The Politics of the Machine
1999; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 27; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1543-3404
Autores Tópico(s)Art, Technology, and Culture
Resumoby Bill Jones and Ben Neill Sandra Gering Gallery New York, New York July 8-September 11, 1999 Political intervention through abstract art is commonly expressed through the artwork's negation of political rhetoric and social hierarchies. By declaring its own autonomy, an abstract artwork can serve as a model for political freedom. Yet music can express social content through abstracted socio-political relations, e.g., the domination of a musician by the composition or the liberation of the performance through improvisation. The sound and light installation Pulse 48 created such a realm of freedom, almost a fairy tale come true of human and machine walking hand in hand through a world unthreatened by a powerful culture industry. Pulse 48' was a collaboration between musician Ben Neill and visual artist Bill Jones. The main space at the Sandra Gering Gallery displayed five groupings of plastic light sources. The pod-like lighting structures in the largest field were built from joined pairs of different colored plastic sleds. The other four fields consisted of similar smaller arrangements made of Frisbees. Each of the fields in the main gallery featured its own speaker. A separate project room hosted another Frisbee-field; this one equipped with its own amplifier and one speaker per pod. Upon entering the darkened gallery, the viewer was immersed in an atmosphere of pulsing light and electronic music. The patterns of light and sound climbed and descended in a series of untraceable variations and indeterminable densities. The ambient sounds and corresponding flashing plastic forms were controlled by a computer according to a simple mathematical formula. All aspects of the installation including the pitch, duration, rhythm, tempo, dyna mic curves and large-scale form were derived from a 4/6/7/8 set of numerical relationships or rations. [1] This information determined and manifested a sensational experience within the sonic and visual realms. The installation created an environment that took its full effect on viewers spending even a short time in the main gallery, a sphere that hovered between presence and absence. The different speeds and intensities of the pulsing light and music produced a trance-like, hypnotic environment in which it was hard for the spectator to remain focused, either physically or intellectually. This experience would periodically fragment when the sound and light momentarily stopped, descending the room into familiar distances, visible light sources and tangible objects. Only the silence was unfamiliar. While the walls of the gallery, the sleds, Frisbees, speakers and the cables connecting them all were signs of recognition and orientation, the silence and stillness of the light constructed an absence of spectacle and performance. This silence played an important part in Pulse 48, keeping it from becoming a tool of transcendental escape into a realm of spectacular distraction: are moments of silence. There is roo m for contemplation, said Jones. [2] Collaboration was central to Pulse 48. The project was a joint effort in which Neill acted as musical engineer and Jones conceived of the visual premises. As Jones pointed out, Pulse 48 was not necessarily intended as a critique of authorship or of the modernist myth of the artist as originator, although the suspension of the producer has become an essential part of the structure and mechanisms of the work. This interdisciplinary installation questioned the boundaries of artistic forms and disciplines-- those assumptions about artistic motives and practices that still seem to persist even though they have been subject to criticism as well as extensive de- and reconstruction over the past several decades. Perhaps more importantly, the computer also acted as a collaborator in the piece. Through shuffling and chance, the computer created perceptual shifts and moods that were never anticipated. …
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