Ewa Wójtowicz

Aporias of the internet art. Cybercultural utopias twenty years later  
During the last two decades almost all the utopias of freedom, communication, access and cultural diversity have faced, respectively, problems of cenzorship, e-invigilation, exclusion and aesthetic homogenization. The reflection on cyberculture in its first years was characterized by the development of methodology, fascination with the unknown, the lack of technical knowledge, access difficulties and a great enthusiasm. Therefore we can distinguish some common attitudes, like the fear of dehumanization and losing real contacts for the sake of virtual ones. Also, in the 90s were the decade of great interest in telepresence and cyborg-like body prosthetics. One of the key features is adding the prefix „cyber-” to many words and relating to fiction (mostly literature and cinema). Artistic activity may be traced halfway between fiction and science-based technology. As network-based decentralization has played a positive role, it also has a double meaning. There is no responsibility and no direct enemy that may be criticised. This problem may be considered as a central aporia of the digital avantgarde, to use the term coined by Hans Magnus Enzensberger. Since networks are no longer metaphors, as Eugene Thacker notices, they become real, but still unstable. Artists using networks are involved in many contexts, sometimes disappointed with utopias of freedom and visions of endless space. All this creates a complex picture of art within cyberculture twenty years after its emergence.

Piotr Marecki, Gatunki cyfrowe. Instrukcja obsługi, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Kraków 2018, ss. 200.

This article analyses the case of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s project Atmospheric Memory (2019). Creating an object of (relational) architecture with elements of expanded reality (XR), the artist reaches also for the inspiration from the prehistory of technoculture. The idea of air as a “vast library”, proposed by Charles Babbage in 19th century is a starting point for reflections about modes of recording and representing verbal and spatial human interactions, as well as about so-called “cloud” and the question of memory. The latter issue leads to a spatial metaphor of memory palace or memory theater, not only applied for the purpose of mnemotechnics, but also taken as a conceptual prototype for virtual, immersive environments (Oliver Grau). Although Atmospheric Memory chamber does not offer a fully virtual immersion, but rather a mixed realities experience, it helps to see various relations between an individual and a (both private and public) dataspace. The artworks within the chamber are mostly interactive and responsive, focusing on various aspects of verbal communication and its inner contradictions. The memory as understood in this project is not only human-related, but also AI-related and cloud-based, so the project reveals some aspects of its mechanisms. Atmospheric Memory is discussed in theoretical context, with a few references to media art projects that share a common attitude regarding interactivity, virtuality and memory-bound issues.

The aim of this text is to examine the idea of endless conversions between media and the impact on the arts as a result of this process. The transliterature-based conversions and remediations may result from quite different aesthetical approaches. From Spoken Movies by Wojciech Bąkowski to exuberant and complicated visual narratives by Ryan Trecartin – we can establish some common features, among them a word-based foundation. Another important issue is a database narrative, not only known from such iconic examples such as Soft Cinema, but also in more contemporary works by Camille Henrot. The idea of a clink (content link), introduced by Theodor H. Nelson, may help to understand the incoherent relation between the visual and the textual layers of meaning. Since in the post-Internet culture a logic of mediated experience can be applied to the offline world, some examples of contemporary artistic attitudes bring to mind templates created for users rather than readers or viewers.
 

Dyskusja wokół książki

Comparative Textual Media. Transforming the Humanities in the Postprint Era (2013), pod redakcją N. K. Hayles i J. Pressman