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Arts and Media on the Road to Abdera?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

René Berger
René Berger*
Affiliation:
University of Lausanne

Extract

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In our times changes occur so rapidly that our modes of reading even more than our modes of analysis risk being inadequate, or in any case risk lagging behind. If we wish to analyze relations between the arts and the media, the danger is in fact that we will limit ourselves to established notions or even to stereotypes which are commonly accepted by the general public. Even for persons with some awareness, information remains lacunary. Moreover, like the experts, or those who pass for such, it seems that it is difficult for them to avoid a personal conception, implicit or avowed, which does not fail to influence their judgement. This is almost always the case when the matter of art is raised, even if we take the precaution of placing the term in the plural. Whether one wishes to or not, there is hardly an example where certain preferences do not make themselves known. If it is easy to reach agreement with regard to the facts, it is less easy to agree on their interpretation, especially when values are at stake. Hence the necessity to proceed by different steps and explanations to explain the relationships between arts and the media.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 32 , Issue 128 , December 1984 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 I discussed this problem in Art(s) and Power(s) which appeared in issue No. 120 of Diogenes.

2 This is the title of the work originally published in 1956 by Gilbert Seldes, New York, Simon & Schuster.

3 In 1980, out of 4.3 billion publications, 28% dealt with cartoons.

4 Cf. the Sixth International Market of Monte Carlo. "Un maître mot: copro duire", Le Monde, February 7, 1984, p. 17.

5 At the most we can hope that it has some effect on the political will which claims still to control, to a certain extent at least, the logic of the market. Such is in any case the postulate of international institutions whose recommendations, and sometimes resolutions, are thought to enlighten governments in order to aid them in taking necessary measures. This does not occur without problems and difficulties.

To be noted as well is the delight proper to intellectuals who love to take apart the mechanism of things over which they have no control. Thus Jean Baudrillard's fulminations against the modem world in which he sees but "obscenity". "Obscenity is a desperate attempt at seduction. Its only error is that it claims to seduce through the vulgar evidence of truth and not by the subtle use of available signs." "What are you doing after the orgy?", in the review Traverses/29, p. 11. The same issue of Traverses (No. 29, October 1983), is the occasion for Olivier Kaeppelin to note his pleasure in the entwinings of a peep show under the title "Egorgement discret et chasse violente", p. 114. It is astonishing that so many minds take pleasure in denouncing what they consume with the excuse of escaping from consumption through reflection. I see that I myself do not escape from this criticism! The whole problem thus consists, in my opinion, in knowing if stress is laid on a desire to denounce or on a desire to elucidate. At the present time it is the second aspect which seems to me preferable.

6 See "Art Press", Art et Technologie, No. 76, December 1983, which gives a general although brief survey of these new forms of expression. Also information on the future projects of the Musée de La Villette which will devote a sizable amount of space to them. For art using computers as well as for video art, see, among others, Abraham Moles, Art et Ordinateur, Paris, Casterman, 1981, coll. "Synthèses contemporaines", and Joseph Deken, Computer Images, State of the Art, London, Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1983; on video art see René Berger, L'Effet des changements technologiques. En mutation, l'art, la ville, l'image, la culture, NOUS!, Lausanne, Editions Pierre-Marcel Favre, 1983, chapter III, Aux aguets de la com munication.

Also to be noted is the exhibition Electra organized in late December 1983-early 1984 by the Musée d'art modeme of the City of Paris, whose voluminous catalogue, directed by Frank Popper, is an invaluable working instrument dealing with new forms of artistic expression associated with the development of electricity and of electronics.

7 La Recherche, special issue of La révolution des images. No. 144, May 1983.

8 Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, Mathematical Theory of Communica tion, Urbana, The University of Illinois Press, 1964.

9 Abraham Moles notes that it is necessary to distinguish between the short term and the long term. If I call the Fire Department for assistance, the contents alone of the message are important, whether the message is relayed by live voice or by telephone. But the practice of TV, and soon that of computers, clearly proves that in the long term we are dealing with a complete reorganization of our field of perception and consequently of a change of cultural dimensions.

10 Thomas S. Kuhn, La Structure des révolutions scientifiques, Paris, Flammarion Ed., 1970. Coll. "Nouvelle bibliothèque scientifique".

11 Robert Stéphane, Television and Art - Television as Art: International Confer ence of the Unity of Sciences, Chicago, 1983 (unpublished). The author is regional director of the RTB production center in Liège. His presentation was made during a seminar which I directed with the title Art and Technology.

12 I have already discussed this notion of topic in my book, L'Effet des change ments technologiques. En mutation, l'art, la ville, l'image, la culture, NOUS! Lau sanne, Editions Pierre-Marcel, 1983, p. 131-137.

13 I believe, and this is a postulate of my own, in the emergence in the course of our accelerated technological evolution of a "race" or of a sub-genus (or super genus) which will be characterized by having means (or organs) which others will not have, at least not to the same degree, namely the power of moving at high speed, with regularity, in every direction. This supermobility corresponds to a dimension which has never before existed and to which I ascribe the name telemics (not to be confused with telematics). By this I mean that new space or superspace which is characterized by its being traversed by airplanes and which is "inhabited" by that population in unending movement which I designate with the term télanthrope. Op. cit., p. 178.

14 "The marriage of the micro-computer and the television screen, the multiplica tion of distribution networks (the first aspect of the democratisation of telecommuni cations) the interactivity between the sender and the receiver (another aspect of this democratisation) has reopened the discussions of the examiners of the future", observes Jacques Mousseau in "Le Camet de notes de Jacques Mousseau", Com munication et Langages, No. 58, 4th quarter 1984, p. 2.

15 It is astonishing that most studies favor the negative side of media; thus there are so many reports dealing with the effects of television violence. Would it not be preferable, rather, to examine with no less attention the effects of the democratisa tion which they are bringing about?

16 Wolf Vostell states, "When I connect a television set to a scythe or to a pile of shoes, it is not a matter of obeying a formalist principle to create a moving plastic object which uses space, but of achieving a psychological truth which is conditioned by the fact that the scythe or the pile of shoes can only assume their true significance to the extent that they are situated in the context of a television program. The result is the birth of both a plastic reality (of a sculpture-event) and of a psychological discovery associated with the television program."

17 Cf. F. de Meredieu, "Pati Hill ou le catalogue des objets magiques", in Art Press, No. 76, Dec. 1983, p. 25.

18 See also Daniel Caux, Machines complexes et complexité de l'émotion: "Some aim at enriching an already existing musical concept. This is the case of Pierre Boulez who uses a 4 X digital sound processor to obtain in real time a reduction of tones which is both magical and almost natural. This is the success of Répons which, following in the wake of the composer's greatest works, combines conceptual firmness with emotional density." In Art Press, op. cit. p. 26.

19 This does not imply that technology, as Heidegger has demonstrated, has no "essence", which is another problem altogether.