Art

admin — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 12:42:38 +0000

Nowadays, Web 2.0 and its social structure is commonplace knowledge. The social aspect of the Web has driven its technological side to the background. Artists are also more concerned with the social dimension of Web 2.0, both as a concept and a way of forming contacts. As artist Aram Bartholl says in an interview: ‘One should consider the various channels of communication, those that are available and at your disposal, and think about what they do with someone.’ Bartholl is well known for his projects and performances in which he brings aspects of the digital world into the physical world. His main argument is that the online world has a great impact on people and the way they perceive their reality. But the shift between the virtual and the physical is often not directly visible, as with works like Speech Bubble (2007), in which volunteers trail people with a large chat text balloon on a stick, or Tweet Bubble Series (2009), featuring Twitter texts that can be attached to a shirt. All of a sudden the overt publicness that we’re so used to on the Internet seems silly and overexposed.
Other artists are taking a less literal stance. These artists, most of them so-called ‘digital natives’, search, cut, paste, mix and mash up the Internet and then reuse it to distribute their work. New works are created on the spot in a continuous stream of comments and versions on commercial platforms like YouTube, or surfing club websites like Nasty Nets and Spirit Surfers. At the same time, a parallel movement has emerged, and many artists have also started to look at offline space to further their experiments, presenting their work in small underground galleries or Internet cafes. Now museums are also showing an interest in the phenomenon of Internet-based art. The New Museum in New York presented Free (2010), an exhibition in which curator Lauren Cornell aimed to show how the Internet has changed our notion of public space. According to Cornell, that communal space has expanded and moved from schools or the streets to other, more distributed forms of collectivity. These new networks are characterized by greater social connectedness and a highly visual, hybrid commons of information.

Remix
The Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk) is responding with the exhibition The Greater Cloud. Curator Petra Heck invited a number of artists to each co-curate a space with one or more works from other artists. Visitors to the exhibition can also contribute, either in the especially dedicated space or through the online blog that will run during the exhibition.
One of the artists/co-curators is Aleksandra Domanovic, whose work 19:30 (2010) was also part of the Free exhibition in New York. 19:30 is a good example of how artists are using the potential of the distributive quality of the Internet, although that is not always immediately reflected in an art installation. In the exhibition, 19:30 is an audiovisual installation consisting of two screens that show a mix of techno music and music for television news from the former Yugoslavia. The work only becomes truly meaningful when you know the context of its making. Domanovic grew up in Serbia, at the time still part of Yugoslavia. Surprisingly, the strict regime at the time gave a lot of creative freedom to the national television stations, which resulted in high-quality entertainment and information programmes. The evening news was an important landmark that was broadcasted every evening at 19:30. When ethnic tensions rose in the late 1980s, it grew even more important. Watching the news became part of a routine and a shared experience, which contributed to the omnipresent memory of the musical and graphic intros to the news.
In the mid 1990s, it was music, and in particular raves, that also created a shared memory and a sense of belonging to a community for a large group of people. Domanovic conceived the idea of trying to connect these different periods in time by making the music intros for Serbian television available through an online archive. She encouraged DJs to use them in their music tracks.
Domanovic’s archive is still available online and DJs are still spreading new music tracks via the Internet. It is this distributive process that keeps old memories alive, and it can be argued that in these cases memories incite instead of recall. Unfortunately, in the installation at the exhibition, not much of this function of the work can be seen, which makes one start to wonder whether the video installation is the work, or if it is just a documentation of something that happened – and continues to happen – elsewhere? In the latest version of the work, Domanovic has added stacks of paper printed at the sides with fragments of images from raves, which further abstracts the memories and the possibility of their distribution.

Survival Guide
Bringing the strategies and experience of the Internet into the ‘domain’ of contemporary art is something that is also of interest to Katja Novitskova, one of the other artists/curators invited by NIMk. And just like Domanovic, Novitskova manages to construct her own vision out of collective enterprises and the image-sharing practice of digital natives. In 2010, Novitskova published the book Post Internet Survival Guide as part of her graduation project at the Sandberg Institute. She guides the reader through the dense jungle of Internet images, interspersing this with the work of like-minded artists. The book offers interesting juxtapositions of images, such as Mark Zuckerberg in a pose similar to that of Julius Caesar, and statements emerge, for example with the placing of a liquefied Google icon next to photos of warfare and floods.
None of the found images is credited or explained. Only the titles of the seven chapters (Seize Upon the Situation, Use All Your Senses, Remember Where You Are, Value Living, Improvise, Vanquish Fear and Panic, Act Like the Natives, Learn Basic Skills) seem to give insight in the direction Novitskova is taking. But just as the images mostly resemble the results of endless surfing, the titles are also retrieved from a random Google search for ‘survival guide’. The guide recalls the practice and aesthetics of the earlier-mentioned surfing club websites. Nicely brought together in a survival guide, the print version shows a clear-cut contemporary cross-sectional view of the complexity of a globalized world. As Novitskova writes, ‘It is a capsule of archaeological insight into our life circa 2010.’

(De)materialization
The move from the online practice into the offline space was further explored with the exhibition TruEye surView that Novitskova organised at W139 in Amsterdam last summer. For the exhibition she asked two artists, Anne de Vries and Yngve Holen, to make new work. As Novitskova writes in the catalogue, the ‘exhibition is a next step in approaching a “neo-materialistic” understanding of contemporary art as a domain of heightened density of value flows, and information technologies as an expanding ecology’. This rather dense sentence refers to an interest in the equal distribution of goods by directing attention on the one hand to the effects of living conditions (social influences) and on the other to the societal factors that determine the quality of these conditions.
The artists have interpreted the neo-material approach in their practice by highlighting society’s increasing involvement with technology, which they contrast with its material and symbolic origin. The results range from a set of stairs comprised of recursive sneakers (referencing the mathematical concept of recursion, calling for different modes of thinking and experiencing in time and space) to sliced water boilers that refer to the split halves of a brain, one a container for fluids, the other for ideas. By depriving objects of their functionality and adding a contextual placement, the artists try to open the realm of signification in which various layers of knowledge production are played out against each other.

Commercial?
Digital natives make and present their work in a kind of ‘automatic Internet state of mind’. This is often referred to as the ‘post-Internet era’. This term was first used in 2008 by the artist/curator Marisa Olson and is now primarily associated with an increasing interest in the specific materiality of objects and images, including all sorts of ways of presenting and distributing them. What’s new about the way these digital natives work is not so much the fact that they base themselves on social, economic and political theatres, but above all their method of obtaining material, of changing and spreading it. Which immediately raises the question of whether these works, considering their complex nature and existence in a distributed and fragmented space like the Internet, can even be exhibited at all. There is no quick answer to that. But it is certain that a great deal is lost when these works are shown in an exhibition, especially the energy, the surprise effect, the fragility of the illusion and the transience of the moment.
Making processes that are related to the Internet material could be seen as a means of grasping our complex and continually changing world and showing its fragility and ephemerality. It could be said that, in giving a material form to the (arguable) immateriality of the Internet, artists are trying to transform this ephemeral and intangible channel in a poetic time freeze. Which immediately raises another question: By bringing their work into the gallery as sculptures, paintings or videos, are artists not just out for commercial success? Or are we seeing a deliberate inversion of the process of dematerialization, typified by Lucy Lippard forty years ago as an anti-commercial strategy?

Wiederabdruck
Dieser Text erschien zuerst in: METROPOLIS M, Nr. 6 Dez/Jan 2010, online unter:
http://metropolism.com/magazine/2011-no6/post-internet-art/ [22.03.2013].

Volles Vertrauen ins Web

admin — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 12:42:38 +0000

Sie ist das Poster-Girl der Post-Internet-Art und avancierte in den letzten Jahren mit kurzen Filmen in schlechter Auflösung über sich selbst zum Kuratoren-Liebling und YouTube-Star. Wir sprachen mit der 25-Jährigen über die Gefühle von ASCII-Art und die Ernsthaftigkeit von Smileys.

Sie bewegt sich im endlosen Archiv der digitalen Bilder wie auf einem Abenteuerspielplatz. Petra Cortrights buntes Gesamtwerk aus Webcam-Videos, animierten Gifs, bearbeiteten Foto-Fundstücken, Photoshop-Gemälden und ASCII-Zeichnungen stützt sich zwar überdeutlich auf den Formenkanon der Digitalbilderflut, strotzt aber gleichzeitig vor kindlicher Effektfaszination und Experimentierfreude. Als sie 2004 im kalifornischen Santa Barbara ihren High-School-Abschluss machte, veröffentlichte sie ihre Arbeiten auf LifeJournal und der Künstlerplattform nasty nets. 2007 produzierte sie ihr erstes Video „VVEBCAM“ und YouTube kam dazu. Kurze Zeit später kontaktierte Rhizome-Direktorin Lauren Cornell die damals 21-Jährige, um einige ihrer Arbeiten nicht nur im hauseigenen Netzkunst-Archiv ArtBase, sondern auch im New Yorker New Museum zu zeigen. Es folgten Einzel- und Gruppenausstellungen quer über den Globus, darunter auch die Teilnahme an der Biennale in Venedig 2009. Gemeinsam mit dem Künstler Paul Chan arbeitet Cortright derzeit an einer App, die in den kommenden Monaten über Chans Verlag Badlands Unlimited veröffentlicht werden soll. Bei ihrer Arbeit geht es Cortright vor allem um Spaß und Intuition, nach Konzept und Theorie fragt man dagegen vergeblich. Entsprechend naiv wirken viele ihre Bilder und Videos. Mittlerweile ist die Ästhetik ihrer Arbeiten erwachsener geworden. Den liebevollen und staunenden Umgang mit dem Internet, seinen Bildern und Bildbearbeitungsprogrammen aber hat sich Cortright bewahrt.

Debug: Kannst du dich mit dem Begriff Post-Internet-Kunst identifizieren?
PC: Ich weiß nicht. Ich glaube Marisa Olson hat das eingeführt und es hat irgendwas damit zu tun, dass man sich des Internets bewusst ist, oder?

Ja. Die Netzkünstler in den Neunzigern haben sich in ihren Arbeiten noch sehr auf die zugrundeliegenden Technologien bezogen, während jüngere Künstler das Internet von klein auf kennen und einen selbstverständlicheren Umgang damit pflegen, der sich eher an den Oberflächen als den Codes abarbeitet.
Die frühen Netzkünstler waren wohl misstrauisch gegenüber dem Internet und versuchten, es in irgendeiner Weise zu entlarven. Meine Perspektive ist eine ganz andere. Ich respektiere die Technologie sehr, aber ich misstraue ihr kein bisschen.

Die Folgegeneration musste keine Codes mehr schreiben, weil das Internet bereits für sie codiert war, als sie begann, es zu nutzen.
Ja, deshalb geht es uns nicht mehr um Funktionsweisen oder darum, irgendetwas zu entlarven. Ich will aber auch definitiv nichts verstecken, insbesondere nicht die vielen Programme, die ich verwende. Ich habe zum Beispiel eine Serie gemacht, die auf Backstage- und Laufsteg-Fotografien einer Modenschau basiert. Alles, was ich damit gemacht habe, war, einige Dinge darauf zu verwischen und zu verschmieren. Das ist sehr simpel, aber auch schön. Jeder, der sich mit Photoshop auskennt, weiß genau, wie das gemacht wurde; ein Grafikdesigner kommentierte diese Bilder mit den Worten: “Ich wusste gar nicht, dass man einfach nur irgendwelche Sachen in Photoshop verwischen muss, um als Künstler zu gelten.“ Wenn man kommerzielle Designs macht, muss man die Dinge eben besser aussehen lassen und will gerade nicht, dass die Leute sehen, wie man etwas gemacht hat. Das hat mit meiner Arbeit aber überhaupt nichts zu tun.

Dir ist es also wichtig, im Bild auch den Schaffensprozess darzulegen?
Ja, aber nicht, um damit etwas auszusagen. Ich verstecke lediglich den Prozess nicht – das ist eben meine Arbeitsweise. Ich versuche, sehr ehrliche Kunst zu machen. Normalerweise habe ich auch keinen Plan oder nur einen sehr unterbewussten. Wenn ich etwas bei Google Images finde, öffne ich es mit Photoshop und dann gibt es da eigentlich immer irgendeinen Filter oder ein Werkzeug, das super dazu passt. Ich begeistere mich sehr für die Software an sich. Zudem versuche ich, den Effekt, den ich benutze, immer maximal zu zeigen und hervorzuheben.

Wieso nutzt du eigentlich diese Webcams mit niedriger Auflösung?
Die neuen Kameras sehen einfach nicht hübsch aus. Die hohen Kontraste und die niedrige Auflösung dieser schlechteren Webcams sind für mich wie eine Maske oder ein Schleier. HD-Webcams sind dagegen wie Lupen, viel zu nah dran. Ich bevorzuge es, eine gewisse Distanz zu halten.

Deine jüngeren Werke machen einen weit weniger naiven Eindruck. Sie sehen teilweise aus wie Ölgemälde.
Photoshop CS5 hat diese neuen, sehr realistischen Pinselwerkzeuge. Ich habe mir extra ein äußerst reaktives Grafik-Tablet gekauft, um sie benutzen zu können. Man kann damit bleistiftartige Linien ziehen, aber wenn man den Stift neigt, verschmieren sie sofort. Außerdem lassen sich bei der neuen Photoshop-Version mehrere Farben auf einen Pinsel laden, wie bei einem echten Farbpinsel auch, das Ergebnis sind sehr malerische Bilder. Ich war dann das ganze letzte Jahr über verrückt danach, weil es einfach so viel Spaß macht.

Ist dieser scheinbar erwachsenere Stil als Emanzipation von der generellen Bildsprache des Internets zu verstehen?
Nein, ich hatte nur einfach keine Lust mehr, animierte Gifs zu machen. Das heißt aber nicht, dass ich sie nicht mehr mag.

Warum erinnert Gif-Art deiner Meinung nach so stark an die Ästhetik, die das Internet zu der Zeit hatte, als unsere Generation ihre ersten eigenen Computer bekommen hat?
Naja, es ist so ziemlich dasselbe, dieses Format hat sich nicht wirklich verändert. Es ist einfach eine Internet-Ikone. Ich liebe Emoticons und Smileys, und zwar nicht weil sie kitschig sind, sondern weil ich sie für wichtig halte. In der textbasierten Kommunikation können die Dinge auf absurdeste Weise gelesen und verstanden werden, nur weil man keinen Smiley ans Ende gestellt hat. Manche Leute mögen Emoticons kindisch finden, aber das sind sie nicht.

Parodieren deine Arbeiten das Internet und seine Phänomene in irgendeiner Form?
Nein, definitiv nicht. Ed Halter, ein Kurator und Kunstkritiker, hat über mich gesagt, dass meine Arbeiten nicht wirklich witzig sind, sondern es darin eigentlich um Schönheit und Kunstfertigkeit geht. Das fand ich sehr treffend.

Haben sie trotzdem humoristische Elemente?
Ein paar meiner Videos sind albern, aber für mich sind sie trotzdem hochkomplex und immer sehr fokussiert auf Farben und Ästhetik. Es gibt eins, wo ich einen Katzenkopf vor meinem Gesicht habe und meine Zunge rausstrecke, aber die Farbe der Katze passt zu meinem Hautton und auch zur Wand im Hintergrund. Komposition ist mir sehr wichtig.

Und Sprache? Sind beispielsweise Titel, Tags, Videobeschreibungen und deine Antworten auf YouTube-Kommentare Teil deiner Kunstwerke?
Ich habe mich immer für Leetspeak und ASCII-Kunst begeistert, weil das kreative Arten sind, mit der eigentlich fest gefügten Tastatur umzugehen. Diese merkwürdigen Buchstabierweisen bringen eine gewisse Emotionalität mit sich, was den Wörtern fast eine weitere Dimension verleiht. Leetspeak ist zum Beispiel sehr nerdig und sarkastisch, die Schreibweise bringt diesen Ton einfach mit sich. Auch meine oft merkwürdigen Titel sind keine Parodien, ich finde sie nur einfach besser als gewöhnliche Namen.

Schreibt sich die Tastatur auch auf andere Weise in deine Arbeiten ein?
Ich wüsste nicht, wie ich ohne Copy, Paste und Undo auskommen sollte, das sind tolle Anwendungen. Man kann solche Sachen vielleicht auch in der Malerei -machen, aber es dauert ewig. Meine Mutter hat einen Master in Malerei und ich habe sie mal gefragt, ob sie mir etwas beibringen könnte. Sie meinte dann nur: “Auf keinen Fall, du wirst nur ein heilloses Chaos anrichten und nichts zu Ende bringen.“ Und sie hatte absolut recht – als ich es dann irgendwann versucht habe, hatte ich nach einer Stunde schon keine Lust mehr.

Autor: Lea Becker

Wiederabdruck
Das Interview erschien in De:Bug 162 und unter http://de-bug.de/mag/9129.html [8.9.2013].