User:Niek Hilkmann/Graduate Research Seminar 2013/2014 - Trimester 1

18/09

Fairy tales in the age of digital appliances
Animism, Fetishism and Romanticism in Media Art and Theory

The galaxy is a vast immense space beyond any human understanding. The earth is just a tiny speck on its metaphoric canvas. The human race is just a temporary inhabitant of this little planet. I belong to this species. Since a couple of years I have made it my principal to goal to understand the universe that surrounds me. The problem is that it's hard to take any information for granted within this field of research. I am dependent upon the collected knowledge of a species called the homo sapiens and of these only the ones who are alive seem trustworthy in my conspiracy suspecting mind. The problem is that every once in a while humans tend to die and unfortunately this leaves them in a more or less permanent immobile state. Death causes quite some grieve, distress and confusion to the surviving members of my species. Often, they would have liked to keep the dead alive, safe with them, for as long as possible. Furthermore, the death of another human reminds them of their own mortality. All living things die in the end. Nobody knows exactly why and nobody knows what it exactly means to do so, although a lot of people claim to do this. These people make things confusing for me, for they believe this because they are told so by other human beings who have read things that were written by dead people when they were alive. Even though these dead people have written down certain facts about death and dying, it is hard to find out if these tales of old tell us anything about what death really means. In all likelihood, it could very well be that death does not mean a thing and that nothing actually happens when you die. This is of course not a pleasant thought, for it would make life and death an arbitrary thing. However, nowadays, this is precisely what a lot of people believe. Life can become a meaningless hubbub unless one puts in some meaning of his or her own. In this way, subjective thoughts have become one of the highest standard in modern day life. This is a confusing thing when one tries to understands the galaxy..

The text that you are now reading, is written only by me and is a highly subjective thing because of that. The paradox consists in the fact that if you follow along with what I am going to tell you, it implies you shouldn’t pay too much value to what I, a single individual with only a limited amount of experience, am going to relate. Human memory does not go back any further than the time we are born, yet even that memory is not reliable. Our minds are sophisticated ‘machines’ helping us to get through life in the easiest way possible. This means that we forget things and reshape our memory according to our needs. We can look at troublesome moments in life with a feeling of sincere satisfaction bordering on the fetishist level. You probably know some examples of this within the older generation of your family. Human beings always seem to compare their current lives to these memories that were shaped in a melancholic mindset. The past, abstract as it is, is a time that leaves a great impact on humans, for they come across it at an age when one is easily impressed and they take it with them for the rest of our lives. Objects that belong to this past get new meanings within current times every now and again. In our personal narratives these things resemble lost promises, memories and hopes. Yet, just like the past is being shaped by the human mind, objects are often made by human hands. Even though the galaxy confuses me, I seem to get some grasp over the past and history by means of inanimate objects. Home appliances are understandable and hold meaning.

During the previous academic year I have worked with old media objects, abandoned ideologies and the concept of conserver-ship. I approached these in such a way that I could ask myself what terms such as redundancy, reinstallation and reissue would mean within a confusing meta-modernistic age that succumbs to an overload of digital information. When I approached the Piet Zwart Institute I had an hunch that a pre-Socratic approach to materiality might be the answer to understanding the universe. In ‘Sein Und Zeit’ by Heidegger a distinction is made between ‘things’, ‘tools’ and ‘art’. While I am not going to claim that I am an expert in Heideggers philosophy (and I think just waving around with philosophy quotations in theoretic art tractates is an unnecessary distraction), I would like to use this discreet distinction in my text to emphasize some issues that I am working on. A ‘tool’, according to Heidegger, is a ‘thing’ that is shaped in such a way, according to human need, that we perceive and define it’s meaning through the way we can use the object. For instance, a toothbrush finds meaning in the way it is able to brush teeth. It is shaped by humans accordingly and doing something else with it is an infringement of its specific ‘tool-ness’. In the same way using a ‘thing’ as a tool implies that we only have eyes for it’s usefulness to us as human beings, while in reality it is not shaped for us, but exists outside of it’s relation to humans. As such, ‘a thing’ is an object outside of use with a goal within itself, like a rock. Heidegger continues this stream of thought by adding that ‘art’ is like ‘a thing’ because it does not have a specific human use, yet it is man-made and as such is unlike a regular 'thing'. It fits a human need, but contains meaning within itself and not through action. It communicates and is an object of introspection at the same time. For me, following this line of thought, understanding the universe would mean understanding things within themselves.

Within media art inanimate objects are often considered and appropriated. Objects are often stripped bare to their material core, open to be looked at by it's perceiver. This is exactly what is necessary to consider things as 'things'. However, are things merely things and is there anything to be understood through things by their thing-ness? I believe there is an element missing in the mix. Often, artworks comment on their relation to human beings. This relation, as I have written down earlier, is often shaped through memory. I believe materiality should be approached with regard to the human mind. Approaching media tools within the field of art without concerning the nostalgic attitude people have towards them seems like a shame. That is why I am going to focus upon this relation between mind, machine and emotion. Every once and again the bond between man and object is taken to extreme levels. Throughout history there have been countless tales about these bonds, take for instance 'The Teapot' by Hans Cristian Andersen or maybe even more fitting, Thomas M. Disch’s sci-fi tale ‘The Brave Little Toaster’ from 1980. In this lovely example, which should not be confused with the Disney movie of the same name, we encounter living household appliances on an epic quest to find their former ‘master’ who has abandoned them. In fear of their upcoming redundancy they start looking for him again and try to make themselves useful once more. This is a case of animism, by which I mean 'the worldview that natural physical entities—including animals, plants, and often even inanimate objects or phenomena—possess a spiritual essence.' Maybe there is something to be learned about the galaxy through this strange form of affection.

During the next couple of months I will look at the borders of nostalgia, animism, fetishism within academic research, more specifically, within the field of media art and media theory. My essay will compare 19th century romantic ideals with current trends and try to give answers to some of the following questions: Is the iphone a little teapot? Is a non-nostalgic incorporation of redundant media possible or are we doomed to revisit the past through a gleam of nostalgia, and if so: Does this actually matter? Is Heideggers pre-Socratic thinking perhaps no more than the seed for modern day recycling hype? Do human beings actually have responsibility towards inanimate objects? Is the past truly communicated through objects that belong to these periods? Or is this an example of animism? My final project will incorporate this diffuse attitude towards old media by means of an installation incorporating sound, image, light and animatronics. It will bring certain media ‘to life’ during a 10 minute show that will be open to the visitor during specific intervals that will be indicated by a shining lightbulb.

25-09

Texts:

• The Complete Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Andersen, 1981.
• The Future Of Nostalgia, Svetlana Boym, 2002.
• Sein Und Zeit, Martin Heidegger, 1927.

Extra:

• The Brave Little Toaster from Print to Film: Obsolescent Appliances and Capitalist Allegories, Margaret D. Stetz, Opticon 1826, 14: 21-26, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/opt.aj, 2012.
• The Brave Little Toaster, Thomas M. Disch, 1980.

Inspiring:

• The Brave Little Toaster

Worklog:

1. Can VHS save the world? An evening of videos, performances and talks 6 November – 20.00-23.00

In the last couple of years the before redundant video medium called VHS has started to reinvent itself within both ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture. Artworks, music videos and nostalgic pulp-evenings revolving around plastic tapes are increasingly entering the public sphere. Video tapes that used to be at the bottom of the economic ladder are slowly turning into collector’s items, selling for thousands of dollars. Now, with the concept of de-activism in full swing, WORM invites you to a discussion and referendum about this development with knowledgeable speakers from different fields talking about their like and dislike of the medium and it’s recent resurgence. Expect videos, performances, talks and music, but above all the answer to one question: Can VHS save the world?

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