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In 1997, representatives of art and industry gathered
in the French town of Souillac for a conference on the topic of
"Art, Industry and Innovation." The result from this
meeting was "The Souillac Charter for Art and Industry: A
Framework for Collaboration." In 1998 a second conference built
on the efforts of the first gathering, resulting in "Souillac
II: A Conference on Art, Industry & Innovation: Final
Report." Both documents have been published separately in
Leonardo On-Line and in Leonardo; the full, combined
report is presented here in its entirety.
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by Don Foresta
Paris, 11/97
It is generally agreed that, throughout the 20th
century, we have been through and continue to experience a period of
profound change manifest everywhere in western civilization,
socially, politically, culturally, intellectually, philosophically
and psychologically. This transformation has been most apparent in
the arts and the sciences of our century and it is there we must look
to discover the meaning of that change and its consequences for
society. These tandem sources of knowledge have, consciously and
unconsciously, been offering clues for the past 100 years as to where
we might be headed.
Every society has at its core an image of itself, a schema of how it operates, how it defines relationships, an image of how that society functions - an organizational space. During the course of the 20th century that schema, for western and probably world civilization, has changed in profound and fundamental ways from the clockwork mechanistic universe to something not yet defined. By exploring art and science, separately and as an ensemble, we can perhaps begin to understand that emerging space and how it works and thereby better understand, and possibly direct, the future evolution of our society.
The organizational space is at the same time a communication space, a visual space, an intuitional space, the space we call imagination and the way we see things operating. It will probably be at least another generation or two before we have consensus on the shape of that space, but if we are to believe what art and science have been saying, it is probable that that space will exist in time, be an interactive process and organised horizontally with a geometry quite different from the euclidian geometry of renaissance perspective.
With the explosion in telecommunications potential and its eventual merger with media, we are witnessing the creation the infrastructure of a new interactive communication space which will inevitably grow in importance and contain more and more of the personal space of each of us. It is our contention that this new space is, in many ways, the technical manifestation of the space described above. That it is the product of the artistic and scientific revolutions of our century, whereby art and science redefine our imaginary space and propose new sets of relationships, adding to our philosophical and psychological givens, time, interactivity and virtuality in a new emerging geometry. Seeing relationships is the stuff of art and of science. The new communication space will change our way of communicating with each other, the perception of the world around us and how we relate to it and to others.
The charter for art and industry that we are presenting here is a response to that change and a recognition that we can in fact begin to see what that new space may be through the artistic use of the evolving tools of communication. As stated in the document, the point of departure is the mutual recognition on the part of the art world and industry that a profound transformation is taking place in our society due to a radical shift in communication potential and that all actors concerned can address the issue and examine ways of collaboration and cooperation to assure the most beneficial use of this new potential for all of society.
People from industry, those of the world of art, culture and education, others responsible for government policy are all asking the same questions about the future of this new space and what it will mean to them and their constituencies. What decisions are to be taken in developing this important new means of communication and for what ends. The charter focuses on a small area of human activity, but with partners directly concerned by the issues, and proposes the beginning of a search for some answers to those questions.
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by Fernando Lagraña
Geneva, 11/97
In an era of globalisation, I like such a name:
"The Souillac Charter". This manifesto was drafted over an
extended period of time, involving a fairly large group of people
disseminated around the planet (I should say around the network).
However, this name reflects the fact that the Charter was drafted
during a short retreat (a few days) in a very precise - and tiny -
location on the globe.
Who knows Souillac? The local and regional population of course does, as well as this group of irreducible fighters who have anchored their reflection in an almost abandoned abbey in a really forgotten village of Perigord. In a way, the Souillac Group shows the need for a right balance between a global network, a global vision, and a local identity. We need such a strong anchor, which can serve as a point of reference in the new communication space. Souillac will remain in my mind the point of origin to which I will often refer to navigate safely in a network with almost no limits and a changing and unpredictable topology.
I am probably the last infocommunication industry representative advocating for the right to hesitate. I do promote with the same conviction improved interactivity in networked services and applications, and non real-time usage of this enhanced feature. Souillac was based on this type of interactivity: we could meet and mark a pause in a shared communication space, as Don Foresta likes them, and think, discuss, exchange our views quietly, at the kind of pace that I perceive as being "natural" and that I favour.
Why a dialogue between the infocommunication industry and the art world? Because scientists have created a new reality that they can't grasp anymore. And they know that artists excel at using new tools in unexpected ways and at exploring new directions. The infocommunication industry has developed communication patterns that have altered our organisational space, as well as our relation to time. Gabriel Garcia Marquez said once that he hated travelling by plane, because the soul and the body couldn't travel at the same speed. Our industry has indirectly created the netlag. It has modified the original space-time curve and generated a new type of chaos, that even the most advanced researchers (like Ralph H. Abraham) haven't analysed yet.
Ends of century have always provided good opportunities to stop, look back and prepare for the future. We were very lucky because we stopped in Souillac. We sat down. We discussed. The result is the Art-Industry Charter, the Souillac Charter. If you are familiar with the ISOC, consider this text as an RFC. Your comments, as one says, are most welcome.
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This summer a small group of specialists from art and industry met in Souillac, France to draft a charter proposing a dialogue between artists and the telecommunications industry, with governments and international organisations, on the importance of artistic creativity and the new forms of expression available through advances in telecommunications.
The group was further aided with contributions from an on-line forum of 70 additional specialists organised with the International Telecommunication Union during spring 97. Those contributions are available at the web site http://www.cicv.fr/ under the heading "prospectives".
The Charter was presented during Telecom-Interactive '97, opening the discussion on the future of telecommunications from a cultural point of view and on the need to integrate the newest forms of communication and cultural expression into all aspects of our societies.
The project was organised by the Laboratoire de Langage Electronique, Paris and the Information Society Observatory of the London School of Economics and Political Science with the Centre International de Cr‰ation Vid‰o and the Ocean of Know and in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union, the Council of Europe and NYNEX-Bell Atlantic.
We wish to thank the city of Souillac and the Region Midi-Pyrénées who strongly supported this initiative.
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The network is a new interactive communication space becoming more and more important in society today.
Surprisingly, the two sectors most concerned by building the space have been artists and the telecommunication industry.
Finding a way to increase collaboration between the two would accelerate the development of the network.
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A Framework For Collaboration
A new communication space is growing from a merger of video, computer and telecommunication technologies, coalescing into a system - roughly called the network - searching for its own logic and a cultural, social and political identity. What this space will mean to society is not yet clear, its final content is uncertain, and how it will effect culture open to healthy speculation and necessary experimentation before its final specificity is defined.
This proposal is a framework for dialogue and mutual recognition for artists working with communications technologies and the private sector creating the technologies and an interface with governmental and international bodies directly concerned with telecommunications.
It is not a proposal for sponsoring or marketing.
Results & Benefits
Art and Industry collaborating can help:
Surrounded by numerous, nearly ubiquitous buzz words like convergence, revolution, diversity, or universality, the new tools of communication are easily hailed as utopian or inevitable. Yet despite, or inspite of, these vague characterisations, artists continue to extend the circumference and possibilities of technology, nowhere more than in the area of telecommunications. A fundamental aspect in the future of culture is a serious and sustained investment in the imaginative use and development of creative content in the networked world. So much of the content of the network re-collects and reproduces the forms of the past that the time has come to shift our assumptions, expand the horizons, nurture experimentation, challenge existing techniques and support imagination as pivotal to the creative life of a culture enveloped in technology.
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When the conditions of communication change, the artist is often the first to be engaged in understanding how and why these changes occur and through his or her work can develop the communications tools, content and language to accelerate the change and demonstrate it to others.
Art is an attempt to understand something of the human condition from the subjective world-view of the artist by providing through it new perceptions. The collection of those world-views is an important part of what we call culture. The artist reflects the evolution of the psychological atmosphere of his or her era, often anticipating the changes coming in society.
Throughout the century artists explored new technologies through their work - simply taking up the tools as they became available - using them in ways very often far from the intent of the original product. Many developments in the vernacular of sound and image communication can be traced back at least in part to artistic inspiration. The artist pushes to extremes the communication tools chosen, inventing new tools in the process. The sum of artistic production in a particular medium usually makes statements about the direction that medium is taking, but industry has often been unaware that this type of artistic exploration has led to much invention in both content and hardware in the use of the new tools.
From the very beginning of telecommunications artists were intimately involved in the process of invention. It should not be forgotten that Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, was a painter. More to the point, in our century other artists have extended the communication potential of existing tools through their personal experimentation. Scriabine invented the concept of multi-media with his Synesthetic light and music concerts in the 1900's. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, a founder of Bauhaus, did the first painting over phone lines in 1922, Man Ray, the first transmitted fashion photographs in 1926. Appolinaire and Edgar Varese proposed theatrical works for the radiophonic space of the 1920's and 1930's.
By the 1960's, "Experiments in Art and Technology" (EAT) brought together engineers and artists (including Billy Kluver, Robert Rauschenberg, Lucinda Childs, John Cage) in collaborations and performances that broadly used radio and telemedia. The musician Robert Moog invented the audio synthesizer in 1964 and Nam June Paik, the Korean artist, the first video synthesizer in 1967. By the 1970's and 80's, the widening use of communications media (by Steina and Woody Vasulka, Otto Piene, Laurie Anderson, etc.) represented a watershed in which increasingly available technologies became catalysts for performance and experimentation now cascading over the 1990's (the French artist, Piotr Kowalski, developed an on-line direct translation system between French and English in 1996). The drive to create in the fields of electronic media and networked environments has wholly transformed the boundaries between communication, imagination and technology.
Artists, because of their need to communicate and by the nature of their personal research, have much to contribute to the development of hardware and software as highly technically skilled investigators. Today is a turning point where issues of the present and issues of the future become more entangled than ever, and as artists involve themselves more and more in communications technologies, the relationship between art and those technologies accelerates. To further the understanding of the techniques, their implementation and possibilities, the urgency of the arts accrues even more importance.
Deeply reliant on a critical relationship with memory, history, and subjectivity, the artist probes the conditions of contingency, and as a result breaks the boundaries of expectation and ruptures prediction. This call for collaboration proposes that info-communications industries regard artistic experimentation as at least one source of ideas as to how the new communication spaces will be built and the tools of communication best utilised. The charter aims to define the terms more specifically and recommends the development of a working set of relationships in which mutual and dynamic interchanges can take place.
The issues raised by the arrival of the newest forms of communication and their solutions are not to be found in any single sector, but must be found in collaborative and multidisciplinary endeavours in order to resolve the inevitable blocks to change. The point of departure for this collaboration is the mutual recognition on the part of all that a profound transformation is taking place in our society due to a radical shift in communication potential. All actors concerned should examine ways of collaboration and co-operation to assure the most beneficial use of this new potential for all of society.
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Artists working with the new communications
technologies are not merely continuing the tradition of artistic creativity,
but are also participating in the construction of the new
communication space. Their efforts should interest industry since the
larger overall objective, building the new space, is shared by both.
That space is international, interactive and virtual.
In order to function at an optimum the artist must work in a climate of open- ended investigation without bottom-line short term goals. The necessary condition of autonomy is contrary to the short term objectives of corporate culture, but essential to the spirit of investigation which is the evolving process of an emerging art work, process or movement.
Artists work with different technologies with many different aims, but their combined investigation can ultimately lead to innovation for the networked communication space in many categories:
It is difficult to account for the overall
innovation resulting from artistic creativity since there are as many
approaches as there are artists, but there are aspects which can be
taken into account within the context of the proposed collaboration.
In his or her role of communications researcher, the artist deals
directly with unknown aspects of the evolution of the new
communication space.
Artistic use of communications technologies is a source of experimentation and investigation outside the normal boundaries of industrial activity, but complementary to it through the ultimate expression of the advanced user.
Art is the densest form of communication in that it contains the entire world- view of the artist, and as such is the perfect tool for the exploration of this new communications space, pushing it to its limits, expanding its communication potential and evolving its cultural specificity. Art challenges the communication potential of any form of expression to its maximum.
The artist's approach is open-ended exploration of communication potential. The engineer responds to specific problems with specific solutions. The artist's approach can then be considered as unspecific. The artist can provide innovation in the process of creating relevant and useful communications tools through his or her experimentation in a wide variety of directions without any immediate practical application. This process brings about diversity in systems, equipment and applications from processes usually intended for one purpose and dramatically demonstrates other potentials (and limitations).
The collective response of artists to a set of communications tools provides a wide range of responses to the potential of those tools. This is due to artists' individual approaches, their diverse cultural backgrounds, differing national characteristics, generational differences and the multiple artistic forms available in either the plastic or the performing arts.
In order to be effective, communication systems should account for cultural diversity : network technologies can permit a wide range of expression to different cultural groups. The "advanced user" is aware of cultural specificity for relevant and useful services for the user.
Network hardware and software development should represent (send out) and read (receive) all languages across the globe. Artists can collaborate with industry to develop the relevant interfaces, languages and interactive content for each particular local, national and regional culture.
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The objectives of industry are the expansion of existing markets and the creation of new ones. The speed of technological development necessitates a constant revision of the process of its development and its direction in the marketplace. Software, hardware and communications industries cannot afford to stagnate and seem to need a constant source of original and innovative ideas for visionary products, services, and activities. The real bottom line for any expanding and innovative industry is providing better services and products responding to real needs with a reasonable return for investment.
Industry can participate actively in the acceleration of the construction of the new communications space through the work of artists and the integration of that space into public use.
Industry can participate by developing a partnership with institutions, governments and international organisations to build the interactive network for artistic and educative exchange and by reinforcing existing supportive relationships whereby industry provides artists and arts organisations with technical support, maintenance, resources, networks, organisation and management of human resources.
Industry can provide infrastructure which includes up-to-date hardware, software and networks, human resources and good internal and external communications to help institutions and individuals engaged in this form of research.
The research needs to be carried out within flexible and dynamic neutral structures that allow for collaboration between different sized organisations. These may have different ultimate objectives, but are able to work together towards common goals. There can be consensus on the ethic of allowing for distance required for high-quality research.
Education and training in the communication technologies is already taking place in art schools, laboratories and research institutes.
This work should be recognised and substantially increased as a way of promoting the new skills and professions emerging from this research. Industry can provide more technical training and support to artists working with state-of- the-art communications technologies to encourage this development.
Industry willingly supports science or technical schools as programs understood and close to their own activities and can cooperate further with artistic institutions. This attitude is changing as more and more people from industry begin to understand the importance of the content in the development of the tools and recognise the level of innovation coming from artistic experimentation.
Artist-in-residency programmes can help artists in advancing the technical aspect of their research and allow both artists and engineers to benefit from the collaboration and its results. Conversely, engineer-in-residency programmes in art schools and art research institutions would help create a better interface and understanding of the needs on either side.
Industry should work closely with educational institutions, art schools, universities and training centres in developing long-term educational programmes to advance these objectives.
The artists, as advanced users, have an important need to be informed of new developments in industry and for this reason an open dialogue and exchange would be useful in both directions. Industry can inform (advance notice) the artistic community about project development. Artists need to be aware of new developments to adapt creative environments towards what is physically possible.
A code of conduct should be developed to ensure a clear and concise agreement to collaborate taking into account the needs of both. This should be a next step for further defining ways of interacting.
In the meantime, use should be made of the existing tools of communication to create :
Such an online structure could disseminate artistic work and examples of corporate / artist collaboration to a wider public.
General access to the network is a key concern to all and should be a guiding principal for all parties involved in building the new communication space in a manner that is socially, culturally and politically responsible.
Access is not a marketing procedure but the principle that should guide the entire process, access to systems for the creator, to artistic experimentation for industry and to direct participation by the public. Included in this principle is access to cultural history and the development of the forms of cultural expression coming into being.
Easily accessible
Technically: not limited to specialists, a closed group of initiates, and mystifying to the general public
Financially: not limited to only those who can pay, or to distorted systems whereby the wealthiest multinationals pay less than educational or cultural institutions because of the weight of their business.
Intellectually: not limited to a privileged few where information becomes a guarded commodity available only through rank or riches.
Genuinely interactive (with no political or
economic intermediaries)
Genuinely diverse
Avoiding reducing all models of culture to a few
social, cultural and political stereotypes answering to other
political agendas.
Access to communications technologies in
education
Applying the tools to education not just as access to
information, but as a series of interactive, international
connections permitting the development of culture from the point of
view of the individual, defining and deriving his or her culture from
the extensive pool of information and contacts around. The new space
is not an extension of the classroom but a different space with an
educational vocation to be discovered and developed through
experimentation. Part of the challenge will be to not confuse
entertainment with education, to assure intellectual depth and avoid
creating one more media playground.
Related to contemporary culture and not a
substitute for it
Allowing new cultural forms to emerge from the
interface of contemporary culture and the new space.
The process of deforming contemporary or traditional culture to fit the new space is to be avoided. Artistic creation with the new tools must be encouraged to permit the new space to be defined by that creativity in order to discover the specificity of its language and the depth of its communication potential.
Experimental
Open to new ideas, procedures, processes and uses,
determined by their cultural, social or political utility, not just
by their commercial return.
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The role of the public sector is to facilitate the development of the new communication space, evolving on one hand from artistic invention and on the other from industrial innovation. It should insure the integrity of the new space, its cultural and intellectual depth, protect the rights of all within, and aid in its cultural development. Public institutions should redirect scarce resources into this crucial field, provide incentives to industry to help in building interactive cultural systems, and promote on-line experimentation in the areas of art and education. Recognition of the essential role of the artist as a researcher in this new field is important to all sectors.
Government and public sector institutions in many countries have played an important role in assuring that the arts, artistic training and education and presentation of the arts are maintained as an expression of that country's cultural heritage. The same attention must be paid to the arts in the new communication space. Cultural bureaucracies often neglect the new areas of creativity because they are too new to have cultural constituencies.
In many parts of the world governments have, and should continue to develop policies of guaranteeing continuity and diversity in the cultural processes. Government can act to make the public aware of cultural values. Governments can assure that the cultural content of the new space is representative of the cultural heritage of the country, its diversity and the newest forms of cultural expression being developed.
Government differs from industry in that it can choose to take a long term view in funding of long-term artistic research and development of the network, the communications tools and of content. This research and development is not tied to product life-cycles and to industry's requirement of short-term return on investment. The public sector should fund long-term artistic R&D as a measure to stimulate economic growth locally, nationally and globally by investing in the cultural and information economy. It can also provide economic incentives to industry to encourage participation in this research and in physically building the network.
The cultural and information economy creates employment, wealth and global trade as the information economy increases as a part of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The creation of long-term economic rewards from this can be evident in less developed regions, areas of structural industrial decline and the Third World. These can harness the digital media economy to their own benefit without relying on costly infrastructural development and participate in what will become the cultural content of the network.
It is impossible to institutionalise the role of the artist in the kind of exploration being proposed because doing so would stifle artistic creativity through a too literal application of the role of researcher. On the other hand, art schools, transformed into an interactive collaborative system would by a way of encouraging this experimentation. Governments can create and support educational initiatives which allow for highly creative, as well as technically competent skillsets to develop for long-term benefits.
Government institutions can
Industry, government bodies, both national and international, should work closely with educators to define new programmes and needs in these fields. In addition to training in the use of specific technologies by educational institutions and industry, educational institutions must be empowered to facilitate research, and to define the new social and cultural realities in their programmes.
Finally, art in primary and secondary education is more than an applied-arts activity: it is, and should be encouraged to be, a process of multidisciplinary understanding of communications. Art has been increasingly excluded from educational curricula as an unnecessary luxury rather than as an approach to bring greater understanding of society and the direction it is taking.
Government is responsible for regulating against abuse of dominant position of one player in the info-communications market. Although some nation states encourage the development of a dominant position of one of their market players in order to set a de facto world standard, this may be against the global public interest in developing original and diverse networks, content and access to and manipulation of content. Because technology develops at a faster pace than regulation, regulatory regimes should be structured to monitor closely any abuse of dominant position.
Governments and international regulatory bodies should also be particularly vigilant where monopolies attempt to leverage their dominant position into new markets and transparency in the decision-making process should rule in developments dealing with social and cultural discourse.
The public sector can create favourable conditions for employment and job creation in the information economy by indirect regulatory measures, e.g. fiscal incentives for small to medium sized enterprises.
The copyright issue is central for the development of the interactive global network. Governments can act to resolve digital rights management on the global interactive network.
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| Alex Adriaansens | Artist, Director, V2 Organisation, Rotterdam (NL) |
| José Alcalá | Artist, Director, MIDE, Cuenca (E) |
| Jonathan Barton | Director, Information Society Observatory, LSE, London (UK) |
| Pierre Bongiovanni | Co-Dir., Centre International de Création Vidéo, Montbeliard (F) |
| Frank Boyd | Director, ARTEC, London (UK) |
| Danielle Cliche | Senior Project Advisor, ERICarts, Bonn (D) |
| Michel Coomans | Head of Sector, DG III, European Commission, Brussels (B) |
| Timothy Druckrey | Curator and writer, New York (USA) |
| Don Foresta | Artist, Director, Laboratoire de Langage Electronique, Paris (F) |
| Jill Hartley | Artist, Ocean of Know, New York / Florida (USA) |
| Steve Kohn | Director, Educational Initiatives/Strategic Alliances, NYNEX (USA) |
| Fernando Lagraña | Vice-President, TELECOM; Head, Forum Divisio, International Telecommunication Union, Geneva (CH) |
| Luc Martinez | Artist, Co-Dir., Centre National de Création Musical CIRM, Nice (F) |
| Daniel P McVeigh | Artist, Founder, Ocean of Know, New York / Florida (USA) |
| Patrick Purcell | Professor, Imperial College, London (UK) |
| Hannah Redler | Artist, Co-Director, Studio Fish, London (UK) |
| Andrew Sharp | Media Development Director, Initiative Media, London (UK) |
| Robert Shaw | GII adviser, International Telecommunication Union, Geneva (CH) |
| Giuseppe Silvi | Telecom Italia, Roma (I) |
Seminar Coordinator
| Catherine Houzel | Laboratoire de Langage Electronique, Paris (F) |
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What is the place of art in a world where
technology plays the predominant role we all know so well? How to
reconcile these two universes so paradoxically opposed but undeniably
linked in an era where technology offers new tools for artistic
creation and multiples the possibilities for its diffusion.
To ask these essential questions as we enter the next millennium and, following the logic of the Souillac Charter proposed last year, to suggest what might be possible future collaboration between the two sectors, such is the merit of the second seminar, "Art, Industry and Innovation".
As seen in the following document, the working groups met July 6th to the 17th motivated by a willingness not to have just "another seminar" but to propose concrete actions.
The Regional Council is happy to have participated in such an original event and one which sums up well the spirit of our region, half way between tradition and modernity.
Martin Malvy,
President of the Midi-Pyrénées
Regional Council.
The Souillac II meeting was supported by the
European Commission, DG XIII, the Arts Council of England, Bell
Atlantic, the Government of Quebec's Ministry of Culture and
Communications, the Canadian Embassy in Paris, the Daniel Langlois
Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology, the city of Souillac and
the Midi-Pyrénées Region. We wish here to express our
sincere appreciation for that support.
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The second meeting in Souillac held this summer from July 6th to 17th produced a number of specific projects or project ideas following up on elements of the Souillac Charter for Art and Industry written the year before. The Charter can been seen in French and in English at the addresses listed below.
While all the projects are interrelated they are presented here as a series of detached documents corresponding to the categories established in the preliminary report and listed below. Some of the projects found form during our meeting, others have been developed further since. Still others have to be further refined. All of them demand an enormous amount of work. In some cases preliminary funding to begin that work has already been identified. For others, the search has just begun.
The second meeting in Souillac held this summer from July 6th to 17th produced a number of specific projects or project ideas following up on elements of the Souillac Charter for Art and Industry written the year before. The Charter can been seen in French and in English at the addresses listed below.
While all the projects are interrelated they are presented here as a series of detached documents corresponding to the categories established in the preliminary report and listed below. Some of the projects found form during our meeting, others have been developed further since. Still others have to be further refined. All of them demand an enormous amount of work. In some cases preliminary funding to begin that work has already been identified. For others, the search has just begun.
You are all, of course, invited to comment or expand on the conclusions, send additional information pertinent to the goals expressed, volunteer for any of the work proposed, help find funding to reach the various stages indicated or pass on any ideas that will further our joint efforts. We wish to thank everyone sincerely for their participation and energy in making Souillac II a success.
Innovation Exchange Workshops:
1998 - 1999
This regular series of workshops
brings together artists and artists' micro-enterprises with larger
corporations in telecommunications, information technologies and content,
to stimulate contractual and project-based co-operation. The
proposal, based on the London prototype organised in May and the
meeting during the second week of Souillac II, is to encourage
short-term product development to long-term research, channelling the
innovation flow from artists and micro-enterprises more effectively
toward large corporations and to market.
In Souillac, representatives from the
UK, France and the Netherlands agreed to pursue, co-ordinate and
support an international programme of such meetings for 1998 - 1999,
committing funds to three such meetings, one in each country, and to
a common pool to assure international participation. Representatives
from Spain, Germany and Canada expect to join during 1999. The
conference participants highly recommended such meetings at local,
national and international levels based on the following
principals:
Art Is Research
Artistic experimentation is a form of
research pushing the limits of any communications technology and it
is important for industry to be informed of the work going on in that
sphere.
Artists and Artists'
Micro-Enterprises
Small groups of innovative artists
and engineers, communications and IT graduates, have formed and
continue to form quasi- or fully-commercial associations to advance
their objectives. They are essentially 'creative engineers',
refuelling their creativity through artistic experimentation.
Areas Of Activity
These small and micro-enterprises are
concerned with visual / auditory perception, system architecture,
interface development, algorithm development, new forms of content
and use of platforms and network to support collaborative work.
Aims Of The Workshops
1. To provide a forum for
project-based, focused discussion between artists, artists' SMEs and
larger corporations in: infrastructure, equipment, software, content
creation / publishing, network services and applications.
2. To provide access to new markets
and to develop local-specific content, applications and platforms.
3. To generate understanding of
management skills amongst creative practitioners: SMEs in digital
media, interface design, application / service developers, small
content creators / publishers, companies who develop products / uses
for networked communications.
Arts Council of England
Ministries of Culture and of Education, France
Ministry of Culture, the Netherlands
International Telecommunication Union
European Commission
European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs
CESAM, Centre d'Expertise et de Services en Applications Multimédias, Canada
Suggested Workshop Programme
General Topics:
Venture Capital and Culture
Artists as 'creative engineers'
Project-based:
Interactive content
Niche Applications
Software architecture
Network architecture
Human-computer interface
Report On Souillac II, Week 2
Artists presented projects and
discussed them with industry participants. Industry participants
noted that artists are preoccupied with similar problems as the
engineers in industrial laboratories. They were seen as 'creative
engineers' with equal technical skillsets as the engineer in the
industry laboratory. Furthermore it was argued that artists do not
necessarily start from a creative point but often from a
technology-based enquiry.
Research into the oral, visual, aural and textual expression is
an investigation between the scientific (linear) and the artistic
(non-linear). Artists and scientists do however share the same
fundamental preoccupations, although they may articulate them
differently.
The results of artistic
experimentation with, development of, and use of communications
technologies is transferable to industry whether as short term
products, network solutions or software architecture. Results may be
almost immediately applicable to market, identifying trends, or
otherwise have value as long-term research with a 1 - 3 year
horizon.
Areas of co-operation
It was agreed that co-operation on
research and development should take place in specific areas such
as:
Souillac
II
London
Future participants
Telefonica
BT
France Telecom
Nokia
Bell Atlantic
Mitel
CNET
IBM
CESAM
Cisco
Pearson
Philips
Lucent
BBC
Cable & Wireless
Eutelsat
Nortel
Contacts
Georges-Albert Kisfaludi: gak@wanadoo.fr
Jonathan Barton: jbarton@eutelsat.fr
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High Band-Width Network for Artistic
Experimentation
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All of the artists and
institutions present during the two weeks of Souillac II expressed
the need for higher band-width possibilities and for a permanent
pipeline for artistic, educational and cultural experimentation. Many
of the institutions and individual artists are already confronting
the problem of limited band-width in their work and the need to find
solutions permitting larger scale experimentation in interactive
work. It was obvious in our discussions that the people present
working in these related fields already have existing programmes and
projects capable of testing the possibilities systems such as ATM
could provide. The demand is project driven.
Since many such networks are being
discussed, and built, it was decided to propose the kind of
experimentation developed by the participants as the best possible
way to test the potential of high band-width connections. Projects in
the areas of art and education are by definition content based and
the most demanding from the cultural, social and technical points of
view. They are, therefore, ideal candidates for experimentation on
the future use of such networks.
A specific recommendation was
directed to the European Commission, DG-XIII, DG-III and ISPO
regarding the EC's plan to connect universities throughout Europe
with ATM. Since the kind of work presented, particularly artistic
production, already exists at a considerable level, since that work
is already confronted by the problems of limited band-width and since
it is from several points of view the most challenging, it is natural
that such a programme of connecting centres start with what is
already happening. These existing programmes and projects are
sometimes associated with university departments, art schools or
other administrative systems, but many exist independently which
should also be included. It would be faster and more efficient to
start where there is an existing demand rather than generally
connecting institutions in hope of results.
Art schools, universities, research
centres, individual artists, industrial groups all agreed to pursue
the idea further, tracing a line from the US west coast, through the
east coast, Canada, across the Atlantic to France, Germany, the UK,
the Netherlands and Spain as the first steps in building the art and
education pipeline. The list below is far from exhaustive and
represents only those who were directly or indirectly interested in
the Souillac initiative. A further effort to identify interested
people and institutions would easily double the number on both sides
of the Atlantic.
The next step is to identify
individuals who would be willing to act as country or regional
co-ordinators working to put in place their part of the pipeline and
inform everyone of what is already happening. Second, a call should
be made to other institutions, centres, schools and groups interested
in participating. Third, a list of interested industrial partners
should be drawn up such as that started here. Fourth, a technical
inventory is necessary to determine what connections already exist,
how to have access to them, what projects are in the offing, and how
they could be co-ordinated. Finally, an inventory of art, educational
and cultural projects should be compiled to demonstrate more clearly
the need for this technical support.
During the meeting between artists
and representatives of industry the second week of Souillac II the
artists presented several projects either completed or in production,
demonstrating the kind of work being done and the different
directions being pursued (see Souillac Final Report - 1, Innovation
Exchange Workshops). The group also discussed several criteria for
identifying the kind of artistic, educational and cultural projects
to be proposed and eventually showcased. Ideally, work should involve
one or more of the following:
1. technical development and innovation
2. interesting partnerships
3. development of new
"languages" in the widest sense
4. be considered a prototype
5. be seen in public spaces, i.e.
museums, etc.
6. be highly legible - visible
7. be user conscious
It is possible that a project inventory and the list of
interested institutions could be organised by using the Navihedron
model developed during the Souillac meeting (see Final Report - 3).
That information could be fed in to the various meetings being
prepared between artists and industry proposed in part 1 of the
Souillac II final report. The following have confirmed their interest
in the high band-width network either during Souillac II or since:
Interested Institutions &
Individuals:
San Diego Supercomputer Center,
Univ. of California at San Diego, San Diego, Cal., USA
Contact: Rand Steiger, Professor
University of Southern California,
Los Angeles, Cal., USA
Contact: Vibeke Sorensen, Professor
Columbia University, Institute for
Learning Technologies, New York, NY, USA
Contact: Robert McClintock, Director
Young McDonald's Farm, Dover Plains,
NY, USA
Contact: Daniel P. McVeigh, Director
School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, USA
Contact: John Simon, Professor
Daniel Langlois Foundation, Montreal,
Canada
Contact: Jean Gagnon, Program Director
Music Technology Area, Music Faculty,
McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Contact: Zack Settel, Chair
Laboratoire de Museographie, Ecole de
Design Industriel, University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada
Contact: Luc Courchesne, Professor
Societé des Arts
Technologiques, Montreal, Canada
Contact: Monique Savoie, Director
McLuhan Centre, University of
Ontario, Toronto, Canada
Contact: Derrick de Kerckhove, Director
Laboratoire de Langage Electronique,
Paris, France
Contact: Don Foresta, President
IRCAM, Paris, France
Contact: Marie-Hélène
Serra, Co-Directeur de la Pédagogie et de la
Création
Cité des Sciences et de
l'Industrie, La Villette, Paris, France
Contact: Emma Abadi, Responsable de
l'action artistique
Centre National de Création
Musical (CIRM), Nice, France
Contact: Luc Martinez, Director
Sophia Antipolis Foundation, Sophia
Antipolis, France
Contact: Anne Chambrillon, Assistant
to the Director
Centre Interational de
Création vidéo, Montbeliard, France
Contact: Pierre Bongiovanni, Director
Society for Old and New Media,
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Contact: Marleen Stikker, Director
V2 Organisation, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Contact: Alex Adriaansens, Director
V2 Lab, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Contact: Anne Nigten, Director
Museo Internacional de Electrografia
(MIDE), Cuenca, Spain
Contact: Jose Ramon Alcala, Director
Art House, Dublin, Ireland
Contact: Aoibheann Gibbons, Executive
Director
University of the West of England,
Digital Media Laboratory, Bristol, UK
Contact: Tessa Elliott, Senior
Research Fellow
National Museum of Photography, Film
& Television, Bradford, UK
Contact: Hannah Redler, Digital Media
Co-ordinator
Centre for the Study of Globalisation
and Regionalisation, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
Contact: Norman Lewis, Co-ordinator
Visual Institute of the ZKM,
Karlsruhe, Germany
Contact: Jeffrey Shaw, Director
Academy for Art and Media, Cologne, Germany
Contact: Bernd Kracke, Professor
Media Arts Research Studies,
Institute for Media Communication
German National Research Center for
Information Technology, Sankt Augustin, Germany
Contact: Monika Fleishmann, Artistic
Director
The Bonn Development Workshop for
Computermedia, Animax (BEC), Bonn - Bad Godesberg, Germany
Contact: Bodo Lensch, Director
International Center for Art and New
Technologies, Prague, Czech Rep.
Contact: Pavel Smetana, Director
Interested Industrial Groups:
Bell Atlantic, New York, USA
Contact: Steve Kohn, Director,
Educational Initiatives/Strategic Alliances
CESAM, Centre d'Expertise et de
Services en Application Multimédias, Montreal, Canada
Contact: Louise Perras, Director
CréaNET, CNET, Paris, France
Contact: Pierre Musso, Director
EUTELSAT, European Telecommunication
Satellite Organisation, Paris, France
Contact: Michael Gordon, Business
Planning Manager
TELEFONICA, Foundation for Art &
Technology
Contacts
Georges-Albert Kisfaludi: gak@wanadoo.fr
Jonathan Barton: jbarton@eutelsat.fr
The Navihedron
(NAVIgation by polyHEDRON)
________________________________________
The Navihedron, developed by Roy
Stringer and AMAZE (Liverpool, UK), is a non-hierarchical information
architecture tool allowing intuitive navigation of the network space.
It presents the visitor with the fastest route to the most
interesting information. Further navigation around a site is helped
by arranging the selected node to link it thematically to five points
- the most relevant five next to the one chosen (www.amaze.co.uk). A
model for the interactive art and education network was developed
during Souillac II allowing the network participant or visitor to
subjectively approach the information titles presented here below for
a better understanding of what one Souillac participant called the
'digital culture landscape'.
When completed this tool will allow
participants of the 'Souillac Network' to post information on
relevant art projects, educational programmes, research, events,
pertinent information in many categories, on-line collaboration, and
partnerships. It will be an open platform for expansion to interested
future participants.
The model has been modified since
Souillac to expand its possibilities, adding categories and enlarging
others to better serve the needs described by all the working groups
during both weeks of Souillac II.
The overall goals remain:
Estimated Budget, 1 year:
Finish Construction of Navihedron
10 000 ECU
Graphic Interface
25 000 ECU
Developing Content
50 000 ECU
Total
85
000 ECU
The categories as they now exist are:
The Souillac Charter for Art &
Industry
Aims, Objectives & Related
Documents
Interactive Art Network:
Members; Institutions, Schools,
Laboratories, Artists....
Education:
Curricula, Courses,
Programmes, Scholarships
Research:
Themes & Projects
History of Interactive Art
Bibliography
Project Workspace:
(entry through project password)
Newsletter:
Funding, Events, Conferences,
Workshops & Meetings
Discussion Groups
Public policies :
Authors' Rights, Laws, Regulations
and Conventions
Contacts with Industry:
Projects & Possibilities
Technical Information &
Development
Contacts
Georges-Albert Kisfaludi: gak@wanadoo.fr
Jonathan Barton: jbarton@eutelsat.fr
________________________________________
Artists' Rights in the New
Communication Space
________________________________________
During Souillac II a discussion was
held on the question of artists' rights and a presentation made by
Danielle Cliche, senior researcher at ERICArt in Bonn and Stefaan
Verhulst, director of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and
Policy, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford. The
discussion included a conference call with professor Monroe Price
(PCMLP - Oxford) and Mark Stephens (Stephens Innocent-London).
The following is a summary of that
presentation and a proposal for approaching the question
systematically and from the point of view of the artists.
Background:
Increasingly artists - visual
artists, performance artists and others - are using new digital
multi-media technologies to create and disseminate their work.
Organisations in Europe and the United States, including cultural
entities, have committed themselves to fostering an international
community of artists via the Internet, providing for a digital era of
creativity and innovation . How the new technology will affect the
content and distribution of artists' work is still unknown, but what
is clear is the following: because digital media such as CD-ROM and
the Internet have made copying and adapting artists' work easier and
less expensive than ever before, the relationship between the
economics of creation, production, and distribution maybe radically
altered . Not only artists, but authors and publishers, the music
industry - all those involved in the creation and distribution of
information- are concerned with this issue . Since artists are often
the most fragile aspects of the creative cycle and the most
vulnerable to economic abuse, special attention must be paid to the
way they fare in the world of multi-media and modern technology.
Technology firms, Internet rights
groups, lawyers, and government officials have raised the discussion
of how to reformulate traditional copyright law to protect the rights
of large scale players in the digital era. An increasing place must
be found, as well, to locate the rights of artists.In addition,
artists, like all creators, are consumers as well as producers of
images. The new technology providers access to an extraordinary new
collection of possibilities, and the danger exists that rules that
guarantee exclusivity serve to inhibit creativity.
Governments have attempted to address
copyright issues in a digital age domestically, such as the Working
Group on Intellectual Property Rights in the US or the EU proposal
attempting to harmonise aspects of rules on copyright and related
rights in the Information Society. Such initiatives have addressed,
for example, right holders in industry concerned about data base
protection, and are built on traditional concepts of copyright law.
It is now time to also address the manner in which media artists deal
with the existing or new copyright regulations or issues. It would be
especially important for national, regional or international bodies
working on digital media and copyright law (including Commissioner
Monti's new proposal) to integrate the needs of all rights holders,
including artists, in their policies, if these are to survive in the
future.
Against this background, the
following ideas for an empirical study were proposed and endorsed by
the participants of Souillac II.
Artists' Rights Issues Raised
by Digital Technologies:
A legal system for protecting
artists' rights in the digital era must address the following
issues:
Proposed Methods for Protecting
Artists' Rights:
Some of the following means to
protect artists' rights in the digital era have been proposed,
however no research has explored the relative merits or feasibility
of these systems :
Proposed Methodology and Research
Design
The proposal is to:
Budget:
Researchers
50 000 ECU
Travel
30 000 ECU
Web
Site/Diffusion/Communication
15 000 ECU
Study
30 000 ECU
General expenses
10 000 ECU
Total:
125 000 ECU
Partners:
Ericarts, Bonn, Germany
Programme in Comparative Media Law
and Policy, Oxford University, Oxford, UK
Contacts:
Stefaan G.Verhulst, PCMLP, Centre for
Socio-Legal Studies
Wolfson College, University of Oxford
OXFORD OX2 6 UD
Tel + 44 1865 284 241 (direct)
Tel + 44 1865 284 220 (switch board)
Fax + 44 1865 284 221
e-mail: svershulst@hotmail.com
Web address: Http://www.vii.org/PCMLP
Danielle Cliche
Senior Project Advisor
European Research Institute for
Comparative Cultural Policy and the Arts
Am Hofgarten 17
53113 Bonn, Germany
Tel + 49.228.242.0996
Fax + 49.228.241.318
e-mail: 113067.3632@compuserve.com
________________________________________
Education: Interactivity &
Pedagogical Tools
________________________________________
The discussion of interactivity and pedagogical tools began with descriptions and comparisons of the situation and initiatives in different countries; projects actually existing, in the making or non-existent and therefore needed. The discussion underlined both the strong interest and the many limitations in today's context for interactivity as a pedagogical tool as well as the means to develop it. As a first step, the working group defined the objectives of this approach to education and then followed with the recommendations and proposals for projects listed below. Summarising the results of the discussion as we have, does over-generalise. or overlook some of the important particularities of the projects presented. The group was made up of designers and operators of multimedia educational projects, representatives or consultants for governmental institutions working to develop the new multimedia technologies for education (Ministries of Education, Culture...) and industrial representatives who have supported innovative projects. It also included long-distant participants on line, Robert McClintock, Director, Institute for Learning Technologies, Columbia University, New York (USA) and Teemu Leinonen, Co-ordinator, Future Learning Environment, University of Art and Design, Media Lab, Helsinki (Finland). Those interested in more information on the various projects discussed are invited to examine the Web sites at the addresses below. That list is not closed and it is hoped that it could be the beginning of a compilation of interesting sites accessible in the future through the Navihedron (see part 5). Any additions you might wish to add should be sent to the co-ordinator listed at the end of this report.
To develop:
There were two kinds of proposals made during the discussions: recommendations coming from the shared experiences of the group, and proposals for projects coming from stated needs. The projects proposed in this final report are a call to those interested to jointly pursue the development of those actions deemed necessary by the group. In some cases that means support for and participation in programmes already existing in certain countries. For others, it will be necessary to form working groups to put into action those recommendations.
Build educational projects clearly
proposing:
________________________________________
An International Virtual Faculty
on Art and Science
________________________________________
Recipe for a Virtual Faculty of
Art and Science
Take the 24 most articulate,
open-minded and brave scientists from all disciplines and all
continents and the same for 24 artists of the same level and create a
Virtual Faculty of outstanding intellectuals that dare see their work
in a wider context, dare speak out clearly and yet have an
outstanding status amongst their peers.
Invite them to join a Virtual Faculty
where each will give one lecture every year on themes connecting
their own work with a wider science/art perspective. The lectures are
given via teleconferencing and are available to interested
institutions and individuals all over the planet.
For instance, one day a week, say
every Thursday, for the 24 weeks of the academic year, a tag team
probing the same subject from two different angles will be available
to the audience:
Example:
10 - 11: Scientist lecture (on-line)
11 - 12: On-line chat (text only)
with scientist, open to everyone.
14 - 15: Artist lecture (on-line)
15 - 16: On-line chat (text only)
with artist, open to everyone.
One benefit of this activity will be
the educational and research-relevant material delivered to all
interested institutions, be they in the realm of art or science or
any other curiosity-driven human activity. Another benefit will be
the resurrection of the intellectual, previously so apparent in the
European tradition: the independent, free thinker with a wide
audience of interested individuals; a highly skilled and hard-working
person with a deep insight into his or her own field with a deep
feeling for other intellectual walks of life.
At a manageable cost, a truly
international circle of curiosity-driven minds can be established to
the benefit of the many.
A Background to Virtual Faculty of
Art and Science
There is general agreement that we
have been living through and continue to live through a period of
profound change manifest everywhere in western civilisation,
socially, politically, culturally, intellectually, philosophically
and psychologically. This transformation has been most apparent in
the arts and the sciences of our century and it is there we must look
to discover the meaning of that change and its consequences for our
society. These tandem sources of knowledge have, consciously and
unconsciously, been giving us clues throughout most of century as to
where we are headed.
Given the great dispersion of
knowledge today, the lack of links between the various kinds of
information available through different approaches to understanding,
a point of focus is essential to bring unity to such a program. Such
a point can be the idea of a new organisational space for western
society, a space that has been the subject and object of much
artistic and scientific invention since the end of the 19th century.
Every society has at its core an image, an image of itself, of how it
operates, of how it relates to other things around, an image which
contains a schema describing the way that society functions.
It is obvious that during the course
of the 20th century that schema, for western and probably world
civilisation, has changed in profound and fundamental ways from the
mechanical schema of the clockwork universe to something not yet
fully defined. That schema is the organisational space referred to
above. It is, as well, a visual space, a communication space, an
imaginary space, an intuitional space, the way in which we see things
operating.
By exploring art and science,
separately and as an ensemble, it is perhaps possible to begin to
understand that space and how it works and thereby find directions
for the future evolution of our society. This is the principal
objective of the faculty. Since few people are looking at this change
in how reality is defined, the number of teachers and guides that can
help through this exploration is limited. Many of the people are
themselves unaware of the part their work plays in the overall
transformation confronting us. No one is certain about the direction
in which this is leading which means that by attempting to teach it,
we are participating actively in the discovery of what we are looking
for.
By making the most efficient use of
the communications tools now available, we can bring together people
from different disciplines to add their part to the overall
construction of the new space and to work with students and teachers
from several different academic disciplines to actually build it
together.
Target:
Art schools or faculties, engineering
schools, science faculties, research centres in both the arts and
sciences, and many others.
Tools:
On-line video-conferencing, minimally
one ISDN connection bridging interested sites with the transmitting
institute, for direct presentation and discussion, Internet for chat
sessions, preparation and follow-up.
Affiliated Institutions:
Mindship Copenhagen, Denmark
Mindship Intl., University of Maine,
Orono, ME, USA
Leonardo, ISAST
Laboratoire de Langage Electronique,
Paris, France
Project Budget:
Funding would be in two steps, the
first, an initial grant to permit the preparation of a detail project
and the first year's program. The second step would be to fund and
execute that first year with both public and private support.
First step: (estimated budget, 85 000
ECU for one year preparation):
________________________________________
"Instrument Makers", An
Art Exhibit
For Building a New Space of the
Imagination
________________________________________
One of the most enthusiastically
discussed ideas during the two weeks of the Souillac meeting was the
organisation of an art exhibit demonstrating the little known
artists' role in the evolution of the tools of the new technologies
and the impact it has had on the innovation of those technologies and
on society itself.
Preliminary Project
"Instrument Makers" was
proposed as an important international art exhibition, both
historical and contemporary, with one of the objectives being to
trace the topography of artistic activity engaged in using,
developing, reappropriating and reinventing the technologies of a
given period. It would attempt to show the impact of artistic
practice and exploration throughout the century on the development
and innovation of technique and technology and illustrate the
on-going dialogue between art, science and technology. It would be a
fundamental re-examination of art history, as well as the history of
science, during the last one hundred years with, as background, the
reinvention of the space of the imagination of western society. It
would highlight the parallels existing between art and the
development of different mathematical and scientific models which
have radically transformed the way we conceive space and time.
The project is based on the idea of
instruments, either of artists or engineers, or both, which have had
the singular effect of transforming or opening up the artistic
process between one discipline and another and of promoting
transdisciplinarity between art and science, creativity and
technique. The exhibition will put the accent on work more transitory
than fixed, defined by the process of its generation - both artistic
and technical, rather than as something solid and immutable. It will
underline the passage from a universe of fixed categories to a
universe of moving references.
Instrument Makers: Relating Art
& Technology
The exhibition should show how
artists - by assimilating and mastering, then rerouting technologies
- have contributed and continue to contribute to technical progress
and the evolution of the tools and expand their potential. This
aspect should be of particular concern to industry but is often
unknown to it. One of the fundamental objectives of the exhibition is
to present this artistic demarche, becoming more and more evident
today but whose roots run throughout the 20th century.
In its historical dimension the
exhibition should take into account the aspirations of cinema and the
electromechanical recording of sound and voice. Furthermore,
electricity - the domestication of the electron - seems to be at the
heart of a paradigm change in constructing art history for the last
one hundred years. The application of electrical, electronic and
digital technologies to artistic ends has grown with the advancement
of the 20th century, and the passage from analogue to digital points
to one of the key ideas of McLuhan. He saw that passage, starting
from the predominance of vision in the perception and conception of
the universe - first in the invention of the phonetic alphabet, then
the movable type of the Gutenburg press, up to electricity and the
media growing from it - as a new synthesis in relationships,
favouring a mix of disciplines and the meshing of technologies by the
artist.
Instrument Makers: Relating Art to
Art
The exhibition should show how, with the arrival of digital
technologies in the service of all forms of creativity, artists have
overcome the barriers existing between different forms of artistic
expression and fuse them in the process of making a work. The
appearance of the notion of space-time in our civilisation has
provoked and acceleration the synthesis between the arts, plastic
arts and performing arts. The new technologies have encouraged that
synthesis in a more direct manner, freeing art from older forms.
Just as there exists in music an
obvious relation between the instrument and the sound produced, a new
relation has developed at the end of this century in the visual field
in the production and creation of images. Just as new tools allow
composers and musicians to model sound objects the way clay was
modelled in making sculpture, in visual creation they permit the
artist to conceive an image as something not fixed but as part of a
process which converges toward the development of new visual
languages.
Instrument Makers: Relating Art
& Science
The exhibition will attempt to show
how certain artistic experimentation posed the same questions as
parallel developments in 20th century science.
During the period covered by the
exhibition, artists and scientists in parallel have participated in
the invention of a new space of the imagination whose characteristics
are very different from the mechanical space inherited from the first
Renaissance: a space still not fully defined, but clearly
interactive, which proposes relations of a different order, at once
conceptual as well as practical, between individuals and between
people and their environment, both natural and artificial. The view
of the artist as researcher, similar to the scientist - a researcher
into the sense of things, expands the role of the artist - art as
research.
Instrument Makers: Relating
Art/Science/Technology - Society
The exhibition will attempt to show
that certain values implicit in the work of artists, with parallels
in science, for example interactivity and transdisciplinarity, can
generate new organisational structures, both social and
intellectual.
Through the work of artists in our
era, as with a majority of scientific propositions, we are confronted
by new metaphors, new relationships. The concept of the interactive
network and the new space of communication is becoming the metaphor
for our civilisation and its geometry the geometry of our
imagination. These changes correspond to an epistemological shift in
the concept of space and time, and among the repercussions is the
emerging technological infrastructure of telecommunications which
pushes us more and more into a universe where time and space have
become mutable entities. These technologies have today, and will
undoubtedly have even more so in the future, a profound impact on the
functioning of our society, and because they are technologies of
communication, they are the means by which we manifest our culture.
The electronic media have intervened in the structure of the human
senses and the function of art and artists is to give witness to the
resulting disruption.
Given that, and in particular the
extreme newness of the information society - the world of new media
and telecommunications - artistic and in general human awareness must
rise to the occasion and start drawing the first road maps of that
new territory. Marshall McLuhan wrote already in 1964 that the role
of the "artist is indispensable to the orientation, analysis and
comprehension of the form and structure created by the technology of
electricity."*
The exhibition will call on those
artists who have both modified our vision of the world as well
reconstructed the tools of artistic expression: as reference, the
chain of inventors from Marcel Duchamp to Nam June Paik, with Man Ray
and Moholy-Nagy, Takis, Woody and Steina Vasulka, Norman White, etc.;
in the field of music, innovators such as Scriabine, Varèse,
Cage, Moog; and in the reinvention of the space of dance, Wigman,
Graham, Nicolais, Cunningham... Other art forms have also worked in
the same perspective and newer generations of artists, through their
mastering of science and technology, are accelerating this process of
transformation and innovation.
The exhibition, planned for 2002,
will be above all an exhibit of artistic work and performance and
will include an important section of historical and contemporary
documentation.
The preparation will take one year
completing the following stages:
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