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THE ART OF CONNECTION RETHINKING ART IN A NETWORKED WORLD JANIS LEJINS - U5006313 May, 2016 Bachelor of Arts, Honours in Art History The Australian National University This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Honours in Art History in the College of Arts and Social Science (19,516 words) !1 of 122! ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY THIS PROJECT WAS CONDUCTED ON NGUNNAWHAL AND NGAMBRI LAND. I RESPECT THEIR ELDERS, PAST AND PRESENT. I RECOGNISE THAT THEIR SOVEREIGNTY WAS NEVER CEDED. !2 of 122! DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY I, Janis Lejins, declare that the material presented here is the outcome of research I have undertaken during my candidacy. I am the sole author unless otherwise indicated. To the best of my ability I have documented the source of ideas, quotations or paraphrases attributable to other authors. !3 of 122! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS BRONWYN OLIVER, MARTIN SHARP, ROBERT WICKHAM, CHERYL MCCANN, KATHERINE KYRIACOU, FIONA CRAWFORD, MATTHEW BRUCE, JOHN HARTLEY, MICHAEL HEANEY, STELLA TALATI, MARCO BOHR, MARTYN JOLLY, JASON 0’BRIEN, JP DEMARIS, ALISTAIR RIDDELL, DENISE FERRIS, DAVID BERRIDGE, CATHIE LAUDENBACH, PETER FITZPATRICK, MICKY ALLEN, FRANK MACONOCHIE, TONY STEEL, JOHN REID, MARZENA WASIKOWSKA, ROBERT WELLINGTON, HELEN ENNIS, CHARLOTTE GALLOWAY, CHAITANYA SAMBRANI, ELISABETH FINDLAY, ANDREW MONTANNA, GORDON BULL, NIGEL LENDON, KATE MURPHY, JACQUELINE BRADLEY, ROY MERCHANT, HARRY TOWNSEND, MARCIA LOCHHEAD, LUCIEN LEON, ROWAN CONROY, TIM BROOK, KIT DEVINE, RAQUEL ORMELLA, DAVID BROKER - AND EVERYONE ELSE WHO HAS TAUGHT ME ART. THE INNUMERABLE FRIENDS AND FAMILY (PAST AND PRESENT) WHO HAVE GIVEN ME UNRELENTING LOVE AND SUPPORT. THANK YOU. !4 of 122! ABSTRACT This thesis examines how elements of the contemporary artworld can be seen to adapt in relation to an increasingly networked twenty-first century world. Recognising the advent of the World Wide Web as a point of paradigmatic disruption the text develops a selection of theoretical ideas. These ideas reflect that the cultural landscape is shifting to be evermore network orientated. The concept of a networked world, a cultural space defined by hyper-links, is projected onto the development of two forms of exhibition—the monumental commission and the mega-exhibition. By viewing these two case studies the thesis demonstrates ways in which key artworld structures may be reconsidered within a dynamic twenty-first century world. The first case study, Shock and Awe, analyses the monumental commission as a conduit for networking—a site designed to produce a specific sociability. This section considers the development of the Unilever commissions at the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. Five monumental artworks are evaluated for the way they can be seen to operate as socialising media. The second case study, Mega-Forma, explores the development of four mega- exhibitions by two seperate curators across the last 15 years. Mega-Forma observes that these exhibitions have redirected their energy and become focused on redistributing cultural agency in a decentralised twenty-first century. These exhibitions are recognised as developing into a larger sort of gesamtkunstwerk, an all-embracing art form. The roles of the curators will be seen to shift from a mere arranger of things to a reprogrammer of cultural relations, a cultural auteur—an architect of experience. Ultimately the thesis will underscore some ways in which we might reconceptualise the way the artworld operates in the twenty-first century. !5 of 122! CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY 2 DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 4 ABSTRACT 5 CONTENTS 6 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 7 INTRODUCTION - A NEW WORLD MAP 9 THEORIES OF THE NOW 21 A NETWORKED SOCIETY 22 EMPIRE AND THE AGENCY OF THE MULTITUDE 23 THE AESTHETICS OF RELATIONALITY 25 CURATING THE NOW 26 A WORLD OF NETWORKED PUBLICS 28 SHOCK AND AWE 31 THE HALF|FULL MUSEUM 32 FILLING THE VOID 37 CLIMATE CONTROL 41 THE SLIPPERY SLIDE 48 IMPOTENT SEEDS 53 SPEAK TOGETHER 60 THE SOCIAL MEDIUM 65 MEGA-FORMA 67 DECOLONISING THE EXHIBITION 70 DISRUPTING THE HISTORICAL SCHEMA 75 DECONSTRUCTING THE EXHIBITION 81 WELCOME TO THE AGE OF MEGA-FORMA 88 MAKING WORLDS WITHIN THE WORLD 95 CONCLUSION 98 WORKS CITED 102 BIBLIOGRAPHY 109 !6 of 122! LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Fig 1. Mercator, Geradus. Nova Et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio Ad Usum Navigantium Emendate Accommodata. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 1600. Print. Fig 2. Nova totius terrarum orbis geographica ac hydrographica tabula, Map, 1630 - From Hondius, Hendrik. Gerardi Mercatoris atlas sive cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi et fabricati figura Nova totius terrarum orbis geographica ac hydrographica tabula. Sumptius Iohannis Cloppenburgij, Amsterdam, 1636. Fig 3. Barrett Lyon, The Opte Project. Mapping the Internet Digital print from photo file, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2003 Fig 4. Barrett Lyon, The Opte Project. Visualization of the routing paths of the Internet - 2015. Digital Image File, Opte project.org, California, 2015 Fig 5. Marcus Leith, Tate Photography. Interior of The Bankside Turbine Hall Before Conversion into The Tate Modern. circa 1994 - 2008. Digital Image File From Webpage, From (Gallery), Tate Modern. "Tate Online - Tate Modern - Turbine Hall." TATE. Fig 6. Marcus Leith, Tate Photography. Interior of The Turbine Hall After Conversion into The Tate Modern. circa 2000 - 2008. Digital Image File From Webpage, From (Gallery), Tate Modern. "Tate Online - Tate Modern - Turbine Hall." TATE. Fig 7.Anish Kapoor, Tate Photography. Marsyas Installation, Tate Modern Turbine Hall, 2002 - Digital Image File From Webpage, From (Gallery), Tate Modern. "Tate Online - Tate Modern - The Unilever Series: Anish Kapoor: Marsyas." TATE. Fig 8. Anish Kapoor, Tate Photography. Marsyas Installation, Tate Modern Turbine Hall, 2002. Digital Image File From Webpage, From (Gallery), Tate Modern. "Tate Online - Exhibition - The Unilever Series: Anish Kapoor: Marsyas." TATE. Fig 9. Olafur Eliasson & Studio Olafur Eliasson, The Weather Project, 2003, From Tate Modern. "Tate Online - Exhibition - The Unilever Series: Olafur Eliasson: The Weather Project.” Fig 10. Carsten Höller & Tate Photography. Test Site Installation, Tate Modern Turbine Hall, 2006. From, Tate Modern. "Tate Online - Exhibition - The Unilever Series: Carsten Höller: Test Site - Images.” Fig 11. Carsten Höller & Tate Photography. Test Site Installation, Tate Modern Turbine Hall, 2006. From, Tate Modern. "Tate Online - Exhibition - The Unilever Series: Carsten Höller: Test Site - Images.” !7 of 122! Fig 12. Ai Weiwei & Tate Photography. Sunflower Seeds Installation, Tate Modern Turbine Hall, [Before curatorial intervention] 2010. Digital Image File From Webpage, From (Gallery), Tate Modern. "Tate Online - Learn - Resources - Stargroup.” TATE. Fig 13. Ai Weiwei & Tate Photography. Sunflower Seeds Installation, Tate Modern Turbine Hall, [After curatorial intervention] 2010. Digital Image File From Webpage, From (Gallery), Tate Modern. "Tate Online - Exhibition - The Unilever Series: Ai Weiwei: Sunflower Seeds - Images.” TATE. Fig 14. A Bodys Isek Kingelez & Okwui Enwezor. Installation View, dOCUMENTA (11) 2002. From Farago, Jason. "Bodys Isek Kingelez, "New Manhattan City 3021," 2001– 2002, as Seen as [at] Documenta 11." Twitter, 11 Sept. 2015. Web. 21 May 2016. Fig 15. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Alexander Rodchenko and Maurizio Cattelan. “Installation view Aleksandr Rodchenko, and Maurizio Cattelan”. From Museum of Contemporary Art Australia Online. Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Web. Fig 16. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, “‘The Brain’ of Documenta 13”. Image From Christov- Bakargiev, Carolyn, and Bettina Funcke. Documenta 13:The Book of Books, Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz, 2012. Fig 17. Adel Abdessemed, Bruce Nauman & Okwui Enwezor. Installation View, Room 1 Arsenale, Venice Biennale 2015. From, Art apart of Cult(ure). “Art apart of Cult(ure) - Metafore dell’impegno all’interno della 56 Biennale di Venezia.” Art apart of Cult(ure). Fig 18. Stewart Smith, Still from Trans_Actions - The Accelerated Art world - Biennale Timeline. Multimedia Data Visualisation Premiered at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) Karlsruhe, Germany in the exhibition The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds After 1989. September 2011 Fig 19. Barrett Lyon,The Opte Project. Visualization of the routing paths of the Internet - 2015. Digital Image File, Opte project.org, California, 2015 !8 of 122! INTRODUCTION - A NEW WORLD MAP The WorldWideWeb (W3) is a wide-area hypermedia information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents.1 Network culture could only come after postmodernity had run its course. Today the fragmentation of the sign, the end of the subject, and the dissolution of any sense of authenticity in media are fait accompli. If postmodernism celebrated the shattering of the subject, network culture takes that shattering as a given.2 The seeds of these future world-views are being sown today: whilst contemporary software engineers may perhaps appear to be engaged in discussions of unbridled pedantry, they may actually be in the process of setting the foundations of something far more important and enduring that may subtly influence every subsequent generation.3 1 Tim Berners-Lee. http://info.Cern.Ch, CERN, 1990. 2 Kazys Varnelis, "The Immediated Now: Network Culture and the Poetics of Reality," The Networked Book Project, http://varnelis.networkedbook.org/the-immediated-now-network-culture-and-the-poetics-of-reality/