Digital
Transit and Postmedia Condition
MediaLabMadrid
Centro Conde Duque, Madrid, Spain
February 7-April 2, 2006
Reviewed by Nora Raggio
Palo Alto, CA, USA
supernora@gmail.com
As a resident in Silicon Valley, California,
USA, my vision of Spanish culture revolved
rather naively around broad categories:
delicious food including paella and tapas;
flamenco music and dance; the literary
genius of Cervantes; the architectural
marvels of the Alhambra in Granada and
Gaudi in Barcelona; the famous Madrid
"Art Walk" including El Prado
Museum, Reina Sofia National Art Center
and Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. Of course,
the contemporary art and technology artist,
Antoni Muntadas.
So why would Iwho thinks Silicon
Valley is one of the hottest technology
places in the worldtravel
all the way to Madrid, Spain (a place
I have long associated with cultural rather
than technological marvels), to check
out whats happening in the art+science+technology+culture
scene?
The answer: The MediaLabMadrid (MLM),
founded and headed by Karin Ohlenschläger
and Luis Rico, housed in Conde Duque,
Madrid, a historic building that was originally
used as military barracks. MLM is devoted
to the production, research, education,
and exhibition of digital culture. According
to Karin: "We are exploring the frontiers
between art, science, technology and social
dynamics and, on the other hand, the frontier
zones of visual, performance, sound, and
spatial arts within the context of
digital
culture." [1]
As it turns out, my visit this year to
MLM, a key hub in a vast network of art
and technology nodes located in different
parts of the world, coincided with ARCO,
the International Contemporary Arts Festival
in Madrid. ARCO is known as one of the
preeminent European art fairs, hosting
galleries from around the planet, with
an eye to commercializing contemporary
art. Each year ARCO selects one country
as a special guest: for 2006, it was Austria.
In keeping with ARCOs selected country
theme, MLM invited two Austrian powerhouses
focusing on the intersection of art, science,
technology and culture: Ars Electronica
(AEC)founded in 1979, in Linz
, by visionaries Hannes Leopoldseder and
Christine Schöpfand Neue
Galerie Graz (NGG)founded
by Prof. Hans Riehl , its first director
(1941-1955). Recent directors of NGG include
Peter Weibel (1998), of Zentrum für
Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe
(ZKM) fame, and currently Christa Steinle.
The two parallel exhibitions, in association
with ARCO (February 9-13, 2006), at MLM
are Digital Transit (in collaboration
with AEC, Linz) and Postmedia Condition
(in collaboration with NGG). These two
exhibitions actually last longer (February
7 through April 2, 2006) than ARCO since
they are intended not only to exhibit
works of art, but to include workshops,
seminars, and educational opportunities
for locals and those visiting the Spanish
capital.
The opening at MLM on February 7 was attended
by a list of prestigious contemporary
and new-media art personalities, including
Hannes Leopoldseder and Christine Schöpf;
the joint AEC and MLM curators of Digital
Transit; the curators of Postmedia
Condition; the director of ARCO 06,
Rosina Gómez Baeza; and Franz Morak,
Austrian State Secretary for the Arts
and Media. Thousands of visitors joined
the evening activities held by the MLMall
events are free to the public.
The two exhibitions have different flavors
and philosophies.
Postmedia Condition, curated by
Christa Steinle and Elisabeth Friedler
(with Peter Weibel as scientific advisor)
borrowed the title from Rosalind Krauss
book A Voyage on the North Sea: Art
in the Age of the Post-Medium Condition
[2], which posits two phases in post-media
condition: first, the equality of media,
and second, the mixing of media.
It focuses primarily on Austrian artists
from the 80s to the present. The exhibition
presents more than 40 artistic stances
that primarily mix a variety of "new
media" in one piece or create works
with "traditional media" (e.g.
painting) that reference digital media.
The works celebrate a self-referential,
solipsistic perspective on the fusion
of different contemporary genres. The
exhibition portrays an ambitious mix,
ranging from a robot crashing a computer
screen that generates a stream of abstract
photographs; a painting embedded with
a line of diamond-like encoded digital
messages; photographs turning into hyper-real,
animated, evolving video; emails encoded
into changing architectural three-dimensional
blueprints; video encoding an aural piece.
In his accompanying essay to Postmedia
Condition, Peter Weibel references
Rosalind Krauss and deftly describes the
evolution of the arts and science from
the ancient Greeks to the present. He
then categorically states:
"[T]he pivotal successes of the new
technical media consisting of video and
computer are not just that they launched
new movements in art and created new media
for expression but that they also exerted
a decisive influence on historical media
such as painting and sculpture. To this
extent, the new media were not only a
new branch on the tree of art but actually
transformed the tree of art itself . .
. . [T]his state of current art practice
is best referred to as the post-media
condition, because no single medium is
dominant any longer; instead, all of the
different media influence and determine
each other. The set of all media forms
a universal, self-contained medium."[3]
Digital
Transit,
curated by Karin Ohlenschläger and
Luis Rico of MLM and Gerfried Stocker
and Manuela Pfaffenberger, of AEC Linz,
is a showcase of media art created by
artists from Austria and throughout the
world that have been presented in recent
years at AEC. These pieces are housed
in the Conde Duque vault, and create a
dark and mysterious trajectory for the
visitor, illuminated by outstanding artworks.
One travels down a labyrinth discovering
works that deal with art as the processing
of data, referencing the grand idea of
the Gesamtkunstwerk and applying it to
humanity, life itself being an information-processing
process. Further down, a portrait is created
with an array of thousands of petri-dishes
with transgenic bacteria genetically encoded
with the GFP-gene (Green Flourescent Protein),
each dish varying in its response to the
GFP. Next, creatures are created and fed
by words typed on a keyboard. Also an
apartment can be created to the tune of
typed wordsthe apartment is
then mapped onto a neighborhood. Later,
one encounters ones body projected
in real-time onto a screen, ones
body gestures interplay with poetry "raining"
down the same screen. One can walk through
a more abstract binary-code-generated
piece projected on top of a grid of podiums
activating a spasmodic, fidgety architecture
among many other pieces. The common
theme being code: as language, as encoded
space, as digital or genetic code.
In another part of Conde Duque, Digital
Transit focuses on the "present
vision into the future" with pieces
created by, Urban Lab, Future Lab and
Trans Lab, which include collaborations
between MLM and AEC. These rooms are devoted
to innovative works-in-progress. Visitors
create personal, community neighborhood
cartographies by adding photos and stories
onto a particular coordinate of an electronic
street map (two prototypes are Wikimap
Linz and Madrid). One can transform real-time
video into a three-dimensional environment
through a game pad. Pages on a screen
can be manipulated through body gestures
like in the movie Minority Report.
Performances have been interactively encoded
creating real-time backdrops, even projected
costumes.
In addition, as Manuel Pfaffenberger noted,
MLM staffs exhibitions with mediatorsMLM
guides who have met with the artists and
studied their work in depth. Mediators
are always available to discuss with visitors
the concepts and strategies behind the
pieces.
Gerfried Stocker
stated: "To work with MLM was a great
experience; its hard to find people
so dedicated and professional at the same
time. From the curatorial work to the
final setup and design of the exhibition
they did a wonderful job." [4]
How did this extraordinary conjunction
of art, technology, and culture flourish
in Madrid? In an interview with the directors
of MLM, Ohlenschläger and Rico explained
that although MLM is about four years
old, they have been collaborating and
networking with Peter Weibel, AEC, and
other art and technology network nodes
around the world for more than 20 years.
They said that this dynamic networking
also takes place on a more local scale,
with university and educational centers
in Madrid and other parts of Spain.
Ohlenschläger and Rico mentioned
that ARCO facilitates collaborations between
MLM and the "special guest"
countries, which in the past have included
Mexico, Greece, and Switzerland.
Rico explained
that MLMs rhythm during the year
is associated with a spatial/temporal
dynamicthere is a part of
the year (related to ARCO) where MLM is
focused on external communicationthe
rest of the year is focused on "home
cooking": research and reflection
explored through "banquets"
where MLM nurtures the continuity of the
past and projects into the future with
special invited artists.
When asked about MLMs collaboration
with ARCO and the commercialization of
new media art Ohlenschläger
and Rico differed slightly. Rico mentioned
that although theres a heated debate,
with widely varying perspectives on the
matter, MediaLabMadrid is focused on empowering
and consolidating a perspective of the
artist as a researcher that plays an important
social and cultural function; Ohlenschläger
emphasized not the commercialization of
new-media art, but the creation of networked
knowledge and consciousness throughout
the world: of how science and new technologies
are affecting culture from the point of
view of artists and other critical thinkers.
Gerfried Stocker commented:
"I
guess it really shows the growing importance
of digital art in the larger field of
contemporary art and also the growing
interest coming from the art market. It
was also nice to see how many artists
whom we are used to know only from festivals
like Ars or ISEA, have been shown by galleries
in
ARCO." [5]
I have learned from this experience that
Spain, and indeed Europe, has a thriving
art + technology + science + culture that
is being nurtured by key hubs like MLM
in the context of a global network of
artistic innovation.
For additional information:
http://www.medialabmadrid.org/medialab/
http://www.aec.at/en/index.asp
http://www.stmk.gv.at/verwaltung/lmj-ng/06/postmediale/cover_e.html
http://arcoenglish.artmediacompany.com/index.jsp
References:
[1] Raggio, N. Interview with Karin Ohlenschläger
and Luis Rico. Madrid, Spain. <February
14, 2006>.
[2] Krauss, R. E. (2000). A Voyage
on the North Sea: Art in the Age of the
Post-Medium Condition (Walter Neurath
Memorial Lecture). London: Thames
and Hudson.
[3] Weibel, P. et al. (2006). Condición
Postmedia; p95. Artes Gráficas
Luis Pérez, S.A. Madrid.
[4] Raggio, N. "<AW: Interview
tomorrow, Tue, Feb 14, 10:30 am>."
Personal email. <Fri, 17 Feb 2006 01:41:25
+0100>.
[5] Raggio, N. "<AW: Interview
tomorrow, Tue, Feb 14, 10:30 am>."
Personal email. <Fri, 17 Feb 2006 01:41:25
+0100>.