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Breaking the Box : the Electronic Operas of Robert Ashley

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Breaking the Box : the Electronic Operas of Robert Ashley k r:~ a r :T4 a : ,Wa T:I'd r I V a 7 r:V a Y,I . UAIf7~ i it Astft% "TM Rocky" (rft CorminusM; ImageTram colorvldflniane. 25 nilns. 50 so= From Perfacf LWt 1979-83. Two phantoms haunt video arts uneasy dreams-tele- whether the parade of advancing technology simply ords and live performances in the U.S. and Europe. It vision and art. For over 20 years the conflicting models passed them by. was completed as"an opera fortelevision"(as its subtitle offered by these fields have pulled at video artists, But at this critical turning point in videos short history now announces), produced by Carlota Schoolman for simultaneously attracting and repelling them. They a number of important artists are coming forth with am- the Kitchen and in association with Ashley and Britain's in havefound themselves trapped between these oppos- bitious projects, some of which havetaken years to pro- Channel 4, and directed by John Sanborn. Finally, ing positions-in most cases relegated to the fringes of duce, that both sum up long periods of work and at the 1984, the work was broadcast to British television the art world while dreaming of (or dreading) TV's mass same time propose new trajectories for the future of viewers on Channel 4 for seven nights in a row, each audience, political influence, and budgets which would video. Two recently completed, long-awaited works- program lasting 25 minutes, 50 seconds. rein- allow them to do their work. By and large rejecting and PerfectLives, 1979-83, the seven-part TV production of Ashley calls Perfect Lives "a comic opera about throughout its rejected by both fields (though frequently yearning for Robert Ashley's epic about traveling musicians in the carnation;' and that theme is woven the rewards each offers), video artists have formed their own community dependent on government grants, an energetic but thin network of exhibition programs, lim- ited access to the general public, and a belief in the importance of their own work. Video art has always seemed a way station on the road to other places, to a destination somewhere between the transformation of art and the transformation of TV Television and art differ even in their implicit assump- tions aboutthe nature of contemporary culture, with TV celebrating a democracy-by-consumption maintained bythe mass media, while art implies a view of society in which cultural products are in theory availableto all, but which in practice remains economically and culturally stratified. The two models embody different attitudes toward the machine as well . TV treats video technology asa set of tools, while art treats it as a medium . Behind this difference in attitude looms the big issue, unre- solved since at least the invention of photography in the 1830s-that of the relationship between technology and art in an industrial culture. After an initial flurry of excitement in every corner of the art world over the possibilities of video, the new medium was quickly shunted out of the spotlight and relegated to the status of a "minor" art. Despite itsexclu- sion from the central discourse, though, video artists have labored on. Early idealistic hopesthat video could foster a revolution in communications and conscious- ness were followed by a period in which video artists extended formal minimalist questions to their medium . Mostly holed up in media centers, college art depart- ments, and downtown lofts, many video artists of the mid'70s resembled philosophical art-engineers asthey electronic and esthetic PerfectLives, 1979-83. pursued investigations in which Robert Ashley, "The Backyard (TBe Condnued), image from color videotape, 25 mins . 50 sacs. From theory were mingled in varying proportions. Primary explorations of this sort continue today-just as many Midwest, and The Commission, 1982-84, by Woody spiraling narrative. The seven parts of the work parallel video makers have continued to make independent Vasulka, a work based on an incident in the life of the the stages of the soul's journey after death as related in documentaries as alternatives to corporate television . 19th-century violinist Nicco16 Paganini-sharply illus- the Tibetan Bookofthe Dead, while the cosmic monism Meanwhile, though, the world has moved on. A tech- trate the possibilities and the contradictions that video of the 16th-century philosopher Giordano Bruno-ac- nological and economic revolution is transforming elec- artists currently face. In many ways the two works are cording to which there is no absolute truth, only an tronic media-but its a very different revolution from the remarkably similar. Both employ operatic form, and infinitude of ways of viewing the world-provides one dreamed of by video artists twenty years ago. TV, both rely heavily on electronic manipulation to trans- another recurring theme. Framing this metaphysical once a monolithic force, threatensto dissolve in a shim- form the images. Nevertheless they are aimed at meditation, though, is pure Americana-"These are mer of different forms, thus depriving video artists of a audiences of vastly different sizes, with Perfect Lives songs about the Corn Belt;' as Ashley states at the start convenient and familiar target. However, corporate con- consciously seeking television's mass audience while of each episode. In the operas story, two itinerant musi- trol of both old and new media remains strong . Video The Commission, disavowing the familiarity of TV, cians (Ashley and pianist "Blud' Gene Tyranny) visit a artists in the '80s find themselves in as precarious a implicitly accepts the limited, specialized audience of small town in the Midwest, become involved in the per- position as ever before. Not cnly are they confronted video art. fect crime-taking allthe money from the bank and then with funding cutbacks and a continued marginal posi- In the scope of its ambition and the sheer scale of its returning it at the end of the day-and end up fleeing to tion in the art world, but the profusion of new media production, Perfect Lives is a milestone both in video Indianawith a pair ofeloping teenagers. Ashley assem- narrative forms has forced many of them to question their claims and in music, a brilliant collaboration among a host of bles these and other incidents into an intricate small-town loca- to represent the future of video-claims often used in important artists. Over the course of nearly a decade architecture involving stereotypical and David the past to justify their marginality. Many now wonder Ashley's epic hastaken a variety of forms, including rec- tions and pairs of characters (Jill Kroesen 55 Van Tieghem) at various stages of life. the wide range of editing effects that advanced elec- deep space, all you can conclude is that the glorious Ashley's text, alternately lyrical and farcical, trite and tronics and computer control have made available in future implied by these techniques won't be much differ- obscure, mystical and vernacular, combines with his video; for Perfect Lives he developed a seemingly end- ent from today. deadpan singsong delivery, Tyranny's elegant bar- less roster of these devices, which rush by relentlessly. It's in rock video that these effects have been used piano improvisations, Peter Gordon's syntho-rhythms, They range from the mundane-keying one image into most extensively. Typically, peppy computerized visual and Kroesen and Van Tieghem's performances to pro- another, for example, either as background or in a win- effects are used to pump a false energy into forgettable duce a hypnotic, deeply affecting experience. But now dow within the main scene-to the spectacular: in one, stagings of banal stories. Rat-a-tat cuts, multiple win- Perfect Lives has become something else-"an opera a cube whose sides are slightly separated from one dows, flipping and twisting images hide the lack of vis- for television" As such it reflects a recurring dream another spins in video space; on every face, both inside among many artists, and particularly in video: of creat- and out, is a different image from earlier in the tape. ing a work uncompromising in substance and form that Some of Sanborn's effects convey moments in the will reach and affect a nonspecialized audience. It now story with particular vividness, deepening the meaning must appeal to the television audience and thecorporate of the text and music. In "The Park," for example, the managers, whether in commercial or public TV, who set opening episode of the work, Sanborn uses a simple themselves up as the representatives of the audience. wipe to establish both the lyrical mood of the section The TV audience is an abstraction, a hypothetical and the generalized, abstracted quality of the whole composite of the velleities of "the public" No one knows story. As the camera pans horizontally across a bright for sure what the TV audience will like, and so program- green treescape, Sanborn introduces a horizontal wipe, mers attempt to intuit its desires beforehand . Since few moving across the screen in the same direction, to a video artists have been able to get their work on TV slightly different shot of the same scene. At first the (other than at odd hours when only a handful of people change is almost imperceptible, but this subtle shift have been watching), those interested in reaching that breaks the strictly limited point of view of the camera vast, faceless audience haven't really had to produce image and gives the shot a surprising vitality. Other anything that would keep viewers from flipping over to effects, though, are pure flash . In one, for example, Dynasty. Advocates of what is now called "artists televi- video images that appear to have been tilted back into sion" argue that instead of pandering to the current tele- the space of the screen stream along a highwaytoward vision audience they are working for a future audience the horizon.
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