REPRE vol.019 2013

June 30, 2013, 10:00-12:00
Room C303, Bldg. 3, Block 1, Senriyama Campus, Kansai University

Panel 5: The Post-Medium Condition of Moving Image 2: Mediums

Intericonicity and Post-Medium Image Practices: On the Self-Invention of Online Video Art
Nina Gerlach (University of Basel)

Pre-Recorded Conversations with the Earth
James Jack (Tokyo University of the Arts)

Moving Portraits
Adam Wiseman

Chair and discussant: Morihiro Satow (Kyoto Seika University)

The second panel on the topic “Post-Medium Condition of the Moving Image” included three papers that investigated the relevance (or irrelevance) of “medium” in the theory and practice of contemporary art. Commencing the panel was Nina Gerlach (University of Basel) who gave a theoretical context for the field of online video art with a particular emphasis on “self-invention” by participants as well as consumers. She made an early distinction between “intraiconicity” as videos that reference other videos and “intericonitity” as videos that reference films or paintings or other media and went on to address an online artwork by Perry Bard composed of spawning arms as well as a humorous work by Evelyn Lohbeck in which a paper notebook is animated into a laptop (notebook). Gerlach suggested the provocative idea that “images themselves create their own theory” which provided an adroit connection to the other presenters who both focus on art practice which involves moving images. Amidst a theoretical background of Schröter, Krauss and Bookchin the question of “whether art can (already) express itself during the process of its self-invention or not” posed by Gerlach in conclusion. Discussant Morihiro Satow brought up issues surrounding the challenges of considering “post-medium” today as all media (paintings, photographs etc) are increasingly visible on the web, therefore all texts might becoming intratextual in a sense.

The second presentation by myself addressed issues raised by a collaborative artwork created for the exhibition “Play with Nature, Played by Nature” recently held in Tokyo. This paper started with VHS tapes and dirt as they cycle through the hands of two artists, discovering conversations in between black plastic and the earth’s surface. In relation to “post-medium” I proposed that it may be more useful to consider the media for these artistic practices as dialogue itself, rather than tertiary materials such as photo, video, plastic or others. In other words, each of these components do not support the artwork; rather the conversations themselves may be the most fundamental aspect of the work as it transitions from one media to another. This artwork exists in the surrounding spaces and gaps that compose our environment, both playing with and being played by nature. In discussion Satow brought up contradictory issues arising in the artistic practice of labeling “digital video” in this presentation itself; a trace of the impossibility to extinguish “medium” amidst attempts to redefine moving images. In discussion Gerlach observed the interconnection of nature and artifice in the position of the paper, an artistic perspective that provides links between seemingly separate phenomena.

The final presentation “Moving Portraits” by Adam Wiseman (independent artist) was fittingly conducted through an online video chat. As Wiseman gave his presentation from Mexico we could all see him large on the projection screen and yet he could not see us in the dark. This circumstance of being gazed at without seeing the gazer was alarmingly similar to the relationship fostered in the artwork itself. For this work, Wiseman recorded moving images of subjects who were presumably posing for a still portrait only to find out their personal moments of twitching, preparing or changing their appearance were all recorded on video. These “moving portraits” reveal the disjointed actions of seeing and being seen, a circumstance that is becoming more prevalent in the context of surveillance cameras. These portraits may or may not show “who a person really is” but they certainly illuminate the possibilities that can be found in creative “looking” in between the media of still and moving images. The reflexivity of a photographer recording aspects of a person in between one portrait and another create unconventionally “honest” portraits that include awkward and insecure moments where the passage of time becomes (sometimes uncomfortably) apparent.

In discussion the digital media that make this recording of moving images possible was brought up as the ambiguous space between the viewer and the viewed pervaded the content and format for this presentation.

James Jack (Tokyo University of the Arts)

「映像のポストメディウム的条件」をめぐる二つ目のパネルは、現代アートの理論と実践における「メディウム」の妥当性（あるいは非妥当性）を問う、三つの発表からなった。最初のパネル発表者のNina Gerlach（バーゼル大学）は、参加者ならびに消費者による「自己創作」を強調して、オンライン・ヴィデオ・アートという領域に理論的なコンテクストを与えた。Gerlach は、まず、別のヴィデオを参照するヴィデオとしての「内—アイコニシティ」と、フィルムや絵画などの他のメディアを参照するヴィデオとしての「間—アイコニシティ」を区別した。そして、Perry Bard の、腕がにょきにょき生えてくる人間が登場するオンラインの芸術作品や、Evelyn Lohbeckによる、紙のノートをアニメーションでノートパソコンに見立てたユーモラスな作品へと話を進めた。Gerlachが提案したのは、「イメージはそれ自体でみずからの理論を創造する」という刺激的な考え方だ。この考えによって、映像に関わるアートの実践に焦点を当てた他二人の発表者は巧みに関連づけられることになった。結論としてGerlach は、Schröterや Krauss、Bookchinの理論的背景に対し、「アートは、自己創造のプロセスにあって（すでに）みずからを表現しうるのかどうか」という問いを提起した。ディスカッサントの佐藤守弘氏からは、今日の「ポストメディウム」を考察する試みの問題点が指摘された。すなわち、今日ではあらゆるメディア（絵画、写真など）がますますウェブ上で見られるようになるつれ、ある意味すべてのテクストは、内—テクスト的なものになりつつあるのかもしれない、という点である。

報告者による第二の発表では、先頃東京で開かれた展覧会「自然を遊ぶ、自然に遊ばれる」のために共同制作された作品をとりあげ、本作が提起する問題を論じた。発表は作品の紹介から始まった。それは、VHSテープと土とを二人の芸術家の手のあいだでまわしながら、プラスチックの黒いテープと地球の表層とのはざまに対話を見出すというものだ。「ポストメディウム」に関して私が提言したのは、写真やヴィデオ、プラスチックなどといった二次的な素材よりも、対話それ自体をこうした芸術的実践にとってのメディアとして考えた方がより有益だということだ。言い換えれば、これらの構成物はどれも芸術作品を支えているわけではない。作品がひとつのメディアから別のメディアへと移行する際のもっとも根本的な側面は、むしろ、会話それ自体かもしれないのだ。この芸術作品は、自然を遊び、かつ自然に遊ばれることによって、われわれの環境を構成している周囲の空間や隙間に存在するのである。討議において佐藤氏は、この発表それ自体の中で矛盾が生じていることを指摘した。それは、「デジタル・ヴィデオ」とラベリングするという芸術実践においてである。というのもそれは、映像を再定義しようとする試みににおいて「メディウム」を消し去ることの不可能性の証だからである。討議では、Gerlachがこの発表に自然物と人工物を内的に連関させる態度があったことを指摘し、芸術的パースペクティヴによって、別々の現象のように見えるもののあいだに結びつきが与えられていると述べた。

Adam Wiseman（インディペンデント・アーティスト）による最後の発表「動くポートレート」は、発表内容の趣旨にふさわしく、オンラインのヴィデオ・チャットによって行われた。Wisemanがメキシコから発表を行っているあいだ、われわれにはスクリーンに大きく映し出された彼の姿が見えるものの、彼は暗闇のなか、われわれの姿を見ることができなかった。自分を見つめている人間を見ることができないというこの状況は、奇しくも、〔彼の〕芸術作品それ自体が内包する関係性に似ている。Wisemanはこの〔Moving Picturesという〕作品において、スティル写真のポートレートのためにポーズを取っているとおぼしき被写体を動画で撮影している。その結果、彼らが身体をピクッと動かしたり、見た目を整えたり変化させたりする個人的な瞬間が、すべてヴィデオに記録されることになる。これらの「動くポートレート」は、見ることと見られることという重なり合わない行為、つまり、監視カメラの文脈においてより支配的になりつつある状況を明らかにしている。これらのポートレートは「ある人物が本当は何者なのか」を明らかにするともしないとも言えないのだが、本作が確かに明らかにしているのは、静止画と動画という両メディアの狭間において創造的に「見る」という行為の可能性である。一枚のポートレートと次のポートレートの間に、ひとりの人間の諸側面を記録しようとする写真家がなす熟慮ゆえ、型にはまらない「正直な」ポートレートが生み出される。そうしたポートレートがはらんでいるバツの悪い不安な瞬間のうちに、時間の経過が（時に不愉快なかたちで）顕になるのである。

見るものと見られるものの間の曖昧な空間がこの発表の内容とフォーマットに充満するなか、討議では、こうした映像の記録を可能にするデジタル・メディアが論点となった。

ジェームズ・ジャック（東京藝術大学）
（翻訳：池野絢子）

【Abstracts】

Intericonicity and Post-Medium Image Practices: On the Self-Invention of Online Video Art
Nina Gerlach (University of Basel)

My talk deals with the theoretical basis of a currently exhibited and discussed online video art. Against the backdrop of an aesthetic discourse theory (Rosen, Krüger, Preimesberger 2003), which assumes that, alongside texts on the theory of art, the images themselves also create their theory, the presentation asks for the visual discursively generated art theory of online videos. The increased accumulation of inter-iconic references within the exhibited and discussed videos turns this phenomenon into the central focus of the visual discourse analysis. From this perspective, the online video proves to be characterized by a post-medium self-image. In order to gain knowledge of the character of the new media condition, online videos compare their own media imagery with other media imagery (e.g. film, graphical user interface) within the online video itself. In this case, intermedial image references are clearly not intended to be understood in line with Greenberg's view as an aesthetic opponent to modernism (1981), but rather as a necessary visual instrument of its production.

Additionally, intra-iconicity, which is here the reference created between one online video and other online videos, serves as an aid for visualizing critical cultural positions aimed at the medium in its mass media usage. Through the invariable presentation of self-promoting amateur videos, intra-iconic practices prove simultaneously to be a means for generating a mass-media stereotype. The creation of art is therefore not only bound up with Krauss' notion of the “reinvention of the medium" (1999), but also with the "reinvention of its mass media usage”.

Pre-Recorded Conversations with the Earth
James Jack (Tokyo University of the Arts)

What happens to millions of pre-recorded analog moments that made moving images in the past? Artist Maika‘i Tubbs transforms these videotapes into a jungle of organic growth where whirling rings of videocassette tape become dandelions. One black stem pokes out of a melted VHS cassette case and mutates into a brown flower of stretched tape. This weed and the digital photographs of it have grown out of the ironic blackness surrounding analog and digital spaces. What if those surrounding spaces are the gaps that compose our environment, the web that connects moving images and sounds without immediate functionality?

Literary scholar Timothy Morton has discussed nature as that which cannot be seen directly, that which can only be glimpsed anamorphically. If nature is an angle, or a distortion, then the trees in our mind may be impeding our view. In my own video work, a participant stoops down to the ground softly speaking; then waits for a response from the earth. After ten seconds of silence, the interlocutor continues. Reflective questions are posed by these conversations with the earth: What does the earth think of our attempt to understand it?

This paper addresses issues provoked by looping analog video into new cycles of growth and holding conversations with the impossible subject. From videocassette garbage and radiated soil a rethinking of artistic practice in the post-medium condition may be possible. I suggest these artists encapsulate post-analog and seemingly digital “waste” as their medium for both playing with and being played by nature.

Moving Portraits
Adam Wiseman

Interested in how modern technology can change the vocabulary of traditional documentary photography, Wiseman uses a combination of documentary portraiture techniques and available technological advances in high quality video to take “filmed portraits” of his subjects. Paradoxically, in the interest of capturing an honest moment, Wiseman lets the subject believe that he or she is having their picture taken when in-fact they are being filmed. The portraits are then edited and only include sections from a one-minute period where the photographer leaves and the subject is alone. Once the filmed part is completed Wiseman tells the subject what he has done and proceeds to create a traditional portrait where subject and photographer collaborate.

The result is a series of subtle yet intense moments, the viewer is immediately engaged. Appealing to the voyeur in all of us we stare but also feel uncomfortable when we realize we are there, with the subject, within their intimate space.