The Matrix
of Sensations
by
Donald
Kuspit
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/authors/kuspit.asp
ÉeditÉ
Digital art
can be used to make these chance processes vividly evident, as in Joseph
NechvatalÕs computer virus paintings. It can also be used to select from the
"heterogenous variations...those that feature adaptive fit," as in
Peter CampusÕ digital video works. In contrast to the former, which are
concerned with "generating ideational variation," the latter imply
that there are "somewhat stable criteria by which variations that offer
viable solutions to the problem at hand are separated from those that embody no
advance and hence are useless." Taken together, Nechvatal and CampusÕ
digital works spell out the alpha and omega of the creative process. Above all,
they make it clear that, however much we may understand the creative process
subjectively -- and we can understand it subjectively, for, as Simonton writes,
the "fundamental units... manipulated in the creative process are such
Ôpsychological entitiesÕ as the sensations that we attend to, the emotions that
we experience, and the diverse cognitive schemata, ideas, concepts, or
recollections that we can retrieve from long-term memory" -- it remains
objective.
There are
more possibilities of freedom in digital art -- that is, the "mental
elements" are "free[r] to enter into various combinations" and
thus to be manipulated -- than in architecture, painting and sculpture. This is
the reason we now have buildings, two-dimensional pictures and
three-dimensional objects being modeled and generated by the digital mechanisms
of the computer and manufactured by computer-controlled machines.
The
computer has enormously expanded creativity by allowing for a greater
exploration of chance, and thus the creation of more complex esthetic
"permutations" -- different combinations of identical elements --
than traditional art has ever created, indeed, allowed or even thought
of. It has also given us a more efficient means of manufacturing art that
never existed before.
Most
crucially, the computer extends the horizon of creativity infinitely --
certainly compared to the finite creativity of pre-computer art -- by allowing
the artist to tread a fine line between unstable and stable permutations,
sometimes sharply differentiating them, sometimes blurring the difference
between them. Thus, Nechvatal presents unstable permutations -- which Simonton
would call "aggregates" -- and Campus presents relatively stable
permutations -- which Simonton would name "configurations." But
NechvatalÕs aggregates have a stable predictability, and CampusÕ configurations
have an unstablity indicated by their mercurial character.
The
computer makes it clear that "aggregates" and
"configurations" exist on the same continuum of representation.
Gestural AbstractionÕs unstable aggregates and Geometrical AbstractionÕs stable
configurations involve the same fundamental units, in the former case
unintegrated in a seemingly "chance confluence," in the latter case
"interrelated" in a "patterned whole." Even more
transparently, the computer makes it clear that, in SimontonÕs words, "the
permutation process continues without pause." And, one might add, computer
creativity is infinitely elastic -- so much so that it affords the opportunity
for making a new kind of Gesamtkunstwerk, a single work of art which
incorporates all the other arts, neither exclusively visual nor verbal nor
auditory, neither exclusively spatial nor temporal, but all of these at once.
ÉeditÉ
DONALD
KUSPIT is professor of art history and philosophy at SUNY Stony Brook
and A.D. White professor at large at Cornell University.
+
Also
published in Spanish here:
Donald
Kuspit, Arte Digital y Videoarte,
Circulo de
Bellas Artes Madrid, p. 33-35, color illustrations 2,3&4
Images
included in the article:
Joseph
Nechvatal
peccadillO
alfrescO
2004
computer-robotic
assisted acrylic on canvas
Joseph
Nechvatal
OrgasmO
autOmOderO
2004
computer-robotic
assisted acrylic on canvas
Joseph
Nechvatal
Ebon
Fisher meets G.H. meets Steve Miller meets Tina La Porta
2005