10/15/05
AGAINST WEB ART, OR: TOWARDS A NEW, EMANCIPATORY WEB ART
I.
"death is not final.
only parking lots" � jack spicer
they paved derrida and put up a parking lot
a propos of an earlier entry on the illusory emancipatory nature of the internet, i recently came across a promisingly titled essay by amy davila called "cultural logic in cyberspace: web art and postmodernism," one that is very very wrong in almost every way. certain of the positions come from the same na�ve perspective of peter lurie, whose work i criticised in the entry mentioned above.
the crucial problem with davila's essay is that it attempts to examine the cultural logic of cyberspace, a present phenomenon, through the poststructuralist theory of roland barthes from the sixties. these two cultural moments are not compatible, at least not in the way davila thinks they are. for barthes, the usurpation of the self-contained work of art by text ("the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author") relies on the ability of the reader (and, more importantly, readers) to create non-readymade meaning through overlapping networks of textual code and produce yet more code through which s/he and future readers read. davila forces barthes' argument into her examination of the cultural logic of the present, one in which the centered coherence of the work has long been recouped, precisely through an appropriation of textuality (more on this point below). the thesis of davila's article seems to be that "the viewer has ultimately replaced the artist, thus confirming barthes' theory of death of the author" (5). tell me again about the rabbits, amy. at certain points, she seems to get it right: "the user is conditioned to manipulate through a web art site by a series of mouse movements and clicks as these basic functions are fundamental to wielding oneself through the web for anything [...] the interactivity with web artwork is intimately part of the piece itself as the viewer is forced to make 'arbitrary' choices which 'makes the viewer feel that he is actually participating in the unfolding of the work' [her citations are from a web source that is no longer online, but which is discussed here, albeit in italian]" (2). she is reproducing ideas from a critique of the illusory interactivity of the internet but, clearly, she does not realise it; her next sentence: "[...] web artists have almost universally relinquished 'authorial control' over their work" (2). the truth is that these artists enact authorial control as structured through the web apparatus precisely to expose the interactivity whose illusory nature davila cannot see. another quote: "superbad's simplistic interactivity encourages 'deeper concentration' which facilitates the viewer to create 'meaningful links' between the images causing 'visual emotion' to ultimately consume the viewer. the viewer thus actively participates in creating the experience of 'strangeness, mystery and beauty' these images evoke [citations are from the same defunct web source]" (2). furthermore, she writes, "with web art's emergence, more responsibility and new freedom have been given to the audience transforming the mere viewer into a participant and determinant character in this virtual world" (3, the emphases are mine).
as stated in my critique of lurie, the hyperlink presents an authoritarian bracketing of sign and referent; the emancipatory textuality of poststructuralism does not exist on the internet. imagine driving in a car: at every intersection, an arrow appears on the windshield. you attempt to turn the wheel the other way but it only turns the way the arrow points. this is what the internet does. are you driving? sure. but are you really in control of where you're going? davila uses the terms "postmodernism" and "postmodernist" as catch alls for an emancipatory new age (one which does not exist) that breaks from the authoritarian preoccupations of modernism, much in the same way many used to use the term "avant-garde" (a way, i should add, that many still do). but if anything can be said to reflect the age that we call "the postmodern," it is that authority and ideas of centers and essentiality have returned, and with a vengeance.
davila cites irving sandler's postmodernist art theory, art of the postmodern era and writes that "the primary goal of postmodern art theorists was 'decentering, that is, getting rid of anything that inplied a centre or hierarchy' [sandler 337]" (3). it may be true that certain prominent theorists (she is talking about the october group � she specifically names rosalind krauss, benjamin buchloh, craig owens, and douglas crimp, though curiously not hal foster, who speaks specifically to the internet's illusory interactivity in "the archive without museums") reject essentialist methods of analysis, but the rhetoric of the center in many facets of cultural production has not disappeared, nor would any of these theorists argue so. where, for barthes, the reader manipulates the rhizomatic and overlapping codes of the text and, in so doing, creates code him or herself, the internet has two coded centers to which the user has no access. the first is source code (click "view source" at the top of your web browser to see what i mean). that is the author's domain, the space in which he (yes, i'm gendering this) determines what you see and where you go when you click. the second center of the internet is yet more inaccessible � the user cannot view this one: the code of the apparatus. certain programs are open source, but most are not. this code determines how the author's code produces what you see. the internet user (and the viewer of web art) receives information from the author through the apparatus, neither of which s/he can manipulate. what is manipulatable is written into the text, which becomes a choose-your-own-adventure novel of sorts. if this takes on the name of the interactive, it is a product of false consciousness. i am tempted to declare false consciousness as the defining character of the era we called the postmodern, but i am not convinced that this false consciousness differs in any meaningful way from false consciousness as it was articulated by the modernists of the frankfurt school or, earlier yet, by marx.
it becomes clear, then, that a new, emancipatory web art is necessary, one that does not merely expose through the reproduction of authoritarian meaning the authoritarian structure of the apparatus. this, i imagine, must exist on some level in the visual arts. in electronic music, many artists write their own patches, so as not to be restricted to reproduce music as it is dictated by the programs they buy. many others write their own programs. others still (re)build their machines � machines, after all, also operate through "closed" code. this, however, does not take into account the agency of the listener. one intervention for the agency of the observer is la monte young and marian zazeela's dream house, in which continuous sound frequencies are broadcast into a room. the observer (listener? participant?) changes the pitch s/he hears by moving around, thereby creating music by manipulating the frequencies. here, what is manipulated is given, but what is produced by this manipulation is not pre-arranged. what i propose for a radical, emancipatory web-based art is an attention to the function of the codes that structure the viewer's engagement with the work. on one level, the answer is easy: we need new interfaces on new machines, ones that allow the viewer to create code rather than merely manipulate given elements, particularly the manipulation of given elements in predetermined ways. but how can this be achieved? does it necessarily entail the viewer's fluency in html code or web languages? and, even if such fluencies are somewhat common these days, how many among us are able to program applications? if i am speaking vaguely about the latter, it is because i don't even really know what it entails. i do know, however, that computers and their programs don't run on magic. one solution i can think of is to create an interface that allows the viewer to manipulate what is going on without code � which is to say to write code that allows the viewer to manipulate how the content looks and what it does without having to use code him or herself (much like how diaryland.com allows me to have a webpage without having to write my own code). but, under this solution, are we not more or less back where we began, namely the manipulation of readymade elements? and even if this were sufficient � and it is an improvement, albeit not one that addresses the central problem in any meaningful way � the salient issue that web art seeks to address, and rightfully so i might add, is the way the internet allows people to access information from a great distance. short of delivering these special machines to each and every viewer, we need some way to break through the authority of code upon code through conventional computers and web browsers. is there a way to do this? i'm not saying that there isn't, but neither am i an artist nor a programmer; i can't conceptualise it. but this is what is necessary for an emancipatory web art.
II.
they took all the signifieds and put 'em in a signified museum
and they charged all the people a dollar and a half just to see 'em
echoing concerns from an earlier suite of entries on nike's appropriation of the minor threat LP cover image, my anxiety at the authoritarian structure of the internet stems from my anxiety that, someday, speech will be impossible. that is to say, the bracketing of sign and referent in the hyperlink strikes me as yet another step towards andreas huyssen's fear that advanced capitalism will collectivise our signifieds, if it hasn't begun to already. my entries on nike and the minor threat image took on last year's beautiful losers exhibition and vice magazine and argued that, if we continue to allow our transgressive art to become fashion, either through its appropriation for advertisement and/or the creation of a "lifestyle" for the ultimate purpose of moving product, there will come a point when our revolutionary signifiers can no longer exchange for their intended meanings. the reservoir of signifieds in our language will dwindle to a far smaller number that are produced and have been collectivised by big business and we will only be able to mean what they want us to mean, no matter what we say. this seems overly dire and, probably, impossible � impossible, that is, as a totality, but a situation in which most of our potential signifieds are produced and have been collectivised by big business, in which the possibility of transgression is difficult but ultimately remains possible (which is to say that we will not all be performing de sade plays in sanitariums), is very possible and, furthermore, foreseeable. and if such a situation comes to be (we can already see something of this in the present � what does minimalist sculpture mean to all but the literate few? pretentious nonsense, even among those who unthinkingly and reverentially respect the category of high art), the solution will, as always, be what benjamin called for in "the author as producer": the exposure of the means of production through a critical engagement with the means of production. but will such an intervention be legible as anything but conceptual art nonsense? and, furthermore, will benjamin's essay be legible as anything but academic (a category that will, by then, surely be obsolete) nonsense?
i recently attended a lecture by bernard gendron and i asked him to define the term "avant-garde" as he used it in his most recent book (linked to earlier in this entry) and in the essay he had just read.* he was unable to give an answer that amounted to more than the term being a catch all for art that is transgressive. the avant-garde, in this usage, becomes a mere aesthetic style, a rhetorical device even. the relevant question here is: a transgression of what? the answer: anything. the critical art that benjamin called for, then, becomes, under this usage, reduced to its transgression (read: its "edginess"). what its transgression teaches us and what it lays bare is beside the point. this is the cultural situation in which we find ourselves, one that put ch� guevara's iconic portrait on a soda can � as well, of course, as the t-shirts of "edgy" teenagers and lifestyle leftists the world over.
we will only be able to mean what they want us to mean, no matter what we say. isn't this also a little like driving in a car in which an arrow flashes on the windshield at each intersection but steering the wheel can only be turned in the direction indicated? more to the point, i suppose, this is like driving in a car in which the car will move in predetermined routes at predetermined intervals of time irrespective of which way you turn the wheel or which pedal you press. this is what worries me and it is why an emancipatory web art is necessary and, furthermore, faux emancipatory web art and na�ve articulations of an illusory emancipatory element in web art are worse than no web art and no critical discourse at all.
* in a rare moment of insight, robert christgau gave gendron's book a critical beatdown. the k.o.: "were the beatles great artists, or whatever we call them these days? or is it incorrect even to ask?" kapow. i am reproducing christgau's words a little out of context here; when he says "incorrect," he is taking a sly jab at academic fashion, implying that it is politically incorrect to draw attention to distinctions between high and low culture. that said, it was not "incorrect" that gendron asked the question central to his book, concerning the relationship between popular music and the avant-garde. the question, however, is an irrelevant one.
10/06/05
(OBSCURED) NOTES ON THE PROBLEM OF THE AUTONOMY OF ART IN BOURGEOIS SOCIETY
bear with me as i try to get my thoughts together. i'll begin with the ending and see if i can't work my way backwards to a starting point. i want to finish with three performances at the dearly departed the meow meow between the summer of 2002 and the summer of 2003.
first scene (8/03/02): the "noise" package tour featuring portland's very own get hustle, the widely mourned arab on radar, and the genre's two superstars the locust (since signed to epitaph records) and blood brothers (now on some bmg subsidiary). what i want to talk about took place between the latter two's sets. the locust play their homogeneous locusty set, complete with requisite "attitude" in their trademark high school production of peter handke's offending the audience sort of way and people are somewhat enthused, though one gets the feeling that we've seen it all before and the joke isn't funny anymore. unbeknowst to most of the crowd, providence's lightning bolt set up on the floor behind the crowd and, the minute the locust's set ended, began playing. you couldn't see them because they were on the floor and, at the time, most of us had no idea who they were, but tall people kept describing what they were doing: "the drummer's wearing a ski mask with a microphone sewn into it... the bassist has broken all of his strings but he's still playing... the drummer's bleeding... now they're both bleeding" and people started talking about the band � more like spreading rumours than anything else � during the four second breaks (basically the 1-2-3-4) between songs. when lightning bolt's now legendary set ends, people turn around to watch blood brothers do that band playing on a stage thing and no one is impressed.
second scene (10/26/02): the premise behind the k records talent show tour was that old k records thing about any shy, tweemo closet exhibitionist getting up on the stage (between sets by, presumably, his or her heroes: calvin johnson, the badger king, thanksgiving, and the blow) and performing � performing anything. on listservs and message boards the international pop underground over, calvin posted an email address for people to sign up for talent show slots between the acts. thanksgiving played some real emo shit. then some people did some silly stuff on the stage. then the badger king were awesome. then this girl gets on the stage and stutters. she plays this song she says she wrote for her boyfriend william but keeps messing up and having to start again. as she finally gets through it you want to die. people clap. people clap enthusiastically. pity claps. then she says, "i know some other songs. i didn't, like, maybe, write them all by myself you know, i, like, sing them with other people; other people made them up too. i could sing one of those maybe..." she is encouraged, but only half-heartedly. thus begins the blow's blue sky vs. night sky. have you ever heard someone laugh at the shaggs? have you ever seen them turn around and then watched the shaggs laugh back at them? � there is a radical reexamination of the olympia punk rock ethos here that i haven't fully worked out yet, but it's there.
third scene (7/05/03): it was a dear nora homecoming show. the kissing book (andrew kaffer on a homemade eukelele/guitar contraption with jona bechtolt on some electronic machine i can't really recall) begin and it promises to be a magic marker night. while the kissing book plays, this band no one's ever heard of called k.i.t. sets up in the coffeeshop to the left of the meow meow stage. people pile into the coffee shop as k.i.t. begin playing very dissonant, dna type music. this coffee shop is tiny, by the way. singer kristy geschwandtner (who, like liz phair, is 5'2) has this ridiculously long mic cable and wraps the entire crowd around and around until they can't move in the middle of the room. the band, i should mention, have set up on the periphery of the room. the crowd is tied up in the middle of the room while this noisy band is playing around them and kirsty throws firecrackers at the feet of the crowd.
so what does this all add up to? i'm trying to trace moments of avant-gardism in punk rock and i want to arrive at these three moments as evidence that the avant-garde is still possible (in "pop" music, no less) in the present, and as, perhaps, a sign of things to come. today in class, the question came up of whether one could truly express oneself through consumption or whether, through consumption, one is doomed to reproduce false consciousness. furthermore, in advanced capitalist economy, is a consumer ever truly an agent or merely a chooser? one suggestion was that one can "critically" consume media. i find that highly insufficient. for example, all the movies they show on IFC may have a higher level of aesthetic autonomy than your average major studio hollywood film, but you haven't addressed the problem. similarly, your average sub pop band, let's say iron and wine, is obviously not the same thing as britney spears, but how different are they really? money goes into different pockets, but we still have music as a vulgar commodity form and that music still alienates us. what we need, then, is to change the nature of music as it is produced and received, to emancipate it so that it can emancipate us. for me, the solution is twofold: the first is to change the performance of music, the three performances i listed above, each of which dismantles the stage and, while i haven't really gotten into it yet, do yet more, are examples. the second is in the recording of music and the dissemination of these recordings. we can trace this in punk rock from the d.i.y. singles of desperate bicycles, early rough trade (e.g. the raincoats' "fairytale in the supermarket"), television personalities, and the first buzzcocks e.p. to cassette culture to today's experimental cd-r labels. parallel movements, of course, can be found in every genre of music and, certainly, i wouldn't presume to claim this as unique to punk rock. however, what i intend to do here is to reclaim the term "punk rock," to repose the term not as a genre or a style. i should also state that my project here is not historical in scope. this is in no way a revisionist history of the punk rock tradition but, instead, a call for avant-gardism in "pop" music and i have chosen to call it "punk rock." mixtape culture in hip-hop (at least, mixtape culture pursued for a non-demo purpose), for me, is punk rock. i don't think this is an appropriation (certainly not in the way the ubiquitous "rap music is black punk rock" phrase from the 80's was) but a study of parallel avant-gardist strategies. again, this is not an historical study and the term "punk rock" does not precede anything and, hence, the "punk rock"-ness of mixtape culture cannot be an appropriation. i am uncovering moments of protest in "pop" music (punk rock) that seek to change the productive apparatus (as well as the apparatus of reception) and, furthermore, dismantle guitar-based pop music on an aesthetic level (this intention is clearly there, but i'm not sure what to do with it at the moment).
what is, for me, at stake here is the latest appropriation of punk rock by the culture industry, this time under the guise of "indie rock." it is plain for all to see: this term was about the formation of an alternative productive apparatus. now it is a style, and none of the bands that play this style (at least none who have been commodified, although this, i suppose, doesn't really bear mentioning) has anything but a complicit relationship to the corporate capitalist means of production. but this isn't about words: "indie rock," "punk rock," etc. this is about the possibility of protest in pop music. i suppose this is also in many ways about the alternative productive apparatuses, both on this continent and abroad, built by thirty years of hard work that has long been used as merely a stepping stone to corporate media conglomerates. but, more importantly, this is about creating a music that is unappropriatable, one for which corporate capitalism and the culture industry has no use but that, at the same time, emancipates us all in the ways the historical avant-garde promised: beyond aesthetic innovation and autonomy from the culture industry, i think, in some ways, we have here a coming together of art and life. (the example that comes immediately to mind is olympia, washington from the mid-80's to the early 90's: those cliquey scenesters lived that scene; lived that music, lived those zines, lived the art, lived the aesthetic, the uniform, etc. they may not have created a utilitarian art in the manner that the russian constructivists attempted to, but they created a world that was at once tiny � a handful of basements in olympia � and expansive � the international pop underground � and didn't give a shit if anyone else in the world knew; probably, they were happier that no one did know.)
