Art
Environment
| A Recent History of Writing & Drawing |
| Written by Joshua | |||||
| 09 Jul 2008 | |||||
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tag this article:           9 July - 31st August 2008 ICA ///
What is this? An examination of digital mark-making, combining the work of designers Jürg Lehni and Alex Rich to transform the Lower Gallery of the ICA into a workshop where visitors are encouraged to interact and engage with with the pieces displayed. Lovely. So how might one interact? Well, in 'News On Demand', a handheld dot-matrix printer, loaded with one phrase from the news, like a spray-can with a built in template, is offered to you. It will only spray one phrase, but you control the direction and speed of the output, so that you can demand your news as a loop, in reverse, or as a kind of zigzag, see the scan of my efforts for more of an idea of the possibilities. Or there was 'Dots On Demand'- a kind of 'punch-your-own-funky-pomo-design-three-word-witticism' machine, which actually looked fun, but was still being sorted out whilst I was there. Apparently you get to keep your poster as a souvenir afterwards.
NEWS ON DEMAND
DOTS ON DEMAND What about engagement? The headline act, Viktor, is a machine which draws chalk on the wall with a disconcertingly organic motion, from a vector created in Adobe Illustrator, here using Lehni's Scriptographer plugin. Check out videos of the machine's brother Hektor in action here . Viktor will be performing with various collaborators every Thursday evening from 7pm. These will include talks, music, and so on, with Viktor's motions being in some way defined by the actions taking place. Check the ICA site for details. You're not being very analytical today, Joshua. Are you devoid of any reaction to this? That's the Valium baby. But yes, I'm trying really hard to be even-handed about it, because I really enjoyed the works on display in their simplicity and innocent approach to fun and to motion. Something reminded me of childhood trips to science museums (slightly dodgy interactive learning-toys), something else reminded me of childhood visits sculptor's studios (the smell of concrete, the weird accretions of stuff you look at but don't see, the pencil at the edge of the table that takes all of your attention). But I'm bound to find something a little nauseating when I read in the blurb that one of the designers is 'a connoisseur of synesthetic experience'. Lets just look at that phrase a moment. Ouch. It's just fluff. There's plenty more where that came from. Now here's what really troubled me: These pieces are explicitly an exploration of form; of the resistance and tension between hand and canvas, of the artifacts of artifice, the art and beauty of the tool. But tools are built by their function- and there was something a little terrifying about the function of these tools- designed to spurt bland, arty, cool phrases ('IT'S ABOUT TIME', 'THE END', 'YEAH YEAH YEAH') , or meaningless chunks of news chosen using an undisclosed methodology involving RSS. What are these tools for? One flimsy premise is that they demonstrate the refashioning of supposedly proprietary tools: ownership demonstrated through beautiful misuse. Yes we've heard of open source software. Rad. Tell me what you think... Another function expressed is to find the digital equivalents of the serendipitous brush-stroke, the unexpected edge of the paper, the happy chance that makes a work beautiful. Unfortunately you can't easily manufacture coincidence- it just comes off as affected... What about pure innocent fun? I think that's precluded by the textual accompaniment... So what is the point, as far as I can see? Just another ICA inside job? Lets ask Ryan Gander (24th July 7pm). All that said, I'm still going to go down as often as I can, to print those dots on demand posters. I've been thinking of all kinds of facile three word combinations:
BLAND THREE DI EYE And so on. So come on, pop a load of valium and get your ass down to the ICA on a Thursday evening for some good ol' fashioned up yourself bullshit which you can ignore and just have fun!
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