Material4.0

a r n o l d s c h e

m a d e l e i n e

f r e y

( h g . / e d . )

In the Internet of Things era, also known in Germany as Industry 4.0, an exhibition on digitization and computer art is fiercely on-trend and simultaneously stands in the tradition of the Stuttgart School, a group of artists who back in the 1950s and 1960s dealt with computer-generated art and used various devices and types of equipment formed around the philosopher Max Bense, who was a professor at the University of Stuttgart. The exhibition #material4.0 takes up this historical development but also shows— along with Manfred Mohr and Ryszard Winiarski, pioneers of computer art—young artists from the digital-natives generation in particular. These are positions that have the technologization of our lifeworld as their subject. The artists create their art through the medium of digitization, and therefore we may regard their artworks as indicators of how artistic material will evolve in the future. At the same time, a vision is generated that allows us to conclude how our world of tomorrow will look. Already digitization is making an impact on all areas of human life and molding the future.

Since art commentates, classifies, criticizes, and adopts current societal trends, this very encounter with digitization is bringing along new forms of appearance. Not only do the Internet, digital networking, and visual language come entirely naturally to digital natives, but they are virtually the only tools they have. This trend must inevitably have an influence on their artistic concepts.

And consequently the exhibition #material4.0 displays artistic ideas and thoughts concerning 4

material_20190130.indd 4

the fourth industrial revolution, a revolution that manifests itself through the full automation and smart communication of machines, in the absence of any human intervention. Different aspects of robot-generated art, artificial intelligence, and data collection and processing, along with the aesthetic concepts that we can derive from them, will be discussed in the following.

Robot-generated art Robots not only enrich our everyday life and industrial production but also make an appearance in artistic concepts. Artist Kanta Kimura developed a painting technique that entails partially eliminating still wet paint from the canvas by means of compressed air. Now he has this elimination process performed by a programmable production robot, which guides the compressed-air pistol across the canvas more rapidly, evenly, and in precise lines, thus producing an impeccable visual outcome of the kind that the artist himself would be unable to achieve. The

Figs. pp. 54ff.

#material4.0

concept of having art made by other agents is not a new one. However, the moment the robot is able to work more effectively than the human, the question concerning the limitedness of human capabilities inevitably arises.

Artificial intelligence The continuous development and research of artificial intelligence is a task of utmost relevance today. atelierJAK works on this concept by dealing with the disorder known as visual agnosia.

While people who suffer from the disorder are able to receive visual stimuli, they are, however, 4

30.01.19 16:37

self-driving cars: a camera is likewise able to receive visual information, but its artificial intelligence must bring this information into relation with reality, so that it can recognize an obstruction, for example. atelierJAK thematizes this dif-

Figs. pp. 6ff.

ference between an apparently objective processing of stimuli and the actual identifying vision by bathing a section of the museum’s architecture in green light. Once the human eye has adjusted to this colored light, the remaining surroundings suddenly turn magenta.

Data collection and processing A solid, broad data basis is required for programming artificial intelligence. In her sound installation Artefact #0 Digital Necrophony, artist Mathilde Lavenne queries what happens to our digital footprint when we die. What happens to the data that we inevitably generate during a lifetime and leave behind for all eternity in a data storage system, the Cloud? What are their possible functions, what do we want our data to do,

1960s through the 1980s. Adam Słowik adopts this principle in his work Architektur des Alphabets and creates, so to speak, an Alphabet 4.0.

Where Manfred Mohr utilizes a cube as a “firmly established systematic structure” in order to display an alphabet of aesthetic and semiotic possibilities, Słowik transfers this idea onto

Figs. pp. 48ff.

cisely the problem that we also encounter with

in Manfred Mohr and Ryszard Winiarski in the

cf. Manfred Mohr, p. 28

unable to discern any actual objects. This is pre-

a digital object. For its part, while depicting the alphabet, this immaterial object simultaneously generates its very own logical aesthetic. Now we do not have, as in Mohr, cubes (for instance) in the form of a two-dimensional structure on canvas but rather a digital object appears in 3-D with the assistance of lenticular printing. #material4.0 brings the materials that are used for producing art into association with the fourth industrial revolution. Artists make use of different types of media, such as painting, sculpture, or film and transpose these media into the digitized world. By doing so, they develop perspectives for dealing artistically with materials and concepts of tomorrow.

after our death? In her work, the artist sheds light on this concept acoustically and visually. The veins of a marble block are scanned, selected, Figs. pp. 70ff.

and transformed into pixels. These pixels go on to form the basis of a musical composition that provides an acoustic accompaniment to the installation.

Aesthetic concepts Aesthetic concepts that deal with the theme of digital, algorithmic art are already to be found

material_20190130.indd 5

Madeleine Frey 5

30.01.19 16:37

JAK

Fall into Indescribable Scenes 2018 Grüne Folie und Leuchtmittel / Green film and lighting Das grüne Licht, das als Lichtinstallation die Architektur vereinnahmt, ist von der Greenscreen-Technologie der Filmindustrie abgeleitet. Die Technik wird dort eingesetzt, um einen virtuellen Raum zu schaffen, der auf dem Bildschirm dann als reale Kulisse erscheint. Das atelierJAK erzeugt mit dem grünen Licht eine veränderte Raumwahrnehmung und versetzt die Besucherinnen und Besucher in eine Art visuelle Agnosie. Die visuelle Agnosie wird auch als Seelenblindheit bezeichnet. Daran erkrankte Menschen können Objekte zwar sehen, diese aber nicht als solche wahrnehmen. / The green light that subsumes the architecture in the form of a light installation is derived from the greenscreen technology employed in the movie industry.

There the technique is used to create a virtual space that subsequently takes on the appearance of a real backdrop on the screen. Using green light, atelierJAK generates an altered spatial perception and displaces visitors in a kind of visual agnosia. Though people who suffer from this disorder are able to see objects, they do not perceive them as such.

6

material_20190130.indd 6

30.01.19 16:37

7

material_20190130.indd 7

30.01.19 16:37

8

material_20190130.indd 8

30.01.19 16:37

9

material_20190130.indd 9

30.01.19 16:37

Ryszard Winiarski

Game 7x7 1989 Öl auf Leinwand, 50 × 50 cm / Oil on canvas, 50 × 50 cm Der polnische Künstler, Mathematiker und Philosoph Ryszard Winiarski setzt sich in seiner Malerei mit dem illusorischen und dem realen Raum auseinander. Er wandelt die Sprache der Mathematik in einen visuellen Raum um, indem er die Bildkomposition als Algorithmus versteht. Er übersetzt mathematische Modelle wie Spieltheorie und Statistik in visuelles Material.

Seine Werke sind streng formal aufgebaut, sie sind frei von Emotionen und Subjektivität. In dem hier gezeigten Bild visualisiert er die Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie mittels eines streng formalen und logischen Aufbaus.

Leihgabe Privatsammlung Freiburg

/ In his painted works, the Polish artist, mathematician, and philosopher examines illusory and real space. He converts the language of mathematics into a visual space by understanding visual composition as an algorithm. He translates mathematical models, such as game theory and statistics, into visual material. His works have a stringently formal structure; they are free of emotions and subjectivity. In the picture shown here, he visualizes the probability theory through the use of a stringently formal and logical structure.

On loan from a private collection, Freiburg

18

material_20190130.indd 18

30.01.19 16:38

19

material_20190130.indd 19

30.01.19 16:38

material_20190130.indd 34

30.01.19 16:38

material_20190130.indd 35

30.01.19 16:38

Im dritten Film berichten Personen von der Herstellung und den damit verbundenen Problemen des Schürfens von Kryptowährungen. Seit drei Jahren hat sich eine regelrechte Industrie entwickelt, die es Privatpersonen zunehmend erschwert, selbst Kryptowährung zu erzeugen.

Die zur Arbeit gehörenden Fotoaufnahmen zeigen Kryptominen, die in Privathaushalten stehen. Ein defekter Antminer, die Hardware, die für das Schürfen von Bitcoins benutzt wird, steht hier symbolisch für eine veraltete Geldmaschine. / In the third film, protagonists report on the manufacture of cryptocurrencies and the problems associated with it. The past three years have seen the growth of a veritable cryptocurrency industry, which makes it increasingly difficult for private individuals to generate their own cryptocoins.

The photographs belonging to the work show cryptomines that are situated in private households. A broken-down antminer—the hardware that is used for the mining of bitcoins—symbolically represents an obsolete money machine in this context.

38

material_20190130.indd 38

30.01.19 16:38

39

material_20190130.indd 39

30.01.19 16:38

54

material_20190130.indd 54

30.01.19 16:39

55

material_20190130.indd 55

30.01.19 16:39

70

material_20190130.indd 70

30.01.19 16:40

71

material_20190130.indd 71

30.01.19 16:40

80

material_20190130.indd 80

30.01.19 16:41

Kate Cooper

Symptom Machine 2018 Videoinstallation / Video installation Kate Coopers Arbeit konzentriert sich auf den Körper als einen umkämpften Raum für Kommunikation und Repräsentation.

Symptom Machine zeigt auf fünf Wänden fünf unterschiedliche, synchronisierte Videos, in denen sich perfekte fiktionale Frauenkörper in einem ständigen Kampf gegen die Unvollkommenheit befinden. Die durch Schönheit definierten Wesen sehen sich einer ständigen Gefahr ausgesetzt, gegen die sie sich zu Wehr setzen. Mal gelingt es, mal nicht. Als Botschafterinnen des Kapitalismus stehen sie repräsentativ für die Ware des weiblichen Körpers in unserer digitalen Welt. Durch die Computertechnologie wird der Körper einmal mehr zum Objekt und dient zugleich als Infrastruktur für kapitalistische Zwecke. Jedoch verleiht Cooper den weiblichen Körpern auch die Möglichkeit der Transformation. Sie können sich in eine Waffe verwandeln und so der Repression entkommen.

Courtesy of Kate Cooper

/ Kate Cooper’s work focuses on the body as a contested space for communication and representation. Symptom Machine is a specially commissioned video installation presenting five synchronized videos, bringing together a series of work spanning the last four years.

Throughout her work, Cooper has developed a language within computer-generated technologies to discover positions of autonomy and withdrawal within digital representation. Cooper’s work grapples with ideas of producing images for consumption, testing where the boundaries of representation might lie through a central digital cipher, encoded as a space through which to explore the performance—and refusal—of labor. Here we are presented with a surrogate with which to navigate the contemporary infrastructures of capital and technology, which demand total participation. These figures take on different roles, acting as providers of shelter and invisibility: bodies that can perform resistance, be subjected to violence, and yet carry on essentially unscathed, rebuilding themselves to endlessly repeat and perform their labor.

Courtesy of Kate Cooper

81

material_20190130.indd 81

30.01.19 16:41

90

material_20190130.indd 90

30.01.19 16:41

91

material_20190130.indd 91

30.01.19 16:41