Ghost Story ER IC C. H. DE BRUYN ON KINETIC ART AND NEW M EDIA
FROM ITS START, kinetic art has been possessed- by the uncanny end. But might we instead see kineticism as the very foundation Surrealist automaton as much as by the technological promise of contemporary modes of experience, from the projected image to of a utopian future. And, in turn, it has haunted modern sculpture, spectacle to the media network? Taking his cue from Artforum'S which had long been vexed by Marx's famous description of the inaugural cover, which featured a Jean Tinguely automated sculpture, commodity as a diabolical dancing object. Kinetic art, we came to art historian Eric C. H. de Bruyn reexamines kinetic art's labyrinthine think, was a bit of an embarrassment-indeed, an aesthetic dead past and maps a new space for its passages among us. Ghost Story ERIC C. H. DE BR UYN ON KI NETIC ART AND NEW M EDIA
etic art has been possessed-by the uncanny end. But might we instead see kineticism as the very foundation as much as by the technological promise of contemporary modes of experience, from the projected image to .nd. in turn, It has haunted modern sculpture, spectacle to the media network? Taking his cue from Arrforum' s vexed by Marx's famous description of the Inaugural cover, which featured a Jean Tinguely automated sculpture, oli cal dancing object. Kinetic art, we came to art historian Eric C. H. de Btuyn reexamines kinetic art's labyrinthine I embarrassment-indeed, an aesthetic dead past and maps a new space for its passages among us.
Above : Jean TInc" . Iy. H""",g.. 10 New YOrl< . 1960. OppasH e page: R ic ~, d C, GrQW''''. mi. cd media. "eft.,.."...... ,' .. ~ e", "'bI.l',' ... I~"ch NuWn B o ~ , 1955, ~I"m,nvm ", , \ h Roo:: ~ Mel l ~ ' S<: "lptU1~ ~ "luuum of M(I(\I"In An . hammortCOll ~nlSl'l , I!I ~ S. 4' New y",k , M~rc ~ 1 ~ l;?o:.V ~rot~: Daol d Goo,
NumN MACHINES amomatically or mechanicall y, ramer than of its own All genealogies of media art have their roOlS in a voli tion " (Oxford English Dictionary). Kinetic ghost slO ry. And perhaps none more so than kinetic sculpture is haunted by this history, and its spectral art, which wa s paraded on Artforum's inaugural traces may be seen equally in Homage and the Nullin cover til the fo rm of a shadowy, slighdy sinister si l Box, the "diabolical machine" and its parodiccoun hOllette o f one ofJean TinKuely's animated scul p terparr, JUSt as they may still be sensed in the present. lU res. No doubt the anist would appreciate tales of To revisit this phantomatic history of kinetic an is, 1 the spectral if nOt infernal roots of his automatic think, to recount a ghost story worth telling. creations. propagating the Faustian complex of an artist-constructor who dabbles in the mechanical A THEATER OF GHOSTS simulation of life and its explosive demise. Tinguely's In the pages of Artforum in 2000, Yve-Alain Bois most famous iteration, Homage to New York, which provided a ha ndy sketch of the rather inglorious his se lf-destructed in the courtyard of the Museum tory of kinetic art. According to this abbreviated of Modern Art in 1960, was dubbed by the artist a trajectory, kinetic art had a brief moment of suc "simulacrum of catastrophe,'" a "cymcal object, both cess-only to suffer a quick demise, largely due to its luciferian and phantomatic in nature."1 Not every public confusion with Op an: "Because kinetic art one was impressed by such apocalyptic spectacles, was (wrongly) perceived as an art based almost which served up the fiery wreckage of industrial soci entirely on easy optical tricks, it would soon be ety as a pyrotechnic display to an enthra1!ed audi trashed as utter kitsch, on a par with sllch risible by ence. Indeed, a 1961 ed itorial in the Situationist products as the Courreges dress and the lava lamp."s International mocked the Swiss sculptor's kinetic Bois makes an exception for one critic (rightfully so, contra ption, constructing a less heraldic lineage fo r I would agree), Guy Brett, who in Kinetic Art: The Uisd6 Moholy-N"Il'. UC'h~y: BJadV Tinguely's work. According to 51, a certain Richard Language of Movement (1968) argued that the true prInt. 14 'l1.. 10'JI' . De t ~ il of M o/"IoIy C. Grosser had beaten Tinguely to the punch a few exponents of ki netic art were not such figures as SllI6e. 1922-30. years earlier with his prototype of a "useless machine," Nicolas Schaffer and Julio Ie Pare- those merchants the so-ca1!ed "Nuttin Box, a gray aluminum box of an "art of gadgerry"-but Lygia Cla rk, Helio with th e work of (ersatz with eight small neon lamps which blin ked in a Oiticica, and David Meda lla (with Tinguely in a Naum Gabo in order to fee> totally random pattern."l mere "supporting" role). [n short, Brett developed a body of "New Tendency, We get the joke: Complete chaos is but another genealogy of ki neticism tha t was determined less by others, Group Zero in ( form of toral order. Indeed, the randomly flashing its technological aspects than by its collective engage Recherche d'Art Visuel in lights of the Nuttin Box evince the double bind of al! ment with the spectator. Unlike the cybernetic seu Ip ment in the Netherlands. commodities. That is, they speak in order to have tures of Schaffer, Clark's and Oiticica's work did nOt If Krauss left no dOli ; commerce with other commodities and huma n .require the implementation of advanced fo rm s of sellted an artistic practice beings, but on the topic of use-value, they have noth information tech nology. Whar rhis work req uired gested that its predecessor ing to say. Or as ou r inventor (who would playa instead was the conception of a spatial mod el of used to simulaTe rhe movet significant role in the early days of computer engi organizing social relations, a model thar would rely as clockwork automata. In neering) explained at the time: "fA Nuttin Box ] on a topological rather than pro;ective paradigm of ing the ilrgu mem of ~"fitic serves its purpose merely by existing. It attracts geometry. In contrast to th e programmed behavior Modem SClllpture (1968), attention and confuses your friends. It's a wonderful of Schaffer's tobotic scu lptures, one may think, for nlre follows a "Faustian"! thing for a businessman, when he has a customer instance, of Clark's and Oitieica'5 coll aborative work un stoppable craving to w come into the office .... This really breaks the ice."J Dialogue ofHands, 1966-ao elastic Mabius strip order from God-with thl But for all their display of wit, what the Siruationists that creates a sensory feedback loop with one's own trolling human destiny, if miss is the uncanniness of Tinguely's machines, an hody-or Oiticica's aptly titled Topological Ready itself. "6This porrentOus cla uncanniness defined by the spectral nature of a recur Made Landscapes, 1978- 79. elusion that benearh the rent yet utterly enigmatic thing or event.4 This is all Almost two deca des after the Situation ist editorial kinetic sculpture lies norhin the more surprising because the Situationists might suggested it was best suited to be office kitsch, kinetic ideal of art: The main pu have turned to the specifically Dadaist and Surreali st an would receive a more extensive if still dismissive Light Prop was to exist as a tradition of the machine, populated by all kinds of treatment in Rosalind E. Krauss's Passages in Modern In this capacity, it prefigur uncanny devices, including automatons, manne Scul/)ture (1977) . Krauss situated kinetic sculpture as rures of Schaffer, already e' quins, schizoid " influencing machines," and erotic a suhset of the environmental art of " light -space" learn ro dance with aerua " bachelor machines." Th is genealogy extends even (Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's terml, as exemplified by machina: Kinetic sculpru earlier, to a mo ment when machine had not yet Moholy-Nagy's Light Prop {or aft Electric Stage (also simulacru m of life. And found an industrial or informational use but referred, ca lled Light-Space Modulator), 1922- 30, which ideological; it projects a " I among other meanings, to a movable contrivance for immersed the sp«1ator in a f1ucruating field of stun We find this simulacr the production of stage effects (e.g., the deus ex ni ng optical effects achieved by mechanica l means. reception of the modern machi na ) or the li ving body that "" moves or acts Kinetic art's bloodstream, Kra uss claimed, merged an.xious relationship to th
528 AR TFORUM r [han of its own The arts of"theatricality" - kinetic mary ). Kinetic ,and its spectral art as well as Minimalism and its e and the Nllttin aftermath- would contaminate the IS parodic COllll (technical) image with the specta :d in the present. tor's body and dangerously com If kinetic art is, 1 h telling. mingle visions and things, radically destabilizing the visual field.
Yve·Alain Bois ~r inglorious his his abbreviated noment of suc largely due to its :ause kinetic art ·t based almost would soon be 1 such risib le by the lava lamp. "J :ic (rightfu Ily so, "{inetic Art: The L6S116 MOIIOIy-Kaft. uthlpl,ay; 8lacIVWItit'l/Gn!r. ca.. 1926.gelatin sil.er Jed that the true prinl . J4'14 , 10'14" . Delail QlMohQIy·N"I'.l'·s Ugll! Prop fOI' an Electric 51",11.1922-30. such figures as Frnncis l"lcilbia. fkll>cl><: those merchants (PerI""nance ca.--I.... ,. 1924. Pe "01"",oce Vi8W. l hUt'lI deB ia Clark, Helio with the work of (ersan) Construcrivists such as Champs-£lyoo ..... Paris. 1924. h Tinguely in a Nauru Gabo in order to feed into the "pan-European" rert developed a bod y of "New Tendency," which included, among initia tes a fo rm of cri rique familiar to us from Tile [ermined less by o thers, Group Zero in Germa ny, the Groupe de Cermall ldeology (1846). T here, Ka rl Marx. devel ollecrive engage Recherche d'Art Visucl in Paris, and the NU L move oped a theory of rhe phanromaric, or a hauntology, :ybernetic scul p· ment in the Netherlands. tha t shows how rhe producrs of the human brain '"thll' a's work did not If Krauss left no doubt rhar kinetic art repre ou r "spirirs"-arc projected into the world as ani [hi. 'anced forms of sented an artistic practice wirhout a future, she sug mistic objects, then begin to behave as autonomous onv ; work req uired gestcd tha t its prede<:essors were rhose contraptions figures, acq uiring a life and momenUim of their own. PS} patial model of used ro simulate the movement of living beings, such In his Spectres de Marx (1993 ), Jacq ues Derrida m. that would rely as clockwork automata. [n doing so she was rehears glosses th i~ argument as follows: "The ghost gives its ind 'ive paradigm of ing the argum ent of critic Jack Burnham in Beyond form, that is to say, its body, to the ideo logem. "K ing mmed behavior Modern Sculpture (1968) , according to which sculp Marx would later call this apparition the commodity Mi ~ may think, for tun: foll ows a "Faustian" goal; it is possessed by "an fetis h: an animated yet inanimate thing that is capable .Iaborativc work unstoppa hle craving to wrest the secrets of natural of entering into relations with one another and with 6c Mobi Lis strip order from God-with the unconscious aim of con human beings . Or, as Marx famously puts it in Das me ,with one's own trolling human destin y, if nor in fact becoming God Kapi/(/l (1867), the social relations between men ins ologieal Ready· itself."6TIl is portentous claim leads Krauss [0 the con· assume the phOl!tasmagoric form of a relation between .ss el usi on that beneath the technological armor of commodities. literally this means that commodities nm
arion ist editorial kinetic sculpture lies nothing but the same old mimetic constitute themselves as a "gathering of pha ntasms, n ag: :::e kitsch, kinetic ideal of art: The main purpose of Moholy-Nagy's and this spectral assembly has commerce with itself wit 1 still dismissive Light Prop was to exiSt as a mechanica l actor onstage.' as well as human beings, foc
'5ages in Modern in this capacity, it prefigured those cybernetic scul p To pass unfavorable judgment on kinetic art, as an~ letic sculpture as tures of Schoffer, already evoked by Brerr, thar would Krauss did in 1977, need raise few eyebrows. Wha t of, If "Iighr-space" lea rn 10 dance with acwal human beings. Deus ex is striking, neverrheless, is the vigilance with which exemplified by machina: Kinetic sculpture creates a false copy, a she hunts down rhe spectral vestiges of "surrogate !!ctric Stage (also simulacr um of li fe. And this simulation is deeply persons" withill contemporary sculpture. What is 921-30, which ideological; it projects a "picrure of [he world ." at stake here, or, rather, contillues [0 be at stake, no< ing field of stun We find rhis ~ imula c rum haunting the critical is the o ld question of theatricality (although we \vo ::hanical means. receprion of rhe modern sculptural object and its mig ht now prefer the notion of spectrality). We know wit laimed, merged anxious relationship to the commodity. Krauss thus how Michael Fried meant the term to carry a blanket ,uf ality" -kinetic tlism and its ontaminate the th the specta !rously com hings, radically ual field.
rancis Pic~b i ~. Rc/ikhc '~ rtof manc ~ Canceled). 1924. er! mm ~nce ,jew. ThMtr" des 'hamps.£lystes, P~ r is , 1924.
amiliar to us from The rejection of litera list art. J\llodernism had flattened contrast, is sa id to exist only by virtue of its audience. here, Karl Marx dcvd thr: fidd of pcn.:r:ption, constructing the pictorial But is this not the exact condition of the commodity? marie, or a hauntology, surface as a specular device facing the viewer so It also only knows a life onstage, which is why Marx s of the human brain that she might recognize her own independence in compared it to the dancing table of the spiritualist J inro the world a~ ani this autonomous object. But shadows had begun to seance. It is a "'sensuous non-sensuous " thing that behave as autonomous invade this surface, turning the pictorial plane into a appears to rear its head and stand on its legs in order lOmentum of their own. psychIC screen that masked a groundless, phantas that it may address the viewer, all the time evolving 993 1. Jacques Dcrrida matic space that lay beyond. What hied sensed was out of its wooden head "grotesque ideas far more IWS: -The ghost gives its indeed uncanny: an anthropomorphic specter lurk wonderful than if it were to be dancing of its own ~-. to the id eologem."~ ing between the geometnc planes and lattices of free will. "IU With this magic trick, the commodity panrion the commodity M inimalist sculpture. In these "hollow" objects, he assumes the appearance of independent life . I.ike an :t12 IIg that is capahle recognized a "Surrealist" space replete with the automaton, this ghostly specter seems to move on its :i;.Q:}eanorher and with affects of "expectation, dread, anxiety, presenti own, miming the living. UiiiJIlIttiI~ putS it in Das ment, memory, nostalgia, stasis . " ~ The literalist object I am not suggesting that we simply conflate the -:::inion" between men installed a fatal (hssyrnmetry in the visua l field by thea tricality of the Minimalist object and that of the
I[:;;;;. ~ ~ rdation between assuming a vaguely human presence that concealed commodity. Blit it bears emphasis that by the late ~rn ..lt commodities nothing but an empty void at its ccnter. Fried warned '70s the theatrical- or speetral-----condition of art had Eattli:lg of phantasms," agamst the \vhispermgs of such deceptive objects become differentiated even ftlnher. For instance, ih.::DlWIJerce with itself with their "lIlner, even s(;crt:t, life. " It was as if a new Krauss distinguished between a good and a bad, a form of Idolatry had sedm;ed the art world, Impeding nonmlmetic and a mimetic, variant of theatricality. ~ on kinetic art, as any authentic sensation of "conviction" or epiphany To do so, she brought an oft-ignored question into :a::--ey-ebrows . What of religious "grace." play, namely, the role of artifiCial illummation In the i IIr. -.pi.:a-'lce with which To allow such a moment of grace to descend on display of art. ' Krauss's example of a radical, n011 ~~ of "surrogate the spectator, the illusionistic mechanisms of the mimetic theatricality was Francis Picabia's set for the ~ jo.-'prure. \'Vhat IS theater must be suppressed at all cost. One must ballet Reliichc (Performance Canceled), 1924, which, -_"". to be a t stake, never be witness to the ralsmg of the curtain; the flashing a banerr of spotlights at the spectators, • ::T although we work of art must always already appear to simply be blinded the audience even while it was illuminated. ~!-' . We know without need of any audience to confirm its self Picabia'5 violent assault on his audimcc demonstrated ~ ~. a blanket sufficient existence. The literalist object, by way of that "once the watcher is physically incorporated into
SEP TEMBER 2012 529 Ghosts have a nasty habit ofcoming the spectacle, Ius dazzled vision is no longer cap;! ble from their (oTl1l(.·r, stable po back. And to imagine kinetic art's of superviSlnl" Its events." ' 1 T he transcendellT:l1 sub logica l system of projection. h jeCt is 10 bt toppled frOIll his :.car, a tri\(.; kcd br rhe cleared for a more inrel1S{" (or future apparitions is to revisit the lIghts oi spccucle and therefore awakened to its ill u thl' cap it <1 ti ~t networks of fl o' notion of the spectral commodity. sions of olllll isciencc. It is e,lS~' to conjecture how -dazzled vision" pre A DESCENT INTO THE CAVE cisely describes the effe.:t that the (.;(Jllllllodiry has on If rhe fa ult o f kinetic a rt W;\ 5 us. Yet this do('~ not sa~' enough. Eve n 'thing depends iecrion of ideological sp l"{"rc~ on what .xcurs in that murky, spectr:11 space where ro be " done wi ,h pro j(:ctr on. bodies and un age:. begi1l to mingle . .Mo dern ism di:.ma ntle rhe ideologi;;:al J.r fcared th i~ inferrl.ll rcgion and would an clllpt. a nx Can one hring gh os t ~ down to iously. 10 keep bod) and illlage ap'l rt. Byconrrast, th e tCf r 10 longer capable from their former, stable positions within an ideo are capable of consrructing an exact spatial map of in!OCe ndental sub logical system of projecrion, has the path simply Ix:en the subterranea n network of cave passages~ i t 's like , attacked by the clea red for a more intense form of ci rculation within rea ding the Manh:l!tan phoIl e di rectory. he com akencd to its illu the ca pitalist networks of flow and cxchan gc? 'J plai ns. This in t\.I rn reveals his OWIl stakes in using 3-D technology to fi lm the Cha uvct Cavc in hance: ~.de d visio ll ~ pre A DESCENT INTO THE CAVE nOt to provide a mcre spatial replica of the origi nal )mOlodiry h::as on If the fault of kinetic a.n was rhat it upheld the pro site, but [Q visualize coexistent strata of time, imagin erything depends jection of ideological spectcrs, it SUIllS that we need ing cave paiming as a palimpsest of temporalities :tral space wh ert~ [0 be "done with projection. "14 EUI is it possible to that resist the narra ti ve orderings of history. 51e. Mo d erni ~ m dismantle the ideological apparatus of projection ? It's al l a hit confused in Herzol?, '!i fil m: What, lid attem pt, anx Can onc hring ghosts down to earth? Here we enter exactly, is the genea logica l relati onship between the an. By co nrra~ t . the terrain of media archaeology, of the hislO ry and apparatus of cinematic and digiral projection? :ic art as weU as theory of media. This excavation can. before one Between visualizing the cavc as a site of ideological .uld contaminate knows it, spirit one away to the Neolith ic paSt of capt ivation and as a liher:uory ma ze? To begin to tator's body and cave painring.~ or, alternatively, ro the mythic past of answer slIch questions, wc mu St keep in mind that I things, radically Pla to's ca ve parable. Both, for instance, have heen there afe at least two \'e l' ~i on s of media archaeology. own hau nting by identified as protocint:matic sites of projection: the The fi rst is devoted ro the writing of li near histories, in . dis junctive char former, mOSt recently, in Werner Herzog's documen which one inve ntion feeds into anothcr 3ccording to lhabits a strange, tary fil m Cave ofForgotte" Dreams (20 10) and rhe an evolutionary scheme of continuou~ technological , ;e cannot be sure larter in rhe so-called apparatus theory of the '70s, innovation and perfection. (lr's a scheme thaI creares , :ind of ~spect r a l wh ich equa t e~ the cinelllatic image with the moving such red herrings as: Does the history of the vi rtual r rida, wirh in rhe shadows or simulacra of Plato,u Herzog dism isses reality CAVE !Ca\'e Automatic Virmal EnvironmentJ ~ies and images new digi tal technologies used by archaeologists tha t start with Roman frescoes or Lasc:lUx ?) The mher perspective is nonlinear and, fo ll owing the cue of the " Surrc;] iists, adopts a mor~ melancholi-.: attitude s seeking OUI what is outmoded or extinct wilhin tech , nologic:ll histo ry fln her than chasing after the P up-to-date ;] nd the state-of-the-art. 1 As an example of the larter, nonline;] r route, l d m i~ hr mention the Dead Media Pro ject, cofounded u by sci-fi novel ist Bruce Stcrli ng in the midSt of the b Internet hype of tht: '90s. In ;1 highl y entertaining , lecture called " Medi.l Paleontology" in 2004, Sterling 1 expla ined his fascina tion with the phenomena o f n stillborn or discarded technologies that had been • reduced to the status of "'curiosities or embarrass- s. ments." so much notsam that lies" heachcd on the a deserted s hores of obsolesce nce." Centra l to his ..: argument was the thesis thai [he computer has onl~' c accelerated the process of obsolescence. It conrains ~ ';lc"e1 after level of sophisticated inSTabilities" that \\ open OntO "vistas of woe and decl ine" a nd are lxset \\ with the "fretful haulltings of Threatening ghl..lsr!i and 1 phantoms." Sterl ing's aim is to debunk the "PlatOniC k mythology" of the computer <1ge Witll its imaginings of a "clean, :lbstract, rnathemati c al~ ellvi ronment. IT To the contra ry, Sterling asserts, we are forced [0 rI sleep in a " very rumpled, dirty, makeshift, anarch ic r: ki nd of bed. It smells of vi ruses and worms." On the 51 floo r of the r l:l ton;e ca ve we sit in "s t tlpcfy in~ squa- n lo r," wa ll owing among heaps of junked trchn oJogi~. I . 0 Surel y there is more to explore al the bottom of d tht' cave, wi th its warren of passages. Ill" ~ to n:piort' d in these subterranean depths where: ph seem keen to camp, watch in!! the -~ (Baudrillard ) and "rt'oellu ...,. $l"-" -ing an exact ~patia l map of multiply so That, in the words of Nietzsche, "behind .1. ofcave passages-it's lik e eKh cave [there isl another that opens still more MEDIA STUDY I phone directory, he com deeply. "1- Hut let us nO! sink into the llluck at the :als his own stakes in using bottom of that endless series ofgrottoes. We shou ld TAKASHI MURAKAMI ht Chauvet Cave in France: allow that odd assortment of artist-spelunkers, such )atial replica of the original as Giuseppe PinoT·G3Ilizio, Robert Smithson, Mike WHilE PAINTING has been my primary medium sin ce istent stram of time, imagin Kelley, Werner Herzog, and Thomas Hi rschhorn, to I was eighteen, scu lpture Is somethi ng that I began )alimp~e~t of temporali ties pro \li de a tour of rhis cavernous maze some other time. exploring later on, with the help of several loyal orderings of hisw ry. Instead, we should pu rs ue the revenants of partners. I also consider running my own company, d in Herzog's film: What, kinetic art elsewhere. To the melancholic disposition Kalkal Klki, and Its re lated stores and galleries to :al relationship between the characterizing the va rious ·'dead-media projects" of be part and parcel of my artistic practice: the advan · ie and digital p r oject io n~ media archaeologr, we might oppose rhe delirious tage of this lies In the direct communication with cave as a site of ideologi,;al operations of thc desiring machines of Felix Guattari my clients, which allows me to haWl an up-close, 'erawry maze? To begin to and Gilles Deleuze, which, as they stressed, were not rea l·tlme perspective on the economic and cultural we must keep in mind that w be seen as ideological projections, were not 10 be changes happening around the world. 'sions of media archilcology. confused with either gadget or fantasy. (Those arc Maybe it goes without saying, but th e advent writing of linear hi stOries, in bUT[he residues of desiring machines, they insisted, of the personal computer and the invention of the :Is into another according to that have come under the sway of the market needs Internet have bee n the most astonishing technologi of continuous rechnological of capitalism and psychoanalysis.) Rather, they are cal developments of my lifetime. When [started my ,no (h's ~l scheme that creates machinic assemblages co n si~ti ng of disparate COtll career, It was extremely difficult to communicate es the history of the virrual pOnell[~: schi·l.Oi d macl1 ines o f detcrrirorialil.ation one 's Ideas to large groups of people- I evt!n resorted matic Virtual Env ironmentl that cur into the semiotic flows ofcapital ism, creat to publishing my own free newsletter. So for me, )es or Lascaux?) ·r he other ing transitional moments of pure intensity. the current proliferation of social·networklng outlets md, following the (ue of the One author has given us a description of Guattari provides a miraculous set of tools and has been crucial in the promotion of my wortl. :lrt: melancholic anitmk- suspended in "melancholic eCS Tasy" while visiti ng )oded or extinct with in te(h· a Tinguely retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in I don't know much about other forms of technol· ogy, but the sprea d of computers has truly constl· er tha n chasi ng after the Pa ri s in 1988. ) ~ Guattari accepted the banali"lation of -of·the-art Tinguely 's work as a given; ill the philosopher's view, tuted a global paradigm shift, and I Imagine that In twenty years' time another equally revolutionary e Iarrer, nonli near route, I this des(:ent into artiness did not dimin ish the poten breakthrough will occur In new media . My hope is I Media Project, cofounded tia l of these phantolnatic machin es to become devices that my work has the flexibility, unlWlrsality, and Sterling in the midst of the by wh ich "w try to hook into the cos mos. "11 Delcuze re levance necessary to take advantage 01that )s. In a high ly entertaining and Guarrari would, in fact, draw a paralle l between moment when it comes, and that I will personally conrology" in 2004, Sterling Tinguely's kinetic machines ,md [heir own uesiring be able to participate In that transformation.D )n with rhe phenomena o f machines, because each initiates a kind of interplay, edmologies that had been a joyous dismantli ng of the machine's fun ctionalism "curiosit ies or embilrrass so t hat "the grandmother who pedals inside rhe n that lies "beached on the automobile under the wonder-struck gaze of the Jlescence ," Central (() his c hild, n as DeleuJ.e and Guartilri exult, "does not that the computer has only cause the car to move forward, bur, through her ped )f obsolescence. It contai ns alling, activates a second structure which is sawing listieatt:d instabilities" that wood. " ~ OJ i:)ut can we rake Dcleuze and Guarrari's : and decl ine" and are beset word for it? Are they nOI dealing in metaphors here? gs of th reatening ghosts and Have they nor circumvented the spectral aspeClS of 11 is to debunk the "Platonic kinetic art a liule tOO quickly? mer age with its imagin ings Ghosts have a nasty ha bit of coming back. And ro lthernatical" environm en t. imagine kinetic art's furu re apparitions is TO revisit g asserts, we arc forced to the notion of the spectral commodity. Indeed, after • dirty, makeshift, anarchic Derrida. after Marx, Antonio Negri deemed the con ·iruses and worms." On the struction of the spectral commodity to he itsel f out we sit in "stupefying squa moded, arguing that such a model of the uncanny aps of junked technologies. Iii ohject belongs to a former, Fordist phase of ca pitalist o (xp!ore at the botrolll of development. In ils currcnt sta re, t he la bor para )f passages, more w explore digm-in particular the distinction between intellec epths where philosophers tu al and manual labor-has grearl ~· ch3llged. As a View ofT8lutshi MurakamI" 'Ego," 201~. :hing the "demon images" resu lt, we live in a world where (ht' un(:anny recur AI Riwaq, Doh • . Q....,. Photo: Gioo. lious si mulacra " (Deleuzel rence is not lodged in the objects around us; rather, SEP1£MBER 2012 531 Today, the exploited subject appeats on ly "a radical 'Unheimlicn ' rema ins in whic h we're circumstances, even the schizoid on a new scene, which is presented as immersed. "11 Here the ghosts of M arx arc no longer desiri ng machines cannOt a ut. val id; the exploited subject appears on a new scene, t:rt:cl an eflective means of re si~ a mobile andflexible reality. We have which is presented as a mobile and flexible rea lity. It C uactari and Deleuze have 0 become specters to ourselves. is nOt that rhe experi en ce of rhe unca nny as such is shifting relations between the fo abolished-how co ul d it bc?-bur that its Structure tiOll and reterritO rializa tion, an. has been interna lized: We have become specters to of em ploying both). At this p o urselves. This can onl y happen in that space of consider another po ~ si bi l i ty, a tOtal inrcrconnl'Cted ness that Dclcuze and Guattari tral spacc--one that does nOt s explored with their desiring ma<.:hi ncs . And as I have or esca pe its ghosts, but, to the argued elsewhere, this is a space that can no lo nger to conduct rheir proper work be descri bed according to a (Opography of projec o vt:r, t hat provides a qu ire d tion, but only as a topology of llows and nerworks. l.l " kinetic," to the a uto-motion Some have posed this kind o f w po logy as not in killetic art a nd dllema. only a ~ymp rom but a mt:ans of escape from the spec tacula r space ofca piralism, where, as Cuy Dehord A REBELLION OF IMAGES claimed, all co mmod ities, a ll bodies, ha ve hecomc 1f rht: spectacle rum s bodies into images (and real ity has become truly ghostl ike). But it mean to turn images into t a re such deterritQri aJi zed lines of fligh t capa ble of performance earl ie r this yea r, r outrunning the specters nipping at o ur heels ? We suggested that we take a di ffer know th.u Debord, at least, still beli eved in some of rhe revenanr.lt Her talk cna. bedrock of a uthentic selfhood, a domain where usc into Pl atO's cave, invo lving a s va lue still he ld significance. But to imagin e such a through the auditOrium onto wi refuge no longer seems tenable amid the permanent jecred. Rather tha n visualizin displacements and d isloca tions of subjectivity within however, Steyerl's images seeme a post-Fordist stage of capitalism .!l Under these in order to attac.h themselves It MEDIA STUDY HARUN FAROCKI FOR OVER ONE HUNDRED YEARS, photography and film were the leading kind of Image. From the start the~ served not only as forms of information and entertain ment but also as media for scientIfic research and documentation. That's one reason these techniques of reproducti on were assocIated with notions of objectivity and contemporaneity-In contrast to images created by drawing and painting, which signaled subjectivity and the transraUonal. Apparently today computer animation Is taking the lead . Films already try to imitate video games-which in H....n f _ k l. 5& r!<>tJS Games l. w.tIO<> " OoWII . 2010. two-<:hllrlMl turn borrow from films. Following the Gulf War in 1991, video. coto/. 8 min utes the US military decided to capture the decisiYe Battle of 73 Easting not on film but ~a comp uter animation. Computer animation aspires toward the photographic· filmic models of representation, yet with each advance differentiation between the textures of 'Iltrlous depicted booby traps or enemies. One can op It becomes clear how far it still is from the IdeaL In the objects. Stone can be distinguished from metal, but one taking part In the exercise, and the program Virtual Battlespace 2, which is used by the stone appears the same as another, and all metals have The flrlng range of weapo ns Is equl US armed forces for training pu rposes, tanks churn up the same sheen. spondlng distance In reality. Such j dust when they roll over the ground and no dust when These military·trainlng programs are based on real compensate for the laek of photore. they tTifYel on asphalt. However, they create the same geographic data . One can navigate within the program tion.A co mputer animation is not jl amount of dust whether the terrain Is completely over· walk or drive through the landscape and view It from also a data·gadget that makes the 1 grown or almost free of vegetation.There is hardly any Yarlous arbitrary perspectives, Instructors can plant ca lculations- and visualizes them il n which we're circum!>tances, even the schizoid flo ws of the Deleuzian : are no longer desiring machines cannOt auto maticall y be consid [l a new scene, ered an effecti ve means of resistance (a ll depends, as ..:ihle reality. h Guarta ri and Dcleuze ha ve observed, on the ever' nny as such is shifring relations berween rhe forces of deterritorializa· It ils Sltuct u re tion and rcterrirori ali zation, and capi talism is capahle 'ne specters to of employi ng both), At this point, thm, we m ight that space of consider another possibility, ano ther mode of spec . and Guanari tral .~pace--one thar does 110 t seek to evade, repress, .Andas [ have o r esca pe its ghosts, but, to the contrary, allows them can no longer to conduct their proper work. A genealogy, more· Jhy of projec over, (hat pf() vide~ a quite different sense to t he ld net\vorks.!l "kinetic," to the auto-morion of images and bodies pology as nO t in kinetic art and cinema, from the spec· ; Guy Dehord A REBELLI ON OF IMAGES have hecome If the spectacle turns bodies into images, what would ;hosrl ike}, But it mean to ru m images into bodies? In a lecwre the screens. What was at stake, in other words, was Th ;h t capable of performance earl ier this year, the artist H ilO Steyer! not the image: of bodies, but the body of the image IS ; )ur hee ls? We suggested thar we take a different look at the fig ure itself. " What if images turned into stone. concrete, ieved in some of the (cvcnant.H Her talk cnacted a kind of descent pla stic, into seemingly dead things?" she asked. '" ~i n where use into Plato's cave, involving a set of screms moving "Would they rhus shake off servitude and mea ning? nagine: sllch a through the auditorium onto wh ich images were pro Wo uld t his be an uprising of images? And what :he permanent jecte:d . Rather than visualizing Plaro's ~imu l acra, would they be rebel ling against?" e<-tivit)' within however, Steye rl 's images seemed to jump off the wal l l.et there be no misunderstanding. Steyerl is not ,\ Under these in order [0 attach themselves to the moving body of engaged in a demystifying act, exorcising the mon StrOUS shadows crowding within the imerior of rhe ideological a ppa ra tu s of project io n. That play of an, Enlightenment critique has ceased to be a perfor m:lOce worth enacting. The ghosts she conjures bear du wimess ro a type of injustice th at wholly belongs to <0 our present. They testify to crimes that have sl ipped 3-1 through the cracks of the ne w world order, going fn hoth ullinvestigated and unpunished. ins One such tragic even t took place in a ca ve in the Kurdish mountai ns, where Steye rl's fr iend And rea '"Th Wo lf took shelter before being hombarded and killed DO with other members of the Kurdish resistance group sh, PKK. All that remains of the colla psed cave is a w, debris-strewn field and sh attered rocks. In a some· what foolhardy attempt to reconstruct what rook '"his place, Steyer! turned the location of Wo lf's death into idt: a forensic sile, using the la test digital technology of repl icatio n: 3-0 scanning and printing techniques 'fall''' (the sa me technology, she poims our, deve loped by cin the mili tary and used in deconstrucrivisl architec lin, rnre). Bu t rather dl an buyi ng irHO th e "whole new fo< lous depictoo booby traps or enemies. One can open lire on those euph oria of documemary veracity" that surrounds netal, but one taking part In the exercise, and they can fire back, such statc-of-Ihe-a rt technologies, she tips the rheto '"r t'\ II metals have The firing range of weapons Is e qul~alent to the corre· ric on its head. " O nce we ilcmaUy try to scan an ani sponding distance in reallty, Such fe atures apparently actual crime or eve flf going on, we starr tripping over in~ lSed on real compensate lor the lack of photorealistIc representa· massive lechnologieal limilations," Stcyerl explained Ko the program tion,A computer animation Is not jus1a likeness but in her lecture. This is hecause the 3-D scan does not ew It from also a data-gadget that makes the fa stest possible repl'esent re al ity, but generates a fractal space that can plant calculations- and Yisuallzes them immediately. 0 exists somewhere betweel1 the two-dimensional a nd the three-dimensional, between su rface and vol ume. me rfs lecIu.&-pe rlo'ma nce TIle 80dy ofIh. (male. 2012, as pan of II>e Berlin D<>cumentao) fotum 2. · New Practices Acr.a Dllcl pIi ~ .I : Ha ul de, !lul u... " de< Well, Be,Hn. Ju .... 2. 201.2. stake, in other words, was The measurements are always incomplete since there this reason, Herzog's cave cinema may we ll be con but the body of th e image is a pmentia ll y in fi nite amount of information to reg sidered ami-Platonic, and during her performance, rned into stone, concrete, ister, so that the data set or point cloud must contain St ey~r1 would show appreciation for certain aspects iead things?'" she asked. many blanks and shadows, forcing the computer to of his cinematic approach, commenting on how he )ff servitude and meaning? mak\:: " rel igious" leaps in judgment. It is in these showed cave painting to be a fo rm of "immcrsive ng of images? And wha t empty spaces, Steyer! proposes, where the re bels, the protocinema," inhabiti ng a fractional space whe re ~ a i n s t?" unruly images, can hide. But if they are capable of objects and images are able to transform into one deNtanding. Steyer1 is nor rebellion, it is flat as pure simulacra, as virtual images another, and conclud ing that th is prove s that g act, cxorcisin g the mon alone, but thro ugh the repossession of a body in that "somethi ng can onl y be seen under the condition of ; within the interior of the fractal (or spectra l) space that lies between rhe two complete obscurity." : proiecrion. That play of and three dimensions of Euclidean space. But if botb proiects sha re certain thematic inter las ceased to be a pcrfor " I found a roll of film ae rh e cave site," she said ests, they arc still funda mentally different. St e y~ rl Ie ghosts s hc con j u re~ bea r duri ng the performance. " I was obviously nOt able asks us to conceive of a spectral event of a more dis ice that wholly belongs to to develop it. In fact, what I show you he re is but a concerting nature [ha n Herzog's carnal screen: ocri mes that have slipped 3-D print of rhe original roll o f fi lm, which is too e new world order, going fragile to hring with me. But I developed th is replica We are seeing an LCD scrttn- its matrix-and we mpunished. instead.. .. What it shows [a n image fla shes on see th e transformatiOn of the li qui d crystals which are (:a rrie rs of the image information imo stont . look place in a ca ve in the sc reen that bears a striking resemblance to Hokusai 's They refuse hein g tnobili :.ew and Iiq u id a t cd . ln s t~ d, re Steyerl's fr iend Andrea The Great Wave] are no longer images of bodies or (hey foss ilize as if in a fl ash . .. inside the screen and eing bomba rded and killed body parts, but the body of the image itself. '" We break it open fro m within. And at this moment the ~ Kurdish resista nr.;c group should nO t mistake this body of the ima ge for that upri sing of im;lges indeed happens. All sc reens turn If rhe coll apsed cave is a current paradigm of the "' ha ptic cinema" or "' touch into dead objects. lattered rocks. In a some screen " in cine ma studies, which revives an old, art to reconstruct what took historical terminology that in its desire to expel the And so we return to the breaking point, the apoc cation of Wolf's dea th into ideological ghosts of apparatus theory moves a bit alyptic, uncertain dca th of technology. The specter .uest digital technology of too hastily. Nor is Steyer! caug ht up in the recurrent that rises from this combustion is not an apparat us ~ and pri nting tedmiques fa ntasy of avant-ga rde cinema, which would bestow of projection. No longer the si mulacra of li te ralist art : poims out, developed by cinema with a living body, returning the eye to a pre that haunted Fried or rhe huma niSTs pecters of kinetic ieconsrruct ivist arch itec linguistic state of sheer corporea 1 vision. Rt:\:endy, art hunted down by Krauss, these shadows are pro ~-in g into the " whole new for instance, Lutz Koepnick o ffered a compelling duced and erased (if never completely) by processes . \'eracity" tha t surrounds reading of how Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams of technological control and verifi cation moving IOlogies, she tips tbe rhero revived such an eroticization of the cinematic eye around and through us. They gather in the virtual 'e actually try ro scan an and how he transfor med the film screen in to a "[iv meshes of networked spaces; they invade the virtual ~ on, we sta r[ tripping over ing membrane" by means of 3-D tec hnology. As caves o f control we build, ca lcifyi ng the arteries of lations," Steye r! explained Koe pnick comments, "CavelCinema addresses the informati onal flow. lUse the 3-D scan does nor eye, not as a [fanspar~m window to the soul and the Ghosts will exact their revenge. 0 : rates a fractal space that v i ~w c r's desire, but as a physical organ, as part of a ER IC c . H. DE BRUVN TEACHES IN THE FUM AND PHOT OGR APHIC I the two-dimensional and body for which experiences of touch and physical STUDI ES PRDGAAM OF LEI DEN UN IVERSITY. THE NETH ERkANOS. ween surface and volume . motion are integral to the efficac y of seeing. ttU For (SEE CONTRIBUTORS., ro. "" m. S~~ p~g . 538. SEPrEMBER 201 2 $33 20. M. (;. Rich.rd>, ~A NtMon .hot Translanon," in Amoud, The 11'eo'''' ~IIJ j"",,,,,I, Th . /l.i.. It( a New A",tr;c a~ Cln om", / 9j9-/ 5I71 INew York: II< DouN~. 6. Con;,.., 19 721, .191: "Ai tbe ",... nacrivi ty ~,ourul ,br'd,UJlnll' room co"ti,, ,>ed, and J.ck kqn cru."l:'1lf. . rc"rd• • nd , h'$ ~nd , h;" . Iowly. ""'Y 2 1. Ar,.ud, 1~ Tbcalndnd I ii Douhle.6g. tuudlin& $lowly, nn. brgan 10 _,,n rnU:u.-. ,hat the", was n"'hing, obsulu[oly IlOthillf., 21. Ibid.• 68-6';1lellipocs in OriS1O.1U. alm".t ~Ot ~a piK< of dUi' .ha, was ,""'" by ",, 31. Antonin Anlud, '11 It', d pas d. Flnna"'O"I" ( 1932), un fi ni,h.d op nto ~ (Now York: h IT", :; .. rd~. Atone T~ 00II M " ,~ma ~kc'. F-. ,-"", Mowtmant~ to tJle_ Ooa.om<:n'~ 13 iU!i .~c (\;rectQf Ctln>l,n Chns:· of Sf.... Rekf>. 1982/201.2. Anne Tereu De MI! " It WIlS immediately obvious to everyone what Tate "Art HK's VIP calendar ~ nine pages. each event "Pemaps Documenta 13 should h a~ Modem has achieved: Nearly a hundred feet In diemeter more exclusive than the last. Some we re simply on the torium. not the seminar. Or perhaps aod over twenty feet high. sO lJndproofed and kined out tist to announce that they were too good lor you .• point to something suspect at the 0 with theatrical Iight5. this is an important new space for " Lee Ambrmy III the tl ft~ editlO 540 AR TFORUM "'I.""n!, i! would to< b<:ttSl'. 15 Demand. Komro/lrlIum L.aD6 MohoIy-Nagy. Lighl p1ay: BS/IcI<,IWItIte wboc~u w.lko the re will Ii .. in ....r. of permanent disurim,orinn. Tl",. (Conllol Room). 2011. 0 Thomlos Demand. VG Bi ld-Kunst. 8orvI/ .l.RS New Sociely (.i.R"S). New YOtk/VG Bil(1-K\!n$1... Be