The
Net of Art and the Art of the Net
by
Hans-Georg Türstig, Ph.D.
www.digital-artwork.net
Ancient
Indian mythology describes a net of Indra, the king of gods. This net spreads
endlessly in all directions and represents the way in which everything exists.
Merely a symbol or indeed reality itself – who knows? In every knot of this
net there lies a brilliant jewel, infinitely many which mirror each other,
infinitely often, and in each exists the entire net. Even in those ancient days
not a unique thought, for Varuna, e.g., the ancient Indian god of the waters,
exists as completely in a drop of water as in the entire ocean. Every part of
the whole is the whole, the monad of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, cosmic
holography, the internet, the net of art, the art of the net, more artful than
artificial.
The
artnet connects countless images, infinitely overlaying and creatively
complementing one another – unfolding freely. Everything is connected,
directed towards each other, dependent on each other, interconnected.
Technologically created, the internet forms a cyberworld which fits neatly into
the mundane world, resembles it and thus significantly influences our
understanding of being, of our being in and our handling of the so-called
“reality”.
Net-art
weaves itself as artnet into the world-wide-web, strings creative energies
together into a creative stream which flows through all countries and cities
transcending borders, languages and cultures. Each creative impulse oscillates
in the entire net, influences the whole and unites people as for example in my Saptakam
project described later on. Creativity in a digital reality, experienced and
manifested together, which breaks into the mundane world as a picture on a
screen or as a print. The merely virtual reality of a digital file manifests
itself within the “touchable” reality, endlessly reproducible, each work of
art a jewel, and in its facets it reflects itself and everything else. Net-art
simultaneously emits and receives creative impulses, recreates the artnet again
and again. Net-art lives in and as the artnet.
Artnet
includes digital and digitalized works of art. The latter ones include scanned
images of an original placed into the net. Digital Fine Art on the other hand
knows no original outside the cyberworld and thus is net-art in a more
restricted sense. Here then we can differentiate between art which was created
without any “real” elements entirely at the computer, and art which includes
“real” elements such as photos or scanned material as well as digital images of originals which have been
further processed with the help of software and computers.
Net-art
thus employs modern technology, yet how these tools are employed obviously
depends on the knowledge and creative capacities of the artists. In this sense
this new medium is not different from more conventional ones. Digital works of
art can be printed, pulled out of the cyberworld into the mundane reality, and
can thus remain within the traditional framework of art. It gets more exciting
when net-art additionally or exclusively combines in two ways to form an artnet.
In
one sense, the various artists together form a creative collective uniting
people across all borders, languages and cultures. This artnet is more static
but contributes significantly to global understanding and transcultural exchange
which could very well become the basis for a lasting peace here on our home
planet.
Artnet
becomes dynamic when artists together take part in collective creativity as e.g.
in my Saptakam project of digital artfields (www.digital-artwork.net).
Saptakam is a Sanskrit word and means “a group of seven”. A group of
seven artists creates a digital artfield for a certain digital or digitalized
image. Artist 1 creates from the source picture (A) two digital images (B and
C). Basically one can differentiate between three creative interventions:
modifications of the colors, modifications of the forms, and changes based on
additional image elements including frames. In all cases, the creative process
utilizes software which offer diverse possibilities, especially when different
software is combined such as photoshop, painter, paintshop, picture publisher
etc. This allows a smooth and unlimited process of an image.
Artist
1 now emails images B and C to two artists (2,3) preferably in other countries.
They create on the basis of B and C each two images (D,E and F,G) and forward
them to artists 4,5 and 6,7 respectively. These each create again two pictures
(H-O), which completes one digital artfield consisting of 14 images and the
source picture.
Digital
Artfield
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The
process is now repeated, beginning with artist 2 who provides the source
picture. Once each artist has been number 1, i.e. provided a source picture, one
creative cycle of the Saptakam is complete: 7 digital artfields with a
total of 105 pictures. Such a complete cycle is also called a saptakam.
Thus a saptakam denotes the group of seven artists and a group of seven digital
artfields with a total of 105 images.
1. Humility 2. Beyond 3. Moving 4. Nothingness 5. Depth 6. Beauty 7. Daemon
Each element of the digital artfields
is equally valuable and valid, has the same right to exist as the entire field.
Saptakams and digital artfields liberate single images and artists from their
individual isolation. There is no final product and yet each individual image
can be appreciated independently as
a work of art, just as each digital artfield and each saptakam.
Thus a network of digital artfields spreads around the world, vibrating with
creative energy and uniting artists from different cultural, political and
religious backgrounds. Exhibitions of printed artfields can equally travel
around the globe and bring the digital artfields from the cyberworld into the
world of conventional art.
One could also envision a linear
treatment of an image where a picture is digitally manipulated and then passed
on to the next artist, theoretically ad infinitum. An evolution which however
does not lead to a final product. It is here where we humans have taken
ourselves out of the natural global context and declared ourselves the crown of
creation. Morris Berman expressed this in his book The Reenchantment of the
World in this way: “Modern
consciousness thus regards the thinking of previous ages not simply as other
legitimate forms of consciousness, but as misguided world views that we have
happily outgrown.” But it is “this attitude … which is misguided”
because there is no such thing as the crown of creation. Similarly in case of a
digital processing of an image there is only one or many arbitrary final
products which depend in their existence on the decision of the artist. This can
support an attitude towards nature where each living creature and each element
of being has not only equal right to exist, is not only equally valuable, but as
an essential part of nature creates and maintains the entirety of nature. All
works of art are in this sense part of an artnet, which they create and
maintain. The whole is not more than the parts, the parts are not less than the
whole.
Nobody
can foresee the future of net-art. However, it is important, especially at this
early stage, to explicate the possibilities of digital art. In other words, we
don’t need to artificially limit net-art to the conventional framework of art
but can indeed lift these limitations and take advantage of its special features
without consideration of the traditional art market. Foremost we have to address
the phenomenon of the “sacred original”. Many digital artists opted to give
their pictures the appearance of an conventional original by offering “limited
editions” of their artwork. In reality, however, the prints are only numbered
when they are being printed, thus a picture can have the number 5 of 76 but only
5 pictures do exist. Changes in technology, printer, color and paper can alter
pictures to an extent that one can not meaningfully speak of an “edition” at
all. And even apart from all this, perhaps 76 pictures will never be printed,
who knows? Another possibility to meet the traditional idea of an original
consists in printing a file x times and then destroy the file. Considering the
relatively large amount of pictures typically created by digital artists, this
will become quite expensive even at a small edition of say 10 per picture. But
why should we support this rarity-cult at all? True, we are used to consider
something valuable when it is rare or unique, which means we primarily don’t
see the art, beauty, aesthetic pleasure etc., but the market value which depends
on how unique or rare the artwork is or on how famous the artist happens to be.
Digital art however has the opportunity to break with this “tradition” or at
least to not only offer art in this fashion. Thus we can bring people to art and
speak to people with our art who traditionally never even thought of purchasing
a piece of art. Mainly, because art is too expensive. One can satisfy art
dealers and collectors with unique images if necessary. But perhaps especially
as net artists one can lead people back to an attitude towards art which
independent of a theoretical or abstract market value encourages people to buy
art when, simply put, they like something. That will help us all, whether we
create or “only” love art, to get away from the widespread and almost global
attitude of profit maximization.
Pure
net-art – art which exclusively exists in the cyberworld of the internet –
has still other dimensions. As we have seen above, artnet can be quite dynamic
and alive. The creative process does not have to freeze into a final product and
does not have to be limited to individual artists. Artist together can create
fluid art which can be stopped at will. Similar to a projection of an infinite
film where individual images can be taken out of the process without
interrupting or ending the creative process. As in my saptakam project,
the borders between the individual and the group disappear: individually we
create single works of art and together these images create artfields. Art of
the net creates a net of art. That again can enhance an attitude towards nature
where we don’t only perceive final products (stone, plant, animal) but the
natural process of creation. The individual stages or phases of evolution and
the path have the same meaning, the same validity as the goal – if something
like a goal exists at all. A sandpainting for example has its meaning not so
much in the final product as in the creative process and interestingly enough
the word “painting” denotes both, the final product and the process of
painting. The sandpainting is ritually destroyed soon after its completion. It
is more important therefore to be present at the creative process than not to
admire the final and short-lived product. Net-art too offers a similar return to
the awareness of a process rather than a product.
Furthermore,
similar to theater, net-art can give layperson and traditionally passive
observers the chance to intervene in artistic processes, to become creative
themselves. Indeed, sometimes the question who is an artist and who is a
layperson can hardly be answered. Functions of software can independently modify
images so that the technicians and programmers who produce the software
contribute substantially to the creative process. This is of course also true
for chemists e.g. who develop colors. Moreover, certain functions of software
can be utilized in ways that were not intended by the programmers. Thus it is
already difficult to determine where the creative process happens and who is the
artist. In a way this is true for music too when e.g. a synthesizer produces
certain rhythms and melodies and the musician merely adds a few finishing
touches. This is not a new
phenomenon however. Just think of artists such as Michelangelo, who also
didn’t paint every detail but often had many helpers and they themselves
merely added their blessing or a few brush strokes.
Net-art
finally is impermanent, can be created and destroyed relatively fast and thus
has elements of a consumer product and can turn the public into consumers of
art. Examples are the “pictures of the month” found on many websites. Though
consumerism has the bad reputation of being superficial and there is the danger
that net-art leads to an art-addiction, at the same time we have something
special here which can help us to change our attitude towards life.
Conservation, i.e. the conservative, is replaced by a more playful attitude
towards the continuously changing nature. Certainly there is the urge to last
expressed so beautifully by Hermann Hesse in his poem Klage (1934) (my
own translation):
“We were not granted Being. We are but a stream …
… we
are driven by thirst for Being. …
Once
solidify to stone! Just once to last!”
But
precisely because permanence is impossible in the material world, dealing with
the less permanent, potentially at least constantly changing, flowing net-art
can lead us to a more positive and realistic attitude towards the transitory
nature of life.
© 2003 Hans-Georg Türstig, Ph.D.
www.digital-artwork.net