Summary – Form Follows Format
By Rudolf Frieling
Frieling, R 2004, ‘Form follows format’, in
R Frieling & D Daniels (eds), Survey
of Media Art, Druckerei Theiss, Austria, pp. 369 – 384.
Frieling opens this chapter with a reminder
of the modernist moniker ‘form follows function’ suggesting that this modernist
mind-set has had effects on media art that are still present today as media
forms endeavoring to critically reflect upon technology are dependent upon
these very technologies thus their form follows whatever formats are available.
For Frieling this prompts the question ‘does media art exist at all? Or is it
rather an art of (industrial) media, the computer architectures of which are
beautiful to look at because their form follows their function?’
In addition Frieling explores the tensions
media art has faced with its relationship with the museum tracing back to 1968
– ‘ a paradigm shift in political and social terms… not only in relation to
mass media but also in performative and visual arts’ – the year Bruce Nauman
showed his first videotape and gallery owner Howard Wise presented his first
media exhibition. Notions of production and distribution are examined in the light
of open and closed format over the past 40 years especially in relation to
questions of aura, reproducibility and originality as addressed by Walter
Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction, and how artists and museums have attempted to
create or pose answers to these tensions. Issues such as the unreliability of
technology, as well as appropriation and ownership issues, heightened by the
introduction of the VHS standard in 1975 are examined. In addition Frieling
explores the tenuous connection between media art and financial viability and
raises an interesting point: that despite being an infinitely reproducible
medium, video can still retain the auratic ability if ‘exhibited as an
installation in a museum as an individual work’. Frieling also explores the
influence of the Tv boom, the introduction of the U-matic standard cassette
form and video festivals of the 80s as well as questions of financial viability
as people were unwilling to pay for video art due to the nature of mass media
availability.
Frieling then explores notions of museum
formats focusing on presentation within the museum and exploring how technology
became more acceptable in the museum tracing back to the 70s and rise of Mtv in
the 80s as well as the influence of video sculpture, which brought back a ‘traditional concept of the auratic original’
which brought commercial success. Frieling then interrogates the question of
whether media artists do just use the ‘existing tools’ or do they ‘create and
explore new presentation forms and spaces and their own working
materials?’. He explores how certain
artists, especially with the introduction of the light projector’ could now
choose their own framing format and move away from the Sony black cube monitor
and embark on various size presentations. Frieling states that since the 80s
‘the question of format has no longer been tied to the plinth-mounted monitor….
The electronic image has emancipated itself’ however it appears that the large
scale projection is the most immersive and successful.
Frieling then examines the relationship media
art has with the Internet, Internet exhibitions and the desire for universal
access and dialogue (a desire present since Stan van der Beeks 1965 Manifesto).
Key exhibitions are explored: Information
(MOMA NY 1970), Electra (Paris
1983), net_condition (1999) and a
‘pure internet exhibition… Walker Arts Centre 1998 …Shock of the View: Museums, Artists and Audiences in the Digital Age’.
In addition the development of centres promoting accessibility, which mainly
occurred in th 90s, ‘for public and artistic access to expensive technology and
for appropriate presentation conditions’ are examined by Frieling as museums
were for show casing the end result but not where artists or the public could explore
process. Questions of collaboration and experimentation are addressed by
Frieling stating that contemporary art media has a practice that is ‘autonomous
but also collaborative’. Concerns of hi tech development leading to various
media becoming obsolete and the role of the museum in retaining certain media
platforms to preserve them are also discussed.
Frieling explores the notion of the hybrid
space as proposed by Lev Manovich : ‘In the longer term
every object may become a screen connected to the Net, with the whole of the
built space becoming a set of display surfaces. Of course physical space was
always augmented by images, graphics and type; but substituting all these by
electronic display makes possible to present dynamic images, to mix images, graphics
and type and to change the content all the time... a dynamic that reformats the
whole public space…The physical space has data layers superimposed on it .. new
concepts like .. augmented reality, wearable computers, intelligent buildings,
wireless location services or sensor networks’.For Frieling this shift
in concepts now proves that ;we are ‘finally saying goodbye to modernist
minimalism’ and embracing a new sense of the ‘complexity, heterogenous and contradictory quality of the hybrid space’.
This pushes the platform of media art to a 3D platform Frieling suggests reinforcing
this idea with the suggestion of interactive screens, displays and objects.
Thus the new maxim Frieling suggests, quoting Mitchell, is ‘Form fetches
function’.
Frieling concludes the chapter by stating
that museums, because of the nature of the exhibition space, embraces cinematic
devices yet questions the extent they will embrace ‘visions of multi-sensory,
fluid spaces’ suggesting that nostaligia for the art object and painting may
return. Frieling however states that despite this ‘it will not be possible to
halt the digitalization of the the museum space’ but proposes that in order to
maintain ‘completely independent artistic and poetic appraisal’ and avoid
Microsoft standardization, a whole range of formats and thus forms needs to be
preserved and utilized.
This article took me on an interesting
journey through the rise of media arts and various challenges and questions
that have arisen along the way. What comes to mind are the high tech
productions at the Sydney Biennale and the fact a high portion of this
exhibition was digital art. The cube at QUT also comes to mind confirming new
ways of learning and presenting. Its exciting to think about the possibilities
of media art and the hybrid space yet remain aware of potential issues and
questions that arise from its use.
The Cube QUT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTjjX5mW_aY
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