AN ARTISTIC FORUM ON NETWORKS AND MARKETS

by Franck Popper

In this communication towards the end of the first phase of the Network and Markets forum more particularly concerned with art and history I shall try to respond first of all to the statements that alluded to my original contribution of 15/3/00 before attempting to refer myself to other points in which I feel I can make a contribution to the debate such as the present state of the discussion around the subject of the history of art, mainstream or otherwise.

Among the interventions that made allusion in one way or another to my original text I noted those by Ricardo Basbaum who was troubled by the fact that mainstream art history continues to classify art into categories according to the support and media, by Oladele Bangboye who asked me to elaborate on my interpretation of computer in art as a purveyor of abstract information rather than as a tool or medium, by Luiz Camillo Osorio who invited us to open a discussion on our modern yet traditional mainstream art history with different perspectives, while Simone Osthoff who seems to know particularly well my writings appears to think that I am a mainstream scholar. But above all I am referring myself to Trevor Batten's critical analysis of my text and his spiritual challenge regarding my (real) identity.

Since I am taking our internet forum more as an undertaking for warmly exchanging personal points of view rather than as a dull scientific symposium I shall mainly limit myself to tell you here in confidence my own personal experience and outlook.

When I described myself in my introductory text as an Art historian I simplified matters as I do when I meet someone in the street who asks me who I am. Thus I avoid any discussion and misunderstanding when I say that I am an aesthetician, an art theorist, a holder of a degree in the Science of art,an Exhibition organizer, a teacher of Visual art or an Art critic although I am a little bit all of these. For our discussion perhaps the simplest would be to explain how I have proceeded in the past to write books on art, to teach art at an experimental ( revolutionary ?) university and to organize exhibitions that had a certain impact on public awareness of artistic issues. These items could perhaps be relevant to some of the topics discussed here such as the relationship between mainstream and alternative art history or the relationship between artists and art historians (or other theoreticians).

When in the 1960s I wrote my book on Kinetic Art which formed part of my doctoral dissertation I had to discover the existence of several hundred artists in many different countries who largely ignored each other, their work or their very existence, but who all pursued aesthetic goals with the aid of real or virtual movement and natural or artificial light. One can of course argue that there was something arbitrary in my assumption that these artists had sufficient matters in common to be classed together under the term of Kinetic or Luminokinetic art. But my way of proceeding was based on some ideas that were in the air at the time and which justified in my mind this kind of procedure. Of course many of the artists if not all were not quite satisfied with this classification but alternatively made use of the term or denied to be called "Kinetic artists". However if any kind of classification can irritate artists or others I think nevertheless that it is necessary to procede in this way if one wants to situate the work of an artist with regard to the ideas that circulate at the time thus showing, among other things, its involvement with the issues of the time and the way this work goes beyond them.

One can consider Abraham Palatnik's work as a good example in this context. Although his pioneering work in luminokinetic art dates already from the beginning of the 1950s his importance was not recognized, neither in Europe nor the Americas, for some time and it needed someone particularly interested either in the aesthetic issues involved or in the personality of the artist to try to do justice to his work. I do not think that this has much to do with mainstream or alternative art history, but only with the fact that someone was sufficiently interested and organized to search for the necessary information.

After my prise de conscience regarding Motion and Light , I have tried a similar operation based on the assumption that there was a significant relationship to be analysed between two aesthetic ideas current at the time,i.e. artistic endeavours to create works on an environmental scale and spectator participation. This has given rise to my book entitled "Art,action and participation". I will not elaborate on this here, but I must say that a similar procedure has made me write "Art of the Electronic Age" of which I have given you already some details and this type of procedure is also at the base of my present research founded on the hypothesis that a new departure in Technological art has recently been made that can be tentatively named "Virtual Art" and which includes work in at least three categories - Digital works and environments, Hypermedia and Internet works and in which interactivity and multisensoriality play a more radical role than before.

Here I might add that one of my secondary hypotheses or assumptions is that the computer in art cannot be only regarded as a tool or medium for developing previuosly fixed artistic aims as so many artists seem to think but by its very nature the computer opens up enormous posibilities to enlarge artistic research through the artist's immediate access to at the same time abstract and real information which most probably influences the artistic process from the start. I am of course not the only one to think so, but I can refer myself to Timothy Druckrey who holds similar views ever since his Iterations or Timothy Binkley who spoke of "Virtual creation without tools or Media", or even to Umberto Eco who considers the computer to be a spiritual machine.

As regards my general way of working, perhaps I am not mistaken to think that Maria Fernandez procedes similarly in her original message to our forum or in her article in the Art Journal of Fall 1999 by emitting the hypothesis that a relationship exists between Postcolonial and Electronic Media Theories. A secondary hypothesis considers that the Latinamerican context represents a privileged territory.

Another point in the discussions that has particularly struck me as important is the relationship between artists and theoreticians.If I were a classical (mainstream ?) Historian I would perhaps begin by opposing the two extremes of writers of Art Histories or Stories of Art. One extreme is occupied by artists who include in their descriptions and considerations the work of some of their contemporary fellow artists or of themselves whereas the other extreme is occupied by theoreticians who observe a strict temporal distance towards the works they analyse or interpret.However, because it seems to be agreed, at least by some participants in this forum, that "history" can be made in real time the question arises who is qualified to take part in the discussion and whose remarks can be retained for which purpose.

The problem is complicated by the undeniable fact that at the present time a considerable number of artists have an exceptional theoretical baggage that allows them to act as university teachers (e.g. Edmond Couchot et Jean-Louis Boissier), heads of prestigious institutions (Kepes,Piene,Wodicsko at the CAVS of the MIT), curators (Medalla) or Moderators of Internet forums (Crandall). Does this mean that there is no longer any difference between a theorizing practitioner and a simple theoretician ?

I personally think that this difference still exists insofar as the theoretician is not a prisoner of his own artistic practice and is free to compare the practices by others (the artists) and relate them to the wider issues be they aesthetic, political, social, scientific or other.

Has the situation of the theoretician essentially changed with the advent of the Internet ? I am not quite certain, since I feel I am roughly in the same boat now as when I frequented a very large library. Although the amount of the information which is available on the Internet is immense, it can nevertheless be compared with that of a great library. Of course the only possible attitude in both cases is a strict discipline to be observed as regards the method of research and the finality of it which could be, among others, to understand and apply the deeper implications of technology in the aesthetic and cultural kingdoms.

I am sorry if I have bored some of you with my long personal reminiscences, but if there are others who read French and whom I have interested in my case they would perhaps like to read more in this vein by having a look at my "Réflexions sur l'exil, l'art et l'Europe" published by Klincksieck,Paris, in December 1998.

Frank Popper