wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: Globorama
Uri Cogan 2008-Jun-26 20:29:00
Here is a copy of Mr. Weibel's letter to this forum - re-formatted for
easier reading.
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Dear Mr. Levy, dear Participants of the World Wide Panorama,
in this discussion on the events related to "Globorama", I would now
like to state my opinion as an artist, curator, and director of a public
museum. The debate that arose from the presentation of works from the
World Wide Panorama (WWP), both saddens and appalls me extraordinarily.
My whole life, I have fought together with many artists for the freedom
of art while encountering hostility and suffering privations. The
developments brought about by the Internet meant to us that our dream of
"open access" was becoming true. I trusted that all of us together are
continuing the project of enlightenment, i.e. the greatest possible
access to knowledge and data, which the ZKM and many artists have
committed themselves to with absolute conviction.
As early as 1995, when I was the director of the Ars Electronica in
Linz, I was among the first to initiate a comprehensive event dealing
with the issue of net culture. The event was entitled "Welcome to the
Wired World." From the title you can see that I welcomed net culture as
a portal for the acquisition of knowledge by everybody and as a platform
for the creativity of everybody. In 1999, my first exhibition as
chairman of the ZKM was also a net-related exhibition that was entitled
"Net_Condition". MIT Press published an accompanying catalogue, which
was co-edited by Timothy Druckery. This book especially stresses the
democratic and sociopolitical aspects of the Net from the perspective of
enlightenment, of education. I see the Net as a grass-roots democracy
that?under the keyword "access" (see also the respective publication by
Jeremy Rifkin, 2000)?promised open, free access to those interested in
art and those eager to learn without the usual restrictions that we know
from elitists systems. In that sense I have always tried at the ZKM to
make known to our audience the egalitarian options of the Net in the
context of a museum. An example for that is our current exhibition
"YOU_ser: The Century of the Consumer". Here we have established a
citizens' gallery that honors the democratic promise of photography. In
a photo booth, everybody can take four passport photos of him/herself,
which, as digital images, are simultaneously displayed on five computer
monitors. The photo booth and the monitors are set up in the publicly
accessible lobby of the ZKM. Upon entering the museum, the visitors see
their own portraits and those of other visitors as a large-scale
projection. Everybody can take a photo of him/herself, everybody can see
him/herself honored by a portrait in the museum. So there are not only
portraits of celebrities or portraits by famous artists of anonymous
people, but every citizen immediately obtains his/her right, i.e.
his/her picture.
Following the concept of the exhibition "YOU_ser", the installation
"Globorama" was set up in ZKM's Media Theater, which is part of ZKM's
lobby and therefore?free of charge? accessible to everybody. Years of
research in the field of panoramic projection technology and a research
grant of the Federal State of Baden-Wuerttemberg enabled the ZKM to
conduct a public test: the test examined to what extend it is possible
to provide the public with access to the certain contents of the Net and
databases in an exciting and emancipatory way by means of net-based
installations. A series of panorama projections was realized in
cooperation with artists such as Jean Michel Bruy?re or the Wooster
Group. "Globorama" deals with panorama works on the Net. Panorama images
were chosen, since on one's monitor at home, these can only be displayed
in 2D. The idea was to point out to the public that there is this
wonderful present of panoramic works on the Net. Our artists and
developers saw it as their task to familiarize the citizens with the Net
and its contents by means of an artistic interface. It is the general
mission of the ZKM to convey knowledge at the frontline of research and
to acquaint the general public with current artistic practices of social
importance. In doing so, the ZKM continuously provides a platform to
artists to present their works to the public. The ZKM considers it as
its mission not only to present well-known masterpieces by artists
ranging from Pablo Picasso up to Mark Rothko, but also to continuously
draw attention to less well-known artists and to provide them with a
forum to present their work to the public?and this in a way that
facilitates the public's access to these works within a non-profit
environment without causing the artists any costs. This is how the idea
emerged to present panoramic works in an adequate, three-dimensional way
as panoramic projections. By pointing to the individual net artists, who
publish panoramic images on the net, the artists and developers of the
ZKM intended to offer an optimum form of presentation. For that purpose,
also a laser pointer was developed that enables interactive access to
the works of the panorama artists. It was intended to make the WWP
project visible in a prominent way. To achieve this, technological
innovations were used and the most current technologies can be utilized.
We also conducted an empiric survey among the visitors in order to?if
the need and the wish to do so should arise?to undertake improvements in
the future. This is why "Globorama" was tested for 10 days with pupils
and young people in the context of an event in Stuttgart, which aimed at
sparking young people's interest in and enthusiasm for technology, since
young people do have higher expectations regarding digital presentations
than adults. This was by far more successful than expected. Is the ZKM
now to be punished for that?
All these efforts were undertaken as part of research activities carried
out for the benefit of net culture. Our aim would also have been to
present this project at the Biennial of Seville, which opens in October
2008, in order to acquaint a wide audience with the existence of a
database with panoramic works and their diversity. It now saddens me
that already in the development phase of the project "Globorama", the
reactions of the WWP participants are that intense?in a phase in which
the technical basis is only just being created and can only just be
tested with the aim to provide artists with a platform of a quality as
high as possible. As the curator in charge, I can't inflict this
dispute?and neither a dispute about high fees?upon the organizers of the
Biennial only just because I would like to integrate net-based
installations into the Biennial. I originally intended to also provide a
platform for artistic net-based projects in Seville, but now, I will
refrain from that.
Following the current general discussions about the Net, I have to
acknowledge that also the Internet is mainly a big supermarket dominated
by strong commercial interests. But especially the artistic community
has considered it its prime goal to counter this and to defend the Net
as an arena of open access and to not let the Net become a supermarket,
but to support the concept of the Net as an initiative of
educational-political and artistic matters. What it comes down to is not
to leave the hegemony to the providers, but to emancipate the user. User
generated content is my aesthetic and museological goal.
This understanding of net culture as outlined above, i.e. that museums
serve the aim of spreading net culture and to communicate modern net
culture to the general public without making any material profit
whatsoever in doing so and only for the benefit of art, has met with
great approval worldwide. The ZKM ranks among the few museums that also
possess comprehensive technological expertise for the discussion of net
culture and for the communication of the goals of the Net community. If
it should now turn out that other views should prevail over this
perspective, I'd consider this a severe setback?especially in view of
the approval I have met so far. I thought that the concepts of freedom,
of scientific and artistic research were also especially rooted in the
Net. If this should not be the case, and if the educational work of a
museum is to be judged on a technical legal basis and not based on
aspects of educational policies, then, as consequence, I would have to
drastically reduce my commitment to net culture. I would have to give up
ten years of hope, in which I have seen the Net as the "promised land"
and which have met with the approval of so many. In the future, I could
then only consider net-based projects in an extremely reduced way and
resort to the safe mainstream, to which everybody has already resorted.
The ZKM also considers it its mission to serve the protection of the
artists. Off the beaten tracks of the global mainstream exhibitions that
present again and again only a few very well known artists, that are
placed well at the market, the ZKM set it as its target to also present
less known and also forgotten and marginalized artists. This concerns,
on the one hand, historic artists, such as Ruth Vollmer and Gego
(Gertrud Goldschmidt), two Jewish artists who emigrated from Germany and
who had to continue their work in the USA and Venezuela. The exhibitions
and catalogues on these two artists led to the fact that they were also
rediscovered and honored elsewhere, as, for example, in the context of
the last Documenta. At present, we are presenting almost forgotten
Italian material painting, the experiments of which were seminal for the
development of Robert Rauschenberg and of the post-war art in the USA.
But ZKM's aim also includes current artists and current forms of art,
for which the ZKM has very often been able to initiate the start of an
international career. So, Olafur Eliasson had his first comprehensive
exhibition at the ZKM (with an accompanying publication by MIT Press).
And the ZKM is, indeed, not only a museum of all genres and media of
art, a museum of the time-based arts, but also a place for research and
development, where many artists-in-residence can realize and present
works. In this context, the ZKM again and again ventures into uncharted
territory and thus into unforeseeable situations.
As a last point, I would like to mention some thoughts on the field of
aesthetics. So far, the artistic option to draw on elements of other
creations in one's own creation was considered the essential achievement
of the 20th century. The essence of the collage from Cubism up to Dada
was to bring together content from other sources by making it part of a
new art work. Also the Surrealists, as, for example, Max Ernst, used
images and writings from popular culture in order to produce new works.
What Pop Art?from Rauschenberg up to Warhol?did was to make use of the
images of mass culture by means of the screen printing technique. At the
end of the 20th century, this method, as you know, led to Appropriation
Art, from artists such as Richard Prince up to Cindy Sherman, and
Sherrie Levine. It is in no case my intention to characterize
"Globorama" as Appropriation Art, but only to point out with this
example that, with a strict application of copyrights, important
developments in 20th century art would not have been possible and that
these art forms would not exist. But, surprisingly, there this issue was
never raised, since it obviously concerned the elitist media of painting
and graphics. Therefore, it would be rather unfortunate, if in the
democratic mechanic arts, which are already despised by the elitist
media, the artists would restrict each other all of a sudden in their
developments. This would be a big favor for the traditional arts. With
utmost regret, I anticipate that this will have a lasting impact on the
arts and that the big gateway to freedom will now be slammed shut again,
a gateway of which I hoped it would be opened for the arts by net culture.
Hence, I appeal to everybody not to block the artistic and scientific
development of net culture for the sake of short-term individual
profit?the ZKM does also not make any profit?, but, on the contrary, to
respect the spirit of artistic freedom and of scientific freedom.
Because, as Montesquieu had already written in 1748 in "De l'esprit des
lois": It is, above all, the spirit of the laws that counts. Hence, it
would be of benefit to everybody, if, in this spirit, a productive
collaboration between the participants of the WWP and the ZKM could be
established in the future in order to jointly advance and defend net
culture as a democratic and free medium.
Yours sincerely, Peter Weibel