Afterimage Vol. 38 No. 2

WHAT IS WAITING OUT THERE

rear gallery ceiling and continued into the open air beyond its roof'. The sole viewing window was accessible only by passing into a large empty, blindingly white gallery with intense fluorescent

6 1h

Berlin Blennale for Contemporary Art

Berlin

lights and an acute smell of paint that induced sensory discomfort and nausea. This space was not an artwork but one of Rhomberg's "blank spots." Fulfilling the desire to see the continuation of Halilaj's art work, "what is waiting out there" beyond the window,

June 11-August 8, 2010

was only achievable by experiencing Rhomberg's intervention, a The 6"' Berlin Biennale fbr Contemporary Art was concerned with "reality" as a problematic term and a problematic state in the context

Brechtian reminder of the art world's constraining white cube.

of post-September 11. Examining the distrust of official evidence, witnessing as representation, and international institutions, Kathrin

On the second floor,John Smith's video Frozen War (Hotel Diaries #1)

Rhomberg, the exhibition curator, cites "fictitious weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for war in Iraq" and the recent

(2001) combined various professional rituals with a meditation oil media representations of unexpected violent events. Smith's voice narrates and speculates about the meaning of a television image of

"international financial crisis" as examples of "the unreality of that which had introduced itself as reality."' For Rhomberg, if art

BBC News 24 frozen at 1:41 on October 8, 2001, the second night

and its curatorial display are to engage with discrepancies between

fear and uncertainty produced by the static image of the "silent"

explanatory models of the world, as well as incessant media spectacle and individual experiences, how can artistic perspectives on reality refir viewers "back to that world, to what is

male expert, news text, and specific time with the effects of the "real

of U.S. and U.K. air strikes on Afghanistan. Smith contrasts the

thing in Afghanistan." Deprived of normalized reliance on media

waiting Out thCre"?' This commitment to "our own present," rather than

recent

western

artworld

movements

"toward new forms of historicism and aesthetic formal issues of the past," has two main criteria: the works on view should "give artistry only as much space as necessary to make reality visible" and the exhibition itself is designed to place "obstacles in the way of both routine art reception and our run-of-the-mill perception of everyday life

obstacles in the form of blank

spots, detours, and great distances between the individual exhibition spaces."' The most cohesiv'

site of this ambitious

project spread over six sites--was the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, which contained a rich variety of media and opened with the first curatorial "obstacle." The blocked

2

regular entrance required visitors to negotiate a narrow metal

news he expresses doubt: could the BBC London transmitter have

stairway into the cellar, passing through seemingly abandoned rooms befbre emerging into the enormous rear gallery containing

been blown up? Is something being censored? Does the network

the first of Petrit Halilaj's spectacular works, "TFie places I'm looking fur, my dear, are utopian places, they are boring and I

interruption convey more of a reality than the addictive messages of constant news? Smith laments the uselessness of the static TV image as much as that of the ubiquitous hotel folding luggage rack.

don't know how to make them real." The wooden shuttering for the concrete structure replicating a smaller burnt-out family house

Irony is also found in Smith's 16mm film The Girt Chewing Gum (1976), which deconstructs relations between documentary conventions,

in Pristina, Albania, created a skeletal sculpture of a utopian place not yet real. Spatially, the roof of the building was beyond the high gallery ceiling. Sounds and smells were dominated by those of hens

narration, and normalized readings of "real" life. To see the film requires a U-Bahn journey, another curatorial "detour," to a former caf' in Kreuzberg, paralleling associations with the ethnic diversity

passing between the gallery and an outside henhouse. Halilaj plays with references to anti-monuments, sculptural inversions, and negative casts, such as found in Rachel Whiteread's House (1993)-

of Dalston, the London location for the film.

and also to memory, displacement, migration, and violence in Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia. A curatorial "detour" took

Above Installation view of "The places I'm looking for, my dear. are utopian places.

visitors past more of his work to the first floor of the main KW

they are boring and I don't know how to make them real" (2010) by Petrit Halilaj (dimensions variable) at the 6& Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art;

building where the wooden shuttering seemingly cut through the

photo by Uwe Walter (2010); courtesy the artist, Ccý the artist: Chert. Berlin

In the two-channel installation "All That Is Solid Melts into Air" (2008), Mark Boulos quotes from The Co(mmunistManýfsto (1848) and refi!rences the title of Marshall Berman's well-known 1982 book.

as a self-reflexive character within the film. He documents the transportation, through the jungle, of parts to construct a neon sign

His visually captivating and deeply disturbing juxtaposition of two systems of belief also evokes "Blood fbr Oil," the second chapter of Retort's AJflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a N,ew Age of War

to expose how artists, photographers, and aid workers intent on improving a situation through representation and intervention

(2005).' On one screen, electronic commodity prices in derivatives and stock market traders from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) represent heated ritualistic transactions with little regard for national economies and social realities such as those on the other screen: the negative effeicts of Royal Dutch Shell, with its heavily protected facilities, on the Niger Delta and its population. Western oil corporations develop monopolies on a nation's natural resources arid pollute areas for agriculture and fishing. To fight for justice and liberation from penury, the Movement for the Emanncipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) employ what has been called asymmetrical warfare. In kidnapping foreign oil workers and attacking oil pipelines, MEND declare "war on everything white" and trust in the Egbisu spirit fir invulnerability. Boulos places viewers between enormous screens, visually and aurally inviting constant turns,juxtaposing rituals and values, geographies and beliefs, and fire and water as "natural" resources/signifiers of

strapped to a boat: "Enjoy (please) Poverty." The episode is designed

often produce narcissistic results, including financial and career profit. Similarly, by assisting indigenous "studio" photographers to perfect western conventions of photographing dying children, Martens suggests that their poverty could be alleviated by entering into the image market of disaster capitalism. He is aware that this is a moral dilemma without a solution, confirmed when the photographers are denied the necessary western photo permit to print, sell, and distribute their images. Episode 3 reveals how reality in the Congo is controlled and protected by outside interests and, as with "All That Is Solid Melts into Air," returns viewers to an uncomfortable place of realization about "what is waiting out there" beyond the Biennale experience. FRANCIS FRASCINA is a U.. -based historianofvisual culture. .V507h-51.ha,tyi Rn ,h, otd.,wasdraulkn arvnt/ what i-s5aiting -ut therw i/eWn:D )mt, 2010). 11. 2. Ad., 12.3. Ibd 4. Retor(It..,5,,. (lain Wid,M 1. 7.'4a), 7 (Ra,m,woo Atliutei,]dtI"o-ri: Capital andSSpx,t.cc ina N*,,wAge f ar(Londona,d •' tao, 2005,. Pa"

commodity etishItto the point that claims for a set description of the two realities are subverted. In Rhomberg's terms, the capitalist "reality" of the CME is rendered "unreal" by the "reality" of the events on the Niger Delta. At Oranienplatz 17, the largest venue oflthe Biennale, the dominance of film and video raised questions about the role of documentary in such an event. For example, in Marxism Today (Prologue) (2010), Phil Collins interviews former teachers and academics who taught Marxist-l,eninist philosophy in the German Democratic Republic (G(DR) atid a gymnast who represented the GDR at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. Although intformative and revealing as a television documentary, it lacks the transformative characteristics that mark out Frozen ltir (liotel Diaries #1) and "All That Is Solid Melts into Air" as artworks, in Rhomberg's terms- unless the documentary characteristics function as a curatorial "obstacle" within the Biennale. Avi Mograbi's video Details 2 & 3 (2004) uses the tiimpredic table results of the running camera rather than the 1 edited order of a TV documentary. Mograbi, an Israeli citizen, is jostled, circled, and obstructed by members of the Israel Defetice Forces (I)F). Thus, the video reveals the threat of the image to the IDF's self-belief and their negative attitudes both to Palestinians and to internal dissent by Israelis. 5.

in Epimode 3 (2009), Retnzo Martens uses feature-film conventions in a work toncerned with issues of poverty, colonialism, corporate exploitation, and the role of global organizations similar to Boulos's installation. In Martens's work, poverty, as a commodity to be owned, bought, and sold, is located in the Congo. Here,

M

V

0

palm oil plantations and gold mining are the sources of profit and human suffering with the U.N. logo, a controversial sign of donor aid 70% to 80% of which flows back tinder the heading of"technical assistance" and of making the Eastern Congo safe fir the AngloGold Ashanti Corporation to mine. Martens uses a variety of documentary and interview techniques to place himself

3

THE HIGH LINE: Monument to Modern Ruin "History breaks down into images, not into stories."

TRAIN

Walter Benjamin, Paoagenwerk

If one could choose a primary icon loi modernity it might be The City of New York has a new public space. The High Line is an eight-block stretch of defunct elevated train track remade into

the steam engine. The invention of the steam engine introduced unprecedented speed and efficiency to the movement of goods and

a public park that opened in June 2009. This renewed, reclaimed ruin embodies several key moments in modernity: the steam engine.,

people during the nineteenth century, thus enabling industrial capitalism--the distribution of consumer goods produced by

the public promenade, the flineu'r, the arcade, and the cinema as articulated by Walter Benjamin. Eff ctively, the High Line

industrialized labor and tourism. According to Marx, "the key aspects of modernity were the dramatic changes in consciousness

functions as a monument to the ruins of modernity. However, as a coltcroporary site designed by savvy architects, the High Line is neither a simple representation of modern fbrms nor a replay of a ni neteenith-century monument one that claims permanence while art iculating a triuniph inevitably passed. Presenting a scripted urban

brought

imaginary, the High Line suspends visitors in a state of collapsed time and space organized into cinetiatic images - one that invites

ofltechnological innovation. This progression of train exhibits, including stearn engines, diesel trains, and elevated subway trains, cUlminated in the use of motiorails during the 1962 and 1964 World's Fairs. Today, a monorail is the centerpiece of Disney World's Epcot

them to reflect on the collective experience of the metropolis.

The High Line runs along Manhattan's WVest Side near the Hudson River, currently reaching from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking I)istrict to 34"P Street in Chelsea. Designed by James Corner Field Operations with Diller, Scofidio & Renfro, the track has been transhirmed into an elevated urban park, a scullpted path that meanders slightly th,rough buildings along 10' Avenue. The I ligh line was buiht in tie 1930s to enable efficient delivery of goods to and front industrial businesses and to prevent accidents with striee t-leive-l tiraftlic. 1%ail, milk, poultry, and automobiles could be

loaded and unloaded directly into buildings that opened onto the track. This freight-only line was known as "The Life Line of New York." (ut tof use by 1980, it was abandoned until 1999, when The Friends of the High Line began campaigning to develop the elevated land into a public park.

space

and

timie

the

Trains of all types were a mainstay at the World's Fair exhibitions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, celebrating the spirit

Center Future World. In the American popular imaginary the site of urban train tracks has a rich presence. It is where hobos and drifters find freedom. People lament their lower-lass identification with "the other side of the tracks." Movies have taken advantage of the romance and danger of this unnionitored spate, ais in Gus Van Sant's ParanoidPatk (2007), in which at inadvei tent murder is cmnmitted by a troubled teen while "train hopping." And it is in the train yard of the New York City subway that talented graffiti artists of the 1980s practiced their illicit urban art at the dawn of the city's cultural renewal. Now, as commercial developmnent and consutner culture have colonized virtually every corner of Manhattan, and post-Septeniber II security ensures that every space is monitored, the site of the train tracks is mostly an urban tantasy. The train itself is no longer Manhattan's

"Today,walking up the stairs to the three-story-high space, the visitor entters a magi al zone. Immediately lifted fromn the drudgery, dinge, and chaos of the city streets, one ascends to wild landscaping, fresh views, swoodei btenhes, strolling citizens, and buildings parting

"Lift L'ne," ii't

to inake a path. The Standard Hotel towers over the southern stretch a nagnificent relic of International Style architecture. Slits in the iriegular contLetc ground transition into selectively preserved

The I ligh Laine, as a public spacC, is reminiscent of a iniiteenthcentury Parisian boulevard on a Sunday afternoon. The bourgeois

strtchlies oftrain track that serve as plant beds. It is a clisorienting, yet

Sstrangely harnmonious blend of industrial dcecas and ever developing

Scity. of nostalgia

only atresidue of its industrial past.

BOULEVARD

crowdss stroll along Unhurriidly the famous New York City pace absent taking in the views of the city and one another. The High Line is clearly a space of leisure.

and innovation.

'IlTh'

landscaping is especially uncanny as grasses, flowers, and sinsmall trees fill gaps in sihat remains of the tracks. "Keel) it wild, keep on the path" signs instruct passersby, as if th' landscaping were indigenotus, hal)penstanice. The grasses and flowers look suspiciously

4

about by the industrialized 'annihilation of space by titne.'''"

L,ike some modern urban spaces, as in Beiljamin's Naples, The High Liane is a site of publii periforniance. It eaables a porous relatiinship between perftirmanie and architecture one of "Php_orsity.'' III a mltimedia slideshow, Bill (CLnningilial, the ,ei

like weeds, bit perfitctly arranged and tended to. 'This celebration of' a once semyi atid negletted space artfully finesses the tifect of

,4rA 'Tini'es's roving strett-lashion photographer, cticMrates, 'the most extraordinary fashito promenade you can imnagin." Anotlher .,ea 14rA Times slideshow of people on the High Line is calI'd "Lifet

dereliction, giv ing way to a safIly sanitized experictiial pleasure.

as t Runway, in the Park, W0Feet Up.' (Guerilla tor'ch singers and

Thli ruin is renovated.

banjo pla\ers take advantaige ofa captive audience froim the fire

tsCap' of'fa residence recently lifted from

obsCUritt by its chance proximnty to the new park. Their ftire escape is known as the "High

through the bowels of the city

Line Park Renegade Gabaret."'

resembling an urban underworld. Gambling, woriit oFrt'tring their amorous services, and activities dirty or dangerous are not to he

FLANEUR

fiund, despite the neighborhood's stedy history.

The i

Limited entrances to tile High Lint, an early nighttime closure, and the long list of "don'ts" posted at each entry point "Park rules prohibit: walking on rail tracks, gravel or plants . . . solicitations: comMercial activity, except by permit . . . drinking alcohol, except in designated areas . . ." render this a space free of unheimlich

eisurely visitor might imagine himself or herself tile figure

of' the hirneur

tie nineteenth-centurytifree agent described by iCharles Baudelaire and Benjamin, strolling idly through the city, simutaneously of the crowd and detached ftoin it, a mobile, bourgeois observer. The person strolling down the High Line fultills Berijariin's description of the flattlenur quite literally, as he or she "goes botanizing oil the asphait,"' past shrubs and flowers, people, architecture, and

urban views. Howevtr, unadulterated fAtntcurie is not possible here. According to D)avid (Clarkte, "the fhiAneur's existence was built upon the sustained disavowal of' the cognitive ordering of space, in favour

he encotettrs gritty scetris and unseemly nightlife. The High Line experience is fitet from tanything

presences. The High Line's strictly delineated boundary makes it less an urban territory to explore than ats experience of moving among the crowd at a hyper-real train ride. 5

ARCADE

of a itselfldetined anci self-centtred aesthetic spacing."" The highly

-t

delineated structure of (ite High Lane thwarts this disavowal, and the fAriteur must succumb to the scripted trajectory. The persona of Baudelaire and Betnjamin's Wi.netur thrives on the unexpected. As an

As a contained space for pedestrians in an urban zone rich with

obstrver roanning about at will

to Benjamin, "the original temple of (ommodity capitalismn.'"' Like

especially at night and sometimes

commerce, the High Line resembles an arcadc the covered shopping centers of nineteenth-century Paris that were, according the arcade, the High Line is "privatized public spac'." But the High l.ine is an arcade en plein-air.Rather than enchlsed hbv iron and glass.

All Images The High Line (2010) by Rachel Stevens

the High Line looks outward toward tile iron and glass architecture ofthe city. The 1AC world headquarters, a building by Frank Geihry,

5

6

gleams to the northwest with its curvilinear fayade made of twisted glass plate panels, a contemporary homage to the Crystal Palace.

southern neighborhood hosts only a f•'w meatpacking hold-outs, their dumpsters of animal parts emptying into renderer's trucks

If the arcade capitalizes on interiority a "bouirgcoisification of space," a separation from street life -- the High Line capitalizes on the confusion betw+een interiority and exteriority.

and an ever-present stench providing color for the Standard Hotel. Alas, in the ever-changing landsc ape of the city these neighborhoods are already iii decline. The glittering flagship designer stores belie the fact that the recession has been working its rot into the current

The High Line loonis above two neighborhoods rift' with high-toned liourgeois commerce: the Meatpacking District and Chelsea. Highend fashion flagship stores, fancy wine bars, European-themed restaurants appealing to the aspirational "bridge and tunnel" crowd, and designer hotels wit ll fiantastic views fill the Meatpacking

capitalist system.

Districtt Luxurious loft-style condos and a bloated commercial gallery scent occ upy Chelsea. The neighborhoods are a hothed of conmlldit(v exchange.

twentieth century they were already pass6'. For Benjamin, arcades are "far flung ruins and debris" of the nineteenth century,' Arcades were sites for the exchange of phantasnmagoric commodities, wish-

Both neighborhoods rely oi

images. The commodities sold in the arcades were "souvenirs" or "Andenken." As Anne Friedberg writes, "Andenken translates as

the mystique of' their industrial past

'rhe arcade as an architectural strticture was once the height of technological innovation, etnbdlematic of the more utopian facets of' modernity. By the time Benjamin turned his fiucus onto them in the

fillr their romantic appeal: the once desolate neighborhoods were the site of segregated slaughter where actual meatpacking could

souvenir, but also as memory; memory was the commodity-fetish

remain hidden, a haven ftr sex clubs and clandestine gay cruising otn the nearby decaying docks, a site for a busy trade in transgender

city, a world in miniature.""'

prostitution, and a place where artists occupied cheap lofts. The persistent aura in these neighborhoods recalls an earlier New York City in which industry occupied significantly more of the landscape

The High Line is a live evocation of the arcades at their peak, full of urban strollers and art example of celebrated contemporary architectural design, but it also fulfills the ftnction of a reliquary. From here, fragments of the cityscape can function as commodity wish-images, a "world in miniature," or rather, a city in miniature

and a more recent postindustrial New York rich with neglected real estate. Curiously still called "the Meatpacking District," the more

retailed in the passage.'l'The arcade, or passage, is to Benjamin "a

presented as views

the past and tile present collapsed together in

material surfaces and structures. At close range, preserved sections of train track and weed-like landscaping function as a nostalgic display, as in a natural history museum diorama. Images of the city framed by

along one northwest edge. The decaying brick surface retains its romantic urban appeal, but at this height is stripped of any sense of isolation or fear that an abandoned industrial location typically

the High Line, resembling postcards, are souvenirs as well a kind of cinematic urban commodity. Visitors make photographs to take away, the cityscape becoming, through photography, "fragmentary,

invokes. Opposite the brick wall, toward the east, is a view of the jagged city skyline. A parade of tall buildings is interrupted by long views of streets full of cars, people, advertisements, trees, and more buildings. The chaos of the metropolis is safely surveyed from on

transitory objectis].'"'

high as an analog for the collective city.

The High Line draws a significant amount of its appeal from both its proximity to high-end specialty commerce and the aesthetics of

Just north are three billboards visible at close range and eye level.

its derelict industrial past. As an example of cutting-edge urban design, it jives seamlessly with the tastes of people who partake in both the nearby fashion and art commerce. However, it is void of opportunities for commerce itself. Only one vendor, chosen by the authorities, is allowed on the High Line for one week at a time. As commercial art galleries close and designer flagship stores stubbornly remain open, the High Line offers a reprieve from the spectacle of commodity consumption. For Benjamin, "[thle conmmodity] was the fragment that held the key to, and disclosed the totality of, the modern cultural forms."' 2 It is appropriate, therefore, that this exposed arcade literally built on top of these neighborhoods, yet virtually free of commerce itself, functions as a monument to the phantasmagoria of modern consumption. CINEMATIC METROPOLIS On the High Line, the visitor's experience of the metropolisbeyond a brief encounter with a sampling of other city dwellers is primarily a visual one, a series of carefully framed views. Organized not so much as a gathering place, the High Line is

Though larger than life and a little surprising at such proximity, these displays blend into the narrative of the city as a site of commerce. "Today," writes Benjamin, "the most real, mercantile gaze into the heart of things is the advertisement. It tears down the stage upon which contemplation moved, and all but hits us between the eyes with things as a car, growing to gigantic proportions, careens at us out of'a film screen."'' At a safe remove, the flow of traffic is represented as something cinematic. An amphitheater of steps that mimics such architecture provides seating and allows the visitor to descend below tile surface of the High Line. Framed explicitly by the architects with a large picture window at the bottom is a view of 10'" Avenue the taillights of taxis, trucks, and other vehicles are experienced as a moving image. Even the flow of the Hudson has been given aii electronic glimmer by artist Spencer Finch rendering it as a kind of digital screen. The artist sampled colors from the moving water with seven hundred photographs taken over a single day for his piece called The River That Flows Both K'avs (2007)- a long wall made up of seven hundred small, rectilinear panes of glass. This stained glass window, a grid of green and gray pixels, is a kind of abstract screen

a platform for gazing outward. In a culture habituated to the

that glows with light from within.

mediated views offered by television and other telecommunication technologies, these iconic and sometimes panoramic real-time

MONUMENT

views of the city are easily transformed into cinematic images of an American metropolis.

Benjamin decried

the "self-aggrandizing"

nineteenth-century

monuments that attempt to appear timeless as "idols erected by Scenes framed by both the choices of architects and the location of the High Line offer a comprehensive cross section of the urban imaginary. Views into back lots once accessible only to utility and delivery trucks- -never seen except as a fictional setting for a drug deal, gang encounter or mob hit-are now visible to all. Gazing south, one sees a framed view of the Hudson River as it opens into the harbor, featuring the Statue of Liberty as a small but recognizable figurine. The view echoes a typical establishing shot. When Cunningham saw a tall ship in full sail going down the river from the High Line he thought, "if this were Hollywood they couldn't invent it." One could easily imagine the Titanic in the tall ship's place, the quintessential image of bourgeois technological prowess on a journey toward its demise. The Standard Hotel, with its smooth, shiny surface, provides a noir example of the urban genre. Its windows reveal nudity, pornography film shoots, couples having sex, and other views (as reported by the New York Post) occasionally available to the accidental voyeur strolling below. The long brick faýade of an industrial warehouse, complete with cracked safeýty glass bricked up from within, runs

the modern bourgeoisie after their own image" whose meaning eventually changes albeit unintentionally. To Benjamin, the monument is ultimately "a transient rather than an enduring structure. Its significance is not fixed and final but is subject to political changes in the present, to transformation and ruination."" As a monument, the High Line does not claim to be "fixed and final"; it is not singular, totalizing, or forever married to a political moment, but embraces ruination and looks outward to an everchanging city, one that stimulates memory and whose images play

C,

stories of cities at large.

c,

The city itself is "a mnemonic device

-n

. . . Like the mialoire

involontaire, it interweaves forgetting and remembering."'' While Freud uses the city as an analogy for memory, Benjamin finds the development and existence of the city inseparable from the process of memory itself. "Consistently, the concrete analogy that Freud proposes to render this paradoxical mechanism of overlap, delay and preservation is the city," writes Max Pensky."' Examining more closely these two understandings of the city and memory, Pensky concludes they are the same, as "the metropolis

7

can be touched, but it stands in for what is off the trap. Simulation is not a copy, but a blur between memory and signifier.."2" In this way the I light Line fu1nctions as a postincidern monument.

Friedrerg's

conception

of

Benjamin's

"vision oIf modernity" as "the new, the already obsolesrcet, the ever-same" is also essontial to what sit(- calls her "'description of

postmodern

twnporality.-I '

This

vision, as well as its confusing status as simultaneously modern and postmodern suits the experience of' the Htigh Line. As a continuous

present

fused with a

Continuous Pat'( atnd future

that cannot

Cqtite be categorized, the High Line, as a monument, thwarts "the myth of historical closure""' that Benjamin considers to be so problematic.

can oniv siggnittf collectic metiliory sanire st rl.ctu ir.. t

the struclure of. collective experience and by virtu ofi the fact that in sonit sense it is the

1

Our ioriteniporary conditiin of' experiencing the world through teleeommunicatiot technologies has been so t horoughly assimilated that views of the city friorn the High Line read as mediated images. Paul Virilio reminds its of Ben jatnin's claim that the prolifi-ration of inechaniial reprodu•t

reattionshit)

ion, arch itect ture, and cinemia are in symhiotic

'The High line proper is a monument to a ruin of mighty industry, hut the High Line as all experieceti is organized more broadly around memory and our collect ive percept ual encounters with the city. Ultimately, the Htigh Line nemorializes the shifts in perception that modernity has fully aflk'cted, Its surfaces, disintegrating material fragments, and cinematic views are an allegory of'the media-saturated capitalist metropolis one that both counters and proliifrates the myth of utopian progress. RACHEL STEVENS Is an arlist andivo iloe ba8ed in. \iqv Krk Cilv.

and "[pitesentl material to a collective reception.'' "Ito

t

1, "7 AnnII , A-,. 11). 5j. '5

Virilio, television is "an introierted window, one which no longer

c.

opens onto adjoining space, but instead faces beyond thelperceptible

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horizon .''

Screels "idisplace doors and the physical means of

communicalion,

because cinematic

displaced the reafits

representation has already

f thf'i effi,ctive presence, tftce real presence of

people and things.'' Front the High L,ine, images of the city read as Ciictnta, doubling back oil I heinselves and insoking a city clsewhere. Slavoj

ti'.ck otiirs .t rich exampl te

o) the confusion experienced by

Ne%s Yorkers regarding lilt' reality of Itheir own city ill his discussion ofla more spectacular rui,n, tfit( World Trade f'['wers onl September if, asking, "'Was not he oftien repeated fbotage iii the ftrightened people running tolards the caitera, tife giant Cloud of dust from the

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Klein explaiis in 1 lhelli.tty nu Forgetting' Lws zingele.i and ItheErasure u

8

AtMut'enfr. 997), thite sotial iInaginary is "'abuit env ironment (thil also contains anit evacuation. It is charming, because it part it ierases."'' He continues: "The hyyper-real edge announces how failse; it is fashioned out of a sensation otfdilference, of' a last rrienotry. The object

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TRAUMA AND AGITATION: VIDEO GAMES IN A TIME OF WAR "Real art is play, & play is one of the most immediate of all experiences." -Hakim Bey

In

retognition of the cross-cultural influence of electronic gaming, artists are tapping into the global reach of the medium to advance interrogations of present conditions. A number of recent artistic projects themed on armed conflict and war have combined formats ranging from video games to online p)erlormance to installation art. The works discussed here arte by Rolando S,intchez from Peru,' France-based

American

artist Douglas Edric Stanley,' and Iraqi-born, NeW York City-

based artist Waf`aa Bilal.' These pieces are best understood as repurposings of popular digital games and game formats fbr cultural critique at the intersections of representation, play, and power. By recoding the play experience, these artists attempt to

goad audiences in perf6rmative situations designed to amplify and expose cultural assumptions and ideological undercurrents.

of authorities. 'lb this end, Sanchez revisits four iconic televised war

events, each titled in reference to the event portrayed, while the fifth is the artist's commentary on the representation of the conflict. In "Penalties" (a play on tire Spanish word for prison, penal, and penalties in sports), the gamer (re)plays the state-conducted massacre of 224 prisoners, labeled alleged terrorists in 1986, as one of'the prison guards. The executions were carried out in the aftermath of a prison uprising in Lima, at the moment of surrender, and appeared live on television. "Acomarca" alludes to a rural Andean community in the small province of Ayacucho, near Cuzco, which became nationally known via televised testimonials of survivors of the massacre of 69 eampesiinos (peasant women, elders, and children) by an army patrol in 1985. (The Ayacucho province, an extremely impoverished area of Peru, was pinpointed as the epicenter of guerilla operations.) The gainer plays one of the soldiers. "Lucanamarca Revolution"

Sainchez, a trained painter and engineer, and Stanley, a digital art ist, conceived their works as Critiques addressing the historization of'( atastrophic events froom the recent past through deconstructions of'of ficial histories. Modifications of the familiar game interfaces cotmllent (oii the contradictions between war as a media event and

war as a real experience. Saimchez's .alari

69200 (2004 05) consists

of an Atari 2600 video gaine system connected to a television and its e reprogrammed game cartridges. The work conflates the artist's experiences both its ain Atari ganier and as a tele-spectator oft'lie guerrilla war that pitted Peruvian military forces against the Shining Path Maoist guerrillas active throughout the 1980s. As hIiestates: "While parts off Peru sufftered the inclenentrcies of war, fotr others war was only an experience they partook iii through watching TV; thetr position in relation to the war was similar it

on(t of a child playing video gaints.'"T he title of' the work, A1alari, is a combination of the word Atari (in reft'rence to a disabling move in the Japantese ganic GO()" and the Spanish verb "to kill," itnlar. The number 69200 represents the of'ficial estimate of terrorism casualties

refers to the Lucanarmarca massacre of 69 campesinws carried out by a group of Shining Path soldiers armed with machetes, knives, and

in Peru during the tswuty years of political and social unrest.

guns in 1983. "'Twers Boom" rej)plays the bombings of several high-voltage transmission towers, attributed to Shining Path

Suinchcz began work on the piece shortly after the final presentation

groups. Both high-profile events position the player in the role of a Maoist guerrilla. Lastly, in "Massacre," the green ghost of PacMan, designating the green uniform of Peruvian soldiers, and the red monster of' Space Invaders, which alludes to the MNaoist ideologies of the Shining Path, are locked in a scenario oft reactive attacks. As in the original 1980 game of Pat-Alan, tire gaineu imust elude the ghosts. Each game ftatures a score display, as in the original games, amplifying the overall effect of alienation achieved in the work through the juxtaposition of riyass-media reports about the conflict and the binary logic tf imainstretam games.

of a report by the Truthiant

Reconciliation Commission, an

independent organization investigating the circumstances of' tlie

Peri'ian state's waron terror. Public presentation oft lie commission's final conclusions included televised testimonies by civilians caught

in the conflict, antI a permanent photographic record of' the conflict currently housed in the Museum of lthe Nation ini I,ima, and open to the ltblic.'' The piece responds to the conclusions reached by

the commission linking the "massive

1mrder,

disappearance and

torture" to "indolence, incompetence and indifferencet'

on thtt part

Above

The player is set to relate to the conflict from the captivated position of the tuass-media consumer. Cultural theorist Paul Virilio terms the

Mataro 69200 (2004-05) by Rolando Sanchez; courtesy of the artist

movement of images to and firom the "theatre of

sicat''

e -logistics of

C

9

perceptioin. Virilio is particularly concerned with the manipulation

cold-war deterrence heralded the transformation of war from an

ofl deception,

action stage to a conception stage, characterizing automation.

illusion, spectacle, and captivation employed to in

Automation, in turn, privileges time over space; it foregrounds the

short, propaganda.7 S,snchez's fusion of televised narratives of Peru's

speed of reaction, absent of reflection. As suggested in the games of

war on terror with the narratives of popular Atari games suggests an allegory of the "field of perception" equally manipulated by the

SAnchez and Stanley, a conflict purely based on the logic of reaction will procedurally devolve in an intense feedback loop far exceeding

military and guerrillas vying fior mass media coverage of staged

human performance capabilities.

construct a "field of perception" around a particular act ofwar

images/events designed to intimidate and demoralize. Sinchez's games make the similarities of the modus operandi of state forces and terrorists apparent through constructing a situation that highlights

The most recent version of Invaders! was developed for "Space Invaders: The Anniversary Show, 30 years of Space Invaders," at

the complicity of the audience.

the game convention Leipziger Messe GmbH, in Leipzig, Germany,

Stanley's modification of Space Invaders (1978), entitled Invaders!

in 2008, at the invitation of Andreas Lange, the director of the Computerspiele Museum in Berlin. At this venue, the work's theme

(2001-08) similarly focuses on traumatic historical events hinted at by an added-on backdrop of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The original arcade game-legendary for causing a coin shortage in Japan and unleashing Americans' appetite for Japanese games -has connotations with American military occupation according to those who regard the success of Japanese electronic gaming partially as a result of rapid technical development in absence of military spending.! The piece has been in development since 2001, as part of Stanley's ongoing interest

took center stage in a contentious media affair involving game fans, the press, the general public, a game company, organizers of the game convention, and the artist. An American blogger, Michael McWhertor, wrote disapprovingly about the work in a post on Kotaku (a mainstream gaming/gossip blog popular among nettechies) referring to it as an offensive representation of the events of 9/11." The tone of the post was reiterated by a New York Dail,

in public art projects combining site-specific art with responsive

News journalist who had read McWhertor's commentary, though not experienced the work. The article foregrounds the disapproving comments by members of World Trade Center families, contacted

components. Various versions were shown at public venues,

by the journalist about the project." The reporter also contacted Taito, the copyright holder of the original game, whose lawyers immediately issued a cease and desist letter to the organizers of the show, citing copyright infringement. While noting that the work represents "an ambiguous juxtaposition of [a] mythical game and the historical events of 9/11,"'' which "originated in a personal need to tap back into that instant [the 9/11 events], and revisit it,"" Stanley ultimately chose to withdraw the work not because of the legal implications, but rather due to the anonymous death threats against him and his family posted on his blog after the article's publication." As an experiment based on engaging the historical context of arcade gaming in order to raise questions about the relationship between media and historical consciousness, Stanley's Invaders! was ultimately a failure. Mobilized by others as a tool of objectification, the work registers attitudes strikingly similar in their degree of intransigence to those taking fundamentalist positions.

including projections on the building of the World Trade Center in Marseilles, France, that responded to light sources like cigarette

The game projects of Bilal approach the questions of objectification

lighters and car headlights." The latest version of the project consists of a screen projection designed to respond to the gestures of viewers. As in the original game, the players attempt to shoot

and representation from a performative angle designed to foreground the dehumanization implicated in mediated forms of

down the aliens, a task that becomes progressively difficult as the speed of the game increases. Notwithstanding the players' frantic efforts, the towers will at a given point inevitably collapse under the damage incurred by the invaders' blasts. Stainley uses the game mechanics to stress the similarity between the 10

underlying cold war metaphor of the original game and the current United States war on terror. The piece suggests that agitation will inevitably add momentum to counteragitation. Virilio states, "Can we deter an enemy from inventing new weapons, or from perfecting their performance? Absolutely not.""' Virilio suggests

communication. Bilal's projects, contrary to those of Sfinchez and Stanley, are purposely devised with ais interventionist intent to provoke and agitate. For Domestic 7ension (2007),.' the first game by Bilal and his collaborators, the artist installed his living quarters at Chicago's Flatfile Gallery. For thirty-one days viewers could peep in on him anonymously via a live webcam and chat with him online. A rifle-sized paintball gun affixed to the camera allowed viewers

Above Screenshot of Invaders! (2001-08) by Douglas Edric Stanley Facing page Domestic Tension (2007) by Wafaa Bilal; courtesy of the artist

and she was firing missiles into Iraq after being given information by American soldiers on the ground in Iraq, and when asked if she had any regard for human life, she said "No, these people are bad, and I'm getting very good intelligence from people on the ground."'" Bilal set out to establish a dialecticrelationshipbetween the alienating effects of mediated experience and the U.S. media's sanitized reports of the Iraq war, which, as lie states, "consistently excludes images of casualties." "I want it to be far removed," says Bilal. "I want it to be video game-like. That's how we see this war, as a video game. We don't see the mutilated bodies to shoot at Bilal and anything cIse in his room, twenty-four hours 7

or the toll on the ground." 2 The absence of sound

users cannot hear

a day." The gallery room, including Bilal's bed and computer desk, gradually became covered its yellow paint (yellow is the color of

the shots in the gallery- fcuses the images as ideologically resonant constructs. The screen is a mediator set to position participants its

paraphernalia sold in the U.S. to show support for the troops) and hits of paintball shells were scattered throughout. Over the course of the game, the gallery space was essentially transformed into an environment simulating the conditions of an actual war zone. Bilal

the affective detached state of the soldier bombing targets in Iraq from a remote computer terminal in the U.S., in a scenario eerily

re-enacted the isolation, surveillance, and dependence that mark the everyday living conditions of civilians caught in a war zone amid the suflocating smell of the fish-hased paint used in the pellets, the sonic disturbance of random gun shots, and reliance on community donations that dictated his food intake for the duration of tlse

Bilal's work posits involvement as an antidote for alienation. Domestic "Tension is meant as a participatory anti-war statement that seeks "to engage audiences that are otherwise unlikely to actively participate in political or cultural discussions because they feel that these issues

perlr4mance."'

ensues from a perspective on historical conditions as contingent on human actions (Bilal explicitly states that the project should not be

The gallery's press release states that the project attracted

seen as an attempt at martyrdom, but as "an artist trying to make a

participants from over 130 countries. Bilal's site received 80,000,000 hits, while 60,000 paintballs were shot." Audience responses ranged

point")."' In interviews and a book about the project, the artist relates

from abusive behaviors including derogatory remarks and attempts at hacking the server in order to increase the frequency of shots, to encouragement in the form of praise for the project and counteractions by participants taking turns to aim the gun away from Bilal. Technically trained participants volunteered their skills to devise

reminiscent of the novel Ender'v Game (1985, by Orson Scott Card)."

do not concern their everyday life."24 The work's political statement

the work to previous oppositional artistic activities and his status as a conscientious objector under Saddam's rule. Bilal's family is from Kufa, one of the holy cities of Shia Islam and was regarded with suspicion by the Sunni-dominated Saddam government. Allegedly barred from studying art because of a family member's disloyalty to the regime, Bilal enrolled as a geography and geology major at the

Bilal kept his identity and motivations ambiguous throughout the

University of Baghdad where lie received a Bachelor's degree in 1990. He was interrogated and arrested a number of times on account of his unofficial artistic activities. Bilal lived in Saudi Arabia's refugee

performance in order to attract public and media attention. In subsequent interviews, the artist discussed the performance as an

camps for two years waiting to receive political asylum in the U.S. in 1992. He obtained an MFA degree in 2003 from the Art Institute of

experinient addressing political, personal, and artistic concerns. He

Chicago, where he first began teaching art.

continual readjustments to the gun."'2

C

says the idea was conceived while watching television: I was watching the news

in fact, ABC news, when they had an

interview with an American soldier sitting in a base in Colorado,

Bilal's confinement in a gallery and subjectification as a living target in an artwork dovetails with a tradition of endurance-based performance (e.g., Chris Burden's, Shoot [1971], performed at the

In Virtual,jihadi (2008)" Bilal draws from and develops upon his

height of protests against the Vietnam war). Similarly, Bilal's charged involvement casts personal trauma (his brother was killed

recognition and exposure with Domestic Tension to explore the

by an American drone plane and Bilal suffers from post-traumatic

etrployment of video games as propaganda. This prtoject is based on

stress disorder)'

ati online first-person shooter game, Thez."g,ht qfBush Capturing(2006). The game gained notoriety as an alleged AI-Qaeda production

as an entry point for countering dehumanizing

perspectives about civilians trapped in war zones. At the core of these views is the term "collateral damage," an euphemism routinely used to refer to civilian casualties, like Bilal's brother, in present military, political, antI

cultural discourses. By situating personal

irauma within a larger political and public context, Bilal reverses

the terms of these discourses, making it apparent that the act of objectification is dialogical. One cannot objectify without being objectitied in ret utrt. Bilal re-purposes the tools, spaces, and codes of t1he dominant to articulate situations conducive to reflection about

where the goal is to capture former U.S. President George W. Bush. This game is itself a modification of Questfor Saddarn (2003), a commercial game independently produced by Jesse Petrilla, head of The United American Committee, a grassroots Organization that frames its support lor U.S."war ons terror" within populist views.211 Quest,for Saddam was widely praised in the U.S, media fbr its subject matter - the capture ofSaddam despite its stereotypical iniages of Iraqis, who all "wear" the lace of'Saddam."

orders

Bilal's modification

the contingency of' power and representation. This is salient in Bilal's circumvention Of tIle insularity and sedateness of a typical "hligh-art" locale bv extending it to the internet. The framing

introducing his lifelike avatar as asn Al-Qaeda suicide bomber dressed in "traditional" Arab warrior garb, seeking revenge fbr

of the work in the tropes of entertainment video games and social media enables a serniotic commonality with audiences

of The Aight of Bush Capturing consists of

his brother's death: the aim is to seek and kill Bush. Bilal's overidentification with the stereotypical narratives and characters of the original games amplifies their ideological messages. As he

conversant in representational modes within the mass media, though not necessarily with a high-art public. Th'Ile juxtaposition

states: "This artwork is meant to bring attention to the vulnerability ofi -acqi civilians, to the travesties of the curr,ent war, and to expose

of real and virtual space within the work draws attention to the so-called -artifite" of virtual environments, thereby challenging

racist generalizations antI profiling . . . games such as Quest,for Saddait or Anmericaty-.rtny ('2002 present) promote stereotypical,

the common assumption of realism in video games as ideologically

siogUlar perspectives."'I"

neut ral. Bilal's sISCtlutseent Celebration as an Iracli-born digital artist (ie was x nominated C(hicagoani the year by the (C'hicagi 7ribune in

By isencoraging tihe player tt literally crawl into his "skin," Bilal

2007) kXirther implicates mass media's spectacular portrayals of the Other, as either helpless or backward, as reified reptresentations, as

Doetsti, 'eTension, creating a situation of absolute complicity. As in

hyper-rial signs with no ret'firetn e to "'real people."

Domnestit

seeks to reverse tile detached position of online participants ini Te'nsion, Bilal's participation is key to encouraging tlse re-

enaction of the game's scenario. Unlike the direct participation ofr the artist in Dortestif Tenstion, however, Bilal's presence in Virtual 7,ihadi is conveyed by atn avatar assembled from incongruous layers of personas and tropes signifying divergent "historical" periods: a realistic self-portrait of the artist in the "ancient" Arals warrior gear, overlaid with the "modern" accrUemeCts Of a suicide bomber. Bilal's avatar evokes Anne-Marie Schleirer's discussion of' gender-ambiguous fersale avatars by women gainers as instances of gender performativity. ThI excess of gentdercd signs, "a jumble of... signifiers ... cact layer.., a forted identity" are "intentionally. . .sultra-exaggerated pert'ormative act distinguished by awareness and dramiatic excess," which Schleiner suggests signiify ihe feniale garners' ref usal, "to participate in a spectacle of otherness."• Bilal's avatar similarly exteriorizes signifiers associated with excessie f'ears and anxieties about the "other" in o.rdcer tor subert easy "identification" and confront players with the narratives of "violence, racism, and propaganda'"'3 underlying these signs. Unlike Dorestli 7ensvon, Virtual 7tihadi was onfaavorably received. The first gallery exhibiting the work at the Rensselaer Polytechnic

Left Virtual Jihadi (2008) by Wafaa Bilal: courtesy of the artist Facing page Quest for Sadsdam (2003) by Petrilla Entertainment

In regard to cultural criticism, Siinchez's, Stanley's, and Bilal's projects are more compelling as challenges to common assumptions associatingvideo games with infantilizing or morally "questionable" entertainment, particularly apparent in the works' unintended receptions. Bilal successfully mobilized direct involvement in the form of spontaneous community actions. For a significant number of participants the Domestic Tension game interface signaled permission to act out disturbing behaviors and the narrative of Virtual Jihadi facilitated recuperation by reactionary elements. Stanley was equally a target of attack by corporate and media representatives." Paradoxically, they beget the reactions they were meant to challenge. Those reactions demonstrate how the "bad reputation" of video games can be applied to constructive ends- as the vehicle for exposing the collective tensions and polarization in the wake of induced value conflicts and the absence of structural engagement with the roots of these dynamics to date."o CLAUDIA COSTA PEDERSON is a graduate student in

die Histogy of zlrt and Visual

Studies Departmentat Cornell University and is currently writing a dissertation on the historicalcontext and practicesoj artists using electronic gamesfor cultural critique.

Institute (RPI), where Bilal was in residence, cancelled the show under the pressure of Campus Republicans claiming Bilal's work was a threat to national security. The nearby Sanctuary for Independent Media (SIM) in Troy, NY offered to host the work, but the gallery was shut down. Students, faculty, and 'Froy residents were polarized by RPI president Shirley Ann Jackson's decision to censor the work. In a public conference at RPI,Jackson repeatedly defended her decision by equating the work with "terrorist propaganda" and "child pornography on the internet."'' Attempts to show VirtualJihadiat SIM were frustrated by an order issued ly city officials to close down the locale on grounds of non-compliance with the city's structural security stipulations."

VOTES 1. See poyert t laboraorotrodearte.t,g/r laboral,ceortoeo,/eog

onfine ridahg

and PR,Iitim nat- byWA M a,/,iotti php?pa"e=977 *-,e'd.Jalv

2010, in collaboration with a tattoo artist employed to convert Bilal's back into a cartography of' war, while participants read aloud the nanics of the dead in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2(103. Each of the 5,000 clots tattooed in visible red ink represents a dead American soldier; the 100,000 dots in green UV ink visible only under black light represent the estimated number of invisible Iraili casualties." The state of' the artist's newly tattooed back rccalled an open wound.

:u

and u7vmdTori?aq.t.mt

o

ah•tto,tto,achtoe.ntot/bhog,to /t.php? = projectd'atrlte. opr•g ttle

.ctot

S1ee t,' g-goegnan,t-lind-o/

/SO5008Ai/or-,cde,-atta

/d Ondde-

- o-to h,attto,, tctetd Jtul 8, 2009). 13. SOntu, ,nat.atmtItt 'S/I00 2/O'/1/28 idii-ooo,eAtpped - itioa- th-oe oh-hhot (t-ce,-td Juo/ 8. 2009h 14. Ado 15, See tuc..

ettt.'r-0821/

(,N'm, Joik Senotet(e). 1986). 146

8. 2009). 12. See hap&,/

.

tta

de,t, o

prop-td by the ertmta.

=O&y=

(acte

J/iul' 90 2010). See Stanley', stat-eot on the

lo...0 tra,taiotto

mc ott (accoed (o 7th 8, 20/0). 16 17te

"Shoot an lorqi." 7he ,al/rn oan,

perl/oor-danet htt tt•tf.rjeh,f ql attack, 17 (.,attn In,t

oa

bnoner, ooeuvd to atbo,t, lhfpme to be

ittqaland til AariLtte-,n, Sh-ot

City lihtgo "008), 11. 18. lbid, ott

,,t Iraqi: Anc

19..'evehtip ttp:// tl

at,,firanttieghtigain,gioeathatnoratatthetdo-taion, atoted,,fju,I f)do

,lat artcd

I i'oanrty•ttteti, iIattl/tt'd, a tttorttoitn. fct,oabi

hOod(acc•teedJouv 8. 2009). 20. See http:o//UoabitlaLcoml Vido, snippett doerunottg notoet ofeabchdar t/ p/gopta,i

on

lte

tbo,tuye,ttole ctub ,,mret,,/t'-h qterardotettc+trtntion&t,ocrh (accettedJulyt8,200,). Sre

31, 200/1. 21. Botan Aek h,t,

of the U.S. government.`• In his most recent project, Bilal turned his skin into a canvas in a 24-hour pertfrmance entitled ... and Counting."I The event took place in New York City on March 8,

Ao, of llah aal,in

i(e,eoed Ju/ 8, 2009). 7 Pail i iliooWar and CinenmFa. 1, ogics ot Pcrcepticm, ntw. Patric(k,Ctnill/r(keu,lhakIlro, 1984), 7 8. cwk 1De-uIit*16aodandirt,eg de Peuter,Grnaes of Epire:loo I,111 Capilaken and Vo Ga-e (3tioneopoks ta-ityco/ o/,iinareotd Ar,,. 2009). 14 18. 9. See the proledt blog: wwabtctmaohtne.nct/bog/io otder a,te.od Jbol 8, 2009). 10. Pol I tifio, Speed

The piece was originally to take place at RPI. The controversy around Virtual]ihadi led Bilal to instead perform the piece in an undisclosed location in Troy, with the help of friends. Bilal lost to the clog and was waterlboarded. The video docuumenting the ewct was placcd alongside a significant number of amateCir online videos about waterboarding, most ofa marked banal and detached of public reactions about the issue of torture under the auspices

d, "

••coutde,/il.us•o/wt0a/

an'dod.o•g.pe/not flesia/inodephp

,tio the,bkg "'%ttu,- PectanoooocrlDath'

( ionsidered as a whole, these images relate the polarization

LtI-o" (l6o-a1, (,"on, Spotn): tcn-

(meuo-sed.7irJ8. 2008). 4. Pesonal oorannmuaion,titth theari.u, ifo 16, 2009.5 John Meim. Arcade F6yer: The Fan', Guide it the Go,lden Age of Vid-o G.a-e (Athidelphia: R,oaaq lSe. 2001. 16. 6. Swan -,'

invited visitors to vite on whether Bilal (dressed in a long white robe called a dishdaiha) or a pug named Buddy would be waterboarded.

une,

"Hooto Lude-s

dold,//pinga 0423,hOot 3.See S

.

Rcsis,c.... Und,, the Gt

Following these projects Bilal conceived Dog or Iraqi (2008), an ironical online pierformance based around a website and blog that

of the sor,

/4 -oooteptesedJ,Nt 8, 2000) 2-&ee "'aan,

'The Brain BehMtdPintballA .rtst Rlilt 'Don-eftic Teon' Sootaina

JJa-otAItotkt. a poVotttnr, to'tter,abo•t hot, he hrWped heep the patndbal-ria-•n-t rtte tnng and .-reIt Iot a accerd -l Jolt it4all ott t bottO, 7002 e hrai behindto aett,oA ttofil":'knotoorh/oo/itroaioedait, Int

,ao,, lo-tg onder the egun-t(i,

ti- itI Itloitta B/t,la

about dtehoaaootttoo ttd te

r,/ohvgt co a

18, 2007)/ /ttnetttrkpeltancedtol,.ttot2O/Ot/interoet, tttoo

0,bot_letihOrd(ate.dJn,v8, 2009). 22. Alad (aot, 'AitPoat,and-sthot exhibit di.tplv' -atoo/rInes unrn ntt gon :-ntrolled by iMrh ti, i to-,"in Cthcagot 16i,bun,, /t It, 2007): o.-thtua•t•ilh-cAtomn,ot,n-ticattlrd/ t=t to, o'Wer tJulo 8. 2009). 23. (Ocv,, Strt iaw td. Endc,',

thi 070,050/1'8/altt/O.l.O It) titt751t.et roah=2t

1(%rula 7c tt L)oo/ec 19ith 24, (Caorn '4

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h-aqi, -i. 26 A0id,0. 2l7 /IuAl17edoo20,ttftheproye J]tI 8, 2009). 28.

Se& .to.". t,t .te8/mon'aomo,tttee .e.. .,

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8, 2009). 29. Ioradetatltddettripttmtt IrIite

Night,odBuh, iaptuCWing a,,d Q s,, o,, Saddamn tee tot', saddga B//,/,aa Reeottot I/ot PtttitelJc,tl00/nt Rcgardingthe Clotot,re (lot

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13

UNDER CONSTRUCTION: A CONVERSATION WITH STANLEY GREENBERG

black-and-white photographs exploring the infrastructure of New City, lnoisiblr .jVei l6rk: two The Hidden of the tanleyYork Greenberg has published books lnjrastructure of large-format, City (1998) and l14aterworks:A PhotographicJourntythrotgqh,keu, lock's Hidden

lI'ater Sptem (2003). The first focuses on the city's guts, primarily its bridges and tunnels, including the subway system; the second on its veins, which bring unfiltered water from the Catskill Mountains and Westchester County to the city's taps. Greenberg has made a habit of finding places essential to the daily lives of New Yorkers that most will never see and revealing these industrial sites in luxurious detail, using a photographic practice that seems to come from the same era as the engineering feats he records. If his past books feel

construction at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT]. I went up there and, after a day of shooting, realized construction sites of contemporary architecture could be a great project. There were so many new designs that had been impossible to build before, which, because of new technologies, were going up everywhere. Extremely complex, non-Cartesian shapes can be built off site, and then assembled in place. I've always been interested in architecture and fascinated with construction, so it made perfect sense, Gaining access to the buildings I wanted to photograph was time consuming but relatively easy compared to New York's infrastructure. The hard part was waiting for the buildings to get underway, and, at

as if they had their eyes on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the grand plans they commemorate were conceived and implemented, Greenberg's new book and his next both feature twenty-first century technologies. Architeaure Uinder Constructionwas published by the University of Chicago

Press in spring 2010, with a brief essay by Joseph Rosa, lormerly Chief Curator of Architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago, where a companion exhibition of Greenberg's photographs was on display this summer. The book takes a close look at the skeletons of the gravity-defying organic forms pioneered by Frank Gehry and other architects who employ computer technology to create curving skins Of structural steel. This new design strategy was heavily used when the real estate market was at its peak, creating similarly inflated forms, clubbed "blob" architecture in its early clays. Greenberg gradually etilarged his survey, conducted between 2001 and 2007, to include a full range of ambitious contemporary buildings. Next year, his 7"ime Machine):Accelerating Back to the Big Bang will be published, with

a companion show at New York's Gitterman Gallery in the spring. This fortlicoming title, photographed between 2006 and 2009, explores the tools used to conduct high-energy physics experiments, such as particle accelerators and bubble chambers

machines that

detect subatomic particles traveling from outer space or create them

deep underground by smashing particle beams together. Greenberg has turned his camera in new directions, but he is still looking into the structure Ofthe universe, staring at contraptions most people will never see. This interview was conducted via email in May 2010. STEPHEN LONGMIRE: These two new books take you out of New

L•

York City, which inspired much of your previous work. How did each of these projects come about, and how do you feel

all around North America.

about the shift in focus?

I'm not sure exactly how the physics project got started. I've always been interested in science I went to a science high school,

STANLEY GREENBERG: After I finished Waterworks, I wasn't sure what

Stuyvesant in Manhattan, about an hour from where 1 grew up in Brooklyn- and had been following the progress of the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and highest energy particle accelerator,

the next project was, except that I thought it was time to do a smaller

'4

least at the beginning, trying to figure out when to visit. I received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005, so I was able to visit building sites

p)rject that didn't need to be a book. I was in a group exhibition [at New York's Municipal Art Society in 2001] about Fresh Kills, the huge landfill on Staten Island that was about to be closed, and met the architect Steven Holl at the opening. He asked me if'l'd be interested in photographing one of his buildings [Simmons Hall], still under

at CERN [the European Organization for Nuclear Research, located on the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva]. I spoke with someone at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation about the project and he suggested that I visit a few sites, find a physicist to guide me, and then submit a

proposal. I fbund a professor at Columbia University, Janet Conrad

stages of construction, I ended up covering most aspects of the

Inow at MIT], to help me. She invited me to view her experiment at

building process.

Fermilab Ithe second largest particle accelerator,just west of Chicago] and connected me with physicists all around the world. Eventually, I received a book grant from the Sloan Foundation to travel internationally to photograph high-energy physics experiments. SL: Were there particular architects or buildings toward which you gravitated when looking for subject matter for Architecture UnderConstruction? sO: I was particularly interested in several architects when I got started and was very particular about when I visited sites. But I slowly learned that there were good pictures to be made in any

SL: Clearly, a keen interest in engineering links your books. Do you have a background in architecture or engineering, or do you come at these fields strictly as an interested bystander? For your purposes, do you see a meaningful distinction between the two? sG: I've always been interested in how things work; that's where Intisible

Aeu lYrk came from. As I mentioned, I studied science in high school and also architectural history in college lat State University of New York at Stony Brook], and I'm constantly reading about things that interest me. I think it helps a great deal to know what you're photographing, both from my perspective

however subconsciously

it is manifiested in the work and for my guides. who tend to be much more open and willing to show me things if they see the commitment I've made to learning about their sites. I've learned a fair amount of science from some great physicists. As for a distinction between architecture and engineering, I think part of what I'm trying to show is that the architecture is dependent on engineering, and the two must work together. Some buildings require much more complicated engineering than others, and part of what has made this recent era dilfflent is the computing power, mainly pioneered by Gehry, which has made it possible to build structures that couldn't be done belbre. And the physi s experiments are jointly designed by physicists and engineers. SL: Who

do you regard as your peers? Are there contemporary or past photographers whose work you admire and go back to? Or do you feel closer to peers in the fields you photograph? SG: Berenice Abbott is a big influence. I love her photographs of New York, and much later in her career she made a series of photographs to illustrate important principles of physics. Also Walker Evans, the Bechers, Harry Callahan, Lee Friedlander, Frank Gohlke, and Greg Conniff. I look at paintings a lot too, and ofcourse architecture. I love early Renaissanc e paintings, made when artists were just figuring out perspective. During my time with the city, I worked to help restore the building, whenever I got there. For example, I was particularly keen on getting to l)aniel Libeskind's Denver Art Museum before the fireproofing went on the steel. But I didn't get there in time, and the steel was all covered. In the end, it made a much better picture that way because of the contrast between the white covering and the darker bao kground. I have similhr stories for other sites. Some of the buildings I was particularly interested in were not the best subjects, and others I wasn't sure about were great. I never visited a building more than once, but since I went to them in all different

archives of New York City's water department and spent a lot oftinie with the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century documentation of the building of the system. My style is influenced by those pictures, but I'm obviously turning them on their heads in some ways by including trash and other imperfections in the landscape. I know a lot ofar( hitects and enjoy talking with them about design. I also have many photographer friends, and most of them do work much different from mine. But I don't feel especially close to architects or engineers because of my work. In the end, I'm trying

?. m

to make something else out of what they've done. Otherwise I'd just be documenting. Above ATLAS, CERN Switzerland, 2006 (2006) by Stanley Greenberg Facing page Untitled, Cambridge Massachusetts,2002 (2002) by Stanley Greenberg

15 SL: What do you think you are doing? And how does that

word, "documentary," fall short for you?

SG: I love documentary photography. 1,just don't think that's what I do. My work is influenced by everyone from the early French architectural photographers, including Eugene Atget, to the Bechers and other conceptual artists. I think my view of my subject is too biased to be documentary, but I suspect others would disagree. In the end, it really doesn't matter what I call it, if the pictures are good. And other people will call it what they want. SL: Berenice Abbott is often remembered as someone who recorded New York City at a particular time, notably during the Depression. Given the current popularity of rephotography, this gives us repeat performances, or updates like Douglas Levere's recent New York Changing: Revisiting Berenice Abbott's New York (2004). Your work is typically so tightly framed that it would be hard for it to function historically. It seems at once claustrophobically locked in the moment, yet out of time. Am I getting close to the reason for your reservations about the term "documentary"? SG: I think your interpretation of my reservations is getting there. As Joe Rosa suggests, I take the subject and make it my own. No disrespect for the subject is meant-quite the opposite. I think the subjects can stand another inte,-pretation. SL: I found it interesting that, when I asked about other photographers who have mattered to you, Abe Morell didn't come up. He works with some of the same themes, both architecture and science, albeit in quite different ways. What are your reactions to his work?

My ftitherwas a high school art teacher, so he taught me some darkroom basics, some of which I had to unlearn later. In college, I studied art

SG: I like the work; I just don't think it's much related to mine.

else to do. I bought a Hasselblad when I graduated from college and used it quite a bit. When I was back in New York in the early 1980s,

SL: You are dealing with some pretty abstruse subjects. How do you go about exploring and learning about a site?

I worked fbr a gallery. They wanted me to do their transparencies in-house, so I taught myself how to use their Speed Graphic. After I got fired, I bought my own view camera and started shooting art fbr artists and galleries. It didn't pay well, but it gave me a chance to learn the camera better. I worked for the New York City government

SG: I've always enjoyed doing research, to paraphrase Richard Feynman, for "the pleasure of finding things out." Once I'm involved in a project, I tend to become obsessed with it. If I don't wnt to he that deeply involved, then it's not the right project for me. I talk to people, read a lot, and occasionally watch films or videos. With the physics project and the extension of it- -a project about

a

from 1982 to 1988 and left so that I could photograph more. I've done a few magazine jobs and can probably count the commercial jobs I've done on one hand. Mostly, I photograph what I'm interested in.

large telescopes -there is so much information on the internet. It was, aflter all, developed so that scientists could talk to each other.

SL: You have mentioned working for New York City-in

SL: Can you describe your work process and how you

sO: I had done an internship with Congresswoman Elizabeth Hothzman in Washington, D.C., when I was ans undergraduate, and I was her assistant campaign manager in 1978 tin he"r successful reelection bid for New York's 16' Congressional District, located in Brooklyn at the time]. After graduating fnom Syracuse University

developed it? For example, do you typically use the same wide-angle lens? SG: lfI can, I walk around a site first, without the camera. But I tend itoknow what I want to shoot fairly quickly. I don't use a lot offiln twenty sheets its a day is a lot, and half are probably duplicates. I have a fairly wide range of lenses, btt tile ones that get used most 16

history and took a couple of photography classes. The photography prolessor told me I wasn't any good and that I should find something

are the 105nim and 150mm. I'm often at sites where it's physically impossible to get close enough, or far enough away, so I tend to carry all my lenses with me, ,just in case.

what capacity?

[with a Master's degree in Public Acdministrationl, I worked for the New York City government. I had a couple of city jobs I wasn't

Above Large Binocular Telescope, Arizona, 2008 (2008) by Stanley Greenberg Facing page Interior,New Croton Dam, We':tchester. New York. 2000 (2000) by Stanley Greenberg

concerned enough with actual craft that it doesn't often get characterized as conceptual. If you look up "conceptual art" on Wikipedia, it mentions that the idea is more important than the aesthetic and material concerns. But the first artist mentioned is Sol Lewitt, whose work I've always liked. I've always felt that the precision to which his instructions were followed was essential to the success of the piece. So, if you're a great painter or printer, can you be a conceptual artist? SL: To what extent is the absence of people

in your pictures a result of the liability issues you mention in your remarks at the back of the new book, and to what extent is it a matter of personal preference? It seems to me the human body is no longer the reference point for the structures you are dealing with. SG: The

lack of people is not about liability issues

at all. I think they're usually a distraction to what thrilled with, starting in 1982, then went on to be assistant to a Deputy Commissioner in the Parks Department. Holtzman was l)romoted twice, and I went with her first to the Department of Transportation, then to the Mayor's Office of Operations, a kind of

I want to show. All the pictures are about people in the end, since everything is built by someone.

in-house consulting and analysis office. I left to be a photographer in 1986 but was lured back to be Assistant Commissioner in the l)epartment of CuAltUral Affairs, aii offer I couldn't refuse. Along thie way, I got to see lots of the city's infrastructure, so I knew which doors to knock on when I was doing the first two books. It helped to know who to ask for what, but I don't think access was any easier.

process? You are still shooting black-and-white film in

The Giuliani administration was known for its secrecy.

So: The digital revolution has not affected my work much at all. I can scan images to send quick emails to clients and curators, and I

SL: Your comments about commercial work beg the question;

recently scanned all the images for the physics book for the separator to use. Beyond that, I only use film and process everything myself. I

how do you react to the kind of architectural photography to which the buildings you photograph in Architecture Under Construction will eventually be subjected?

SL: How has the digital revolution affected your work

large-format cameras, a fact you call attention to in your brief remarks in Architecture Under Construction. Are the prints you are exhibiting at the Art Institute of Chicago silver or inkjet prints?

work with someone who makes my larger [30 x 40-inch] prints, like those at the Art Institute, but they are also gelatin silver. I did one digital portfolio with the Richard Levy Gallery, in Albuquerque, so I

S: There is a great history of architectural photography, of course,

can work that way if there's a reason. We wanted to print nine images

but I think you're referring to the magazine photographers. There's a need for what they do, but it's more of a fantasyland. Stylists often completely arrange the interiors, and the pictures are always

of wooden mold patterns I photographed inside the Brooklyn Bridge, and it was the best way to combine images on one sheet. I know blow to

designed to make the subject look good.,just like every other type of )hotography, there are good examples and bad examples. But I don't like working for other people, with agendas other than my own, so I doni't do it. SL: How do you react to the conceptual aesthetic that the art world seems to bring to your new work? Do you try to approach varying subjects differently, from a visual standpoint, or do you feel you bring a common aesthetic to the projects you take on?

make a print in the darkroom better than with an inkjet printer. But I will probably experiment more with digital prints in the future. SL: Since machines are in many ways your subject, the

machine you use must be carefully chosen. I imagine it is all natural light work, but did you have to light any of those tunnels in Waterworks?

a

C

SG: I use a 4x5 LinhofTechnikardan with 75 -360mm lenses, mostly 105 and 150. I've tried Sinar, Area, Toyo, and like them all, but this is

So: I usually develop my l)rojcets as large bodies of work so there's a

the most portable for me, with all the movements I want. Everything is natural light except for one picture made in a water tunnel and one at SNOLAB [the world's deepest underground lab, located in a

Concept to hold it together. But I don't like the term. I'm interested in what artists labeled "conceptual" have done, but my work tends to be

fbrmer mine beneath Sudbury, Ontario]. Both places had absolutely no light, so we used a few safety lights.

17

SL: What were the biggest technical challenges of the two projects we are discussing?

Su Given the challenges of doing book-length projects, how much support do you need, in terms of grants and commitments

SM 'The biggest technical challenge is to be ready fbr anything. I don't usually get to scout much, so I bring more lenses and film than I need. You might guess that Antarctica was the biggest technical challenge, but it wasn't bad. The hardest thing is getting my equipment where I need to go by myself. Su Antarctica? Did you do that National Science Foundation [NSF] fellowship that has taken other photographers there?

from

publishers

and

dealers,

before

undertaking a project?

SG It's always been difficult to do book projects. For the first two books, I had some smaller grants, but I think I would have completed them without support. There was not a lot of travel involved, and they would have just taken longer to complete. I started the architecture project with enough support to photograph one site and didn't even know it would be a book. I received the Guggenheim Fellowship about halfway through, so I was able to get to many more sites than

sM Yes, Antarctica was a great trip. I spoke with some other photographers and writers who had been there, and the NSF people were very helpful in planning for the trip and logistics once I got there. I got to photograph IceCube, a neutrino observatory, and the South Pole Telescope. I always wanted to go, but didn't have an excuse until this project. I'd like to go back to see more of the weird natural phenomena. It was tough being away from my family for two and a half weeks, though. I think I'll wait a couple of years before

I would have without it. They also contributed toward the book's production costs, as did the National Endowment for the Arts. The physics project would not have happened at all without support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. I have a very supportive gallerist in New York, Tom Gitterman. I've never had a publisher before I started a project. A couple came on board in the middle and one near the end. These days, publishers also need to raise money, or you have to promise to bring it in, or there will be no book.

applying again. Su What buildings or machines would you especially like to photograph?

Su Having worked with several publishers on your books, I wonder if you have been more or less involved with the production of these past two books than with the previous two?

SG: There are some additional telescopes that I want to get to in Chile and the Canary Islands, but I think I may photograph something else next.

so. Regarding publishers, they're all different. Up until now, I was most involved with Waterworks, probably just because Princeton Architectural Press is a subway ride away. But with Time Machines, I've chosen the designer and separator and been much more involved in every step. Su What is next for you? SG: I'd like to finish photographing the telescopes, but I'm not optimistic about finding a publisher. I think I will try to do some smaller projects after that. It takes too much time to raise money for books, and I'd rather spend it making pictures. SL How do you feel your studies of telescopes and other devices involving light-visible and invisible-reflect on your use of photography as a recording medium? Sm I definitely like the idea of photographing lenses, mirrors, and

other devices that arc types of cameras. My camera is a photon detector, of course. based in the .ldirondackb of tHis next book, Lire and Death on the Prairie, a portraito'one

STEPHEN LONGMIRE is a photogmpher and waitl,

I!pstate.Veu l•.

ofjthe last and best priries in Iowa, till be oui.from 7-he OenterforAlmerican P.laces at Columbia (.ollege Chicago later thity,ar.

Above Untitled, Akron, Ohio, 2005 (2005) by Stanley Greenberg

SPATIAL POETICS: THE (NON)DESTINATIONS OF AUGMENTED REALITY ART [Ed. note. This is the firstpart of a two-part essay.]

Stici,

the carly 1990s, the progressive authentication of

Augmented reality is a perceptual paradigm. To be more precise, it is a perceptual predicament. Considering that the definitive (yet still unachieved) goal is "to create a system such that the user [cannot] tell

augmented reality (AR) over virtual reality (VR) in a variety ofdonmains medicine, military training, robotics, education,

the difference between the real world and the virtual augmentation

communications, entertainment, tourism, design, and art, to name

several technical challenges notably, the imperative to perfect the panoply of technologies that converge to assemble a mixed real-

the most obvious increased awareness of the accuracy of Gilles l)eleuze's insight formulated in L'image-remps (1985), according to which the temporal categories of the virtual and the actual had ((oute to exchange and displace one another in a relationship of "indiscernibility.''' Aldiough this relationship characterized the making of the "crystal image" in contemporary cinema (where the coalescence of temporal layers replaces the succession of shots typical of' pre-war narrative cinema), it prefigures the quasiindiscernibility in augmented reality's spatialization of cinema. The engineers Paul Milgrain and Fumio Kishino introduced the

of it,"" the perceptual motivation underlying AR research carries

virtual continuum fbr the observer-participant. From audiovisual (head mounted, wall mounted, handheld) display and playback devices, to hunian-machine interlace systems, to body-tracking and sensing and surveillance instruments, one of the most difficult technical challenges is the requirement for the computer to track where the user is looking and determine what s/he is seeing in order to augment his/her vieW.s This has been from the start the impetus of AR explorations.

spatial equivalent of the virtual-actual tie in their formulation of the "real-virtual continuum" to describe the unbroken scale ranging

In the field of art, AR environments are, eflectively, a derivative of

from real to virtual environments, with augmented reality and augmented virtuality located "anywhere between" the two ends of the spectrum 2 :

by the activation of computer-generated data. These shifting sites are achieved by connecting spectators to networking systems (mobil(phones, GPS, the internet); sensing, tracking, and surveillance

site-specificity installation art, in which the site is de/un/re-specified

technologies; and robotics, which enable the processing of diffeirent fcrms of data texts, images, sound, light, motion, even heartbeats

I Real Environmint

and smell in a specific space. As specified by Lev Manovich in his "The Poetics of'Augmented Space," one of the first texts discussing

Mixedfteatlty(MR~ Augmented Reaflty (AR)

Augmerted VWjAW lArtuellty (AV) Envronment

As Milgram's schema specifies, the real-virtual continuum- the unbroken scale ranging from real to virtual environments is the foundational assumption of digital forms of augmented reality (AR).ý' AR builds up a continuity between the real and the virtual, in which the two categories tend to lose, although never completely, their distinction in relation to one another as they interact with each other. It is this concept of the real-virtual continuum that underlies Ronald Azuma, et al.'s definition of AR that will be used here: AR as a system that "supplements the realworld with virtual (computergenerated) objects that appear to coexist in the same space as the realworld."' This supplementing occurs through the addition of dynamic, interactive, and context-specific information to the Liser's sensory perception of space. This perceptual dimension is pivotal, as it is not the space itself but the perception and experience of the

aesthetic experimentations with augmented reality, physical space is transformed in data space by "extracting data from it (surveillance) or augmenting it with data (cellspace, computer displays)."'" The status of the spectator in these settings is quite unique: s/he is expected to be enhanced perceptually by evolving interactively, often polysensorially, and collectively, with the work. Think, for example, of Christian Moeller's Audio Grove (1997), an interactive light and sound work composed of a wooden platform supporting vertical touch-sensitive steel posts: visitors who touch the posts produce a soundscape that in turn triggers different spotlights progressively illuminating the whole space. There is also Seiko Mikami's Gravicells: Gravity and Resistance (2004), which proposes a platform covered with panels of string-like lines that deform as the sensors underneath react to the participants' weight, tilt, and velocity (the movements of the participants are transformed into movements of sounds and geometrical images). This changing platform, whose changes intensify when participantsjoin to make "plural moving observation points," is measured by GPS systems that register the changes in the

space that is hypothesized to be augmented. In medical applications, for example, a surgeon can wear a head-mounted display (HMD) device equipped with a semi-transparent visor that overlays his

space, a calculation displayed on different wall panels that enhance

or her perception of the patient's body with the preparatory study of the internal anatomy projected on the screen." In automobile

an animated projection on the faiade of the York Minster Cathedral in England that lights up in response to the voices of the nearby

applications, AR visualizing systems enable the projection of global positioning system (GPS) cartographic information on the car's

public. Umbrella.net (2004 -), created byJonah Brucker-Cohen and Katherine Moriwaki, is a social networking system involving ten participants or fewer, each holding a Bluetooth-equipped umbrella

windshield or front screen, allowing the driver to see the outside environment through a constantly updated map of the area.

the real-time dynamic between image, body, gravity, resistance, sound and light." Another example is Usman Haque's Evoke (2007),

fitted with a personal digital assistant (PDA) running the networking

C -4

C

19

software

the software is activated when the umbrellas open, the

imlact of irain connecting the participants sharing the same physical space, a connection whose intensity is made visible by different light emitting diodes (LEDs)." Finally, Alut.iugoto (2004), by 'Tomoko

and anywhere" with their inlerlocutor, lint who can nev'r know lbr sure when and where the presumed interlocutor will bt reached. This ambivalence is best described by referring to the titles of two well-known AR artworks: the asserting You Are Here (2004, by

Hayashi, Stefan Aganianolis, and Matthew Karau, is an intimate con0111nication device planned for a bedroom environment that

Scott Snibbe) and the questioning ('an Iiiu See Me .Niow? (2001 , by

allows distant partners to communicate through light-drawing on the human body. Each partner lies on his or her own bed, equipped

two accounts, cumulating them as inseparable accounts. The first installation tracks and displays the paths of'visitors walking through

with a totCh-activated ring visible to a camera mounted above; a Com1pUter vision system tracks the movement oftthe ring and projects virtual pen strokes both on the user's body and the body of the remote

it large public space to eventually identify them when they stand in front of the main screen, with a large red "You are here" arrow. The second is an online and street-chase game, in which actual runners circulating in a delimited urban territory are tracked by

partner "if yOU RIllow Your partner's movements and your strokes cross," write the conceivers ofl'Alutit.goto. "[IT]he lines will react with each other anid reflect your synchron) In all of these works, users iinvited are to interact perceptually, sensorially, and collectively with the systern. Nonetheless, the system is persistently searching for sensing, seeking, and tracking bodies for the sake of ltte thr trete - "s: t oUtntuiCatiOnl, connectivity, and community.

Iparticipants

Blast Theory). AR environments keep oscillating between these

satellites and appear online as avatars next to avatars created by computer players. The first work emphasizes the tractability of) the user while the second one"it emphasizes its fleetingness. Yet, the user is both a tractable individual and a leceting subject in each of these environments. The augmented reality artwork declares "Here you are now" but simultaneously asks (let us follow psychoanalyst Serge Tissermn hiere): "Where are toit now?"''' The positioning of

Thltis essay examines thte ambivalence of "destination" namely liitl(' ambivalence (it the user's interpellation as one of the key,

the spectator is not anl unqualified act. It is ai search, a question, an affirmation, a desire, a verb, an anxiety.

yvt if

significattly unttler-acknowleged, features of augmented 'rcillitV art.'' It c,.alls atutition to the special status of the spectator whose connectedness is at once a requirement and aii uncertainty,

20

a prediclion and( an axiety, a principle of localization and a qutistitning of'the capacity to localize. This ambivalence is endernic to AR environmtents that rely ots Toobile networking, tracking, sensing, and detection technologies. It clearly echocs the experience oftmobile phone users who can allegedly 'stay in tocth anytimt

Above Desireof Codes (2010) by Seiko M,kami, photo by Ryuichi Maruo; courtesy Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media Facing page You A,e Here (2004) by Scott Snibbe: image courtesy Scott Snibbe; c, 2004

be examined later. When explored, the shifts complicate unsatisfying yet recurring notions of connectivity as immediate and permanently accessible, of community as communal and bonding, and of participation as necessarily purposeful, creative, and productive. The ambivalence of destination is to be understood as a modality by which spectators can never completely cohere around a community of users. They also substantially contribute to a better understanding of community, for they disclose what is usually left out of contemporary discussions on community: aesthetics. To clarify, let us return to Usman Haque's Evoke (2007), an animated projection on the fatade T his is especially true ii cases when AR relics on locative technologies.

of York Minster that lights up in response to the voices of a public in close proximity. The multicolored lighting of

Recent literature has been inclined to affirm (,especially Manuel C(astells, et al.'s study of mobile communication) that "the key feature

the building occurs as a collective phenomenon; it is preprogramnmed to respond to the manifold voices of a group. This example is

in the practice of mobile coommunication is connectivity rather

emblematic of the AR applications mapped out here, applications

than mobility," and that mobile technology ensures a permanent

that rely on the two following principles. First, to paraphrase WJ.T. Mitchell's famous terminology about contemporary images ("What

and ubiquitous form of' connectivity- one in which mobile users can "stay in touch anytime and anywhere in a habitual mode of commutuication"" and Ibriu what Misa Matsuda calls "full-time intimate communities.""' But in its applications, connectivity never simply resolves the c-omplexitiesofcommuiticatiott. In AR networking envirotnents, the complexities of communication are intensified by the absence of the other, which entails the increased need for immediate connectivity; the difficulty to predict the availability of the other; the impossibility of verifying the other's spatial location; the inability to know for sure, particularly in text messaging, if the identified interlocutor is real or fictional; the steady possibility of

do images want?"), the augmented reality artwork largely wants an interactive, localizable, yet anonymous addressee (a shouter or singer, for example, as in Evoke). It has a democratic underpinning, one that belongs to what Jacques Ranci6re has called the aesthetic regime: its recipient is not a specified recipient. It is any visitor, any spectator, arty user. Yet, this "any user" exists only insofar as s/he is technologically detected. As such, AR doesn't fit easily with the aesthetic regime, whose main operation is the suspension of destination -a regime of indeterminate images in which form is felt for itself instead of

but when heavily used it may even lead, through the phenomenon

operating under the mimetic (narrative/genre/public) hierarchies of the representative regime or for the moral purposes of the ethical regime. AR should be considered a hybrid of representative and

best described by Ichiyo Habuchi's notion of "tele-cocooning" ("the

aesthetic regimes, for it has a destination (it wants an interactive,

production of social identities in small, insular groups through mobile

detectable user) yet the identity of that user is not predetermined and his or her presence is never guaranteed: "Here you are now," yet "Where are you now?" Second, in most cases, augmented reality

mtistiticerstaitdiitgtrofhlbeing misunderstood. Connectivity is reached,

cumunications"), "to the weakening of communal ties beyond the

most intimate group of fricnds": mobile technology is a paradoxical site "of inttgration and disintegration of communities."

Considering that the impetus of'AR exp)lrations is to develop sensing,

artworks are invested in the production of a real-virtual continuum only inasmuch as the continuum may provide reciprocity to any addressee another anonymous addressee (shouter or signer), even a group of anonymous addressees with whom to cooperate as instantaneously as possible. Therefore, in their search foi human

detection, and tracking technologies that c(an register and then augment the user's perception of the environment by transfcirming the perceived enviroinent into a mixed real-virtual continuum,

reciprocity, they also partake in the ethical regime of art. AR wants, supports, and facilitates participation and community building between users (in many cases, a community of two, three, or lour

AR's potential innovativeness

may suffice), mostly for the sake of communication, gaminig, formal

AR'S POTENTIAL INNOVATIVENESS

and this is where the notion of

augmentation may start to make sense

li's in its ability to generate

new ways of lerceiving that effectively and diversely mix the real and the virtual within a satine field ofvision. As a perceptual paradigm, AR is tinovative when its perceptual predicament is not only structurally but strategically rooted in the ambivalence of destination proper to connectivity. AR connects users. Ini its best moments, however, it takes adcXvanitage oftthe ambivalence of'destination to turn it into ait aesthetic of 'perceptual,sensorial, and cognitive "horizon" shifts, whichtind unbinding perceptual, sensorial, cognitive processes. These shifts will

play, narration, mapping, mutual recognition, or embodiment. This double principle- the solicitation of an anonymous addressee and the connection of this addressee to other addressees

structures

the ambivalence of destination in augmented reality. What the brief example of Evoke reveals, however, is that its exploration mas favor the "You are here now" component oft he ambivalence of destination, to the detriment of the more anxious "Where are vou nos?" dimension. Indeed, though Ezo,ke can never predict in advance who

21

and when the users will interact, participants interact collaboratively and similarly to the sante end, singing or shouting together in sync to light tp tse cathedral. Other AR works will explore the double principle of AR to uphold the productivity of the user's "Where are you fow?" status tile anxious, fleeting, and unknowable dimensions of AR connectivity within a real-virtual (continuum. I will examine diflerent AR environments

by artists Rafael

L,ozano-licininer, Seiko Mikami, Blast Theory, Mathieu Briand, antd Christa Sommerer aud L,aurent Mignonneati to identify the modalities by which key contemporary AR artworks investigate this doufle principle, sometimes to sidestep, sometimes to affirm the amifdalence of "You are here now" and "Where are you flow?" As stated earlier, the potential of AR as a perceptual paradigm lies in its ability to follow tile anthialence of destination by allowing for inter-sensorial, inter-perceptual, inter-coinitive horizon shifts. I will be relying

oni Ranicire's notions of aesthetics and the distribution oftlit sensible, as well and.Jean-Luc Nancy's and Marc Augu's notions of inciperative and illusionary community. The productivity of dicse notions lies precisely in their troubling

of' protlematic foirms of' connectedness in AR artistic practices, as vwellas their capacity to lclp disclose tht inistvativeness of AR in its

bridging of lithe three "c"s: conmmnication, coniectivity, and tcnmmuniity. Many of Ltozano-Hesminer's AR environments depend on tlit'e use of' serisors tiat measure the

heartieats of participants to convert them into light beams that interact in the public space as other participants simultaneously engage with the sensor devices. Pulse Park (2008) is sitrely ihlie most exempla ry site of the "' ulse" series (2006 ), activating a matrix of' light beams moving and crisscrossing over the central oval field of Madison Square Park in New York City. The intensity ol the beams was modulated by a sensor installed at the north end of the Oxval Lawn that recorded the sheart rates (more specifically, the systolic and diastolic activities) of' the visitors, which were then translated and visualized as pulses of'flickering light beams projected by spotlights placed along thlt' perinieter of' the lawn. Each time a tuse,i mad' contact with the sensor, a light beam emerged to intersect with other light beams previously set off' by other partitipants. Each ittlne a user would release the sensor, the heartbeat would be relayed to the first spotlight and previous recordings would move down one position, with the potential of twor hundred light beams projected siniukaneously. According to Lozano-Hemmer, the result was "a 22

poetic expression t oiUr vital signs, transforming the public space into a fleeting architecture of light and movetenet."' T'Ike heart rates were indeed flowingly translated into light through touch: these translations carried with them ais aura of wonder and synaesthesia as they let users see the sounds and poundings resonating inside

their

own bodies. Surprisingly, however, Lozano-Herimer appears to negate the wonder of translation when he affirms that participants were "surrounded by the 200 most recent heartbeats."" The statenient awkwardly denies that the pulsing configuration of tise heartbeats were clearly predetermined by the heart rate sensor, DMX controller, software, and generator."' It confuses the digital translation of systolic and diastolic activities into light with the biological activities under translation."' Moreover, the translations were somewhat disappointing and homogeneous when considered as community building. The only diffeiences between light beams was their pulse, and differences between pulses were minimal at best. Poetic expression was also inseparable from the institution of a virtual community of light beam substitutes of'the self, a virtual community triggered by the interactivity of participants who otherwise did not necessarily relate to each other. Finally, the constituency of the lit commuiity was only marginally controlled by the users: participants

Above Pulse Park in Madison Square Park, New York City (2008) by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer; photo by James Ewing

could only manage the direct presence and memorized presence of

their sense of autonomy. These artistic practices-- to name some of

the light beams by holding or letting go of the sensors.

the most pivotal examples, the work of Yoko Ono, Valerie Export, Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, and Maria Abramovil & Ulay-

The key rule underlying AR sites such as Pulse Park is interactivity

invited what art historian Janet Kraynak has insightfully called

and participation for the sake of community building. They are the site of affirmation of inter-agero ergo sum ("I interact, therefore I am"). AR wants at least one action from its destinataire: interaction

"dependent participation.""

through participation. There is nothing wrong with this rule per se. On the contrary, interactivity tasks are at the center of ubiquitous computing today and it is vital that artists investigate these. What must be addressed, however, is the kind of interactivity required of the user as well as the types of communities resulting from such interactions. In Pulse Park, interaction is minimal: the recipient is

Kraynak borrows the term from

Alain Touraine, published in his The Post-Industrial Sociey (1971),

which was coined to refer to the demands made by the serviceoriented society emerging in the late 1960s: technocratic demands ofwidespread conformist inclusion in contrast to earlier periods of industrialism, which were contingent upon exclusion. 4 Ono's Cut Piece(1965), where the artist sat motionless on the stage after inviting the audience members to cut away her clothing until she was naked; Export's Tap and Touch Cinema (1968), a street action in which the

left with a sense of not having much control over the outcome of the piece. More problematically, it shapes communities that lack in intersubjectivity what they gain in numbers of participants; they

artist wore a miniature movie theater around her breasts, giving

simply amount to a conglomerate of two or more anonymous users:

Green Light Corridor (1970), a claustrophobic passageway forcing

an amenable collective of"anyone + anyone + anyone + anyone +. . " This [ homogenizing conglomerate is best conveyed by an aerial

the spectator to maneuver his or her way through; Acconci's Seedbed (1971) where the performer lay hidden underneath a gallery-

representation of the environment: an enlightened gestalt-resolved

wide ramp, masturbating while vocalizing into a loudspeaker his fantasies about the spectators walking above him; and Abramoviz & Ulay's Imponderabilia(1977) where the couple stood naked opposite

ellipse made out of similar pulsing light beams. Sidestepping the ambivalence of AR, this relational work stores up to two hundred interventions to compensate for the possible scarcity or absence of participatory recipients. This guarantees consistency, fullness, completeness, and inclusiveness to the form and, as such, re-affirms the location of the user to the detriment of the unverifiability of that location. It is as though AR sites, despite the ambivalence of their structure (connectedness is at once a requirement and an uncertainty, a prediction and an anxiety, a principle of localization and a questioning of the very capacity to localize), "fear speaking in

public accessibility to her body, not to be seen but to be touched by any viewer reaching through the curtains of the theater; Nauman's

each other in the museum entrance, requiring that visitors enter sideways between them: all of these works wanted participation from the spectator. Participation, however, was meant to be an alienating, frightening, and uneasy experience. The participant was solicited to contribute to unfolding power relations. In other words, inclusion was experienced as a promising yet problematic feat a difficulty, a constraint, a means to hold one's own exclusion at bay. This standpoint, as Kraynak has convincingly argued,

the desert," as Rancilre would put it. They fear "the letter without a recipient.""•

questions post-industrial society's increasing reliance on non-

THE PROBLEM: PARTICIPATION AND INTERACTIVITY

Augmented reality art (in its partaking of relational aesthetics) has

What is the problem here? In these types ofinteractive environments, AR becomes an art uncertain of its perceptual potential. It produces wonder through translation from heartbeat to light; it produces a community of users. But as it sidesteps the "Where are you now?" modality of AR ambivalence, attempts at generating new ways of perceiving and connecting are also sidestepped. Such interactive environments liaque's Ei,okeis not far here belongto the category of what Castells has designated as "ad hoc groupings," which find their "technological platform in this capacity to call for action or... for sharing in instant time.' They rely on a restrictive use of time as instantaneity (to which I will return) and on a superficial view of

participation and interactivity, which dismisses the requirement to reflect upon the limits of (a) participation through (b) interactivitv.

conflictual forms of participation.

too easily become the aesthetics par excellence of'non-oppositional participation, what Ranciere has come to identify as "consensus": an act or methodology of agreement between parties that suspends disagreement as the modus operandi of' politics, denying the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that structure any community. Participation is in fact promoted as a means of community building: this is the case of Pulse Park. It has even become a mode of community synchronicity, as in Rebecca Allen's Coexistence (2001), an interactive work that partakes of the same consensus platform, though specifically devised to enable "a shared experience between two people in a world that is both real and virtual.'" Wearing an HMD equipped with a small digital camera and an integrated head-tracking device, a participant can both see the environment in front of her through the camera and 3D computer-generated objects that seem to inhabit the same physical space. A hand-held

As such, these works have abandoned vital insights of earlier, nondigital forms of installation and performance art.

interface device that combines a breath sensor with a modified

a) Parti ipatlion. One of the most significant contributions of

the participant will see a cloud of virtual forms obscuring her

installation and performnance art of the 1970s to the non-destination breath of acstlietics has been its double entendre in matters of

view of the real world, but as she blows into the breath sensor her breath will progressively blow away the virtual forms. Meanwhile,

spectator participation: a mode of address that solicits, even seduces, spectators into a specific environment only to destabilize

across from her, the other participant will also be blowing away the virtual forms. By "working together" both participants will remove

force feedback game pad allows the participant to interact with responsive computer-generated fsrms through her breath. At first, 23

technically inventive in its blending of virtual and real worlds,

better addressed in works that do not simply equate interactivity, progressiveness, and community. As Nancy has contended, the

(.'iexi.qen'e builds a community of two in which it is presumed that

formation of cotimunities requires dhoeurenient (inoperativeness) -

participants will collaborate on a similar task -oddly the removal

gaps,

of the virtual dimensions of the visual field

intersensoriality, processural passings oftitme, in short the ambivalence

the virtual objects "to reveal a view of each other." Although

to finally reveal each

dissensus,

shifting

forms

of'

interperceptuality

other. Why integrate the virtual only to dismiss it? Synchronicity is

of destination

pivotal here, as well as transparency. Mediation has reached such

by iniperceptible operations of intllUsicIn/cxclusion.

precision that it allegedly vanishes in the act of*communication. As Pulse Park, it tends to erase the inevitable noise of mediated

and

to prevent their turning into homogeneities mnobilized

[Ed. note: See the November/December 2010 issue (Volume 38, nou 3) of Afterimage for Part 2 of this essay]

transmission. What mainly disappears is noise -the coding of the

senses, the translation of human biology, and the participants' connectedness to new tnedia as "milieu." As the work of Michel

CHRISTINE ROSS i.3hqji•sin andtjames, 1c;ill Chair in Conternporao,*rt lttiotyg

Serres has shown, noise is in excess of infbrmation that keeps

in 1hr Department qf.-Irt Hi.storT and (.rnmuniwation Studies at McGill U 'nideit'

modif•sing the signal and the message.2"

in Alontr'al. She ha Contemnporary

b) Inlemctiitvit.

huteractivity

-in Jens Jensen's definition of the

terin as "a measure of a media's potential ability to let the user exert att influence ont the content and/or form of the mediated

recently publish'd The Aesthetics of Disengagement:

Art and

Depression

(2006) and co-edited Precarious

Visualities: New Perspectives oii Idendification in Contemporary Art and Visual Culture (2008). in mi 2 .hnnii. 9 St 21 u85 lik'a itrd Rrhy 1Inl " i•sptnr,,'" tit i'. i'ra-mnatiio- Infi-wation ,on 991): 1321 I1'9 .1. lat hi ta,i,t,,h,Wrid,, dkimttin si a rtiiahly wniin i ",n

.V1TES 1, Gi11a,D'ds ,zr, i'! 1 t ,iiiua,, imagv-t

communication"

is necessarily contingent, and its productivity

has limitations and some undesirable consequences. As Slavoj iiiek has pointed out, the uncanny double of interactivity is interpassivity. Spectators, in teyw media

mixed or augmented -

art, are no\s invited to interact with the sc,een. Such relationships have put an end to the supposed passive consumption ofartworks. In some of the examples described above, the spectators shout, move, touIh, hold, select, put on HMD helmets, to "participate actively in the sptc tacle." These consumptions, however, create situations "iin which the object itself deprives me of my own passive reaction of'satisfilction (or mourning or laughter), so that it is the object itself

that 'enjoys the show" instead of me, relieving me of the superego duty to etnjoy Tn', self."121 Supporting this view, new media specialist Eirik P. BUiy has empirically shown how interactivity

as an

cxlperienco with technology- is not merely located in the properties of

itchnology

and communication settings. Rather, it is mostly in

.,d

.I .. m. .i.h.o. '"tdti-

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ptab.•psisjesntsat.,ts 12. Inde'd. in "17ht lint,, " 5 4tht a,kini,?'t• I tIc ,a,tnl! t, ', alia. oni Ithti•'t'tnr a! the

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n / itedqa " (220). 1Bu thal allan7,iablrill,tiiatn,tnitiss,,tD #tha actrtliSs al s,ayta'iiis •pact

1st,gnostssthb'is t t aria sIir,iatal

itium• ttia/sl.lttiar oa,,,,at 4ntp ,lallc. tIn' ttpr 5

Its an'nu itmntl rtiahil a,tioar.i, 13 . r'5kt 1.aanm,s Virtu,, t. i iis,u, oios,'tc, liinsltuit'r (l'ian [S fl: kn to AInt.lIsn M ' tIll.). 7,,1u J,l,a,,,sn i/ti a,ad.,|aira .,j '.t ,ls,h,

if

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n tu i(aln,,,.1,.,an So,,i,ty A5 ilti,)tal i5','qa,i,,

(tCasnhridger

t

Ja.t,atus'r t.ilt (las .lngtk " tlnn,tslb,n I attn Bt (/mt ma'nnniia ttt l,20 . 1 16. lit, '2 94 1 Ititlal 1, attan lle wttisr. "I'ts/s' Pal'n'"' t,t•,,rn 2n4. ains-h k,' ''a , / 15Thi /ptgla / •la l luml••rttl:l•lr ttmtn 1 lSu. .hln P f-Imm, l, inet}t] lila':nal t u,"d(i ,talI'u:• "q' dR¢. IO ld-,ntth-'ahl): 24p- ;ta,a't -t•t ,,r,,i,,ikhS=ii 711th, ,tt 19 1. ano-lIts mm' "'Pala I ,isti t s hu ,a I
21 O iki"t"iat /snnr '7si,tnatlhtu

palst/ssni 11,,,

might perceive that s/he is pa,iticipating in a "neianingful two-way

AIt h)rita not i' 4 n,l2 is auiuti 20 i,'e id# 1

txchang' without ever achieving actual control over the content"

l di,n,n, an2

fklan lb,llt. RWinudd inrl/rg',ý w,-

-mAnVnard Ra'it'.

aer 200l: 31 47,

the user's experience and perception of interactivity. The tuser ,

U

"tiai,n

A,ati,kgtaDtrns '¢A 8 such, a, stanri

jushnasi list. ,,nd .5,,. 219.

la4 I wt.4 s

s'

ta/siinsinIig,ttalaet. tr,thl,,,iIp I a !itttlal

it,m a ,sse([t ttin

'l,,, ,

, l, anttta,i

lai ng 22 t ,,tcis l''ti a sa2i't .•t,alcrj

23..iaitit Ar,,rial,. li,,s'stndnitl'arilnistt t• ht tsiBst\am iisist

lwtottsrst,tit•t. ""(i ' 1'

or whtit it in fact lacks communicative reciprocity or behavorial oipportuliti.s.2'' This perception varies i'rrnione user to another, depending litavily otn the user's skills and experience in advanced intbrination. 'T'ltt' assumption that two-way communication necessarily desirabil

is

and that it leads to more knowledge does not

hold. Interactive settings may increase firustration, conflusion, and reduced nietnory when they detiand too much time. expertise, and CoguitiVe rIsOIrTCs if thl

User. More importantly, in light of AR's

CIulltotImuity 1t",rnations flet uts ftlolow Bity's findings here),

at low lfv'ls ofi interactivity, such as that allitrdcd by new iet-dia, a certain level of sociality and civic engagement ntay be cult ivatcd, leading to normis of'reciprouity ain(d possibly the foinotion ofisocial capital . . . As the intfrmation environment becoenis

eve r

more

interactive,

i nid isivlit Ii zed,

and(f

ftragituiined, however, shared experiences across unlike groups otav diminish, encouraging selfisliness and self-indulgence."' ht'(TaCtiVitv is thUs not autoutatically pirne. AR artstorks arir not inutuni

participation

or sociality

to such fluctuations. These are

sst

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1t7tI. (V S

icn

1ihtta,tonssisisisi ,tn•"oat a ins .n.i.. W kt sti lli, sltt

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. "';, 1

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30. 1 Ilst. w r47i9, 31 I 1(Niu, 1-tcsiit

FS,

n'1- lyii

A FINE DISREGARD FOR GENDER Of Someone

and Something:

Photographs

1991-2010 By Linn Underhill Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University Hamilton, New York April 13-July 25, 2010 riin Underhill is an esteemed art proft'ssor at Colgate University, her first retrospective, "Of' Someone and Something:

and

Photographs 1991 2010." comprised of seven photographic series and several artist's books, was truly well deserved: her work is intelligent, technically precise, and filled with both pathos and humor. Given Unilerhill's position at the college, the particularly large scaIt of some of her photographs, and the overall number of images, Underhill's work should have been the only show in the galltry. As it was, sharing space with documentary photographs of Karachi, Pakistan, the retrospective felt cramped. Additionally, lhe lack of infirmation regarding photographic process, print type, and dimensions was frustrating, t'ven for a non-formalist. But tile artworks' strong theniatic concerns, as well as Underhill's succinct didactics (which drew at(tcntion to her aims without liimiting interpretation), more than made up for those weaknesses.

people that verify our humanity. Conversely, "No Man's Land" seems atavistic, a disquieting reminder of a closeted, if ostensibly more romantic time.

Much of' Underhill's early work explored her frustration with gendter stereotypes brought iton by a hyper-heteronormative culture. "Claiming thte Gaze" (1991 93) is Underhill's suocessful attempt to rescue the ftermale subject froim her typically objectified position within artwork. As IJnderhill states, "The strategy here is to refuse the devices traditionally used in commercial photographs to infantilize women the fragmented body, the averted gaze, the coy smile, the pose of sexual display."' Accordingly, Underhill's subjects are shown lull length and lift' size, diverse in body type, cthinicity, and age. Their expressions are intentionally defiant or dismissive and all of therm are direct. Indeed, these viragos confront the viewer and make no apologies for their presence. The triost arresting a butch, Buffy Sainte-Marie look-alike, wearing denimr cut-offs that pointedly emphasize her labia stands with arms akimbo and a jutting jaw, resembling nothing so much as a ftitale Dirty Harry. One would wager that this photograph alone coutld stand as a litmius test for sexism. In "No Man's land" (1999 20001), tiriderhill stylistically emulates the elegant, vintage gelatin silver plate images of' George Platt Lyncs but uses her own body, dressed in drag, as a stand-in fir her profissed "artistic heroes." Viewed in tanderi, the two series lr\li'( that great art reveals its period and politics, tiot uItimately transcends its historical moment. "Claiming tile Gaze," despite its theoretically inspired title and admitted "'strategy," is great art: litroic portraits

of normal

Above From the series "After All" (2002-03) by Linn Underhill, courtesy of the artist

The most tender and empathetic images that address our oppressive gender strictures are found in the series .". he Tomboy Suite" (1996). Here, Underhill utilizes objects that remind her of her mid-centurv childhood. It was a time when a longing fbr "boy things," but not boys themselves, was a suspicious privilege belonging only to prepubescent tomboys, and Underhill retroactively legitimizes such desire. Singularlyphotographed against an austere metal background, the pot metal toy jeep, fishing reel, "Indian" arrowhead, and other artifacts seem like precious relics resurrected from antiquity and their nostalgic content is universal. The second half' of the series consists of dozens of found photographs of young girls who might or might not have been tomboys, but UTnderhill's pairing persuades us to believe that she was not alone in her love otr pearl-handled revolvers. Given that any deviance from the norm was taboo then, such histories often remain elliptical. By highlighting material culture, Underhill has poetically filled in the blanks, reconstructing her own past as well as those of the nameless girls in the photographs who represent myriad girls across Eisenhower's America. One can only hope they all grew up to be as brave as Underhill.

M x

0 z

Maturity brings with it the understanding that many others experience our presumably unique struggles. and this realization is manifest throughout all of Underhill's work from the last decade. In "After All" (2002 03), Underhill acknowledges the friagility of the biological human body, regardless of gender. As her dcidactics state: "When I made these images, I wasijust the age my mother was when she died, and nearly twenty years older than my father ever became."

25

It is a powerful realization, made even more so by the plaintive way in which Underhill states it, as well as the inventive way in which she photographs it. Here, Underhill is clad in a no-nonsenise gray t-shirt and sweatpants, and her head is often cropped out of the photo. These two aesthetic choices help fbreground the translucent sculptures she cups in her hands, as does the way in which she appears to be

These images are among Underhill's most striking fbr they bear multiple interpretations. One in which she tosses a uterus into a wastebasket might be seen as a visual metaphor for a woman's decision to forego childbearing or simply be symbolic of a hysterectomy. Or

maybe, like so many of Underhill's images, it represents her fine disregard for the fallacy that gender determines destiny.

simultaneously cradling them, aware of their fragility, and offering them, like a gift. Initially, the crystalline objects (made by Underhill

ALISIA G. CHASE, PhD, is an associateproqlawrin the Art Department at the State

specifically for this series) appear ambiguous the huge glass tongue looks like a phallic talisman and this choice only serves to affirm hovw little we know about our internal physicality.

Unii,ersity o/few lYrk, The College at Brock-port.

THE ART OF SURVEILLANCE Exposed: Camera

Voyeurism,

Surveillance

and the

Tate Modern London, England May 28-October 3, 2010

_W IL)71,, A t.

,,Sota, 1-nn

!

]r,,hthha •' •o,d ddrd

photographs and at the same time invites viewers to consume the compelling resuhs encompassing over 250 photographs produced for different ends. Viewers peer into the nineteenth-century fictories and flop-houses photographed bsy Lewis Hine and.Jacob Riis; ogle Weegee's young lovers caught unaware and fall into step with the paparazzi in their cat and mouse game; witness spy meetings

and survey landscapes devastated by war; and wonder at the unimaginable intricacy of the networks of surveillance suggested in Simon Norfolk's alnost abstract images of the military "sublime."

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

It is a neccessarily

October 30, 2010-April 17, 2011

unnerving by the show's colration. There are strange juxtapositions

discomforting experience,

one made

nmorc

of staged studio portraits and stolen shots: Robert Mapplethorpe's

Walker Art Center

horno-eroticisni andri Guy Botrdin's high-gloss fetishism preceIe exploses of the sex industry by female photographers Merry Alpern

Minneapolis May 21-September 18, 2011

and Susan Meiselas, positioned as if in a kind offieminist response to thhe otherwise ubiquitous libidinous male gaze. But any such potential

is soon lost, as Alpern's grainy shots of drug-taking and comniodified Ii 2006, FIrtio Nussenzweig took legal act ion aga inst tile photographer

sex in a Wall Street brothel are immediately followed by one of

Philip-L,orca diCorcia. offi'ded that the pholograpelr had taken

Noluvoshi Araki's unotitled misogynist fenmale nudes firon the Preudo-

and exhibited his photograph without permissio,i. Nussenzweig argued his privacy had been invaded and personial rights violated, lint the court sided wvithidiCorcia, ruling tha tfie photographer's act

Reportage series (1980), taken from behind. Reconfirming the femeale

constituted art. This was'a landmark precedent in which the right to artistic expression was supported over another individual's right to

by Chris Verene's (Camera(Cub (c. 1996). His representation of a

control their own image.

eagled model c(uts a pathetic figure in garish sportswear and white

body'c s status as tile camera's most-desired object, there seems to be little sense ol" a critical stance, bar the flash of humor introduced stereotypical club amnateur leering over his almost-luidden spread-

loafers in whom the priapic associations of tlie camera's lens are

2

tt

It is fittiing that sthots from diCorcia's series "Heads" (2001) which iincluded Nussenzweig's "stolen" portrait open Tate Modern's

momentarily deflated.

latest blockbuster photography show, "Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillhnce' aind the Caniera." Placed opposite Walker Evans's Surreptitious Subway liarsengers frrm 1938, diCorcia's flash-lit street str( por-traits stage ar dialogue across the twentieth-century, presenting

The exhlibition's wall text claims that "rather than blame the

the exhiblition's central figure ofI he "unseen photographer" as an ongoing historical phenomenon, an agent of voycuristic looking as

the statement glosses over the more than "uneasy" relationships

old as the iiediLliii itself

questions the ethics of photographing human subjects ill pain and

Camera for showing illicit or forbidden material, Fxptsed explores the uneasy relationship between making and viewing images that deliberately cross lines of privacy and propriety." Somewhat vague, that tie show stages. While the section "Witnessing Violence"

the act of representation's potentially anaesthetizing effect, in the

26

Broad in its historical scope anEd diverse in the practices it includes,

same breath we are presented with a whistle-stop survey of key

"Exposed" reveals photography's role in the development of today's surveillance society, mapping modernity's ever-expanding inmage

atrocities of the recent past

cuhture and the debates about privacy it has precipitated. "Exposed" encourages viewers to reflect oni the ethical issues surrounding illicit

are displayed alongside a glimpse into Auschwitz's gas chambers,

events often known only through their

photographic mediation. Lynched bodies from the American South snapshots of suicide-leapers mid-fall, the macabre image of the

It is a powerful realization, made even more so by the plaintive way in which Underhill states it, as well as the inventive way in which she photographs it. Here, Underhill is clad in a no-nonsenise gray t-shirt and sweatpants, and her head is often cropped out of the photo. These two aesthetic choices help fbreground the translucent sculptures she cups in her hands, as does the way in which she appears to be

These images are among Underhill's most striking fbr they bear multiple interpretations. One in which she tosses a uterus into a wastebasket might be seen as a visual metaphor for a woman's decision to forego childbearing or simply be symbolic of a hysterectomy. Or

maybe, like so many of Underhill's images, it represents her fine disregard for the fallacy that gender determines destiny.

simultaneously cradling them, aware of their fragility, and offering them, like a gift. Initially, the crystalline objects (made by Underhill

ALISIA G. CHASE, PhD, is an associateproqlawrin the Art Department at the State

specifically for this series) appear ambiguous the huge glass tongue looks like a phallic talisman and this choice only serves to affirm hovw little we know about our internal physicality.

Unii,ersity o/few lYrk, The College at Brock-port.

THE ART OF SURVEILLANCE Exposed: Camera

Voyeurism,

Surveillance

and the

Tate Modern London, England May 28-October 3, 2010

_W IL)71,, A t.

,,Sota, 1-nn

!

]r,,hthha •' •o,d ddrd

photographs and at the same time invites viewers to consume the compelling resuhs encompassing over 250 photographs produced for different ends. Viewers peer into the nineteenth-century fictories and flop-houses photographed bsy Lewis Hine and.Jacob Riis; ogle Weegee's young lovers caught unaware and fall into step with the paparazzi in their cat and mouse game; witness spy meetings

and survey landscapes devastated by war; and wonder at the unimaginable intricacy of the networks of surveillance suggested in Simon Norfolk's alnost abstract images of the military "sublime."

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

It is a neccessarily

October 30, 2010-April 17, 2011

unnerving by the show's colration. There are strange juxtapositions

discomforting experience,

one made

nmorc

of staged studio portraits and stolen shots: Robert Mapplethorpe's

Walker Art Center

horno-eroticisni andri Guy Botrdin's high-gloss fetishism preceIe exploses of the sex industry by female photographers Merry Alpern

Minneapolis May 21-September 18, 2011

and Susan Meiselas, positioned as if in a kind offieminist response to thhe otherwise ubiquitous libidinous male gaze. But any such potential

is soon lost, as Alpern's grainy shots of drug-taking and comniodified Ii 2006, FIrtio Nussenzweig took legal act ion aga inst tile photographer

sex in a Wall Street brothel are immediately followed by one of

Philip-L,orca diCorcia. offi'ded that the pholograpelr had taken

Noluvoshi Araki's unotitled misogynist fenmale nudes firon the Preudo-

and exhibited his photograph without permissio,i. Nussenzweig argued his privacy had been invaded and personial rights violated, lint the court sided wvithidiCorcia, ruling tha tfie photographer's act

Reportage series (1980), taken from behind. Reconfirming the femeale

constituted art. This was'a landmark precedent in which the right to artistic expression was supported over another individual's right to

by Chris Verene's (Camera(Cub (c. 1996). His representation of a

control their own image.

eagled model c(uts a pathetic figure in garish sportswear and white

body'c s status as tile camera's most-desired object, there seems to be little sense ol" a critical stance, bar the flash of humor introduced stereotypical club amnateur leering over his almost-luidden spread-

loafers in whom the priapic associations of tlie camera's lens are

2

tt

It is fittiing that sthots from diCorcia's series "Heads" (2001) which iincluded Nussenzweig's "stolen" portrait open Tate Modern's

momentarily deflated.

latest blockbuster photography show, "Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillhnce' aind the Caniera." Placed opposite Walker Evans's Surreptitious Subway liarsengers frrm 1938, diCorcia's flash-lit street str( por-traits stage ar dialogue across the twentieth-century, presenting

The exhlibition's wall text claims that "rather than blame the

the exhiblition's central figure ofI he "unseen photographer" as an ongoing historical phenomenon, an agent of voycuristic looking as

the statement glosses over the more than "uneasy" relationships

old as the iiediLliii itself

questions the ethics of photographing human subjects ill pain and

Camera for showing illicit or forbidden material, Fxptsed explores the uneasy relationship between making and viewing images that deliberately cross lines of privacy and propriety." Somewhat vague, that tie show stages. While the section "Witnessing Violence"

the act of representation's potentially anaesthetizing effect, in the

26

Broad in its historical scope anEd diverse in the practices it includes,

same breath we are presented with a whistle-stop survey of key

"Exposed" reveals photography's role in the development of today's surveillance society, mapping modernity's ever-expanding inmage

atrocities of the recent past

cuhture and the debates about privacy it has precipitated. "Exposed" encourages viewers to reflect oni the ethical issues surrounding illicit

are displayed alongside a glimpse into Auschwitz's gas chambers,

events often known only through their

photographic mediation. Lynched bodies from the American South snapshots of suicide-leapers mid-fall, the macabre image of the

(1981) seem distanced and tame. And while the legacy of the diCorcia case is introduced at the show's start perhaps to suggest that "anything goes" when it comes to photography as "art," the Tate's attempt to frame the myriad of far more sinister military, institutional, and disciplinary functions that photography fulfils in contemporary society within the wider framework of fine art practice hints at the gallery's ongoing struggle to deal with the medium in its entirety -- a fact we are reminded of as we exit the show. Followed out by the closed-circuit television camera that forms the sole visual focus of Thomas Demand's film Camera(2007), as it turns slowly to track our bodies' movement toward tlse door, we are reminded that as we look, we are electrocution of Ruth Snyder, and Nick Ut's 1972 Pulitzer Prizewinning image of a young girl fleeing a napalm attack. We cannot help but become aware of the illicit nature of our own looking, and, perhaps surprisingly, given many of the images' frequent reproduction, experience a visceral response as we occupy the

being looked at. Emphasizing the role of the camera's eye in the perpetuation of the panoptic principle of selfsurveillance instilled in us all, the show's parting message from one of the most voguish of fine-art photographers of the day

only

reiterates the sense ofvoyeuristic intrusion produced more powerfully is the wider uses of the medium encountered earlier on.

unseen photographer's original position. HARRIET RICHES, Phi), is Senior Lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture at

Perhaps unavoidably, the inclusion of some examples of fine artists' handling of the show's central themes seem less powerful in contrast: having retraced the stalker-steps of Garry Winogrand or Miroslav Tic4h¢ hunting their prey, the affective power of dry extracts from Vito Acconci's Following Piece (1969) or Sophie Calle's The Shadow

OCCUPYING SPACES

Kingston Lniversity in London.

Above Couple Kissing, Girl Staring at Camera, Tortilla Factory,New York (1969) by Garry Winogrand

Rather than referring to Billingham's years of Young British Artists fame, the title of the show seems to suggest something more essential

Richard BIIlingham

for the understanding of the artist's oeuvre. The exhibition presents a variety of subject matters consisting of pastoral landscapes, middle-

Anthony Reynolds Gallery

class home interiors, and curious family and animal portraits. The

London

exhibition includes both color and black-and-white photography of various sizes; some taken using a tripod, others with a snapshot

April 9-May 26, 2010

It has been nearly three years since Richard Billingham's last London show. His recent photography exhibition at Anthony Reynolds Gallery is simply titled "Richard Billingham." His name is still well known in the art world, following his renowned series and photobook Ray's a Laugh (1996), which resulted in an invitation to take part in the legendary "Sensation" exhibition of 1997 at the Royal Academy in London and won him the Citigroup Photography Prize in 1997 as well as Tate Britain's prestigious Turner Prize nomination in 2001. Since then, Billinghaam has had a major retrospective exhibition at

technique allowing more spontaneity and an intentional lessening of artist control. Moreover, Billingham works on anything from panoramic and medium-format cameras to cheap disposables, photographing on both high and low resolutionss. The gallery's curatorial decision to show such a range of topics and methods invites the spectator to reconsider Billingham's work "to avoid thinking iu categories," as Billingharn puts it. Some of the earlier interpretations

X 3:

0 M Z

ofBillingham's work have focused on the disfunctionality ofthe artist's family, portrayed in the series "Ray's a Laugh." This exhibition, however, presented a variety ofsubject matters that drew attention to Billingham's interest in photographic space. 27

the Australian Center for Contemporary Art in Melbourne in 2007 08, and his work has been acquired by many major collections.

M

In landscapes, Billingham explores the great tradition of the sublinie in nature. He returns to the pictorial Constable Country, Gower,

(1981) seem distanced and tame. And while the legacy of the diCorcia case is introduced at the show's start perhaps to suggest that "anything goes" when it comes to photography as "art," the Tate's attempt to frame the myriad of far more sinister military, institutional, and disciplinary functions that photography fulfils in contemporary society within the wider framework of fine art practice hints at the gallery's ongoing struggle to deal with the medium in its entirety -- a fact we are reminded of as we exit the show. Followed out by the closed-circuit television camera that forms the sole visual focus of Thomas Demand's film Camera(2007), as it turns slowly to track our bodies' movement toward tlse door, we are reminded that as we look, we are electrocution of Ruth Snyder, and Nick Ut's 1972 Pulitzer Prizewinning image of a young girl fleeing a napalm attack. We cannot help but become aware of the illicit nature of our own looking, and, perhaps surprisingly, given many of the images' frequent reproduction, experience a visceral response as we occupy the

being looked at. Emphasizing the role of the camera's eye in the perpetuation of the panoptic principle of selfsurveillance instilled in us all, the show's parting message from one of the most voguish of fine-art photographers of the day

only

reiterates the sense ofvoyeuristic intrusion produced more powerfully is the wider uses of the medium encountered earlier on.

unseen photographer's original position. HARRIET RICHES, Phi), is Senior Lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture at

Perhaps unavoidably, the inclusion of some examples of fine artists' handling of the show's central themes seem less powerful in contrast: having retraced the stalker-steps of Garry Winogrand or Miroslav Tic4h¢ hunting their prey, the affective power of dry extracts from Vito Acconci's Following Piece (1969) or Sophie Calle's The Shadow

OCCUPYING SPACES

Kingston Lniversity in London.

Above Couple Kissing, Girl Staring at Camera, Tortilla Factory,New York (1969) by Garry Winogrand

Rather than referring to Billingham's years of Young British Artists fame, the title of the show seems to suggest something more essential

Richard BIIlingham

for the understanding of the artist's oeuvre. The exhibition presents a variety of subject matters consisting of pastoral landscapes, middle-

Anthony Reynolds Gallery

class home interiors, and curious family and animal portraits. The

London

exhibition includes both color and black-and-white photography of various sizes; some taken using a tripod, others with a snapshot

April 9-May 26, 2010

It has been nearly three years since Richard Billingham's last London show. His recent photography exhibition at Anthony Reynolds Gallery is simply titled "Richard Billingham." His name is still well known in the art world, following his renowned series and photobook Ray's a Laugh (1996), which resulted in an invitation to take part in the legendary "Sensation" exhibition of 1997 at the Royal Academy in London and won him the Citigroup Photography Prize in 1997 as well as Tate Britain's prestigious Turner Prize nomination in 2001. Since then, Billinghaam has had a major retrospective exhibition at

technique allowing more spontaneity and an intentional lessening of artist control. Moreover, Billingham works on anything from panoramic and medium-format cameras to cheap disposables, photographing on both high and low resolutionss. The gallery's curatorial decision to show such a range of topics and methods invites the spectator to reconsider Billingham's work "to avoid thinking iu categories," as Billingharn puts it. Some of the earlier interpretations

X 3:

0 M Z

ofBillingham's work have focused on the disfunctionality ofthe artist's family, portrayed in the series "Ray's a Laugh." This exhibition, however, presented a variety ofsubject matters that drew attention to Billingham's interest in photographic space. 27

the Australian Center for Contemporary Art in Melbourne in 2007 08, and his work has been acquired by many major collections.

M

In landscapes, Billingham explores the great tradition of the sublinie in nature. He returns to the pictorial Constable Country, Gower,

the snowman are facing cach other in a static moment of time, yet the snowman will inevitably melt away. The photograph combines memento mori with a brief encounter in space. In other photographs, Walter learns about his world: hle crawls on the kitchen floor or observes his surroundings from a large, white, double bed that could continue endlessly in space ifit were not so defined by its heavy bedposts. Walter is content and tiny in the vastness of the bed. This photograph was displayed next to the White Bird (2006), which is also small and somehow helpless. The exhibition presented images of wildlife from the artist's "Zoo" series (2006) that focuses oin wild animals in captivity. For the series, Billingham revisited his late mother's family album, which included photographs from her and South D)owns

familiar scenery that a younger, newly emerging

Billiighani once studied in the form of pictures, postcards, and books.' Instead tif tiilizing a traditional large scale fbr his sublime views, as done throughout the carion of' art history, Billingham reconsiders the conventional format: his pastoral views are presented with cheap, grainy cameras in a small, panoramic, middle-distance 6roniat. The exhibition displayed his landscapes in tidy rows of

visits to zoos, exploring the notion that zoo visitors often edit out the uncomfortable cages that define animal spaces and their daily existence in order to create an illusion of freedom. The exhibition included a bored Jaguar (2006) and a tired Polar Bear (2006), both photographed within their visible cages. Billingham's poignant landscapes are occupied by people and

twos and threes. The high-resolution camera and large format are

animals that inhabit spaces defined by a range of restrictive forces varying from the zookeepers to the necessities ofdaily life, and from

reserved fiii landscapes that represent less sublime but more intimate

the canon of pastoral art history to bodily vulnerability of both

spots of grass, trees, and water in non-specific locations. Like his earlier "Ray's a Laugh" series, the exhibition presented

voting and old. Billingham's photographs share the acceptance and occasional melancholia that comes with the acknowledgment of such forces. Once the spectator adjusts to Billinghiam's scope, the

the new interior photographs of Billinghamn's family at home. The

exhibition offers a beautiful and thought-provoking experience.

photographs invite the spectator to consider the spaces occupied in daily lifie. We learn tlsat the faamily uses Tesco Ultra Soft Wipes for Babies and has a large, slim dog with hungry eyes. In the group

OUTI REMES, PhD, is a curator and oil historian Y/ contemporary and live art. She

portrait jason, Iialter and Ra (2006), different generations of tlse ftialmilv meet one another. Billinghaim's brother, Jason, is holding Valter, ti- artist's son, who is too young to walk, while Ray, the artist's aging father, is bound to his wheelchair. Three generations live within the limitations of their personal daily worlds. lii anotmhr portrait, Snowman 2009), Walter has grown; he is stianding next to a melancholic snownman on a spring day. Walter and

is the head qfexhibitions at South tHill Park Aius Centre. Berkshire. I 'A-, andalso lectures at Birkbeck College, the Univer'it), oif london.

NsO IES s1.

t,1-1--•t,ld-w t • •

-;, -,.010

2 l1nd,

Above Jason, Walter and

P•ay (2006) by Richard Billingham; '

the

artist;

courtesy of Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London

>

THE TECHNOLOGICAL

0

BALDESSARI

m

John Baldessari: Pure Beauty

28

l I 1990, the Ios Angeles \Iuseum of Contemporary Art (LACNIA lainched a Balciessari exhibition that introduced the artiist to those unacquainted ssith his works, arsd now (if refirence to his creations.

twenty years later. LACNMA is revisiting that territory rith "Pure Beaut\.- Whetheri iis pure coincidence oir not, these exhibitions hIiav usI"thir-tv-five works in Common ot of 01'150 ill thi' current LACNIA

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

exhibitioni). Because Baldessari is an incredibly prolific artist, the

Los Angeles

overlaps are unfortunate and the show nmight have been stronger

June 27-September 12, 2010

had it concentrated on work made since 1991. Baldessari works ill

iJohn Baldessari is a deisigod in Laos Angeles at re'vered educator, panton, lhinkci, and artist. Countless individuals have been inflt'ncedi' lil' teachings, as well as his works, to such ain extent tlUil Ailiist iiiilhing thlt jtuxtaposCs fiAliid image and tcxt is devoid

myriad media, making paintings. prints, tphotographs, installations, and now even as iPhone app 'Ih finished pieces are usually derived from isolating or rearranging taking iltings apart and putting thein back together anew. Best known ftr his appropriationist strategies, Baldessari uses movie stills as thi basis ofi insightlitl and witty juxtapositions that occasionally ofi' poignant social colimentar\.

the snowman are facing cach other in a static moment of time, yet the snowman will inevitably melt away. The photograph combines memento mori with a brief encounter in space. In other photographs, Walter learns about his world: hle crawls on the kitchen floor or observes his surroundings from a large, white, double bed that could continue endlessly in space ifit were not so defined by its heavy bedposts. Walter is content and tiny in the vastness of the bed. This photograph was displayed next to the White Bird (2006), which is also small and somehow helpless. The exhibition presented images of wildlife from the artist's "Zoo" series (2006) that focuses oin wild animals in captivity. For the series, Billingham revisited his late mother's family album, which included photographs from her and South D)owns

familiar scenery that a younger, newly emerging

Billiighani once studied in the form of pictures, postcards, and books.' Instead tif tiilizing a traditional large scale fbr his sublime views, as done throughout the carion of' art history, Billingham reconsiders the conventional format: his pastoral views are presented with cheap, grainy cameras in a small, panoramic, middle-distance 6roniat. The exhibition displayed his landscapes in tidy rows of

visits to zoos, exploring the notion that zoo visitors often edit out the uncomfortable cages that define animal spaces and their daily existence in order to create an illusion of freedom. The exhibition included a bored Jaguar (2006) and a tired Polar Bear (2006), both photographed within their visible cages. Billingham's poignant landscapes are occupied by people and

twos and threes. The high-resolution camera and large format are

animals that inhabit spaces defined by a range of restrictive forces varying from the zookeepers to the necessities ofdaily life, and from

reserved fiii landscapes that represent less sublime but more intimate

the canon of pastoral art history to bodily vulnerability of both

spots of grass, trees, and water in non-specific locations. Like his earlier "Ray's a Laugh" series, the exhibition presented

voting and old. Billingham's photographs share the acceptance and occasional melancholia that comes with the acknowledgment of such forces. Once the spectator adjusts to Billinghiam's scope, the

the new interior photographs of Billinghamn's family at home. The

exhibition offers a beautiful and thought-provoking experience.

photographs invite the spectator to consider the spaces occupied in daily lifie. We learn tlsat the faamily uses Tesco Ultra Soft Wipes for Babies and has a large, slim dog with hungry eyes. In the group

OUTI REMES, PhD, is a curator and oil historian Y/ contemporary and live art. She

portrait jason, Iialter and Ra (2006), different generations of tlse ftialmilv meet one another. Billinghaim's brother, Jason, is holding Valter, ti- artist's son, who is too young to walk, while Ray, the artist's aging father, is bound to his wheelchair. Three generations live within the limitations of their personal daily worlds. lii anotmhr portrait, Snowman 2009), Walter has grown; he is stianding next to a melancholic snownman on a spring day. Walter and

is the head qfexhibitions at South tHill Park Aius Centre. Berkshire. I 'A-, andalso lectures at Birkbeck College, the Univer'it), oif london.

NsO IES s1.

t,1-1--•t,ld-w t • •

-;, -,.010

2 l1nd,

Above Jason, Walter and

P•ay (2006) by Richard Billingham; '

the

artist;

courtesy of Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London

>

THE TECHNOLOGICAL

0

BALDESSARI

m

John Baldessari: Pure Beauty

28

l I 1990, the Ios Angeles \Iuseum of Contemporary Art (LACNIA lainched a Balciessari exhibition that introduced the artiist to those unacquainted ssith his works, arsd now (if refirence to his creations.

twenty years later. LACNMA is revisiting that territory rith "Pure Beaut\.- Whetheri iis pure coincidence oir not, these exhibitions hIiav usI"thir-tv-five works in Common ot of 01'150 ill thi' current LACNIA

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

exhibitioni). Because Baldessari is an incredibly prolific artist, the

Los Angeles

overlaps are unfortunate and the show nmight have been stronger

June 27-September 12, 2010

had it concentrated on work made since 1991. Baldessari works ill

iJohn Baldessari is a deisigod in Laos Angeles at re'vered educator, panton, lhinkci, and artist. Countless individuals have been inflt'ncedi' lil' teachings, as well as his works, to such ain extent tlUil Ailiist iiiilhing thlt jtuxtaposCs fiAliid image and tcxt is devoid

myriad media, making paintings. prints, tphotographs, installations, and now even as iPhone app 'Ih finished pieces are usually derived from isolating or rearranging taking iltings apart and putting thein back together anew. Best known ftr his appropriationist strategies, Baldessari uses movie stills as thi basis ofi insightlitl and witty juxtapositions that occasionally ofi' poignant social colimentar\.

In a retroslpeclive, ihe underlying i premise is to introduce asvast body of work ii i tcondensed fashion to a general audience. For that reason, uany nilitseiill

artist's work

shows are generalized presentations of an

one f'ron this series, one from that series

to round

out (iIv artist's otuvtre. Baldessari ex Itiibitions are frequeint, therefore, this museu,'m exhibition becomes a walk down memory lane. What makes le IA( LCMA exhibition diflerent From previous Baldessari sill%i,S is its ailliiill to trace a new trajectory the in fIVeCCe and use of technology oni his work. Because the exhlillitiot spans mnore than folrty years, one can now loo)k back in time and clearly see Baldcissari's inventive uses of techtlology. lE,arly text paintings including li o'ng (1967), Pure Beauh, l11967 68),

and A1'aintirng 7Ihat Li IlsOwn Do amentation (1968 ) set ill(hstage fir Baldessari's conceptualism. In thIlt late 1960s, he began lprging art

how a look could lead the eye through a succession ofiimages in such works as Man and Itoman with Bridge 11985). Later, as in Three Red Paintinvg (1988), he masked parts of the images using handpainied circles to IMock otit specific elements fatces as well as the paintings in the original work. Formal as well as conceptual threads led him Irons the 19 70s to the 199 0s. A line drawn on the wall connecting balls tossed into thle air and photographed, Alignmng Balls 11972; II color photographs with chalk linei, translated to a line connecting t'e occan to a mounlaintlp in Monntain (,linber 1988W, where the guide line in a photograph of a scuba diver installed at t1t'-iottoril of tle wall extends through another iniage, becoming the mountain climber's rope installed ).\,heri, the wall x meets the ceiling. I'he use of' language conies in andt Oti. Pure image becomes captioned image, like in his "Gova Series" i 1997) and "''etrad Series" (1999). it the later works, however, text rarely stands alone.

of' imagery in ifavor of words that describe its making or meaning. Tlhese, among oilicr works, display Baldessari's wit and tuitning alonigsidi

a) pointed colunneletarN

tit

te th

process of creating anl

artwork. While it prce. iously could have beeni a rare treat to see him

sing Sol L1ewitt's 35-point tract oni conceptual art to tunes like the Star Spanrgted Bannei and lleaven 1972) or state -I Am Making Art-

The gradual shift fIroi analog to digital has reduced tlie presence of' the artist's hand. Baldessari has embraced this transssrmation by isaking his iniage'ry snmother, slicket, and more mechanical

relpeatedly fir eighlieen ilinutes is Ise imoves his hands and hody iin

reducing it to its essential elements. The hand tinted black-andwhite photographs become digital prints on1canvas or vinyl. 'I'lhe molitaging is now created in the computer, allowing Itir more

quirky motion,s (1971), these early video works are now prevalent

rounded edges and exact isolation. When text is presented, it is at

of) ti'

iinternet. In Baldessari's development, frotn the ssid-1970s

to til' present, what beconics striking and relevant is flow lie has used technology and taken advantage of various equipment (such as

IihePortapack in the 1970s) and software development (suchias the iPlione app in 21110) to become ia

chosen typefatce rather tihan a liandpainted graphic. What was onici' flat tail become dinmensional with the aid of a laser cutter. Forms that once interlocked oil the two-dimensional surface now joits lorces in three-dimensional sptace.

leader in expanding new fields f1r

juxtaposing images and texts, the seamless collage of Photoshop or

While adapting tile physical elenents of' his works to it rapidly changing digital age, the mteanings remain unchanged. The humor implicit in the carly cont eptual works is no\\ subtler and morei'efined. Most significant is the desire to do what has not been done beftre at least by Baldessari. Tli works become big billboard size because

the easy dio\w'n loinitig ofltillt'rinet imagery sas hardly commonplace.

technology allows them to. They hang oil the mtseum's fliade and

TIo create illavy ofi his works in the 1980s and '90s lie collected

span the walls from floor to ceiling. In ani expansive image of tli ocean, Palm Tree and Saseapes (2009), the horizon line that divides s'a from sky is presented as a mirror image on two opposing walls iii the final room of the exhibition. A similar itiage previously adorried tili'

artistic exlperimentation. In ill( digital age, where everything is reprodUCible, how does an artist like Baldissari stay current? When Baldessari first started

Hollywood film stills, marking up and isolating individual segments, gestlures, and looks. He then i

ad them rephotographed and enlarged

and assembled tlhst eroppings into wall-sized works. Hetfocused o11

Above Man and Woman with Bridge (1985) by John Baldessari; c 2009 the artist, photo by Robert MccKeever; photo courtesy Gagosian Gallery

fatgade of a building in tht 2009 Venice Bieiniale where Baldessari transposed the Pacific Ocean lie sees from his Santa Monica home to the Venetian island. It the LA(CMA incarnation, the images are identical seascapes, but oitle is bisected by a palis tree. Standing iin frtont of the tree, which was Photoshlpped into the image, one t aii

XM

z ,Z

29

imagine recreating Baldessari's early work IWrong. Here the wrong has become a right.

a prijection depicting their rearrangement of the elements in Banquet Still Lift (1667) by Abraham,, an Beyeren. The projected display front the "Seeing" exhibition can now be rearranged by the finger oni the

The ocean murals are part of Brain/Cloud (2009), a multimedia uses the painting Falling Cloud (1965) as its point of departure. The

iPhone's touch screen, allowing viewers to create and save numerous new versions of the still life. While there is nothing extraordinary about the work or tlse experience, what is notable is that Baldessari

painting is a diagrammatic work depicting a crudely painted cloudlike shape on top that appears to be expelling a smaller incarnation

is mining this territory. Baldessari is an adventurer and a pioneer. He charts out new territories to be explored and puishes what can be

of itself below. In the 2009 piece, Baldcessari three-dimensionalizes

done. There is a consistency to his vision that becomes all the i-tore evident in a retrospective exhibition where works from different series are juxtaposed. Walking through the chronologically installed

interactive work created specifically for this exhibition. Brain/Cloud

the brain, making it a large white object that floats on an empty wall. A digital video of the object is captured by a camera on time delay and projected on the opposite wall. Here viewers can see themselves lingering under the brain, becoming part of the work. While this piece is the most technically sophisticated within the exhibition, tIn payoff is somewhat disappointing. Seeing oneself as a black-and-white element in the work does not enhance its content or impact; its only signifticance is to illustrate Baldessari's engagement with the technology.

retrospective gives viewers the opportunity to trace Baldessari's influence and impact on the contemporary art world, but more importantly it allows seasoned viewers to discover new threads and connections. The layout and choice of works in this exhibition make clear that Baldessari has always been quick to adopt new technologies and equipment and use them in both the conceptual and material development of his work. Occasionally these lead to false starts, but more often result iu strange and amusing new pieces

Concurrent with the LACMA exhibition, Baldessari launched an iPhone app. The work, a re-creation of a Piece originally presented

(that still manage to surprise). His adventurousness serves us well.

in LACNMA lab's "Seeing" exhibition in 2001, was designed to be an interactive work where viewers could use the computer and view

JODY ZELLEN is an artist and writer liringin Los lngeles.

RESTLESS SPIRITS

Featured are seminal works froom Sarah Charlesworth, Douglas

Haunted: Contemporary Photography/Video/ Performance Guggenheim Museum New York City

March 26-September 6, 2010

Gordon, Barbara Kruger, Sherry Levine, Richard Prince, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol, among others. While the works bear some relevance, most of them have been previously exhibited many times in more interesting coiitexts. Considering the works in relationship to the exhibition theme, the idea that photography is haunted by the past seems an obvious interpretation. Some of these works, however, do transcend this basic connection: Warhol's image of electric chairs (Orange Disaster#5, 1963) continues to resonate due to its bleak reminder of our failed justice system. Charlesworth's

The term "haunted" conjures up visions of ghosts, poltergeists, tortured souls, and demons. A more complex meaning of the word is to be preoccupied with memory or an idea to the point ofobsession; to

S a

0 tT

x

be haunted is to be distressed or disturbed.' The Guggenheim's press release f6r the exhibition "Haunted: Contemporary Photography/ Video/Performance" states, "Muchl of contemporary photography and video seems haunted by the past, by the history of art, by apparitions that are reanimated with reproductive mediums, live performance and the virtual world."' In addition to the expansive theme, the curators faced the daunting challenge of' extracting works from the Guggenheim's permanent collection that cohesively and provocatively exanmine the topic. Featuring one hundred works by sixty artists, "Haunted" presents a multi-faceted view into how contemporary artists use photographic images and processes.

30

Tlte curators Jeninifer Blessing and Nat Trotman classified the exhibition into four sections that address formal and conceptual connections among the works. The first section, "Appropriation

series "Modern History" (1977 79) questions how photographs shape history, using stark images that remind us of our fleeting collective memory. The next section of the exhibition, "Landscape, Architecture and the Passage of Time," explores the relationship between site, history, and trauma. This section includes well-known works by James Casebere, Sally Marin, and Hiroshi Sugimoto. Four other artists- Walead Beshty, Ori Gersht, An-My LU, and Janaina Tsch'ipe depict sites embedded with political meaning. Beshty photographed an abandoned building in Berlin, the site of a failed Iraqi diplomatic mission. A strange colorful fog shrouds the images, the result of film damage caused by the airport's x-ray machines. Tschaipe's disquieting video features a figure twirling to the sound of a child's music box. Set in Goethe's summer home, the eighteenth-century building overlooks the former Nazi death camp Buchenwald. A former Vietnamese refugee, LU photographs

shift of artists

reenactments of the Vietnam War. Staged in Virginia woods, the work calls into question the veracity of documentary photography.

using sourced photography and images fi7om popular culture.

Gersht photographs Holocaust sites in the Ukraine; the resulting

and the Archive," examines the postmoodern

imagine recreating Baldessari's early work IWrong. Here the wrong has become a right.

a prijection depicting their rearrangement of the elements in Banquet Still Lift (1667) by Abraham,, an Beyeren. The projected display front the "Seeing" exhibition can now be rearranged by the finger oni the

The ocean murals are part of Brain/Cloud (2009), a multimedia uses the painting Falling Cloud (1965) as its point of departure. The

iPhone's touch screen, allowing viewers to create and save numerous new versions of the still life. While there is nothing extraordinary about the work or tlse experience, what is notable is that Baldessari

painting is a diagrammatic work depicting a crudely painted cloudlike shape on top that appears to be expelling a smaller incarnation

is mining this territory. Baldessari is an adventurer and a pioneer. He charts out new territories to be explored and puishes what can be

of itself below. In the 2009 piece, Baldcessari three-dimensionalizes

done. There is a consistency to his vision that becomes all the i-tore evident in a retrospective exhibition where works from different series are juxtaposed. Walking through the chronologically installed

interactive work created specifically for this exhibition. Brain/Cloud

the brain, making it a large white object that floats on an empty wall. A digital video of the object is captured by a camera on time delay and projected on the opposite wall. Here viewers can see themselves lingering under the brain, becoming part of the work. While this piece is the most technically sophisticated within the exhibition, tIn payoff is somewhat disappointing. Seeing oneself as a black-and-white element in the work does not enhance its content or impact; its only signifticance is to illustrate Baldessari's engagement with the technology.

retrospective gives viewers the opportunity to trace Baldessari's influence and impact on the contemporary art world, but more importantly it allows seasoned viewers to discover new threads and connections. The layout and choice of works in this exhibition make clear that Baldessari has always been quick to adopt new technologies and equipment and use them in both the conceptual and material development of his work. Occasionally these lead to false starts, but more often result iu strange and amusing new pieces

Concurrent with the LACMA exhibition, Baldessari launched an iPhone app. The work, a re-creation of a Piece originally presented

(that still manage to surprise). His adventurousness serves us well.

in LACNMA lab's "Seeing" exhibition in 2001, was designed to be an interactive work where viewers could use the computer and view

JODY ZELLEN is an artist and writer liringin Los lngeles.

RESTLESS SPIRITS

Featured are seminal works froom Sarah Charlesworth, Douglas

Haunted: Contemporary Photography/Video/ Performance Guggenheim Museum New York City

March 26-September 6, 2010

Gordon, Barbara Kruger, Sherry Levine, Richard Prince, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol, among others. While the works bear some relevance, most of them have been previously exhibited many times in more interesting coiitexts. Considering the works in relationship to the exhibition theme, the idea that photography is haunted by the past seems an obvious interpretation. Some of these works, however, do transcend this basic connection: Warhol's image of electric chairs (Orange Disaster#5, 1963) continues to resonate due to its bleak reminder of our failed justice system. Charlesworth's

The term "haunted" conjures up visions of ghosts, poltergeists, tortured souls, and demons. A more complex meaning of the word is to be preoccupied with memory or an idea to the point ofobsession; to

S a

0 tT

x

be haunted is to be distressed or disturbed.' The Guggenheim's press release f6r the exhibition "Haunted: Contemporary Photography/ Video/Performance" states, "Muchl of contemporary photography and video seems haunted by the past, by the history of art, by apparitions that are reanimated with reproductive mediums, live performance and the virtual world."' In addition to the expansive theme, the curators faced the daunting challenge of' extracting works from the Guggenheim's permanent collection that cohesively and provocatively exanmine the topic. Featuring one hundred works by sixty artists, "Haunted" presents a multi-faceted view into how contemporary artists use photographic images and processes.

30

Tlte curators Jeninifer Blessing and Nat Trotman classified the exhibition into four sections that address formal and conceptual connections among the works. The first section, "Appropriation

series "Modern History" (1977 79) questions how photographs shape history, using stark images that remind us of our fleeting collective memory. The next section of the exhibition, "Landscape, Architecture and the Passage of Time," explores the relationship between site, history, and trauma. This section includes well-known works by James Casebere, Sally Marin, and Hiroshi Sugimoto. Four other artists- Walead Beshty, Ori Gersht, An-My LU, and Janaina Tsch'ipe depict sites embedded with political meaning. Beshty photographed an abandoned building in Berlin, the site of a failed Iraqi diplomatic mission. A strange colorful fog shrouds the images, the result of film damage caused by the airport's x-ray machines. Tschaipe's disquieting video features a figure twirling to the sound of a child's music box. Set in Goethe's summer home, the eighteenth-century building overlooks the former Nazi death camp Buchenwald. A former Vietnamese refugee, LU photographs

shift of artists

reenactments of the Vietnam War. Staged in Virginia woods, the work calls into question the veracity of documentary photography.

using sourced photography and images fi7om popular culture.

Gersht photographs Holocaust sites in the Ukraine; the resulting

and the Archive," examines the postmoodern

While

"Trauma and

the Uncanny"

most

closely aligns with the traditional definition of "haunted," this section includes some original work. Zoe Leonard's

1990 black-and-white

photograph of a wax anatomical female doll with exposed internal organs is boldly disturbing. Why is she wearing pearls? Why does she have the vacant expression of a sex doll? Anthony Goicolea's manic video Jailbiter (2002) elicits a visceral reaction in the viewer. Covered in saliva and thousands of fingernail clippings, the young protagonist, played by the artist, appears possessed as he obsessively bites his nails. Adam McEwen's convincing faux obituary of pomo artist Richard Prince humorously reasserts appropriation as a current artistic strategy. McEwan's clever language describes Prince as a "restless connoisseur of the underbelly of the American Dream" who "strip-mined popular images resemble abstract Colorfield paintings. Their beauty belies the horrific violence that occurred at the sites. In addition to the political connotation of these works, the artists' formal processes question photography's role in portraying an accurate history. In "Documentation and Reiteration," the curators address how photography and video have been used to document temporal works. Included are documented performance works by Sophie Calle, Joan Jonas, Ana Mendieta, Gina Pane, and others. Tacita Dean's video installation "Merce Cunningham performs Stillness (in three movements) to John Cage's composition 4'33"" (2007) functions beautifully within the Guggenheim architecture. The freestanding screens allow the viewers to interact with the work as they walk along the ramp. The viewers' silhouetted bodies project on the screens, and they become the movement. German artist Markus Hansen's unassuming work Curtain (2004) delicately captures the perfirmative act of breathing. Hanson combines dust, varnish, and breath on glass to produce this ethereal image.

PARTICIPATORY POLITICS

STHINK

AGAIN: Actions Speak Worcester Art Museum Worcester, Massachusetts October 30, 2008-October 17, 2010

culture." Paul Chan's flash animation 6th Light (2007), of silhouetted falling objects, powerfully evokes disaster and destruction, while its glowing light promises renewal. The exhibition's strength is the Guggenheim's diverse collection. Rich with important works and influential artists, it was a pleasure to see some younger and lesser-known artists featured as well. The show felt too safe, however, lacking in curatorial risk-taking. Perhaps this is due to the limitations posed in the collection, but the end result left me anything but haunted. COLETTE COPELAND i. a multimedia artist who teaches critical writing and visual studies at the University oqfPennsvlvania in Philadelphia. AOTF-51. I lt"bs•,t"di ,m di,efiituo , 2. tW nka•r. dut,d 51an,h23, 2010- N, I.mk-,N,•ork.

Above 6th Light (2007) by Paul Chan

museum's Curator of Contemporary Art. Central to the museum's contemporary curatorial mandate, the Wall is, according to museum literature, "a laboratory for participating artists and visitors alike."' A laboratory in which "monumental scale, ephemeral nature, and movingjuxtaposition of past and present" come together to delight, solicit, and challenge an audience initially drawn, presumably, to the museum's substantial and well-established historical collection.

M X

0 I o

M z

While wandering through a little maze at the Worchester Art Museum, something that looks like a large-scale rendition of a human fenmur appears through a glass door down a hall. A closer look reveals Actions Speak, a 67 x 17-foot, context-specific interior mural and exterior projection by the artist collaborative THINK AGAIN (David John Attyah and S.A. Bachman). The piece is part of the "Wall at WAM" series, organized by Susan Stoops, the

The left side of the mural depicts a somber mass of dry bones, hand-drawn, enlarged, and collaged into a pile. The paper bones are intertwined with masses of black microphone cable and float on a field of black ash. The right side of the picture is dominated by two enormous microphones on a bed of salt. Each microphone is rendered useless one is covered in a red condom a limp, translucent, glistening sheath and the other is covered in the chopped heads of countless smashed and smeared lipsticks. Each

While

"Trauma and

the Uncanny"

most

closely aligns with the traditional definition of "haunted," this section includes some original work. Zoe Leonard's

1990 black-and-white

photograph of a wax anatomical female doll with exposed internal organs is boldly disturbing. Why is she wearing pearls? Why does she have the vacant expression of a sex doll? Anthony Goicolea's manic video Jailbiter (2002) elicits a visceral reaction in the viewer. Covered in saliva and thousands of fingernail clippings, the young protagonist, played by the artist, appears possessed as he obsessively bites his nails. Adam McEwen's convincing faux obituary of pomo artist Richard Prince humorously reasserts appropriation as a current artistic strategy. McEwan's clever language describes Prince as a "restless connoisseur of the underbelly of the American Dream" who "strip-mined popular images resemble abstract Colorfield paintings. Their beauty belies the horrific violence that occurred at the sites. In addition to the political connotation of these works, the artists' formal processes question photography's role in portraying an accurate history. In "Documentation and Reiteration," the curators address how photography and video have been used to document temporal works. Included are documented performance works by Sophie Calle, Joan Jonas, Ana Mendieta, Gina Pane, and others. Tacita Dean's video installation "Merce Cunningham performs Stillness (in three movements) to John Cage's composition 4'33"" (2007) functions beautifully within the Guggenheim architecture. The freestanding screens allow the viewers to interact with the work as they walk along the ramp. The viewers' silhouetted bodies project on the screens, and they become the movement. German artist Markus Hansen's unassuming work Curtain (2004) delicately captures the perfirmative act of breathing. Hanson combines dust, varnish, and breath on glass to produce this ethereal image.

PARTICIPATORY POLITICS

STHINK

AGAIN: Actions Speak Worcester Art Museum Worcester, Massachusetts October 30, 2008-October 17, 2010

culture." Paul Chan's flash animation 6th Light (2007), of silhouetted falling objects, powerfully evokes disaster and destruction, while its glowing light promises renewal. The exhibition's strength is the Guggenheim's diverse collection. Rich with important works and influential artists, it was a pleasure to see some younger and lesser-known artists featured as well. The show felt too safe, however, lacking in curatorial risk-taking. Perhaps this is due to the limitations posed in the collection, but the end result left me anything but haunted. COLETTE COPELAND i. a multimedia artist who teaches critical writing and visual studies at the University oqfPennsvlvania in Philadelphia. AOTF-51. I lt"bs•,t"di ,m di,efiituo , 2. tW nka•r. dut,d 51an,h23, 2010- N, I.mk-,N,•ork.

Above 6th Light (2007) by Paul Chan

museum's Curator of Contemporary Art. Central to the museum's contemporary curatorial mandate, the Wall is, according to museum literature, "a laboratory for participating artists and visitors alike."' A laboratory in which "monumental scale, ephemeral nature, and movingjuxtaposition of past and present" come together to delight, solicit, and challenge an audience initially drawn, presumably, to the museum's substantial and well-established historical collection.

M X

0 I o

M z

While wandering through a little maze at the Worchester Art Museum, something that looks like a large-scale rendition of a human fenmur appears through a glass door down a hall. A closer look reveals Actions Speak, a 67 x 17-foot, context-specific interior mural and exterior projection by the artist collaborative THINK AGAIN (David John Attyah and S.A. Bachman). The piece is part of the "Wall at WAM" series, organized by Susan Stoops, the

The left side of the mural depicts a somber mass of dry bones, hand-drawn, enlarged, and collaged into a pile. The paper bones are intertwined with masses of black microphone cable and float on a field of black ash. The right side of the picture is dominated by two enormous microphones on a bed of salt. Each microphone is rendered useless one is covered in a red condom a limp, translucent, glistening sheath and the other is covered in the chopped heads of countless smashed and smeared lipsticks. Each

the local (grieving burned homesteads in Sudan) with the structural (UN resolutions 2 on genocide), why shouldn't political art? Actions Speak prompts the visceral political imagination and acknowledges that both the artistic and political encounters fail to transform more often than they succeed. In this candy-pop, lipstick, and prophylactic world of genocide and sex, the viewer is inside a political terrain of global conflict and media hype. The microphones, symbols of spe.ech-as-action, of the ability to reach large audiences, are rendered impotent and surrounded by buzzwords. The language of terrorism. Of global conflict. Rwanda. Darfur. Iraq. The specific war is unclear, but it is an American war. Rather than instructing the viewer what to think, Actions Speak invites individual political affect and engagement. Making clenient of the image exists in perspectival tension with the others,

poetic and political connections across unexpected signifiers, it

hlaving the viewer to choose between the logic of the bed of coals or

solicits a relational and embedded political "consciousness," one that, in its complexity, refuses not only cas' answers, but conclusive

that of the paper bones that hover in front of it. The same happens with itlit bed of salt: the lines of text cascade down the far right of

ones. In this refusal, the piece solicits argument and debate, as well

the image, recalling some bizarre tele-prontrpter. The words solicit:

as conflict and dialogue. Proposing affective conflict as tlse ground from which any truly political project emerges is not to assert that all

Raid. Violate, Shaiie. Scar. Occupy. Embed. Obliterate. Elxplodc. Siscar. Gloss. Whittwash. E6ilc. Scapegoat. Pandcer.

communitarian ideals and collaborative practices are hound to fail. Rather, it acknowledges that within any ofthese practices respectful

Sugarcoat. Hturiiliate% Bruise. Discredit. MisqUOR'. Deniy. Debase . . . New wordsconstantl ciierge. (1tarantiite. Dcport. Harangue. (Clustcr-biornb. Sanitize. Censor. And in

attention to dissent can reconfigure the realm of the social into one that makes room for strong claims andcldebates that work with

red

difterence without any l)I'esUpp)oSCd need to transcend it.

Silence. Stigmatize. Brutalize: Actions Speak. NATALIE LOVELESS io a PhD candidate in the ti.tory

t (Y'Conscirunew,e' at the

TI'lit last two words ate set apart fromtilit others. If actions speak,

(Tniremit), I Califroinia,Santa Ci'rzg, w,filing on Ike 'praclice-theort " divide in the

are words, here, actions? The words should not be read as a propagandistic call to action ani "Uincl Sam Needs You" address to itte vatrious atidictices who vw,auder ttie halls of ifi WtVrcesser Art Museurn, and, (itring the hours of thest outdoor proJection,

ails, iciences, and haiaoniiei. SillS.) I a.', ,, ",,, th 3hr1. 1ttn.2010.

a;.';,m l 'h

a

ha•.

a•/h(,t

,.i

),,5 28, 2010). 2.. 11th1- .

,l• ,,li

the strects that surround it. Rather, tle "'action'" is in tile very perspectival activation of tli encounter solicited by tihe piece itself' The isural takes time. It optically, subtilely, refuses any simplicity ofi message. Which actions speak? Where and to whom? How and itt a\fiat

tontext? Further, if thiy speak, what do they say? flow can

orci possibly infi'r a social "good" ftiom this miessage? For THINK AGAIN, tile asking is the act. In the words of'collaborators Attyah and Bachtan: 'IT'li' initral and prjojection tag back and forth between tile abstract and thte concrete, combining tile institutional,

32

militaristic, domestic, ethical, psychological and embodied aspects fitviolence. Shiliing (nervously) from tihe state toiithe body and back, the project strUggles with why political violence insti(litioits support o," ignore it, anidt advtcates fur ieniingt'ul individual action despite persists, interrogates Which

political contradiction. It political debate has to reconcile

Above "Actions Speak" (projection on museum exterior) (2008-10) by THINK AGAIN (David John Attyah and S.A. Bachman): courtesy of Worcester Art Museum

OVEREXPOSED BUT UNDERDEVELOPED Dennis Hopper: Double Standard The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles July 11-September 26, 2010

"lDennis I lopper: Double Standard," at The Museum of ConteClporary Art (M(O)(,A) in 1,os Angeles, is a loving tribute to the influential celebrity/ artist /hlmnmiaker/actor

who died ftorn prostate caticer oil May 29, 2010. Curated by his friend julian Schinabel, the exhibition was organized in six months, in the hope that Hopper would survive to see thelopeningwhich he (lid riot.

included these images and grouped them so tightly together is a nivsterN, serving only to further question the premise of the exhibition: if Hopper really was an important artist, the curatorial arrangement does nothing to substantiate that point.

Hopper was art enigniatic figure, who reinvented hiniself iriti various personas otver his prolific and ftascinating lift. He was a dilettante in tfie most gect'rous sense oft the word one who loved art and artists ard tlirewsN hiniself iinto tIh' creative process, yet his artistic output is mostly mediocre. Sotme of' his early photographs are wonderful, although his paaintings ard sculptlures are mercly derivative of the styles and rlllOtven'len[s he loved.

TI'lii' organization of tIhe artworks in the exhiibition reft'cts Schnabel's biases, and riot the implortance oflthe works. There is no aesthetic or intellecttal logic behind their placement and Schnabel acknowledges this shortcoming by saying he placed the works acctirding to their "-temperature." Presumably, he is referring to his personal taste as to how thte' arttiorks relate, btut the exhibition crowds the btlack-and-white plhotographs, giving to rt Iuch tprominence to Hopper's terrible ntixedmcdia paintings and simple abstract color photographs. 'I'he hutge billboard-sized paintings, ritadi from black-and-white plhotographit images, Would be cffiectiv' as aCttual billboards, liut in a museum they take upl)too Much space, looking like decorations rather than fine art. 'IThe saiie is tir' tfois huge sculpltures of a waiter in a Mexican restatu rant and a Moubile gas slation attendant. Hopper's vision slides into kitsch too often to be taken striotsly. It is 'asy to imitate Andy Warliol's fai tory imtpulse to tlinrt things Outirand fabricate them, but very tlifficult to at hievc similar depth. L,ikewise, Hlopper's "ready-mades" are more itidcentury i ollectitiles than art. I te was obviously influenced by the seminal t963 Marcel I)uchanit1 exhibition at the Pasadena Art Museum.

The strongest works are Hopper's black-and-white photographs of young artists and actors, which reveal the scene and temperament of Los Angeles in the 1960s. These images have the intimacy of tamilN snapshots with ani eye toward history. Here we see a gorgeous picture of a young W\arhol, sweet and handsome, coyly posing behind a lily, and another of Edward Ruscha in 1964, standing in front of'a TIand radio repair shop with Santa Monica Boulevard reflected in the glass. Ruscha stares at the camera like an unwilling subject, as emotionally guarded and aloof as his own work. Other images were shot from moving cars, with the self-conscious addition of Hopper in the side-view mirror, or were taken walking down the street, observing torn posters, odd signage, and eccentric street-side attractions. 'T'hough his images suggest Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and Aaron Siskind, Hopper reveals a wry visual sense of humor, with manyi tight and complex compositions. His best-known photograph is D)oub1c Standard (1961) and its mtltiple meanings and readings demonstrate a sophisticated artistic vision. A brooding, smoggy, gray sky hangs over the busy intersection of l)ohenty Drive, Santa Monica Boulevard, and Melrose Avenue, the center ofthe LA art world at the time. Shot froin the driver's seat of a convertible, the image looks both forrward and backward through the rear-vtew mirror. A billboard claiming "Smart women cook with gas in balanced power homes" is simultaneously sexist and feminist, attesting to the emerging cluest for liberation. Hopper was a good photographer and could have been great had lie gi\en hiniself the time to develop a more concentrated and untified vision.

In the center of thi exhibition is a roomn full of'a fiew hundred blat k-andwhite photographs hung thermtic ally irr salon style, ari artrange'rent that dilutes their inditi'idual power. Sorte are riot more than docutmenuitaton, such as the itnage ofl)r. Martin Iuther King in IMontgornery, Alabama, in 1965. A seritial moment in the Civil Rights movement to be sitre, blut its inclusioi r sutggests tit(i artist's biography over his artistic legacy. L,ikewise, Hiipper's pictures ol a tbullfight are nothing special. 'lb htave'

X

Overall, the exhibition has too many mediocre works and asks too much of this important player who is riot a great artist, but took some very good

pliotographs. 'IThis is a lov ing testament to a ftiiend and visionary, but one

0

z

that should not have been rushed, and certainly should not have tried to position Hopper as art artist who ottldt do so much worth exhibiting. Celebrity has its rewards and its burdens, the most obvious being too much attention with too little discretion. 33

Above

THOMAS MCGOVERN is the auslan q/tFtard Boys + Bad Girls (2010) and

Edward Ruscha (1964) by Dennis Hopper, - The Estate of Dennis Hopper;

Amazing Grace (20/0) and a prq#sisira o,-hrt at Cai/i/rniaState I ozniersitv, Sa

courtesy of The Estate of Dennis Hopper and Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York

Bernardino.

FROM THE DESK OF YVES KLEIN Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Washington, D.C. May 20-September 12, 2010

Walker Art Center Minneapolis, Minnesota October 23, 2010-February 13, 2011

Throughout his career, Yves Klein emphasized traditionally extrinsic elements ofthe work of art, leveling the conventional hierarchy between work and supporting document. The Hirshhorn Museum and Walker Art Center's jointly organized exhibition, "Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers," the first major North American retrospective of Klein's work in almost thirty year, flirts with this emphasis. The exhibition begins and ends with reproductions of Obsessionwith Levitation (Leap into the Vuid), the famous 1960 photograph of Klein in mid-air, his torso craned upward and arms outstretched, having apparently just hurled his body from the second story of a building and appearing seconds away from belly-flopping onto tie street beneath him. The image was originally circulated as the cover photo of a fake newspaper promoting Klein's work, which he printed in an edition of several thousand and distributed to newsstands around Paris. It ran accompanied by the caption "A man in space! The painter of space hurls himself into the void!"

as we usually encounter Klein's works in museums, the blue paintings, soaked sponges, and sculptures are stunning. The sheer volume of

For all intents and purposes a publicity photograph, Leap was Klein's

be a gimmick, first dazzling, then dizzying, and finally banal.

testament to his devotion to "the Void," a spiritual essence (liberally adapted from the writings of Gaston Bachelard) in the name of which Klein waged his artistic career. His display of devotion was put on,

In 1957, Klein notoriously exhibited eleven blue monochrome paintings

however: lie had his photographers edit out the stagehands holding a tarpaulin to catch his fall. Like many of Klein's works, Leap comes with a caveat and yet, unlike Marcel Duchamp, the artist's tongue is not planted firmly in cheek. The curators have exhibited the works with only Klein's own supporting documents for context, a strategy that presents Klein's self-mythologization without the necessary distance or

S t0 X X

the pure blue pigment to the canvas or object without binder, which would normally dilute its vibrancy. Taken singly or in a small group,

lperspective to help draw out the contradiction between neo-Romantic mysticism and the canny fabrication that he carefully encoded into his career. Depending oil the viewer's inclination, Klein is alternately a heroic devotee to mystical aesthetic experience, a hopelessly delusional Romantic, or a cynical fraud. A now-popular fourth reading, Klein as critical manipulator and unmasker of spectacular culture, is foreclosed

blue works, the "Anthropometries," exhibited in "With the Void, Full Powers," however, while disorienting in their radiance, reveals IKB to

of the same size at the Galleria Apollinaire in Milan. He later claimed that the paintings had been sold for different prices, a lie that has since become part of the historical record (a museum guide unwittingly repeated this fabrication to me as fact). Here, Klein pulls one last artistic prank, this time on the future custodians of his career. His provocative gesture to exhibit eleven nearly indistinguishable paintings, their aesthetic impact deadened by repetition, is itself repeated by the inescapable inclusion of his multitude of blue works in any complete career retrospective. If the paintings are indeed, as Klein has stated, "the ashes of my art" and "the leftovers of the creative process," one is tempted to ask whether the true content of his art is actually in the dissemination of documents, publicity, half'truths, and fabrications that ultimately serve to advertise and market the works bearing his trademark hue as merchandise.

by the exhibition's dutiful fidelity to the artist's stated, but possibly ironic, intentions.'

34

The exhibition provides a generous sampling of works from each period of Klein's career, from his early differently colored monochromes to sketches and plans for his "Architecture of Air" project with German architect Werner Ruhnau. But not surprisingly, most of what one sees in the exhibition is bathed in Klein's signature (and patented) International Klein Blue pigment (JKB). Klein's special formula fastens

Above Obsession with Levitation (Leap into the Void) (1960) by Yves Klein: private collection: (0 2010 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ ADAGP. Paris; photo by Shunk-Kender; 00 Roy Lichtenstein Foundation; courtesy Yves Klein Archives Facing page The Dream of Fire (cr 1961) by Yves Klein; s 2010 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP. Paris; photo by Shunk-Kender; © Roy Lichtenstein Foundation; courtesy Yves Klein Archives

My companion at tihe exhibition remarked that the curators might have done well to hire actors to recreate Klein's performances,

as the Museum of Modern Art in Ne", Nork did in its concurrent retrospective of Marina AbramoviC's work. Klein, of' course, was not a perfbrmance artist. Upon seeing videos of his grandiose and ostentatious production of the "Anthropomnltries" and fire paintings projected right next to the paintings themselves, however, it became apparent that the paintings lack a dimension that the video documentation of Klein's process reveals. The nature of this paucity cannot be distilled to the paintings' basis in perfoirmance. Instead, both the "Anthropomntrics" and the fire paintings are inseparable from the (heavily staged) documentary photographs and videos. Klein's art was one of provocation and scandal: the idiosyncratic manner of the works' exhibition (not repeated by the current exhibition), the rituals he constructed around both the production and transaction of his works, and elaborate exhibition openings turned events. As is often the case with scandal, one does not experience the event in person, but through secondary accounts: photographs, videos, hype, and gossip. This is how Klein would have us see him; however, a bit of perspective would help us see why. GODFRE LEUNG is a PhD candidate in the prorani in Visual and CulturalStadies

at the Cniversity oqfRochester.

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35

NEXT PHAZE

illatters: tHou the Culutre If4 rs Changed.America (1999

edited by Brian

Wallis, Marianne Weems, and Philip Yenawire. Show & Tell: A Chronicle of Group Material

Yet, Show, and Tell is distinguished from previous literature because

Edited by Julie Ault

it reveals various viewpoints of the group, including not onilv,Julie

Four Corners Books, 2010

Ault, its longest-term founder, but also members Tim Rollins and Doug Ashlbrd, who continue discussions on GM's philosophy and how its archive can engage today's audiences. Atilt discusses

272 pp./$35.00 (sb)

hi the 1980s, binge buying and credit cards became a way of life. Strecet styling and fashion labels were everything. Video games, acrobics, rrinivars, callicorceirs, and talk shows were the sorrmr. lFrom Aretha Franklin, Parliament, and The Clash to Michael Jrackson and G;uns N' Roses, musicians wrote hit songs that reiained oil Billboard's Top Ten music charts for more thati just

debates on the \ ar ioi drugs and the elimination of' nuclear wcaipons, inteimiploymenit increased, hospital costs rose steeply, ind iirio were lost to AIDS. On the L,ower East Side of Manhatian, in a storefront at 244 last

Various individuals' oral histories of this project 1l6lows Locks's essay. These histories were taken frome larger conversations that

aits of' tdi members of Group

,S/how and 7lil: .,I Chmuilt1,h is Ille first mo

,?/(Group ,

explains the purposefl creation of scrrusnarized records that wxould not otherwisc have cxissed.

latnral (2010)

iogr;iph of GM, the New York-

based artists' cioll'ctivei179-9). The authors roiicintaitc mostl\ it thr writtii and visual evide-ice i it' produted

took place hiuring the organizatirr of this publication. This section acts as a supplement to Locks's essay by approaching thi scholar's goal of knowing \vihat actually occurred. It also c aptcr1 es the recollections of artists, art critics, and administrators of this project after the fact and

thdir counterparts in the commercial art scene.

approximately furty-five by (GM that

engaged

The book's design is concise adi fiunticoal throcughout. TIh'- suggestion of a ye• low iirieline is used fbr illustration captions and for \iritteti

)ro,jects

exhibitiots descriptions. Generoussly sized color images are included, ranging from a quarter-

the social,

political, anidi[ art historical issues of the [980s

and '90s. For examftle, in ''Your Message Here" S1.).), indivsiuals and members of groups were invited to design

page to frll-bleed, double-page spreads. Other sections include a chronology of all groutcp exhibition participants,

site-speci'ic billbiards located throughout the city of C.hicago. As a mode ofaddressing Iliie public, contributors identified a wide ethnic, s0cial, andod cC0i0oliC spct'ulm. Mary Patten's billboard affirms

a selected bibliography spanning friom 1980 to 1996, and a;i index highlighting GM's projects ill bold type.

kv\ %ords,full-length portraits, and the footer "talk about it."

Overall, this publication contains a succinct history of' GM's tactics. It exemplifies artwork that is at the heart of interactions

This book is filled with recalled momnents It also includes excerpts firor (GM's notes on the day-to-day rigors of organizing specific

between the individual psyche and cuultral entities such as artist collectives or society at large. At the same time, it is part of the larger visual world embodied in teleivision, newspapers, billboards,

ifese conccrns through it revealing display that

encompasses

iprojects and exhibitions, contentious art reviews, letters from the general public, ard littiers frons GM members thIemselves. These docuricrues shw evidciuce of the artists' collaborative brilliance, as swell as their slumps and sporadic collapses friom exhaustion. IITh'i-e-quarters through the volume, tlc essayists reveal another ý1st[i1y: W'hat happened to GM arid its archive in the fall of 1996. Liake tr'eir inactive clocuiments (i.c., press releases, instructiots, drawings, photographs, and artifacts), the members of GM and

36

in an ef1brt to pass on the group's ideologies about the nature of conimninity-based work and its messages. Locks relies heavily on an assortment of statistics, archival material, and comments bv GM members, rather than sirtply of1ering her own criticism.

13"' Strcet, tli'

0

Rollins and Ashford take a more personal and historical approach. Researcher Sabrina Locks investigates GM's "AII)S Timelinc"

a few nionths. The decade encapsulated double-digit inflation, Presicicrit RonaMl Reagan was the catalyst for highly charged

.Matcrial tGNM wsas to tacklc these issues. Their uoals seri thus not necessarily the same as

0

the selection, appraisal, and arrangement of GM's records in the Downtown Collection at New York University's Fales Library, while

their contributions to the cause sat around for a fair amount of' tinm, Their legac y, however, took ois a life of its own. Information about GM menlmers and hie collective appeared in anthologies such as C(ratinrg Sul/echt (2007), edited by Paul O'Neill; Participation (1ocvunenal of Contenrparir)n Ait) (2006) by Claire Bishop; and Art

and even advertisements in subway cars and stat ions, all of which continually bombard the senses. GM is not just a group of artists frons a particular era; it Ibstered some of the individuals who rejUVCenatecd the visual arts in public life en roasse. LORI SALMON i ain art cific basi'd u0 m'i,lark Ci1r.

SANCTUARY OR PRISON?

Payne's essay, "'The State Mental Hospitals Their Origin, Construction, and Demise," presents an historical account of the rise and subsequent fall of the institutions. Noting that the asylums' goals

Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals

conflicted with the reality of overcrowding, inadequate funding, and lack of successful treatments, Payne's research clearly articulates the reasons for the decline and eventual abandonment of the asylums.

Photographs by Christopher Payne, with an essay by Oliver Sacks

Accompanying the text are historic postcards from many of the sites.

MIT Press, 2009 Payne spent six years photographing seventy institutions in thirty

216 pp./$45.00 (hb)

Like many children, I sometimes visited my parents at work. I eagerly anticipated these special excursions. Unlike those of most chtildren, however, these visits occurred at a state mental institution where nsy

states. Surprisingly, he did not encounter much resistance in securing permission and permits. He interviewed many administrators and workers who gladly shared tise sites' histories. Thle resulting book includes two hundred beautifully reproduced images. Employing both color and black and white, the large-format photographs

stepfather worked f6r twenty-five years as a clinical Psyclhlogist. I recall my first visit as a young teen: I do not remember feelitig scared, just curious to tnect thelpatients I liad seard so much abtout. My stepfather

capture the monumentality and austerity of the architecture, as well as details of neglect and decay. 'Fhe photograph of the breezeway to the infirmary ward at 'Faunton State Hospital in Massachusetts

tiade iormal introductions itas if it were a ceremonious occasion. I met Bolt, who thought fte was a rabbit. I-e hopped with his hands tip by his fitce, twitching his nose antt eating t arrots.,jant was catatonic, wearing a shapeless housedress

reveals an intact, majestic structure, weathered by pieeling paint and

and totking back and ftrth ftr hours. Another man spoke convincingly about a government ionspiracy antt aliens. FlTe patients were just its iurious aboutt tne as I was ab)out them. My

patient suitcases at Bolivar State Hospital in Tennessee, stacked dirty dishes in the kitchen of Concord State Hospital in New Hampshire,

lie related to eath persoit ott his or her own lesel, no iattitr how strange it may have seemed to observers. 'Ihat experience left an indelible th iettitn le

insanity. In t ilcg'e,

''lifouglh devoid of hunian presence, human traces remain in the fitm of shelves displaying brightly colored patient toothbrushes at Hudson River State Hospital in New York, disheveled

steplift htr never spoke to them as if they were ill. I It listened to their stories and asked questions.

inark on tii('

broken panes of glass.

and men's and women's gym sneakers at Wernersville State Hospital in Pennsylvania. Contrasting the elegiac tone pervading most of tlse photographs, a single image elicits a small (buckle: a large painted wooden sign held by

between sanity and

years later, I wanted to revisit

the asylum to photograph( tie buildings and grounds, to docult ent their steady descent into decay and ruin. Prohibited by legal bureaucracy, the project was never realized. So it was with great antitipation that I awainted the publication of Christopher Payne's book, ,,hrlum (2009).

two scary elves bearing tlse tidings "Seasons Greetings" at Traverse City State Hospital in Michigan.

of The

Most shocking are the images that depict medical treatment procedurcsres an electric shock therapy unit front Hastings State Hospital in Nebraska, a hydrotherapy roomtfrom Greystone Park State

.,Van II ' istooks Ho lfis I'i,e For,l Hat (1985) and .1sakenngs (1973). Sacks describies tite asyluts as "a ptlace where one could tie both miad and saife"'

Hospital in NewJersey, an auttopsy theater froom St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. 'The book ends with photographs depicting death:

(5) antd this was tise space my stepfather created for his patients. 'IThe essay by Sacks, who worked in a state mental hospital in the Brotix for

a wooden wicker casket and unused grave markers from St. Lawrence State Hospital in New York, coffins in the attic at Fergus Falls State

firty-one years, provides insider context, chronMiting lift' inside state Mental institutions in the United States. Th'lit original definition oft lit'xword "asylurn" nieant reltige, protection, and sanctuary. As Sacks writes, "'I lspitals provided control and protection fior patients, both ftom thiir own (perhaps suicidal or homicidal) impulses and frout tflet ritdicule, isolation, aggression, or abuse sO often Visited upon themin i th' outside world" (2). With movics such as One Flm Oz,er the Cteckoos'.,VWi•t (1975, directed by Milos Forman) and Girl, Inlerrlupted (1999, directed

Hospital in Minnesota, a crematorium at 'lerrell State Hospital in ''exas, shelves of unclaimed copper cremation urtis at Oregon State Hospital, and a cenretcry in Connecticut Valley State Hospital.

TI'fcs book opens with an insightful essay by Oliver Sacks, authort

byJaties Mangold), the word nois uontjires images ofatplace reigning itt chaos arndhdeviance; a dumping ground lot the Pouor, insane, and/or criminally ill; a place of brutal ablse and barbaric treatmentst. Sacks rettinds its thit mental iIllnss should not be 1`om1tautiCiZ'd, Hte desc ribes Paylne's photographs ofi "grandiost , but melancholy ardliteTtUre" as testanients to tihe' "pain ofthose with severe nitttal ilhess" andita symbol f'"'htllonaTIC Caring f6r thei lss fortuate"' (5).

'1The ulminating image features a patient's poem painted on a basement wall: "If my heart could speak, I'm sure it would say, I wish I were someplace else today.... I wish that some of these people who write

0 0

the books and make thit' rules, could spend just a fetw years walking in our shoes" (201). Payne's book not only doeuments tse vanishing atr hitect tre of the asyhlms, but also encapsulates the social Isistory-s its noble intentions and ultimate dentist-. 37 COLETTE COPELAND n a nulitinedia entiqt who teathes eritwal criting and i,oual sludies (it the Unizersily td'Penn3v1znnia in Philadelphia.

FIREFLIES: PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHILDREN BY KEITH CARTER/UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS/2009/ 168 PP./$50.O0 (HB)

In the forward to Fireflies: Photqgralths af Children, Keith Carter writes of himself, "[I am] the Flannery O'Connor of children's photography. My pictures occasionally tend toward the dark or solitary side." In each photo, we see Carter's world of"truths and half-truths." Inside that world, the images convey a bittersweet nostalgia reminiscent of Southern Gothic literature. Adding to the gothic feel, Carter presents numerous pictures of children in decaying and fuzzy friames, often accompanied by a natu ral element. The result is an innocent yet eerie collection of images reminiscent of Dave McKean's work in Mirrormask (2005).

blurred elements add not only to the sense of nostalgia but also to the sense of gothic obscurity. Although there are some photographs in the book that perhaps compromise the cohesiveness of the artist's message, over the entirety of this monograph, Carter creates a coherent narrative that explores the uniquely surreal and magical nature of childhood.

CORINNE PLACILLAis

MEN IN THE CITIES: PHOTOGRAPHS 1976-1982 BY ROBERT LONGO/SCHIRMER/MOSEL/2009/128 PP./$49.95 (HB)

-L The photographic ev idenice of' the story behind Robert Longo's dramatic and famous series of drawings, "Men in the Cities," lies in this book. The drawings depict typically clothed business people, in solitary moments, contorting their bodies in ways that arc either necessary or reactive.

Continuing the allusions to literature, there is oftes a sense of what could be called magical realism. This "magical" sense is especially pronounced io the photographs 1ia and Fijh, Open Hand, Renaissance MAouse, Chicken Feathern, and Pinocchio Piazza. In these images, Carter explicitly captures both the subversive qualities of magical realism and the previously mentioned sense of nostalgia. Perhaps because lie positions these children with animals that are often hall-dead or imaginary, the line between reality and fantasy is breeched. Chicken Fratherv is especially clever in how it creates a sense of surreal magic. Explicit in that photo is a clear sense of the Voodoo tradition. Carter

is able to create a sense that these small black children live in the deep South and are largely immersed its traditional magic without showing any ol•iects typically associated with the Voodoo religioni. (Carter effiectivcly connects the concepts and mechanics of each photograph to the overall purpose of his finished project. Both the subject and execution of his images play into the general theme of his work. Because the photographs are black and white and not saturated with color, and the majority of them are set outdoors and out off6cus, the "darker" and more serious nature of children is portrayed. The

agIaduatestudent in English at the State ['.nieristy)'.Aeu,

lark, The College at Brockport.

All f6reground and background is removed from the drawings so that no further context is provided but the images reveal a rich history relating to Longo's wirkirng methods, to the artistic culture of which he was a part, arid to his personal relationships with the anonymous, timeless figures that emerge in graphite as friends-among them Cindy Sherman (who also wrote the very personal introduction to the book). The photographs thermselves rise as works of art in their own right, allowing the model to merge with, or contract within, his or her surroundings. Histories are ever unfolding and this book sheds a new light on a past we thought we had already defined. -

ILANA CHLEBOWSKI works in the Curatorial Department at the Albright-KJnox Art Galler' in Buffalo.

a U

UPCOMING ISSUE 0 1Z

THEJOURNALOF MEDIAARTSAND CULTURALCRITICISM

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2

PROFILE Carnegie Mellon's CREATE Lab

BOOK REVIEWS Mixed Use, Manhattan: Photographyand

BOOKS African Film: New Forms of Aesthetics and Politics, by Manthia Diawara. Prestel/319 pp./$34.95 (sb). And While I Have Been Living Here Perfectly Still: The Saskia Olde Wolbers Files, by Philip Monk. Art Gallery of New York University/ 133 pp. /$20.00 (sb). At Your Own Risk: A Saint's Testament, by l)erekJarman. University of Minnesota 18 9 5 Press/ 152 pp./$ . (sb). Ben Shahn's American Scene: Photographs 1938, byJohn Racburn. University of Illinois Press/ 190 pp./$30.00 (sb). Chance, by Margaret Iversen. Documents of Contemporary Art series, The MIT Press/238 pp./$24.95 (sb). Chandigarh 1956: Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Jane B. Drew, E. Maxwell Fry, by Ernst Scheicegger and Stanislaus Von Moos. Verlag Sht'ideggcr and Spics/270 pp./$

75

.00 (ib).

Chroma, by l)erek,Jarman. 1Uhniversity of Minnesota Press/ 16I pp./$18.95 (sb). Cinema, Emergence, and the Films of Satyajit Ray, by Keya Ganguly. University of California Prcss/258 pp./$24.95 (sb). Climate Refugees, by Collectif Argos. The MIT Press/349 pp./$29.95 (sb). Conspiracy Dwellings: Surveillance in Contemporary Art, by Outi Remes and Parm Skelton. Cambridge Scholars 99 Publishing/ 148 pp./$52. (lib). Conversations With Mohsen Makhmalbaf, by Hamid Dabashi. Seagull Books/ 188 7 pp./S2 .50 (hb). Defiant Images: Photography and Apartheid South Africa, by D)arren Newbury. Unisa 37 Press/345 pp./$ .00 (sb).

The Dfisseldorf School of Photography, by Stefan Gronert. Aperture/320 pp./S95.00 (hb).

The Experimental Group: Ilya Kabakov, Moscow Conceptualism, Soviet Avant-Gardes, by Matthew Jesse Jackson. The University of Chicago Press/316 pp./$55.00 (hb). Europe, by Brett Weston. Lodima 6 95 Press/12 pp./$ 4. (sb).

The Passion of Montgomery Clift, by Amy Lawrence. University of California Press/333 2 95 pp./$ 4. (sb).

Studying Photography: A Survival Guide, by Douglas Holleley. Clarellen/ 121 pp./$29.95 (sb).

Fifteen Photographs of Japan, by Brett Weston. Lodima Press/ 15 6 9 pp./$ 4. 5 (sb).

The Living and the Dead: Neapolitan Cult of the Skull, by Margaret Stratton. The University of Chicago Press/79 pp./$37.50 (hb). Mark McGinnis, by Carlo Vinti. Front Forty Press/52 pp./$20.00

(sb). Route 36, by William Wylie. 9 95 Flood Editions/89 pp./$2 .

(sb). Terry Allen, by Dave Hickey, Marcia Tucker, and Michael Ventura. University of Texas Press/301 pp,/$65.00 (hb).

PHOTO BOOKWORKS

Visions of Japanese Modernity: Articulations of Cinema, Nation, and Spectatorship, 1895-1925, by Aaron Gerow. University of 24 95 California Press/323 pp./$ .

and Willem: Documentation of a Youth, by Willem Popelier. 33 00 Post Editions/ 184 pp./S . (sb).

(sb).

Toppled, by Florian G6ttke. Post 27 Editions/150 pp./S .50 (sb).

Wanted: The Outlaw in American Visual Culture,

EXHIBITION CATALOGS

by Rachel Hall. University of Virginia Press/! 95 pp./S49.50 (hb).

Architecture Under Construction, Stanley

Warning Shadows: Home Alone with Classic Cinema, by (;ary Giddins. WW Norton & 95 Co./416 pp./S18. (sb).

World Press Photo 10. Thames & Hudson/155 pp./$24. 9 5 (sb).

Greenberg, forward by Joseph Rosa. Accompaning exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, May 1 Aug. 31, 2010/The University of Chicago Press/ unpaginated/$45.00 (lib). [Ed. note: See interiew with (;reenberg in

thui issue.1 Born in the Streets--Graffiti,

Yves: The Provocateur: Yves Klein and TwentiethCentury Art, by Thomas

McEvilley. McPherson & Co./272 pp./$27.00 (hb).

MONOGRAPHS Amazing Grace: Worship at Two African American Evangelical Churches, by Thomas McGovern. Parker 9 99

Publishing Inc./36 pp./$1 . (sb).

Europe, by Brett Weston. Lodima

Press/12 pp./$6 4 .9 5 (sb).

Fondation Cartier pour lart contemporain. Published on the occasion of the exhibition "Born in the Sreets -Graffiti," at the Fondation Cartier pour I'art contemporain in Paris, July 7 Nov. 29, 2009/Fondation Cartier pour I'art contemporain/Thames & Hudson/unpaginated/$50.00 (sb).

Darkroom: Photography and New Media in South Africa Since 1950, by Tosha Grantham; preface by Deborah Willis, essays by Isolde Brielmaier and Tumelo Mosaka. Accompanies a traveling exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Visual Arts Center, Richmond, VA, Aug. 21 -Oct. 24, 2010; Birmingham

Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL,Jan. 23 April 16, 2011/ University of Virginia Press/ 150 3 pp./$ 5.00 (sb). Exposed:Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera Since 1870, edited by Sandra S. Phillips; essays by Simon Baker, Philip Brookman, Carol Squires, Richard B. Woodward, and Marta Gili. Published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Tate Modern, London, May 28-Oct. 3, 2010; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Oct. 30, 2010 April 17, 2011; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, May 21 Sept. 18, 2011 /San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in association with Yale University Press/256 pp./S50.00 (hb). /Fd. note: See review of the exhibition in this,isue.] Framing the West: The Survey Photographs of Timothy H. O'Sullivan, TobyJurovics, Carol M.Johnson, Glenn Willumson and William E Stapp. Accompanies the exhibition "Framing the NNcst: '[he Survey Photographs of Tinothy H. O'Sullivan" at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Feb. 12 May 9, 20)1 0/Yale University Press/ Library of Congress/Smithsonian American Art Muscum/255 pp./ $60.00 (hb). Prison/Culture, edited by Sharon E. Bliss, Kevin B. Chen, Steve Dickison, Mark Dean Johnson, and Rebeka Rodriguez. Published in conjunction with the exhibitions "Criminal: Art and CriminalJustice in America" at the Fine Arts Gallery College of Creative Arts at San Francisco State University, Feb. lb6 March 15, 2008 and "The Prison Project" at Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, Feb. 2G March 29, 2008/City Lights Publishers/96 pp./$ 19.95 (sb).

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Project Europa, Kerri OliverSmith, with essays by Marius Babias and Boris Groys. Issued in

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connection with an exhibition at Samuel P Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, Feb. 7 -May 9, 2010/Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art/ 116 pp./S29.95 (sb).

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You Are Never Alone

Joseph Desler Costa

You Are Never Alone gives a physical location to a collection of seemingly mundane bits of communication. Part performance, part road-trip escape, and part landscape photography, this series draws from a drive across the U.S. planting signs with phrases from text messages, emails, and conversations had while traveling. Because we are never truly able to escape oneself and one's daily life now that we are always connected by technology, the idea of the road trip/escape into nature has changed. 1he mundane communications with friends and lovers become a part of the landscape in which we seek escape. To capture each of these moments en route, I would plant a sign, photograph it, leave it, and move on.

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