Wires are Scary

by Brian W. Evans

Kyle Chew
Sex Machine, 2006

"Wires are scary. They just are."1 Artists are increasingly turning to electronics and computer applications in the creation of a new kind of work that fuses art with emergent technology. This encompasses a body of work so broad it defies easy categorization and attempts to identify common threads become tenuous at best. The diversity of work becomes apparent when comparing Jennifer Steinkamp's recent retrospective at the San Jose Museum of Art to the work of emerging artist Jed Berk in an upcoming show at the Beall Center for Art and Technology at the University of California, Irvine in April. Steinkamp's retrospective featured numerous reactive, room filling projections relying on sheer computing horsepower, while Berk's ALAVs (Autonomous Light Air Vessels) 2.0 are a flock of small, floating blimps that, well, flock. Mark Tribe, creator of rhizome.org, described this type of work as "a response to the information technology revolution and the digitization of cultural forms."2 Whatever it's called, many artists are actively exploring these new materials, which can be quite intimidating to those artists and students who are just now turning to the incorporation of electronics and programming in their work. Not only are the technical aspects daunting in themselves, engaging in the shifting critical foundations amongst the arts and tech community can be overwhelming. Wires are indeed scary.

During the late-1960s, Jack Burnham wrote that, "Sculpture [...] in a technological society must be regarded as a tiny microcosm of the entire socio-technical-biological evolution."3 This is just as valid today in the age of the iPod, when ubiquitous computing has become everyday and even refrigerators have WiFi. It also begins to explain the surge of artists whose work responds, at least in part, to the technological revolution. In discussing the role of the MFA in the university setting and its relation to the art world, Howard Singerman writes about a language that "provides a crucial internal tie that links artists, dealers, curators, critics, and departments as they address common issues and concerns."4 This internal dialogue is where university-based programs such as the Interactive Telecommunication Program at the Tisch School of Arts at New York University play an integral role in the development and further research into the role of technology in the artistic discourse. Institutional support of this work has been crucial in the development of new tools used in artistic practice, having lead to the creation of software and hardware-based platforms such as Processing, a Java based language where programs are called 'sketches,' as well as the microcontroller Arduino, a small, inexpensive and simple computer used to control various electronic systems.

Anna Gold
Jumpy Light Thingies, 2006

Inexpensive microcontrollers, the availability of sensor technologies, artist-friendly computer programming languages like Max/MSP, and pre-written software code have made it increasingly easier for the artist to incorporate interactive systems in their work. However, because of this growing ubiquity, working with unpredictable technology can paradoxically result in predictable art. In an article for Sculpture magazine, Simon Penny called for "an artform which [sic] utilizes the sensibilities of sculpture (to spatiality, embodiment, and the complexities of the semiotics of materials and media) in a form which actively integrates the behavior of the visitor through time."5 In the seven years since this was written, this form of interactivity has become the "must-have" for technologically driven artwork while the term "new media" has become as fashionable and meaningless as "postmodern". Without the means to discuss these issues, the popular dogma will persist, and artists will continue to needlessly, and tediously, repeat the past work of others.

Jose Juarez
Untitled, 2006

Artists, and students in particular, need the opportunity to explore the challenges of working with circuits, schematics, and programming for the creation of new work while being exposed to the history, both past and recent, of the genre. For example, working with cerebral concepts involved in the art making process is analogous to working with technology, where intangible electrons become the material that is being manipulated. Penny illustrates a key problem with art dependent on technology in that, "...the modalities of the technology become not a vehicle but a substance to be modeled, manipulated and juxtaposed with the viewer in various ways. And if the technological combination is the work, then its ability to carry narrative 'content' is a secondary issue and somewhat superfluous."6 This becomes evident when the artist turns to the microcontroller for the creation of reactive or behavioral work where the process requires intricate wiring diagrams and obtuse computing languages, and the end result involves a continual, mechanistic decision-making process that can never truly be seen by the viewer. These issues drive the need for continued learning and discussion of emergent technology not only within the fine art context, but also in its impact on the very fabric of our culture. Artists, students, critics, and curators need these types of dialog and support to keep the community, and the communication, alive and vibrant.

Published 12/03/2006