Back on December 3, I went to see a New Media lecture featuring multi-disciplinary artist Kristin Lucas. Her art centered, seemingly, on using virtual reality ideas in multiple styles and media of art (sculpture, video, graphics, portraits, sketches, etc.) to capture the rapid transience of our modern society, where technology is so ubiquitous.
At least, that was my first response, based on the description of her talk....
"A paradoxical and insubstantial explanation of the inherent problem of simplifying a complex set of concerns related to the phenomenon of over-identification with an inanimate object such as a computer and its consequent animations and manifestations. The artist will present recent work including "Refresh," in which she becomes the most current version of herself in a court of law, and "More Melting", a beeswax-cast memorial about an electronic medium's finite reality. Kristin Lucas is a recent transplant from California's Bay Area to the Hudson Valley. Transformations and portraiture are the focus of her work as she investigates visions of future, the effects of an accumulation of rapid-spread flash-in-the-pan technology on the human condition and the environment, and the impact of the digital medium on perception of time and space."
Indeed, the description above is quite a mouthful. After reading the first sentence, I got the feeling that this was going to be a bit of a cynical talk from an artist who, perhaps, is on a mission, to capture and criticize with social commentary the trite and superficial-yet-supercilious nature of modern society and its arrogant belief in omnipotence and omniscience through technology by providing, in effect, a caricature - a parody, a satire, visual and verbal/auditory - of this society, through her "paradoxical and insubstantial" explanation. Now, if this had been the subject of the lecture, then that alone would have been a great draw to the lecture for me, as I am a bit of a fan of such things (Sci-Fi, social criticism, etc.), and I would expect to get a great kick out of how she is so sublimely capturing the problem with society by giving her talk about how we, as a society/culture, foolishly try to simplify all our complex problems always by using the computer/modern electronic technology as an ultimate tool/panacea/deus ex machina for all problems, in a "paradoxical and insubstantial" way! In doing the talk in that silly way - not by being an actual lecturer on society and culture, but by simply expressing herself in a way that is full of contradictions and devoid of any explanation of the points she is making or the logic she is following - that, I figured, would be what turns the talk, and the imagery, into art, such that the substance of the talk is NOT what is paramount per se, but the "paradoxical and insubstantial" aesthetic that is imbued into the artwork and presentation. Put it this way - if she were simply talking about how society is troublesome in that it "over-identifies" with the computer and its "manifestations" as the be-all-end-all tool which over-simplifies life's complex set of concerns, she would not really be talking about art, but would rather probably be a journalist/writer writing books about the shallowness of high-tech, electronic society, similar to a recent guest on "the Colbert Report" who wrote a book about how our over-use of technology and its ability to give us information instantly on demand has made us very shallow in our true intellect since we think that we are omniscient and can understand all in our brave new "all access" world, which leads us to really not understand much as we no longer have the DISCIPLINE to study things in detail in such an on-demand world (Colbert, in his typical throes of bombastic whimsicality within his "rude jerk interviewer" role, corroborated his guest's point by making the joke of being the character who embodies the social problems about which the guest is talking when he pretended to be on his iPhone for most of the interview, and constantly asked the guest to repeat what he was saying since he was too busy looking at Wikipedia!).
That was my initial reaction to what was possibly coming in the presentation. I was half correct....
After seeing the presentation by Lucas, I realized that the presence of paradoxes does not necessarily imply that she is trying to make a satire. Upon reflecting on what she presented in her artwork - photos/CGI drawings/videos/performance art experiments - I realize that she is making a bit of a statement about how our society is so strangely entangled in a massive sea of information that make things quite a mess that can easily ensnare those who are not careful. But I realized that it is not necessarily a negative, satirical or cynical statement. Indeed, through the paradoxical nature of her artwork and presentation, she is actually trying to simply - to use her own words - EMBODY the modern digital media of today in order to understand it, but not necessarily judge it or criticize it, just allow herself to come to be absorbed into it so that she can simply, perhaps, be a MIRROR of the nature of media - not a judge, jury, or executioner, who stands on a Manichean pulpit determining what is good and evil about media, its creators or consumers, but just a drifting spirit who uses her art and "performance" as a means to be the anthropomorphization of the world of New Media, to be interpreted as the beholder sees fit. Rock fans can say that Ms. Lucas is searching for "the Spirit of Radio", to use the Rush song as the pitching phrase to describe her art's purpose, but here, since we are in the 2000s, not the 1980s, we can now say that it is not only the spirit of "radio" per se, but the spirit of ALL media! After all, with the rise of the Internet in 1990s to its ultimate position of eminence as the "information superhighway", we are now seeing the convergence of media - printed word, video, music, radio/audio and interactive software (video games, etc.) - emerge very quickly. Indeed, the world of information transfer through technological mediums has grown quickly, from the dominance of the printed word to the rise of all these other technologies - radio waves that transfer sound, television technologies that transfer visual information, and now the computer, which makes all media - word, visual and audio - infinitely malleable to all who can have this machine, professional and amateur. It is amazing and scary at the same time, that we have created these powerful tools in such a short time period, and even scarier that we are simply picking them up so quickly and allowing them to become so integral a part of our existence and experiences without stepping back to the twilight zone outside of the bubble just to see what is really happening. Herein lies the great profundity, I guess, of Ms. Lucas's craft. By attempting to embody the media by exploring all its facets through her art, she may be aspiring to be an important paragon of our age by acting as a medium herself through which we can perceive the nature of our rapidly evolving media - the media's media, the one who watches the watchers. To be such a thing, I now see, is a very profound and altruistic action by Ms. Lucas, although I feel anxious for her, as I worry about her health as she takes on such a massive endeavour as giving us a portal to the foundation of new media. Could her desire to embody the media and thus permit all its innards to wash over her mind without any floodgates to control the deluge lead to illness? Still, the act is profound and more than just social criticism through artistic statements - it is just art meant to characterize the future, the finite reality of electronic media, its effect on humanity, perception of reality and ultimately, finding the balance between virtual and real that may allow for some kind of progress through its lack of stance or substance, but its welcoming of all viewpoints, not just, say, my original viewpoint, which may bring us better understanding, in fact, and away from the ignorance that people like Stephen Colbert parody.
At least, that was my first response, based on the description of her talk....
"A paradoxical and insubstantial explanation of the inherent problem of simplifying a complex set of concerns related to the phenomenon of over-identification with an inanimate object such as a computer and its consequent animations and manifestations. The artist will present recent work including "Refresh," in which she becomes the most current version of herself in a court of law, and "More Melting", a beeswax-cast memorial about an electronic medium's finite reality. Kristin Lucas is a recent transplant from California's Bay Area to the Hudson Valley. Transformations and portraiture are the focus of her work as she investigates visions of future, the effects of an accumulation of rapid-spread flash-in-the-pan technology on the human condition and the environment, and the impact of the digital medium on perception of time and space."
Indeed, the description above is quite a mouthful. After reading the first sentence, I got the feeling that this was going to be a bit of a cynical talk from an artist who, perhaps, is on a mission, to capture and criticize with social commentary the trite and superficial-yet-supercilious nature of modern society and its arrogant belief in omnipotence and omniscience through technology by providing, in effect, a caricature - a parody, a satire, visual and verbal/auditory - of this society, through her "paradoxical and insubstantial" explanation. Now, if this had been the subject of the lecture, then that alone would have been a great draw to the lecture for me, as I am a bit of a fan of such things (Sci-Fi, social criticism, etc.), and I would expect to get a great kick out of how she is so sublimely capturing the problem with society by giving her talk about how we, as a society/culture, foolishly try to simplify all our complex problems always by using the computer/modern electronic technology as an ultimate tool/panacea/deus ex machina for all problems, in a "paradoxical and insubstantial" way! In doing the talk in that silly way - not by being an actual lecturer on society and culture, but by simply expressing herself in a way that is full of contradictions and devoid of any explanation of the points she is making or the logic she is following - that, I figured, would be what turns the talk, and the imagery, into art, such that the substance of the talk is NOT what is paramount per se, but the "paradoxical and insubstantial" aesthetic that is imbued into the artwork and presentation. Put it this way - if she were simply talking about how society is troublesome in that it "over-identifies" with the computer and its "manifestations" as the be-all-end-all tool which over-simplifies life's complex set of concerns, she would not really be talking about art, but would rather probably be a journalist/writer writing books about the shallowness of high-tech, electronic society, similar to a recent guest on "the Colbert Report" who wrote a book about how our over-use of technology and its ability to give us information instantly on demand has made us very shallow in our true intellect since we think that we are omniscient and can understand all in our brave new "all access" world, which leads us to really not understand much as we no longer have the DISCIPLINE to study things in detail in such an on-demand world (Colbert, in his typical throes of bombastic whimsicality within his "rude jerk interviewer" role, corroborated his guest's point by making the joke of being the character who embodies the social problems about which the guest is talking when he pretended to be on his iPhone for most of the interview, and constantly asked the guest to repeat what he was saying since he was too busy looking at Wikipedia!).
That was my initial reaction to what was possibly coming in the presentation. I was half correct....
After seeing the presentation by Lucas, I realized that the presence of paradoxes does not necessarily imply that she is trying to make a satire. Upon reflecting on what she presented in her artwork - photos/CGI drawings/videos/performance art experiments - I realize that she is making a bit of a statement about how our society is so strangely entangled in a massive sea of information that make things quite a mess that can easily ensnare those who are not careful. But I realized that it is not necessarily a negative, satirical or cynical statement. Indeed, through the paradoxical nature of her artwork and presentation, she is actually trying to simply - to use her own words - EMBODY the modern digital media of today in order to understand it, but not necessarily judge it or criticize it, just allow herself to come to be absorbed into it so that she can simply, perhaps, be a MIRROR of the nature of media - not a judge, jury, or executioner, who stands on a Manichean pulpit determining what is good and evil about media, its creators or consumers, but just a drifting spirit who uses her art and "performance" as a means to be the anthropomorphization of the world of New Media, to be interpreted as the beholder sees fit. Rock fans can say that Ms. Lucas is searching for "the Spirit of Radio", to use the Rush song as the pitching phrase to describe her art's purpose, but here, since we are in the 2000s, not the 1980s, we can now say that it is not only the spirit of "radio" per se, but the spirit of ALL media! After all, with the rise of the Internet in 1990s to its ultimate position of eminence as the "information superhighway", we are now seeing the convergence of media - printed word, video, music, radio/audio and interactive software (video games, etc.) - emerge very quickly. Indeed, the world of information transfer through technological mediums has grown quickly, from the dominance of the printed word to the rise of all these other technologies - radio waves that transfer sound, television technologies that transfer visual information, and now the computer, which makes all media - word, visual and audio - infinitely malleable to all who can have this machine, professional and amateur. It is amazing and scary at the same time, that we have created these powerful tools in such a short time period, and even scarier that we are simply picking them up so quickly and allowing them to become so integral a part of our existence and experiences without stepping back to the twilight zone outside of the bubble just to see what is really happening. Herein lies the great profundity, I guess, of Ms. Lucas's craft. By attempting to embody the media by exploring all its facets through her art, she may be aspiring to be an important paragon of our age by acting as a medium herself through which we can perceive the nature of our rapidly evolving media - the media's media, the one who watches the watchers. To be such a thing, I now see, is a very profound and altruistic action by Ms. Lucas, although I feel anxious for her, as I worry about her health as she takes on such a massive endeavour as giving us a portal to the foundation of new media. Could her desire to embody the media and thus permit all its innards to wash over her mind without any floodgates to control the deluge lead to illness? Still, the act is profound and more than just social criticism through artistic statements - it is just art meant to characterize the future, the finite reality of electronic media, its effect on humanity, perception of reality and ultimately, finding the balance between virtual and real that may allow for some kind of progress through its lack of stance or substance, but its welcoming of all viewpoints, not just, say, my original viewpoint, which may bring us better understanding, in fact, and away from the ignorance that people like Stephen Colbert parody.
Now, finally (this is taking too long), I want to address just a few of the works Ms. Lucas showed in her presentation, which reflect on her balance of viewpoints toward technology that can corroborate how exactly she can, in fact, come to embody all media, done by describing a work that represents, very literally, a transition in her life.
Let me do this in another blog, and I'll see if I can connect the two blogs....
Let me do this in another blog, and I'll see if I can connect the two blogs....
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