nettime: Journey through a Dataroom - subREAL

[Pit Schultz <pit@contrib.de>]

1. It all starts in 1953 when an art magazine was born from the intercourse
between the Communist Party (as sole Provider of male ideology) and the
Union of Artists (a wealthy bride with practical skills). The place of birth
- Romania. The name of the child - "Arta".

2. It all starts one summer day in 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall
and some other illusions. The place of birth - Romania. The name of the
child - subREAL. A brain child of this time. Father - boredom. Mother - fear. 

3. subREAL is a process of accumulating data. A structure can beextracted
from the chaos of information because structures are there, in the mess of
the mass.

4. Over four decades of existence, "Arta" created its own offspring - an
archive of photo-reproductions contesting to the respect that society owes
to ART.

5. An embarrassing fact is that archives refer to the past, and sometimes
the past stinks.

6. "Arta" died a natural death in the context of an open market and
pluralism, about three years after the disappearance of its legitimate father.

7. The Art History Archive is a ready-made, inherited from a cultural
corpse. (Al)ready made things are stronger than inventions - at least in the
end of the arts era. 

8. Media Babel. The dominance of the medium over the content erased the
concept of value. Dante and Stephen King are both literature, Michael
Jackson and Boulez are both music, Fellini and MTV are both moving image.
Perception has come to be little more than a browse through files equalized
by media contamination.

9. The archive fashion proves that myths reign over symbols, narratives over
concepts.

10. Artists are more easily manipulated through their images than stimulated
through criticism.

11. Photography is just a mass of non-classified information waiting, as
life itself does, for the proper software and operator.

12. Using archives is more realistic strategy than using people. 

13. Archives are an escapist solution in the struggle with reality. 

14. Digital Realism. Socialist realism is the only period in modern art to
benefit from a coherent doctrine, rigorous traning, efficient promotion, a
mass audience and a democratic system of reward and punishment. Art after
socialist realism has a bad relationship to photo-reproductions. Which
proves that new solutions hae to be found in these times of electronic
disturbance.

15. The shoch of chance encounters. The permutation potential of an archive
is theoretically unlimited. The quality of information is established
through neighborhoods.

16. The third dimension. The advantage of sculpture over painting is that by
reproduction it keeps more data available. Translating from 3-D into 2-D.
Sculpture (and Architecture) are better seved by the conceptual side of
photography than are the "flat" arts. 

17. The loss of miracle. Archives are simultaneously the Sesame mountain and
the flying carpet of the digital era. They nourish both the illusion of a
treasure hunt and the simulacra of fantasy travel. It is comforting to
believe that now all miracles are stored in your database, as they were
previously in your TV - ready to be zapped through. 

18. Black & White. If you take away the color, all that remains is the
story. That explains the lust for figuration: it keeps the narratives alive.
Color is subjective data; color reproductions are just cool techno games. In
order to understand a painting without effective narratives, full contact is
required. In a context of media, painting is obsolete.

19. Archives stimulate consumerism rather than reflection. 

20. Photography came into the world of categories as an ambigous monster -
simultaneously medium and object. For the first time in history, human
perception was challenged by a discourse possessing the coolness of
communication and the softness of art, the speed of language and the
sillness of allegory.

21. If History is an archive of collective memories, the future is unnecessary.

# Pit Schultz, Kleine Hamburger Str. 15, 10117 Berlin, pit@contrib.de


--
*  distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission
*  <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism,
*  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
*  more info: majordomo@is.in-berlin.de and "info nettime" in the msg body
*  URL: http://www.desk.nl/nettime/  contact: nettime-owner@is.in-berlin.de