East Contemporary

transmediale 2013 BWPWAP

Berlin, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, January 29 – February 3, 2013

Transmediale (TM) is an very ‘old’ new media art festival in Berlin, which is running more than 25 years. Originally conceived as a warm-up week for the Berlinale film festival (which takes place the following week), it developed into a separate event touching different aspects of ‘new media’ – video art, artist cinema, software and net.art, as well as interactive works and art-science collaborations. I was in Berlin for the week, so I was dropping by every day to see at least one or two screenings or panel discussions. Personally, visiting TM has been a very nostalgic activity for me. I used to come here in the mid 2000’s when I was studying video and new media art at Michael Bielicky’s class at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. At that time, TM was a very exciting event for me, the technology enthusiasm of the 1990’s was still palpable and terms like web 2.0 have just been ‘invented’ and put into practice, fuelling a further wave of excitement. I was new to the scene and enthusiastic as well. This year’s theme of TM – Back When Pluto Was a Planet (BWPWAP) nicely played on the same note as my nostalgic feelings.

Before I go into listing the details, let me summarize my feelings from this year’s TM. I felt that is was not only me, but the whole TM that was drowning in it’s own nostalgia. TM used to be an exciting place, but after attending, I felt as if I have wandered through the ruins of some yesterday’s (or yester-decade’s) party. Present was a assemblage of exhausted ‘senior’ party-goers who stayed over until now, and a younger crowd who heard about the party yesterday and so decided to come over – but arrived to see the remains only. Nonetheless, those who came were already on site, so the party went on anyway…

Some of last decade’s promises of web 2.0 have materialized while other have been proven false. On TM, there was no more discussion about web 2.0 itself. Generally it has been accepted as a natural ‘ecology’ in the hands of a handful of mighty corporations. Discussions either took it for granted and discussed particular phenomena embedded inside of web 2.0., or they were talking about ways how to ‘use’ web 2.0 to overcome it’s shortcomings (e.g. the whole publishing and free research journal access line of seminars). There was very little criticism (institutional, sociopolitical) of web 2.0 – no discussions about the nature of today’s web or about alternatives.

I enjoyed the video screenings the best, and that was mainly for aesthetic reasons. It was a rather rare occasion to see a wide selection of video art and artist’s films in such a nice cinema setting – big screen, nice soft chairs – instead of the usual video monitor or black box with a wooden plank at best. The curator did his job, and each screening was a nice selection of films around a common topic.

The discussion panels were unfortunately rather mediocre for the above mentioned reasons. I was expecting much from the “Paperbound – Cultural Imaginaries and Practices in the Epoch of Paper” panel, but was rather disappointed by the disengagement between panel participants, who just seemed to have been placed randomly next to each other. More details below. After this panel experience, I was more and more gravitating towards the screenings which proved to be a safer bet. I returned for another panel on Saturday – “Emoporn, Sex Machines and Mediated Sexualities” – which was slightly better, but only slightly: A slightly higher entertainment factor has been dragged down by superficial content – a frog-in-the-web-well discussion.

The third section to mention was the TM exhibition which was probably even worse than the discussion panels, as it was just hanging there (on ‘panels’ too, by the way), and one even could not raise question (as there was no ear to listen) to ask why and how. The panels and tables of the ‘exhibition’ have been covered by some copy machine print outs of Sonia Landy Sheridan – this part of the exhibition reminded me of the numerous ‘fake’ artists’ projects (‘early’ media artists or musicians whose work has been ‘discovered’ in the archives or on the attic). If she was real, than it was a very meager show, if she was fake, than it was not very original idea coupled with a bad execution. This was one of three parts of the ‘exhibition’. Another part of the exhibition were the “Tools of Distorted Creativity”. This section was mainly alluding to the ‘crisis’ of web 2.0 – the promise of creativity and freedom which did not materialize: Excel ‘office art’, desktop icon art, shaking windows art, customized unusable installation CD art.. etc. It’s worth to note that many of the displayed artwork have been produced BWPWAP (last decade). The last part of the exhibition was the “Evil Media Distribution Centre”, which consisted of a room full of ‘specimens’ in plastic bags, with some written explanations above (the specimen’s role as ‘media’ – based on the broad definition of media as carriers). I guess this display was a pun or joke at some new media theory which I missed to catch…

So to sum up, the overall impression of TM was mediocre, as if TM has run out of breath. But I still wonder whether this is attributable to TM itself or whether this is just a by-product of the overall exhaustion of the ‘new media art’ concept. New media have been absorbed and dissolved in our everyday reality, and it seems much too elitist to have a ‘new media art’ festival. Especially that most of the participants proved to me that there was no diametric difference between them as ‘new media practitioners’ and an average user – all trapped in the Google+Apple world.

Below is a event-by-event diary that I have attended, in chronological order:

TUE “Pluto Y U No Platet” opening presentation
Mike Brown, Gerhard Schwehm, Lisa Messeri

A kind of academic entertainment show, with presentation by astronomers and the audience being asked to ‘vote’ on the planetary status of Pluto again. Those who gave thought to it, may have reached some interesting conclusions – how random scientific categories are.

WED “Paperbound – Cultural Imaginaries and Practices in the Epoch of Paper” discussion panel
Lothar Mueller, Markus Krajewski, Gary Hall, Janeke Adema

The panel had 4 participants (but two of them represented one party). Mueller was a journalist talking about the past and future of newspaper as a paper-based versus digital medium. No substantially new information for me, but at least his talk was structured and meaningful. Krajewski presented a very dry and boring ‘history of the DIN A4 paper sheet”, it was almost a caricature of a German lacking humor obsessed with standardization. Hall and Adema (probably a PhD working with him) presented something about Open Academic Access, as well as pointing our similarities between the artist book movement and open access (I’d call them similarities on a metaphorical level.) After reading their papers, there was unfortunately very little interaction between the panelists, each of them stayed hidden in their own world: The world of journalism, the world of descriptive history and the world of utopist media studies. Talking about the topic of ‘paper’ did not come that naturally to these guys.

WED “Remade Reproductions” screening, with Volker Schreiner and John Smith
After Lumière – L’Arroseur arrosé, Malcolm Le Grice, uk 1974, 14 min
Return to the World of Dance, Dan Boord and Luis Valdovino and Marilyn Marloff, us 2011, 7 min
Hollywood Movie, Volker Schreiner, de 2012, 7 min
Well Then There Now, Lewis Klahr, us 2011, 14 min
The Man Phoning Mum, John Smith, uk 2011, 12 min
XXX!, Dietmar Brehm, at 2011, 8 min

The British artist cinema contributions were my highlights – Le Grice’s original work and Smith’s remake of his own The Girl Chewing Gum. Boord/Valdovino/Marloff’s movie was more of a joke, but it served well to lift the mood of the audience after the slightly boring (but I enjoyed it) Le Grice movie. Schreiner was personally present at the screening. His movie was cut up of different Hollywood movies (word by word) according to a text instruction by Nam June Paik seemed to me more like a highly skilled exercise in editing than a super original work, but the outcome was funny (and still meaningful in some way). But Schreiner lost a bit in my eyes when it turned out after a question from the audience that he did not know what ‘supercutting’ was. Klahr’s and Brehm’s works were rather abstract and they seemed more like a recycling of leftover footage, even though Klahr referenced a script by John Zorn (i.e. similar conceptual approach as Schreiner using Nam Jun Paik’s text.)

THU “Atypo.org: Artist’s Books In The Post Digital Era” presentation and workshop

I was curios about this combined workshop/presentation. First the artist group presented some of their artist book projects. Based around some simple ideas, I did not find it spectacular, but I could appreciate their work. The ‘burning pencil book’ remained in my memory: Using a pencil and electrical current to ‘burn’ information into the book instead of writing it. However in the ‘workshop’ part it turned out that the only thing they did was basically a take-and-use of a few commercial services available on-line. Their workshop simply turned into a lesson on how to print a photo book using one specific print-on-demand web shop, without any critical reflection on whatsoever. Anything goes.

THU “Media’s Material” screening with Eleonore de Montesquiou
Disque 957, Germaine Dulac, fr 1928, 6 min
Color Sequence, Dwinnel Grant, us 1943, 3 min
Projection Instructions, Morgan Fisher, USA 1976, 4 min
I am Micro, Shai Heredia and Shumona Goel, in 2012, 16 min
/… (liquid paper – flüssiges papier), Michel Klöfkorn, de 2010, 4 min
Gazette, Eleonore de Montesquiou, ru/ee 2009, 4 min
Some Actions Which Haven’t Been Defined Yet in the Revolution – Yi Chang Ge’g Zhong Hai Wei Lai De Ji Ding Yi De Xing Wei, Sun Xun, ch 2011, 13 min
The External World, David OReilly, de 2010, 15 min

Another enjoyable screening, with quite a high share of abstract material – not surprising given the theme of film about the film itself. Dulac’s Discque 957 started up the screening – an early attempt at visualization of sound. Reminded me of Oskar Fischinger. Grant’s film was indeed simply a ‘color sequence’ as the title implied. Many artists followed this direction (a compilation of some contemporary works on this topic is for example the Colorfield Variations exhibition/DVD produced by L_NE). It was good to have this in as a historical reference. Fisher’s Projection Instructions  were very much on spot and I was very glad this film was included. This was indeed THE film about the film itself, including the live interaction with the projectionist screening the film. I Am Micro by Heredia/Goel was more about the production side of the film and thus gave an eerie documentary feel. Gazette by de Monteaquiou followed in the documentary direction, showing an old lady with thousands of magazines she collected over the years. Xun’s woodcut animation seemed a bit out of place in the selection given the content, I guess it was included on the basis of the not-so-typical medium of woodcut, and it’s visual ‘fullness’. OReilly’s external world was a funny 3D video about the mixing of the real and the virtual. In contrast to the majority of 3D animations, this one actually had something to say.

FRI “Video Vortex Hangout” conference, with Vera Tollmann, Oliver Lerone Schultz, Matthew Adeiza, Sung Young Lim, Boaz Levin, Ma Ran

This ‘panel’ (okok, they called it a hangout) was a parody on the whole concept of the TM as well as the ‘information society’ we live in. The chair of the ‘hangout’ was trying to make a google videoconference work, but with little success. It seemed they were doing it for the first time ever without even trying it. As a result all of the panelists, wherever on the globe they were located became hostages of the googleworld. Supposedly the panel should be talking about different regional manifestations of on-line communities (i.e. in China or Africa), but in the end it just turned out to be a big mess with the chair trying to make sense of it. The panelists on site could have had a meaningful conversation by themselves (Boaz Levin had quite an interesting presentation), but it was Google who kept interrupting and drawing attention to itself. Out of the few remote participants only one was able to speak in the end: Ma Ran’s presentation about Chinese E Gao on-line culture proved to be a parody within a parody: A Chinese lady in Japan, showing a German audience examples of “Chinese on-line culture” as they have been reported on CNN news. I felt that Ma Ran offended the audience (me for sure) by thinking that we are really so stupid to take a CNN report about Ai Weiwei as a ‘true’ representation of the situation on the Chinese internet. Did she really believe she can sell the audience American crap (I mean excrements) repackaged as fragrant Chinese tea, and the audience really swallowing it and appreciating the original Chinese taste, just because her face looks Asian? The organizational/technical failure of this panel and Ma Ran’s presentation on top made this panel really memorable – in a negative sense. It was also useful as a metaphor for the greater identity problems of TM that I pointed out above.

FRI “Tales of the Unknown” screening with Markus Muntean and Adi Rosenblum
Not To Be. Not To Be At All, Muntean & Rosenblum, at 2003, 5 min
The Cloud of Unknowing, Ho Tzu Nyen, sg 2011, 28 min
The Annunciation – Marian Ilmestys, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, fi 2011, 37 min

This screening was my favorite from all I saw during the TM. Muntean/Rosenblum’s film was shorter and rather simple, but still powerful. Shot in a car garage, individual employees in front of the camera stood still, taking poses similar to that of saints on religious paintings. Nyen’s film was a well executed visual spectacle with a surrealist twist, a wonderful work of art, which I could especially appreciate on the large cinema screen. It was a very visual work, with a touch of mystery, yet at the same time making use of the technology of film as a technology for ‘producing dreams’. Ahtila’s semi-documentary movie touched on social topics as it is usual in her work, and it was a great celebration of society and the idea of faith. Nyen and Ahtila’s films really proved to be the highlights of what I saw at the TM.

SAT “Emoporn, Sex Machinese and Mediated Sexualities” discussion panel
Francesco Warbear Macarone Palmieri, Stephanie Rothenberg, Jeff Crouse, Isaac Leung.

The centering of this panel around the ‘attractive’ topic (sex sells) of on-line porn proved detrimental. Rothenberg/Crouse were presenting their latest Laborers of Love project, which in my opinion unfortunately made the same mistake as the whole panel: It sexualized a topic that was in itself non-sexual. The global division of labor and outsourcing are an interesting topic in itself, but inciting some Indian webworker-for-hire to search for on-line porn based on query words for a few cents and then assembling the found flicks into a new mash up seemed as new low of bourgeois decadency in a colonialist tradition. The topic of sexuality in the work served simply as a decoration, something like a sugar coated lemon on a cocktail being served by a black slave to his white master on a cotton farm in Virginia before the Civil War. I felt as if the real and interesting topic of global labor relations which without doubt was at the center of Rothenberg/Crouse’s interest was obscured by the superficial decorative effect of sexuality. The sensationalist tone has been carried on by Leung who showed his documentary about sex machines – a quite superficial one, in order not to offend anyone. I can imagine it was or will be quite successful in Asian film festivals, eager for a peek at ‘Euroamerican sex culture’. Palmieri was the most serious panelist and he attempted to present a typology of net porn including some well know examples on the queer emancipation efforts in this area. He ended up with a conclusion that a false feeling of authenticity and privacy is used for re-channeling desires into commercial solutions. Not that surprising given the work on desire and advertising that was emerging throughout the twentieth century in the works of Bathes or the whole psychoanalytic school of thought. This also relates back to my comment above that even the topic of this panel was non-sexual: Web porn is primarily a commodity being traded in an on-line attention economy. I appreciated that Palmieri showed the context of his research and did not simply jump after sensationalist topics as the other panelists did.

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