At the close of this century we are
witnessing a major change in how value is determined. The
value of material wealth is giving way to the value of
information. In this time of transition, these apparently
incongruous value systems mix and form hybrid systems for
determining value. Unique, precious material objects
still hold their value; some actually increase in value
in a relatively short time. Information that is useful
but scarce is also valuable. Scarcity, even in an era
marked by an abundance of information, is still a key
factor in determining value. Those who hold valuable
information may still wish to maintain exclusive,
proprietary control - to increase the life of the
information. Information is subject to decay or aging.
Information is not inexhaustible. It may revert to data,
the raw material from which it is formed. How and when
information is maintained and released is determined by
those in control; those who initially recognize its
value, manage it and operate with it accordingly.
Contemporary art is part of an emerging
sector of the economy called information and knowledge.
Knowledge-workers create information for others to use.
Worker in this case does not imply those who act only
upon the instructions of others, knowledge-workers think
for themselves. They know things that others do not know.
They solve problems or help others solve problems.
Knowledge- workers produce information, they transform
data into information-distinguishing key aspects of
disorder through the discovery and/or imposition of form.
Artists fit nicely into this description of
knowledge-worker. Contemporary artists, curators, critics
and art historians are the knowledge- workers who form
the contemporary art domain of the new sector of the
economy called information and knowledge.
CONTEMPORARY ART MUST BE SEEN AS INFORMATION TO BE OF VALUE
The product of the knowledge-worker is
information. The product of the artist is art. In an
economy where value is determined by information and
knowledge, art must be seen as information to be of
value. The process of creating information requires a set
of skills, methods developed through higher education and
experience. Creative processes, in their most basic
forms, can be taught and learned. Creative processes thus
become products themselves. Although these creative
processes have universal characteristics, creative work
is messy, chaotic and mysterious. In art schools
experienced artists attempt to teach young, emerging
artists how to work, how to create art.
Audiences for art (the consumers of art)
have to be creative themselves to find the products of
artists valuable. If the work of art is an object, then
an audience has to be able to decode the object to
extract information encoded in it. This participatory
investment is most commonly described as interpretation.
Interpretation, besides being an intellectual exercise,
is an intuitive, subjective process verging on psychic
identification. Essentially, the work of art is performed
by the audience, who retrace the creative processes of
the artist through a kind of virtual creative process.
Galleries and museums focus the attention of audiences on
objects of art in isolation: the 'white cube' removes the
art work from the world at large and permits the work's
aura to be witnessed in a quiet contemplative serenity;
that is, conducive to psychic identification. With
contemporary art, curators and critics offer their
assistance in this information exchange. Dealers and
artists themselves also go to great lengths to help
audiences find ways of relating to objects of art. The
dealer loves and respects his or her artists; the artists
display their personalities in public appearances,
offering clues for interpreting (identifying with) their
works.
The art object described above is a material
manifestation of vision and thought; the artist sees and
thinks and completes the creative process by fixing his
or her perceptions and experience in material
form.Traditional forms - painting and sculpture - have
been extended through photography and architectural
manipulations (installation), including attempts to
integrate information technology (video and
computer-integrated media). Over time there have been
attempts to shake up the whole system of material,
object-based art. Ideas have become accepted as art
(conceptual and neo-conceptual art) and performance art
and other kinds of 'live' events (some via
telecommunications) have been introduced to the world as
art; performance art often centers on the physical
reality of the body itself. These conceptual and 'live'
forms have found more receptive audiences in public
spaces not defined as art spaces. When artists move into
public spaces they find that audiences in these neutral
spaces invest in their work differently. They are not
interested in history, not even in recent history. They
are interested in today; the experience at the moment of
exposure.
The problem with the conceptual or live
forms has been economic. How can one exchange art to
economic advantage if there is no adequate system of
currency, an accepted symbolic medium of exchange? Part
of this economic problem is due to the fleeting,
immaterial and impermanent nature of conceptual and live
forms. The work does not manifest itself as a currency
for exchange. There is no accumulation of material
history. This has led to an obsession with documentation
(catalogues, interviews, photography, video, CD's,
CD-ROM's) and the indirect commodification of live forms
through mementos or souvenirs (limited edition prints or
drawings or other unique material objects deriving from
the production process).
An emerging solution to problem is apparent
in the recent proliferation of immaterial objects.
Open-ended, 'living objects', or more precisely 'living
systems' are now being produced under the generic
description of software. Living systems, such as expert
systems or other manifestations of artificial
intelligence/perception/experience, while in their
primitive stages of development, present a very serious
challenge to fixed or 'finished' art as we know it today.
Artists working in live forms will first collaborate with
the experts who make immaterial objects (multimedia
programmers), then they will learn how to author these
living systems themselves.
THE LIVING
ARTIST'S BODY OF WORK IS NEVER »FINISHED«
Let us return to what we understand fully.
When we visit a museum or gallery and view objects of
art, an aspect of the interpretative process is based on
knowing when and where the object was made. Art works by
living artists have to be viewed differently than works
by deceased artists. Curators, critics, art historians,
dealers and artists always point out the importance of
knowing the entire body of an artist's work when one is
attempting to decode a single, discrete object of art.
When an artist dies, his or her body of work is complete.
Each object is then a fixed component of a body of work,
complete in and of itself. The living artist's body of
work is an open-ended, expanding work-in-progress and
therefore each single, discrete object of art is part of
the body of the unfinished work-in-progress. An audience
interpreting such unfinished work must update the work
with more rigor than they update the 'finished' works of
deceased artists.
The work of dead artists can be decoded for
information it provides about a specific period of time
(the past). While the works of certain deceased artists
sustain their value as information and therefore increase
in value as material objects, this value is based in
their concreteness and ironically the fragility of their
finite material reality. A painting from the 17th century
can afford to look dated. Audiences are not so kind when
viewing contemporary art by living artists.
INFORMATION IS
THE PERCEPTION AND EXPERIENCE OF DIFFERENCE
Contemporary works of art are valued most if
they appear to be up-to-date. The fresh 'new look' always
has value. Hot new work by young artists, or brand new
twists in new works by established artists, have the look
or appearance of information. New technologies are great
for achieving the 'new look' and for creating the 'look
of information', whether or not the work achieves value
as information. Contemporary artists, young and
established, compete for the most up-to-date look.
Appearance is a territory. Curators, critics, art
historians, dealers, collectors and artists participate
in this search for contemporary artists who distinguish
themselves as being hip (informed) through the look of
their work. Audiences are exposed to the newest, most
informed work, and they verify through their excitement
and energy if the work is charged with information value.
The new look can never be predictable. Information is
always a perception and an experience of difference. It
must come as a surprise. The most unlikely things slam
together to become information. Often it is impossible to
explain why specific works are so information rich. All
information is time sensitive and in a very short time
the new look becomes tired and old. A work by a living
artist that has gone out of fashion is practically
lifeless (95% dead).
The 'new look' can be easily dismissed as
the primary attribute of superficial art or shallow art
that will quickly fall out of fashion. Surely an art work
of real depth will stand the test of time. Deep works are
structured so their information is released slowly, over
the long run. Usually these deep works are seen to
function as universal knowledge structures. Universal
works of art defy identification with a specific time or
place. But from another perspective, perhaps the deepest
works of art are constructed to be totally devoid of
information, thereby functioning as attractors of layer
upon layer of incomplete interpretation, an ongoing
investment of intellect.
Speculation on how a particular work of art
will function in terms of information can be addressed by
asking three questions of any work of art:
1. Is the work of art loaded with information?
2. Is the work of art totally devoid of information?
3. Does the work of art transform data into information?
The first question
asks if the audience is informed by the work? Does the
work offer a rich field of information and knowledge to
the viewer? Can the viewer learn and take something
useful away from the experience of the work? The second
question asks if the work of art defies those who would
try to extract information from it? Such a work could be
labelled anti-information. It offers no information and
literally rejects all associations with information. The
third question reintroduces the term data, the raw
substance from which information is created. Artists as
knowledge-workers distinguish aspects of disorder,
previously indistinguishable data, with form. They
perceive difference, significant difference, and
construct situations (frequently in or through the use of
material objects) where information can be produced by
the audience. Does the work of art transform the data in
the field around it, which is constantly changing, into
information? These three questions can be asked of both
material and immaterial works.
IDENTITY IS
ADDRESS IN THE TERRITORY OF APPEARANCE
One single critical problem emerges from
this period of chaotic transition. How can a work of art
be updated so it does not lose its value in such a
volatile information environment? Information (and
certainly art in an information age) has a very short
life. Contemporary art begins to fade immediately after
it is exposed to an audience. The living artist updates
his or her body of work through subsequent releases of
new work. The living body of work is continually updated
through twists and turns, rather than reversals in
direction. The thread of consistency, aesthetic logic,
must remain unbroken. At the core of the living artist's
evolving work there must be a redundancy of form and a
consistency in the method by which disorder is processed
into form. This redundancy of form and method creates a
recognizable identity. This identity is the address of
the work - the site of information. An evolving body of
work has no fixed address except its recognizable
appearance. Identity is address in the territory of
appearance.
The stability created by one's own history
(a body of finished art works) produces the artist's
address in the trans-spatial territory of appearance -
his or her identity. This address, while necessary for
recognition, unfortunately prescribes the parameters of
new works. All mature artists with considerable bodies of
work eventually fall victim to the weight of their own
history. They must continuously update what they do while
remaining consistent with their past work. In fact a
common strategy in the 20th century has been to remain
completely consistent - to repeat the same information as
art over and over and over. In a 21st century culture,
value will be determined increasingly by the freshness or
newness of information, and this vitality of information
will be based on the timely, continuous introduction of
apparent new qualities. Stability, unless it is poetic
("poetry is news that stays news", Ezra Pound),
will not be a positive attribute in an environment
characterized by continuous change. The difference
between poetic stability and mundane redundancy is that
poetic information is volatile in its own way.
ETHERIAL
CULTURE IS GROUNDED, MADE CONCRETE, IN ITS AUDIENCE
In a digital era immaterial 'objects' are
increasingly prevalent, but their function will initially
differ little from their material predecessors. They are
carriers or rejectors of information, or transformers of
data into information. As immaterial objects of art, they
function best in virtual spaces. Where museums and
galleries are physical architectural sites best suited
for the public presentation of material objects of art,
immaterial objects function best on networks - virtual
public spaces that connect private spaces. At the turn of
the century, there will be an increasingly more complete
synthesis of material and immaterial objects, of physical
and virtual architectures, of value systems based on
dichotomies of scarcity and abundance, material wealth
and information wealth. Mixed economies, perceptions and
experience will countervail to produce radical new
hybrids.
The stable, poetic information structure of
an ambiguous artwork yields information through the
creative efforts of its audience. The audience interprets
(participates, interacts with) the work to create
information. The chief edge that immaterial objects have
over material objects is their potential for direct,
active participation and interactive manipulation by
audiences. Immaterial objects fly back and forth across
networks at the speed of light into private spaces where
audiences can manipulate and modify identical, digital
copies of original art works, updating these works as
their information is consumed, or more correctly,
processed. This is why interactivity is such an obsession
in computer-integrated media. The whole digital arts
sector is completely chaotic and volatile except for the
potential of societal integration via networks and
connectivity.
Ethereal culture is grounded, made concrete,
in its audience. Works of art in the immaterial domain
are never finished, they are simply introduced
(initialized) and placed (contextualized) for
participation and interaction: the audience may add to,
alter, customize, pass on, subtract from the work, etc.
The identity or address of the work is therefore shared
by the artist and the audience. The artist, of course,
may choose to revisit any or all of his or her own works
for revision in such an interactive environment.
This updating process - where the artist
sends instructions for transforming his or her entire
existing body of work by adding,
subtracting...emphasizing, amplifying...twisting,
tweaking, reversing, transposing...recontextualizing,
destroying...(you name it)--is how attractiveness,
vitality and ultimately value will be maintained and
recreated in the new information economy. The artist will
no longer simply be as good as his or her latest work.
Instead, the artist's work will only be as valuable as it
is up-to-date. Works of art previously valued because
they represented concretely the perception and experience
of a particular, fixed period of time will have to be
updated and at least partially reformed to maintain their
value as information. The artist, while living, will
participate in this updating process with his or her
audience: curators, critics, art historians and anyone
else with access to the work.
RADIO AND
TELEVISION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS-BASED MULTIMEDIA
CONTINUE TO UNDERMINE »FINISHED« ART
For the roughly seventy years that art has
coexisted with instantaneously updatable electronic media
(radio, then television and most recently
telecommunications-based multimedia), artists have
functioned primarily as reactionary figures, producing
material history valued largely because of its stability
and strong ties to the past. Things are far more complex
in the 1990's. Today artists are moving in two completely
opposite directions, determining and fulfilling the
criteria of two incongruous value systems. For some,
value is determined by establishing and dating 'finished'
works of art - setting up stable structures designed to
hold and perhaps increase their value as they recede into
the past. For others, art is valuable only if it is
current - existing as a living system, characteristically
fluid or 'liquid' in nature. Building in mechanisms for
updating works of art, such as interactive mechanisms, is
a strategy for maintaining and recreating the value of
art as information. In such interactive works the
potential interval frequency of revision will become the
primary factor for determining value.
In between these divergent value systems
there is a broad spectrum of hybrids. Paradoxically these
include traditional material objects that function as
highly sophisticated information generators and
immaterial objects structured as 'poetry' which stand
rock solid against the swirling, chaotic patterns of
change. Art that produces information, transforming data
into information in its relationship with audience, is
always a living system (whether concrete and solid, fluid
and liquid, or fleeting and etherial). The contemporary
artist and his or her audience breathe life into such
systems, or more precisely each distinct 'species' of
living system. The evolving living works of a living
artists naturally defy completion and stasis and death
(and ultimately extinction - being discarded and
forgotten). One emerging strategy for survival is to
build in mechanisms for updating. Making interactive
works that are updated as they are used certainly has
potential as a survival strategy.
Programming interactivity is all about the
potential for sustaining the life of the work; making
updatable art invites the audience (including the artist)
to participate in creating the future of the work. This
contrasts with the usual abandonment of the 'finished'
work of art. As we look back at 'finished' works of art,
left behind to sustain themselves (in special vaults, the
'white cubes') against the ravages of time, it is clear
that the 'finished' work of art is a thing of the past.
Tom Sherman is an artist and theorist currently teaching at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, USA.