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Craft* economy
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M A G A Z IN E
ECONOMY james natchwey
ROBERT STONE
BANKSY elisa strozyk
steve mccury www.craftmag.com UK £10 USA $15 EUR €15
dior homme
www.dio r homme.com/the-time-i-had-some-time-alone
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Mark Valli
EDITOR'S
LETTER B
usiness is about power. And guts. And passion. Business coverage should be too. Welcome to the first issue of Condé Nast Portfolio, a monthly magazine that chronicles how business shapes the world—and who the players are that wield the power. You don’t have to wear a suit or sit behind a desk to love the intrigue or be fascinated by the winners and losers. We see the business angle in every story, from politics to art, technology to entertainment.Business has captivated me since I was a kid. My dad saw business, like life, as a grand adventure. He regaled me with tales from the executive trenches and introduced me to his favorite newspaper, the Wall Street Journal. I went on to spend 22 years at the Journal as a reporter and editor, propelled by the same curiosity and passion. Now we’re in a new era. Today’s 24/7 news cycle bombards us with information but gives us less time to process it. That’s where Condé Nast Portfolio comes in. We’ve assembled a remarkable pool of writers to bring you richly reported narratives and investigations. We’ve joined them with the best magazine designers and photographers in the business—led by our awardwinning design director, Robert Priest—to tell those stories in a vibrant, visual way. We’ve developed the magazine together with our continuously updated website,
CRAFT*
SILVIA VARELA
Vicente Ferrer
Esperanza Moya
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maría Díaz del Río
javier Morán
ANA MELO
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he left her native Galicia to study Fine Arts in Madrid, although after she would move again, this time to Berlin. Her photography, especially intimate and calm portraits, is the type that seems to have almost been taken by coincidence. On her return to Madrid, Silvia has published in El País, NEO2 and in the Spanish editions of Cosmopolitan.
orn near the sea, in an evening in which a strong summer storm blew out. At 18 years old she landed in Madrid to study journalism. Fashion was always going round and round in her head: magazines, drawings with which she filled notebooks, dressmaking... Soon she started to contribute with several magazines and after a year in Architectural Digest, she continues as a freelance.
orn in the early Eighties, Vicente Ferrer dedicates his free time roaming between pastimes and frustrations, dreams and emoluments. Journalist and habitual collaborator of design and trends magazines such as NEO2 and PASAJES DISEÑO. According to him, he has failed in almost everything he has tried and in that swamp has learned.
hotography is the way I use to represent what I see and with what I see what I imagine”. Javi defines with these words his passion for the career that has led him earn his living since he decided devoting himself to it some years ago. After his stay in London, where he worked as an assistant to different photographers, he returned to commit himself to what he knows best.
he assures that the camera she received at nine years old was the best present she could have ever received. And since then until now, Esperanza has managed to make a living out of her biggest passion. She collaborates with publications such as Yo Dona (Spain), Vanidad, QVEST and Metal.
he left her native Galicia to study Fine Arts in Madrid, although after she would move again, this time to Berlin. Her photography, especially intimate and calm portraits, is the type that seems to have almost been taken by coincidence. On her return to Madrid, Silvia has published in El País, NEO2 and in the Spanish editions of Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and Marie Claire.
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CRAFT*
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Aingeru Zorita, Angel Smith, Akiko Sakamoto, Alex Craddock, Ali Pirzadeh, Ana Wood, Daniel Irene, María Díaz del Río, javier Morán, Ana Melo, Silvia Varela, Vicente Ferrer, Esperanza Moya, Elisa Luso, Esperança Moya, Luke Baker, Oliver Spies, Richard Round Turner, Rob Low, Romina Boem, Romina Monenti, Sam Rock, Samantha Falcone, Saniago, Sara Spoladore, Stefan Zachernitz, Susan Doyle, Valerie Frossard, Victoria Shubayeva, Vicent de Moro, Wei-Li Wang, Yumiko Yamamoto, Zack Moris.
Lisboa Editors
Craft* is not responsable for the articles and views of its collaborators. The copyright of the photos and the articles published in Craft* are of their autors. The reproduction is only allowed by their permission.
Alberto Murtra alberto@ Craftmag.Com +351 96 539 07 23
Belim editors Alberto Murtra alberto@ Craftmag.Com
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DIRECTORY
acne
hugo boss
missoni
www.acne.com
www.hugoboss.com
www.missoni.com
A.F vandervorst
hotel ritxz
MICHEL KORS
www.afvendervorst.com
www.hotelritz.com
www.michelkors.com
adolfo domingues
hotel meridian
paul ka
www.adolfodomingues.com
www.hotelmeridian.com
www.paulka.com
BCBG MAXMARA
hermès
paul smith
www.bcbgmaxmara.com
www.hermes.com
www.paulsmith.com
benetton
imporio armani
polo sport
www.benetton.com
www.imporioarmani.com
www.polosport.com
calvin klein
jill sander
ray ban
www.calvinklein.com
www.jillsander.com
www.rayban.com
chanel
Just cavalli
ralf Lauren
www.chanel.com
www.justcavalli.com
www.ralflauren.com
clarks
jean paul gaultier
stivalli
www.clarks.com
www.jeanpaulgaultier.com
www.stivalli.com
dior
karen miller
tnc
www.dior.com
www.karenmiller.com
www.tnc.com
dolce gabanna
lacoste
vivienne westwood
www.dolcegabanna.com
www.lacoste.com
www.viviennewestwood.com
donna morgan
lanvin
Yigal azrouel
www.donamorgan.com
www.lavin.com
www.yigalazrouel.com
david bouley
levis Jeans
Yohji Yamamoto
www.davidbouley.com
www.levisjeans.com
www.yohjiyamamoto.com
eleven madison park
la perla
yves saint laurent
www.elevenmadisonpark.com
www.laperla.com
www.yvessaintlaurent.com
French connection
louis vitton
valentino
www.frenachconnecion.com
www.louisvitton.com
www.valentino.com
ganbrinos
loewe
Veronique leroy
www.gambrinos.com
www.loewe.com
www.veroniqueleroy.com
givenchy
le bernardin
Viktor & Rolf
www.givenchy.com
www.le-bernardin.com
www.viktor-rolf.com
Gucci
marc jacobs
zara
www.gucci.com
www.marcjacobs.com
www.zara.com
CRAFT*
Cr A P. 08
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CHEKING IN...
P. 34
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rEPORT
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ARTS (architecture)
ART IN THE NEW ECONOMY by ALAN BAMBERGER
BERLIM (aGENCY)
BAD ECONOMY MAKES GOOD ART
Hort Design
by lAUREN cOLLINS
Thomas Demand
WHY SHOULD PEOPLE BUY AND OWN ART? by PATRICIA HART
SEED OF CHANGE
(arTIST)
by Katy Atylevich
rOBERT STONE DESERT ROSE by John paul
(art)
BANKSY BANKSY WAS HERE by lAUREN cOLLINS
(DESIGN)
eliza strozyk WOOD CRAFT by KAREN DAY
by PETER ASPEN
ANISH KAPOOR DEDICATES ART TO AI WEIWEI by PETER ASPEN
(PHOTOGRAPHY)
STEVE MCCURRY PORTRAITS FOREVER by JONH HARRYS
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fUTURE
P. 76
P. 88
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tALKS
128
*THINGS
(INTERVIEW)
(bazar)
words windows chaos
JAMES NACHTWEY
TO BE ON THE EDGE OF HISTORY
BLACK THINGS
by Joshua koomen
by John paul
WHEN TECNOLOGY IMITATES ART by joshua tompkins
collective intelligence: a civilisation by pierre lévi
The dream of accelerated culture by mads haahr
BLUE THINGS MORE THINGS
P. 08 19
CHEKING IN...
ART IN THE NEW ECONOMY by ALAN BAMBERGER
BAD ECONOMY MAKES GOOD ART by lAUREN cOLLINS
WHY SHOULD PEOPLE BUY AND OWN ART? by PATRICIA JAMES
SEED OF CHANGE by PETER ASPEN
ANISH KAPOOR DEDICATES ART TO AI WEIWEI by PETER ASPEN
CRAFT*
ART IN THE
NEW ECONOMY
CHECKING IN...
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I
ncase you haven't heard, America is on the cusp of a new economic era, this in spite of the previous Administration's ridiculous in retrospectre assurances that “the fundamentals of the economy are sound.” The painful truth is that economy is in the toilet and the Mother of All Flushes is in the process of playing out. America has been living on borrowed money for too many decades, and in recent years when borrowed money simply wasn't enough, incomprehensibly insatiable Wall Street plutocrats (with assistance from our trusted politicians) legislated themselves ditties like an increase in margin buying for investment banks from 12-1 to 40-1 (each $1 you put up gets you $40 in chips), sold millions of mortgages to people who couldn't possibly afford them, used many of those worthless mortgages as collateral for speculative shenanigans, and invented arcane unregulated “derivatives” like Credit Default Swaps to trump themselves up even more mountains of imaginary money. Well, we're in the process of discovering that imaginary money can't pay bills, and now that the blush is off the flimflam, we're lapsing into a shocked state of realization that all we're worth a lot less than we thought we were. How does this sad news shake out in artland? On the buy side, less money and tougher credit means that discretionary capital (and the ability to access capital in general) is shrinking. And as we all know, one of the great discretionary luxuries in life is art, so at the very least, selling art will likely become more challenging than it's been in recent years. That's the best possible outcome. As for less than best possible outcomes, let's just hope we don't have to live through too many of those (hint: art “investors” who attempt to sell all or part of their collections will be in for a big surprise). You see, what's currently happening in America, and to a certain extent in the rest of the world, is that a massive revaluation (devaluation) is taking place. In other words, we're moving closer to what things are really worth rather than what people would like you to believe they're worth. For example, home prices are falling and will continue to fall until homes become affordable enough for average Americans to own. Stock prices are falling and will continue to fall until corporations come clean on their balance sheets and fairly represent the values of their assets. Decreased demand has led to oil prices falling, car prices falling, commodity prices falling, and... uh oh... art prices may not be far behind. In brief, now that all the fake wealth is being factored out of
the system and cold hard cash is reasserting itself as the only sure thing, we'll all have to live more within our means, make due with less - and here's the key - think harder and smarter about how we spend whatever we have left over. Yes, from this point forward, anyone who spends money on anything from eggs to art, from you and me to multinational corporations, will be looking for value in what they spend it on. Speculation is out, buying on margin is out, impulse buying is out-- the only thing that's in is what it's worth now and to what degree of certainty it will continue to be worth at least that amount in the future. What kinds of value will buyers be looking for? Excellence, quality, productivity, dedication, commitment, reputation, pride in workmanship, these sorts of things – the values that made America great – standards that have sadly been lost in the shuffle of our greed-isgood, hard-work-is-for-losers, every man for himself, party-party-party attitude towards life. It needs to have more going for it than simply that you've christened it art, you
For you artists interested in overcoming the formidable challenges ahead, this means demonstrating your art has the kinds of values buyers will be looking for, not only today, but beyond. loved making it, or that it means something special to you. This may sound harsh, but the days of navel-gazing on obscure irrelevances, flimsy justifications, shoddy product, dabblers, overblown attitude, and “It is because I say it is” are over. Being an artist 'cuz it's cool, aimlessly gallivan-ting across the prairies of artland, random unfocused art-making, expressing your-self only when you feel like it and purely for the sake of self-expression- these approaches may be fine in boom times when money burns holes in people's pockets, but not now. Your art will have to fight for survival. You'll have to conclusively demonstrate why it's worth owning by offering tangible, intangible, theoretical, philosophical and related forms of proof (not the least of which is visual) that it embodies concepts, ideals, inspirations, and aspirations potential buyers can identify with - or if you're not that great of a communicator, providing your dealer, agent, or gallery with that
information so that they can demonstrate on your behalf - because convincing people to let go of their money will soon become more daunting than it's been in decades, assuming it hasn't already. Why does your art deserve a place in someone's home or business? How will it enrich or enhance another person's life? In short, what's in it for the buyer? You know what's in it for you, but that's no longer enough to consummate a sale. Art buyers will be searching for superlatives - significance, import, consequence, enduring essence, and similar qualities that place particular works of art above and beyond the great mass of average unremarkable oeuvres out there that eternally glut the marketplace. Why? It's not necessarily because art buyers will suddenly become more sophisticated and discriminating about their choices, but rather that significant numbers of Sunday players are likely to hang up their collecting shoes, at least for the time being, and reposition their capital expenditures elsewhere. Who's going to be left? Hardcore art lovers who live, breathe, and eat fine art, and who will continue to collect no matter what (even though they're likely to cut back on acquisitions as well). And hardcore art lovers know what they're looking at. You can't cut corners with them and they're not about to settle for secondrate tripe. Let me assure you. The bigger broader more ominous news, as if the situation isn't daunting enough already, is that people around the world, including those who buy art, increasingly perceive America (and potentially also American art) as having lost its way. We're no longer the instant automatic trailbla-zers we once were, and we can no longer do whatever we feel like doing whenever we feel like doing it and expect the rest of the world to fall into lockstep behind us. At worst, being American may even be trending towards a disadvantage. Face it - our standing in the world has ta-ken some mighty major hits of late. So you as an artist have to ask yourself some very serious questions, and then buildan artist have to ask yourself some very serious, artist have to ask yourself some very serious, to ask yourself some very serious, because there is some serius things. At worst, being American may even be trending towards a disadvantage. Face it - our standing in the world has ta-ken some mighty major hits of late. So you as an artist have to ask yourself some very serious questions, and then buildan artist.
Alan Bamberger
CRAFT*
Bad economy makes good art The global economic recession has caused the Getty Museum, the world's weal-thiest arts centre, to slash its budget up to 25%, and there is no objection that economic hardship has also been productive for art.
T
he Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art opened their doors during America's Great Depression. Photographer Dorothea Lange's image “The Migrant Mother” (seen above) is the essence of the economic hardship. When times are tough, art can often captivate and inspire the public. Economic crises challenge an established order and art seems to provide answers. David Philips' seascapes rendered in shredded beer cans are a modern example of art that inspires people to look beyond the day-to-day hardships.Philips began creating the seascapes after an epiphany when he was enjoying a beer on the beach gazing at the sea. In a February 2009 article, which exami-ned artistic success in hard times, The New York Times reported the museum's first acquisition was Edward Hopper's “House by the Railroad”. The painting was part of their second exhibit, “Paintings by 19 American Artists.” The Times reported that the exhibit had no admission fee. Hopper's painting of a 19th-Century Second Empire-style home is from a viewpoint where railroad tracks and the land elevating them obscure the bottom quarter of the home. American Poet Edward Hirsch describes the loneliness that Hopper's painting conveys in his poem “Edward Hopper and the House by the Railroad”. A large home abandoned might evoke the emptiness of material things.
Exposing the vulnerability of the material world resonated with people at the Museum of Modern Art's second exhibit. Dorothea Lange is probably best known for her image “Migrant Mother,” a photograph made while she shot for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). wThe FSA was part of the New Deal under President Franklin D.Roosevelt. Unemployment had reached almost 25 percent when Roosevelt began his presidency.
Museum of Modern Art Empathy with art consumers probably guided the Museum of Modern Art in its early days. FSA photographers wanted to show the effects of the Great Depression and changes that mechanization was bringing to America's farms. While the story behind the picture is subject to differing accounts, Lange's image became the human face staring out at the crisis. The image's publication influenced the government and the public to do more for America's agricultural workers. A beer and the ocean were all Dave Philips needed to inspire his artwork. “I had a can of beer in my hand and I was staring out to sea, and then it hit me –
I could combine the two,” Philips told the Metro. Also, the current recession struck his work as a proper-ty developer which probably ad-ded some motivation to create. An article in What's On reported that Mike Hocking, who runs Masa Fine Art gallery at the Royal William Yard, valued Philips' work at £4,000 per piece. Both the Metro and What's On Southwest reported that Philips' work is unique in that he is believed to be the only artist using shredded beer cans to create textures in his paintings. Perhaps the world can look forward to more artistic innovations as the economy continues to flounder. The Associated Press has outlined the economic activity worldwide as a story which includes growth revised downwards. These are great conditions for history to repeat itself and for art to flourish. While the story behind the picture is subject to differing accounts, Lange's image became the human face staring out at the crisis. The image's publication influenced the government and the public to do more for America's agricultural workers. While the story behind the picture is subject to differing accounts, Lange's image became the human face staring out at the crisis. The image's publication influenced the government and the public.
by Andrew Otto
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Photograph by Dorothea Lange’s image “The Migrant Mother”
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CRAFT*
photo by William Powhida
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Why Should
People Buy
and Own Art?
Selling art can be just as hard, if not harder, than making art. This sentiment has been and will continue to be echoed by fine artists everywhere for as long as artists make art. The instant a work of art is finished and ready to leave an artist’s studio, that artist is now confronted with the seemingly insurmountable task of having to convince someone somewhere that not only is the art worth experiencing, enjoying and appreciating.
S
o in the interest of minimizing the pain and suffering of selling your art – and of encouraging more people everywhere to own more art – please feel free to incorporate any or all of the following helpful hints about why art is worth owning into as many of your sales presentations as necessary:
04 Art inspires people to think about and even visualize ways that life might one day be better than it is now.
01 Art is a powerful form of expression not only for the artists who create it, but also for those who own it. Art allows people to express their individuality, and to represent deeply held beliefs, feelings, convictions.
06 Children are fascinated with art. Art makes children ask questions, encourages them to fantasize and imagine, and expends their perceptions of reality. Art teaches children how to be creative.
02 Art encourages people to ask questions, to take brief moments out of our busy lives to reflect on ideas other than how to make more money faster or how to get over on the competition.
07 Art is environmentally friendly, energy efficient, and easy to maintain. It does not increase global warming, use fossil fuels, or need to be serviced on a regular basis, and it’s certainly not just another expendable.
03 Art improves quality of life. All you have to do is think about the difference between a room with bare walls and one with walls full of art.
08 Art transforms and personalizes the places where we live and work. Art can evolve lifeless interiors, into unique, beautiful and engaging local.
05 Art stimulates the expression and inter-change of thoughts, feelings, and ideas among strangers who might never otherwise say a single word.
09 An original work of art is not only visually appealing, but it also communicates the personality, abilities, creativity, inspiration, attitudes, and at best, the brilliance and genius. 10 Art makes people proud to live, work, and play where they do. They point to their museums, public monu-ments, and cultural institutions with pride. For those of you buyers who like to profit from your art, people decide where to spend their time (and money) based on the types or amounts of art. 11 For those so inclined, art can be used to signify wealth, success or power, and can even be used to intimidate. Anyone who sits and meets with this individual must also contend with his art.
PATRICIA JAMES
CRAFT*
Seeds of
change T
his week will see the unveiling of 12 striking animal heads cast in bronze, in the handsome 18th-century courtyard of London’s Somerset House. The “Circle of Animals”, as it styles itself, has connections with the same historical era. They are gigantic recreations of the Zodiac sculptures that once adorned the fountainclock of Yuanming Yuan, an 18th-century imperial retreat outside Beijing. The last thing they look like is a contemporary art
installation but that is exactly what they are. The creator of the animal heads is the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, a man whose playful and provocative way with his art has led him into serious trouble in his homeland. Ai was arrested earlier this year and has been accused of unspecified economic crimes. But international observers fear that the real reason for his detention is his consistent criticism of the Chinese government. A widespread international campaign has
thrust Ai’s name into prominence. From London’s riverside, we can observe the slogan “Release Ai Weiwei” on the side of Tate Modern. The sculptor Anish Kapoor has dedicated his new commission at the Grand Palais in Paris to Ai. “His arrest, disappearance and alleged torture are unacceptable. When governments silence artists it bears witness to their barbarity,” Kapoor said. It is difficult to discern any political resonance in Ai’s work from the startled bronze
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heads of Somerset House. The original heads were pillaged when Yuanming Yuan was ransacked by French and British troops in 1860 and there have been fervent official attempts to buy them back – for instance, at last year’s Yves Saint Laurent sale. Only seven of the 12 originals have been located, and “Circle of Animals” might have been a none-too-subtle appeal for their repatriation. Ai has all but explicitly denied this interpretation of his work. “My work is always dealing with real or fake, authenticity and value,” he has explained. What he really cares about is showing his art to a wide public. “It’s a work that everyone can understand, including children and people who are not in the art world,” he said. Although it is styled according to 18thcentury aesthetics, “Circle of Animals” is, in fact, more typical of the age in which it has been produced: the present. It has the feel of a visual joke. Its references to any controversy over the original heads are allusive. There is no polemical grandstanding going on, no bombast. Part of the joke is the freshly sumptuous setting of the work, the courtyard that was until very recently a civil service car park. Sure, art can be looted; but it can also be neutralised by the banal imperatives of bureaucracy. Ai’s playfulness as evidenced here, and in Tate Modern’s installation “Sunflower Seeds”, make it difficult to see him as the rebellious artist causing such discomfort to the Chinese authorities (although other works are far more explicit in their critique of the government). The messages contained in his London work are subtle, with wide conceptual nuances at play. At his Tate press conference, Ai encouraged visitors to tweet their reactions to the piece, which consisted of 100m porcelain “seeds”. He declined to make his intentions any more explicit than that. But here is what he might have said: “Seeds grow. Tweets reverberate. The crowd will have its way, eventually.” The opening of “Sunflower Seeds” last year failed to make the Chinese authorities overly nervous. But the events of the Arab spring certainly did. The green shoots of popular revolt proved to be even more abrasive than all that porcelain dust. And Ai was duly taken into custody. As China continues to develop in ways that are strange and unpredictable, we grope for some certainties. In a puzzling and rising world where monolithic state power is twinned with extreme capitalism, and communism coexists with Bordeaux-drinking oligarchs, the figure of the outspoken artist
sacrificing himself for his beliefs is at least a familiar one. This explains the intensity of feeling surrounding the arrest of Ai Weiwei. Culture has become a forum for the west to express its misgivings over the resurgent east. The art world can say things that the business or political communities, more pragmatic in their concerns, can’t afford to say. On Wednesday night, these themes will be aired in central London’s most glamorous former car park as that same art world celebrates the opening of “Circle of Heads”. Gwyn Miles, director of Somerset House Trust, said there had been a good deal of debate over whether an opening night party was appropriate. “But if you look at everything [Ai] has said, he would want us to have a party,” she said. “What he wouldn’t want to be is forgotten.” Although it is styled according to 18thcentury aesthetics, “Circle of Animals” is, in fact, more typical of the age in which it has been produced: the present. It has the feel of a visual joke. Its references to any controversy over the original heads are allusive. There is no polemical grandstanding going on, no bombast. Part of the joke is the freshly sumptuous setting of the work, the courtyard that was until very recently a civil service car park. Sure, art can be looted; but it can also be neutralised by the banal imperatives of bureaucracy. Ai’s playfulness as evidenced here, and in Tate Modern’s installation “Sunflower Seeds”, make it difficult to see him as the rebellious artist causing such discomfort to the Chinese authorities (although other works are far more explicit in their critique of the government). The messages contained in his London work are subtle, with wide conceptual nuances at play. Ai has all but explicitly denied this interpretation of his work. “My work is always dealing with real or fake, authenticity and value,” he has explained. What he really cares about is showing his art to a wide public. “It’s a work that everyone can understand, including children and people who are not in the art world,” he said. Although it is styled according to 18thcentury aesthetics, “Circle of Animals” is, in fact, more typical of the age in which it has been produced: the present. It has the feel of a visual joke. Its references to any controversy over the original heads are allusive. There is no polemical grandstanding going on, no bombast. Part of the joke is the freshly sumptuous setting of the work, the courtyard that was until very recently a civil service car park. Peter Aspden
“My work is always dealing with real or fake, authenticy and value.”
photos by Andrew Winning
CRAFT*
Anish Kapoor Dedicates Art to Ai Weiwei “His arrest, disappearance and alleged torture are unacceptable. When governments silence artists it bears witness to their barbarity.”
B
ritish Indian-born artist Anish Kapoor has dedicated his biggest-ever sculpture to Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, who was detained by Chinese authorities last month. “I, as a colleague, I don’t know him personally…feel that as artists we have a communal voice and it is important that we stick together, that we have a sense of solidarity with each other,” said Mr. Kapoor in an interview with BBC Radio 4 on the eve of the public opening of his new Paris show on Tuesday. Mr. Ai, who in the past has openly criticized China’s establishment for its human rights record, was prevented from boarding a flight at the Beijing airport last month and
has been out of contact since. Leviathan, the work Mr. Kapoor chose to dedicate to his Chinese colleague, is an ominous red space made of steel and PVC sheets that fills 13,500 square meters of the Nave in the Grand Palais. It makes up this year’s MONUMENTA exhibition in the French capital and runs until June 23. Mr. Kapoor, one of his generation’s mosthighly regarded artists, said he would like the art world to do more in his defense, floating the idea museums and galleries could close for a day. “Perhaps all museums should be closed for a day. Museums and galleries across the world. I think some such campaign needs to form itself,” he said in the interview.
The Turner Prize-winner announced the dedication just as curator Roger Buergel, known for helping put on the iconic Documenta art exhibition in 2007, slammed the international art community for failing to speak out strongly enough on Mr. Ai’s disappearance. “I think most of them are glad to be rid of Ai Weiwei,” Mr. Buergel, who invited Mr. Ai to Documenta, said in an interview with Germany’s Spiegel Online. “Young Western artists are producing works that amount to nothing more than footnotes in art history, and then this Chinese artist appears who takes a totally different approach and makes 98 percent of the art world look very, very old.” Mr. Kapoor, whose art world credentials are firmly established, was anything but passive in defending his fellow artist. Slamming Mr. Ai’s detention as barbaric, the London-based artist said Mr. Ai’s disappearance “takes us back to a Soviet-style time when the voice of artists, of different kinds, are seen as being dangerous.” Mr. Ai’s disappearance attracted condemnation world-wide, with increasing voices from the international community calling for his release. And while individual artists may have disappointed Mr. Buergel with their “enormous passivity,” art world institutions have made several statements in support of the Chinese artist. London’s Lisson Gallery, where a retrospective of Mr. Ai’s work will open on Friday, on their website said that they are “alarmed by the detention of Ai Weiwei and greatly concerned for his safety.” Margherita Stancati
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Photos by Josh Chin
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REPORT
BERLIM (aGENCY)
HORT DESIGN (arTIST)
THOMAS DEMAND by Katy Atylevich
CRAFT*
BER LIM on fire by katy atylevich PHOTOs BY JOﾃグ Guimarﾃ｣es
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CRAFT*
If you haven’t been to Berlin in the Summer, you’ve never been to Berlin,’ Katy Atylevich is told as she sips Rhineland wine in art and design studios, or sits on sofas in the streets, or fails to find her subjects on the crowded Tiergarten grass, or sits on overcrowded terraces and bars (with vuvuzuelas echoing in the background and beer flowing all around) discussing the unique artistic atmosphere of this city.
I
tell people this is my first visit to Berlin in the summertime, and they tell me, ‘that means this is your first visit to Berlin.’ Snide but true. It’s late June, early July 2010, and this city is indeed a far cry from the one I’ve known in less forgiving months. I am a winter person, by the way, not exactly daunted by Berlin’s 300 days of icy pavements and sunless Circadian rhythms. Seasonal Affective Disorder [SAD] is second skin for me, it’s the relentless heat and twenty hours of daylight that have me disoriented. I’m not the only one. late one evening in Kreuzberg, I hear a young man on the street ask his friends: ‘If the sun never goes down, how do I know when it’s acceptable to start drinking?’ Al fresco, all restaurants and bars are crowded to a point beyond ‘improvisational seating.’ even the makeshift plastic chairs on the sidewalk are taken. Some people stand, and all people stare at televisions rolled outside, at temporary projection walls in café courtyards, each screen slightly out of synch with its neighbor: World Cup; World Cup - 1 second; World Cup – 1.5 seconds. the city’s roars and groans reach decibels unfit for hypochondriacs like yours truly (will it be hearing loss or tinnitus this evening?), and on the afternoon that Germany defeats Argentina 4-0, I find myself in a sea of the drunk, shirtless and singing on Berlin’s Fan Mile at Brandenburg Gate. they number in the hundreds of thousands. I back away slowly, and one short puzzled walk later I’m at Bebelplatz, an open public square in Mitte with a vile past, now the foundation for a large, temporary Fashion Week tent. A row of taxis and high-rolling cars park in front , a steady stream of moving vehicles — honking, German flags streaming from their windows in celebration — drive past. Ah, contrasts, contrasts; the clash of past and present, and present and present; the friction of light on heavy; the conscious
editing and re-editing of all such horribly appropriate platitudes. I peek into the windows of surrounding apartments, I look at the facial expressions of passersby, and imagine the mantras of Berlin delivered in the many intonations that lie in the octave between ‘disapproval’ and ‘exaltation’: Berlin isn’t what it used to be twenty years ago, Berlin isn’t what it used to be twenty minutes ago, Berlin isn’t, Berlin is, Berlin, Berlin, Berlin. Is it okay if I skip the parts about wars and walls, West and east in the following paragraphs? they’re all in there, anyway, however implicitly.
“Once thing to keep in mind is that Berlim was built for five milion people, but that there are only three and a half milion living in it. It is empty. There is space.” I am in Berlin, now, with the intention of joining some of the conversations on which I’ve been eavesdropping, and entering some of the flats and artist studios and galleries into which I’ve peeked with such curiosity. I want in on some of the words exchanged between people on the streets here and between apartment walls, between beers and over them in this city. And the artists, designers, photographers and other like creatures who let me in, are candid and sincere and hospitable — ‘Are you sure you don’t want anything?’ they speak about living here (sometimes unintentionally), about working here (sometimes easier said than done), about being labeled ‘Berlin’ (what’s that supposed to mean, anyway?), about the endless number of openings and events to go
to each evening, and the blanket statement that there are ‘too many artists’ here, about the cheap rent and slowly increasing costs, and the lopsided weighing scale of people who live here vs. people who live here for now, and people from here vs. people who choose to be from here. These artists speak of the natural disasters specific only to Berlin, a capital that sits on fractures and fault lines unlike those running below any other city in the world. These artists speak of the natural disasters specific only to Berlin. Is it okay if I skip the parts about wars and walls, West and east in the following paragraphs? they’re all in there, anyway, however implicitly. I am in Berlin, now, with the intention of joining some of the conversations on which I’ve been eavesdropping, and entering some of the flats and artist studios and galleries into which I’ve peeked with such curiosity. I want in on some of the words exchanged between people on the streets here and between apartment walls, between beers and over them in this city. And the artists, designers, photographers and other like creatures who let me in, are candid and sincere and hospitable — ‘Are you sure you don’t want anything?’ they speak about living here (sometimes unintentionally), about working here (sometimes easier said than done), about being labeled ‘Berlin’ (what’s that supposed to mean, anyway?), about the endless number of openings and events to go to each evening, and the blanket statement that there are ‘too many artists’ here, about the cheap rent and slowly increasing costs, and the lopsided weighing scale of people who live here vs people who live here for now, and people from here vs people who choose to be from here. These artists speak of the natural disasters specific only to Berlin, a capital that sits on fractures and fault lines unlike those running below any other city in the world, and the blanket statement that there.
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CRAFT*
HORT The culture in Berlin is based on one understanding: that the budget is low, but the ideas are many.
K
eike König Has a Bed next to his desk, for long nights at the office. No wonder he likes being in the quieter part of Kreuzberg, where people aren’t as likely to ‘stand in front of my window looking in.’ He seems really excited to be here. He introduces me to other members of Hort and, out of their earshot, tells me: ‘Hort is not a person, Hort is a group of people working together. There are so many characters here, and so you see a lot of character in the work.’ Yeah, you do. I’d hang out with Hort’s work, personified: It’s fun and perceptive, it executes popculture references and jokes with aplomb. that’s evident in the studios’ record sleeves, illustrations, branding, t-shirts, interior spruces-ups and weird-outs, collaborations and ‘miscellaneous’ works (there are a lot of ‘miscellaneous’ works). And they have movie nights together. Hort (previously called eikes Grafischer Hort) has roots in Frankfurt, where König set up shop in 1994. But since 2007, they’ve been in Berlin. that doesn’t necessarily make them ‘Berlin,’ says König.
“I want to be branded with the work I’m doing, not the city I do it in.” Still, I imagine if someone were to ask König what his sign is, he’d say he’s a Kreuzberger. (previously called eikes Grafischer Hort) has roots in Frankfurt, where König set up shop in 1994. But since 2007, they’ve been in Berlin. that doesn’t necessarily make them ‘Berlin,’ says König. ‘I want to be branded with the work I’m doing. says König. ‘I want to be branded with the work I’m doing.
Poster for the Agency HORT
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It is encouraged that you don’t see the work displayed on this website as a library of ideas and visual styles to pick and choose from, but a showcase of our capabilities and achievements. HORT are willing to give most things a go. I mean how are you supposed to learn if you don’t try. Right? Whether it’s an illustration for WALLPAPER* or THE NEW YORK TIMES; creating an interior hotel space for Volkswagens PROJECT FOX; working for the big guns i.e. NIKE and UNIVERSAL MUSIC; endeavoring with smaller companies like GET PHYSICAL MUSIC; or simply initiating something ourselves. We like to inform people creatively or in a way that makes information easier to understand; working for companies that are starting off and need some assistance in establishing themselves; illustrating a companies personality by developing a brand; creating a visual connection with some music and it’s listener; translating the artwork of an album beyond its sleeve; working with or for people and companies in other creative fields. Whether it’s a poster for a theatre company, a catalogue for an art exhibition
or working collaboratively with people of other design disciplines. HORT began its inhabitance back in 1994, under the previous stage name of EIKES GRAFISCHER HORT. Who the hell is Eike? Eike is the creator of HORT. HORT - a direct translation of the studio’s mission. A creative playground. A place where ‘work and play’ can be said in the same sentence. An unconventional working environment. Once a household name in the music industry. Now, a multi-disciplinary creative hub. Not just a studio space, but an institution devoted to making ideas come to life. A place to learn, a place to grow, and a place that is still growing. Not a client execution tool. HORT has been known to draw inspiration from things other than design. ORT makes every effort to ensure that the material contained in its web site is current, complete and correct. Despite this errors and mistakes cannot be completely ruled out. HORT therefore reserves the right not to be responsible for the topicality, correctness, completeness or quality of the information provided. Parts of the pages or the
Posters for KIELER WOCHE (one of the biggest sailing festival worldwide)
complete publication including all information and offers might be extended, changed or partly or completely deleted by HORT without separate announcement. HORT is also not responsible for the availability or any contents linked or referred to from his pages. If any damage occurs by the use of information presented there, only the author of the respective pages might be liable, not the one who has linked to these pages. Furthermore HORT is not liable for any postings or messages published by users of discussion boards, weblogs, guestbooks or mailinglists provided on his page. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials on these pages are copyrighted. No part of these pages, either text, audio, video or images, may be used for any purpose unless explicit authorization by HORT. Therefore, reproduction, modification, storage in a retrieval system or retransmission, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical. No part of these pages, either text, audio, video or images, may be used for any purpose unless explicit authorization by HORT. by Katy Atylevich
CRAFT*
Why did you move to Berlin? Some personal things. I was living in Frankfurt and asked myself: Am I going to stay here for the rest of my life? Am I going to die in this city, or am I going to move on? So I asked the people who work here — none of them come from Frankfurt — where they would want to live and work, and they said, ‘We would love to live and work in Berlin.’ So we all moved to Berlin together. Really? It was a group decision like that? Yeah, a group decision! Have you seen the city change at all in your years here? Berlin becomes a different city, but very, very slowly. You notice that things have become more expensive in three years, for example. Is there a reason you chose this neighborhood (Kreuzberg) for your studio? Yes, because it’s not a ‘constructed’ neighborhood. The people here have been in this neighborhood for I don’t know how many years. they grew up here. And it’s multi-cultural, a lot of people from around the world. I also like that it’s not prenzlauer Berg or Mitte — those are the ‘new’ parts of the city, lots of tourists. Tourists like me! Well, the situation in those areas is a little bit designed. Here, you find much more of a natural situation. You have families, you have old people, you have young people and I’ve always wanted to live and work in a place where people have lived and worked for years. We found that a lot of creative people live here. It’s good for us. It’s also a quieter part of Kreuzberg. Go to the other part, and it’s much more ‘party,’ much more chaotic. Here, it’s family living. It’s safe, it’s calm, it’s good. not so many people to walk by and look into your studio space. That’s a popular pastime here? Some people love the idea of it, you know. they have an open studio where everyone can look inside. I would hate it if people would stand in front of my window looking in, asking, ‘What are you doing?’ I just want to be who I am. I searched for a year to find this place. We looked in different parts of Berlin, but we didn’t want to be on the most popular streets. We looked and looked. now here it is: an old tobacco company. the owner still lives here, too. She’s very old, around ninety. She’s very nice and very cute, and also the place is pretty cheap. the whole building feels positive. We have a lot
8 Jahre Get Physical Music CD front and Label 2010
8 Jahre Get Physical Music. Poster 2010
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of light, we have an outdoor area, there are kids upstairs. It’s a good mood to work in.
8 Jahre Get Physical Music CD insite 2010
8 Jahre Get Physical Music. Poster 2010
Do people get territorial about their neighborhoods? Sure, sure. We all make fun of each other. people feel very connected to where they are. people from Kreuzberg are Kreuzberger people. You know, I feel like I’m a Kreuzberger and not a Mitte person. So, you define yourself by a place and stay in your area. We have everything here so we don’t need to go to Mitte. But maybe that’s just me, who’s a bit lazy. My young people, they love to go everywhere. they have their bicycles and they go from one part of town to another. But you’re traveling very often from country to country, doing workshops worldwide. Is Berlin a good layover city for you? It’s nice to come back to Berlin, but the problem with the city is that it’s actually not so easy to travel to and from. It’s far in the east, and you often have to fly through Frankfurt to get to major places. Also, it’s rather far away from a lot of parts of Germany. I say that because, before, in Frankfurt, we were really in the middle of the country. Then again, a lot of people we have working here are from Sweden, for example, and they’ll sometimes travel home to Stockholm just for the weekend and come back. It can be cheap to fly, like twentynine euros, or something. like a taxi ride. A lot of people have chosen to live in this city because it’s still very cheap. It’s a capital city, and usually capital cities are the most expensive ones, but Berlin is just the opposite. I think it’s the cheapest city in Germany. not like Frankfurt. In Frankfurt, I would pay three times more what I pay here. And Berlin is huge. It has a lot of space, but not so many people. Do you feel like you’re part of some community of artists in Berlin? In my private life, I don’t like to hang out with people who do the same things I do. I don’t like to hang out with other graphic designers to talk about graphic design. I grew up in Frankfurt and I have friends there who know me since I was young. they all do very different things — no one does graphic design. So I still have friends who don’t care what I do, which is important. But here, every week, we have universities from all over the world asking if they can come for a studio visit. people love to come to Berlin, and there are five or six studios that they always want to see. So we’ve become part of this, I don’t know.
CRAFT*
THOMAS DEMAND “It’s fantastic that most of my friends here don’t speak a word of German, and that here you don’t need to adjust to anything, you can actually structure your own life.”
T
homas Demand, one of Germany’s most iconic contemporary artists, is the focus of a new exhibition at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. Demand’s work is inspired by photographs that have become memories, recreated as paper sculptures that he then photographs. These “Chinese whispers” are displayed in a giant fish-tank designed as a symbol of freedom and transparency by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Monocle’s culture editor Robert Bound reports.
He is known for making photographs of three-dimensional models that look like real images of rooms and other spaces. He thus describes himself not as a photographer, but as a conceptual artist for whom photography is an intrinsic part of his creative process.[3]Having studied sculpture under Fritz Schwegler at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf alongside Katharina Fritsch and Thomas Schütte, Demand began his career as a sculptor. In 1993, he began to use photography to record his elaborate,
life-sized paper-and-cardboard constructions of environments and interior spaces, and soon started to create constructions for the sole purpose of photographing them. The photograph he takes of this model with a large-format-camera is the final stage of his work, and it is only this image that is exhibited unframed behind Plexiglas, not the models. On the contrary, Demand destroys his “life-size environments” after he has photographed them. One notable exception is his large scale model for Grotto (2006) which was later exhibited. According to art critic Michael Kimmelman, “the reconstructions were meant to be close to, but never perfectly, realistic so that the gap between truth and fiction would always subtly show”. The subjects represented in Demand’s photographs often relate to pre-existing press images showing scenes of cultural or political relevance. The hotel room in which L. Ron Hubbard worked on Dianetics, for example, was the starting point for Zimmer (Room) (1996).[9] Drafting Room (1996) is inspired by a photograph of the studio of Richard Vorhölzer, the architect who was in charge of much urban planning for postwar Germany; Barn (1997) is based on a Hans Namuth photograph of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner in Pollock’s East Hampton studio. tudio (1997) derives from a photograph of the 1970’s television set for the German “What’s My Line?”; Kitchen (2004) is based on soldiers’ snapshots of the compound where Saddam Hussein was captured. Demand’s series Yellowcake (2007) portrays the Nigerian Embassy in Rome, the site of a burglary in January 2001 that was used to prove Hussein’s attempt to purchase uranium. Commissioned by The New York Times, Demand’s “Presidency” series depicting the Oval Office appeared on the cover and inside The New York Times Magazine, November 9th 2008 issue following the election. Katy Atylevich
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Window
Sound studio
Balconies
Archive
Office
Drafting Room
P. 34 87
ARTS (architecture)
rOBERT STONE by KATYA TYLEVICH
(art)
BANKSY by lAUREN cOLLINS
(DeSIGN)
ELIZA STROZYK by KAREN DAY
(PHOtOGRAPHY)
STEVEN MCCURRY by JOHN HARRYS
CRAFT*
RObert Stone
DESERT
ROSE BY Katya Tylevich
PHOTOS BY JOﾃグ GUIMARﾃウS
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CRAFT*
O
ver many years, in a small studio in Los Angeles, I found a way through current art ideas to arrive at a very different approach to architecture. I discovered a wide open field available for an alternative theoretical basis for architecture that doesn’t overlay meaning on abstract shapes, but instead wrests meaning from the unstable intersection between the subject, object and real cultural context. It incorporates cultural and personal associations, high and low references, intuition and calculation, risk, memory, politics, sex, and poetry far beyond what is allowed in mainstream formalist modern architecture. I want to drop a new architecture into the crushing flow of cultural meaning and everyday use, let it get battered, polished and transformed, and in turn have it indelibly affect the meaning of everything around it. I think that the only way to make something timeless is the hard way. . . by creating something that is inextricably woven into it’s own place and time, so that the culture that changes around it can drag it
03 The outdoor living room is surrounded by slidin
forward into a new context. Most architecture, by its very conception, goes straight after timelessness and abstraction and avoids any connection to the living cultural context. Rosa Muerta dives into the here and now, denies nothing, and goes with the flow. It means something now. It will mean something different years from now. But, it will never be meaningless. If you look back at previous projects, this house develops around the same issues as the Altered Parking Blocks, the Strap-on Subwoofer, the Smoking Tables and the Vacancy Motel. . . creating a kind of armature for social activity, extending minimalist subject/object experiments into a more complicated cultural dimension, exploring the dialectic between the familiar and unfamiliar., and carefully reinvesting the basic body/object relationship with an open but self-concious physicality. I have been developing this aesthetic vocabulary and conceptual approach for nearly 20 years. Rosa Muerta was my first built example as architecture.
“I hope you get the dirt bike in the background. That really is the context.”
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CRAFT*
CRAFT*
04 The house can be rented for short stays or public gatherings.
“In America, every community that’s worth a damn has an abandoned house that all the kids know about.”
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05 The opening through the centre of the house is aligned with a distant Joshua tree.
forward into a new context. Most architecture, by its very conception, goes straight after timelessness and abstraction and avoids any connection to the living cultural context. Rosa Muerta dives into the here and now, denies nothing, and goes with the flow. It means something now. It will mean something different years from now. But, it will never be meaningless. If you look back at previous projects, this house develops around the same issues as the Altered Parking Blocks, the Strap-on Subwoofer, the Smoking Tables and the Vacancy Motel. . . creating a kind of armature for social activity, extending minimalist subject/object experiments into a more complicated cultural dimension, exploring the dialectic between the familiar and unfamiliar., and carefully reinvesting the basic body/object relationship with an open but self-concious physicality. I have been developing this aesthetic vocabulary and conceptual approach for nearly 20 years. Rosa Muerta was my first built example as architecture. Without a client or a budget, I built this house literally by myself because I wanted
to assert architecture as an individual and direct art form that can exist on underground support alone. I wanted to make architecture directly for the very people who would be cool enough to come out, share it, and support it. So far, there have been hundreds of people that have vacationed there and brought the house to life in as many different ways. Architect Robert Stone and I are planning my visit to Rosa Muerta, a textured and reflective black mirage, which materializes just east of Joshua Tree in Southern California. In our initial e-mail correspondence, Stone tries to illustrate what I’m in for: ‘The house sits out in the middle of the open desert, overgrown with weeds and grasses like an exquisite burnedout Barcelona Pavilion from another, much sexier universe.’ S everal days later, my car thermometer climbs 17° in under three hours, ultimately perching at 40°C. Congested Los Angeles freeways give way to dirt roads, steep grades and stretches of dry, uninhabited land. The setting is extraterrestrial, to be sure. And when I finally cross the integrated threshold from scorched sand to smooth black concrete, indeed I
feel I’ve stepped through the looking glass in Barcelona and into Stone’s iridescent, heat-bent and handcrafted galaxy (where I experience an instant drop in temperature under the dramatic overhang). Reflections of Mies van der Rohe bounce, distorted, from the structure’s chrome columns. They replicate again in the (outdoor) living room’s low, mirrored canopy, which reflects back at the reflecting pool (also a spa) and makes the desert floor a ceiling. But with a nod to the columns, Stone urges me to consider the chrome details of a Mongoose BMX bike as well. Later, the architect alludes to legwarmers (yes, the ’80s fashion staple) as he explains how the black rope around each column visually disconnects the straight line of the supporting structure, ‘to make it float a little more’. Clearly, I understand what it means to take a chrome column, and it’s the Barcelona Pavilion – but it’s coming out of the dirt,’ Stone says. ‘It’s not sitting on a plinth; it’s in the desert. I know what the high references are for these things, but there are also ones that are just close to my heart. ’In this way, Rosa Muerta is welded of dichotomous orientation points.
CRAFT*
BANKSY
Was
Here BY Lauren Collins
PHOTOS BY TIAGO HART
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T
he British graffiti artist Banksy likes pizza, though his preference in toppings cannot be definitively ascertained. He has a gold tooth. He has a silver tooth. He has a silver earring. He’s an anarchist environmentalist who travels by chauffeured S.U.V. He was born in 1978, or 1974, in Bristol, England—no, Yate. The son of a butcher and a housewife, or a delivery driver and a hospital worker, he’s fat, he’s skinny, he’s an introverted workhorse, he’s a breezeshooting exhibitionist given to drinking pint after pint of stout. For a while now, Banksy has lived in London: if not in Shoreditch, then in Hoxton. Joel Unangst, who had the nearly unprecedented experience of meeting Banksy last year, in Los Angeles, when the artist rented a warehouse from him for an exhibition, can confirm that Banksy often dresses in a T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers. When Unangst is asked what adorns the T-shirts, he will allow, before fretting that he has revealed too much already, that they are covered with smudges of white paint. The creative fields have long had their shadowy practitioners, figures whose identities, whether because of scandalous content (the author of “Story of O”), fear of ostracism (Joe Klein), aversion to nepotism (Stephen King’s son Joe Hill), or conceptual necessity (Sacha Baron Cohen), remain, at least for a time, unknown. Anonymity enables its adopter to seek fame while shielding him from the meaner consequences of fameseeking. In exchange for ceding credit, he is freed from the obligations of authorship. Banksy, for instance, does not attend his own openings. He may miss out on the accolades, but he’ll never spend a Thursday evening, from six to eight, picking at cubes of cheese. Banksy is a household name in England— the Evening Standard has mentioned him thirty-eight times in the past six months— but his identity is a subject of febrile speculation. This much is certain: around 1993, his graffiti began appearing on trains and walls around Bristol; by 2001, his blocky spray-painted signature had cropped up all over the United Kingdom, eliciting both civic hand-wringing and comparisons to JeanMichel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Vienna, San Francisco, Barcelona, and Paris followed, along with forays into pranksterism and more traditional painting, but Banksy has never shed the graffitist’s habit of operating under a handle. His anonymity is said to be born of a desire—understandable enough for a “quality vandal,” as he likes to be called— to elude the police. For years now, he has refused to do face-to-face interviews. Having fashioned himself as a sort of
“i can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit.”
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painterly Publius, Banksy surfaces from time to time to prod the popular conscience. Confronted with a blank surface, he will cover it with scenes of anti-authoritarian whimsy: Winston Churchill with a Mohawk, two policemen kissing, a military helicopter crowned by a pink bow. Typically crafting his images with spray paint and cardboard stencils, Banksy is able to achieve a meticulous level of detail. His aesthetic is clean and instantly readable—broad social cartooning rendered with the graphic bang of an indie concert poster. Since street art is ephemeral, he occasionally issues books filled with photographs of his work, accompanied by his own text. He self-published his first three volumes, “Existencilism,” “Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall,” and “Cut It Out.” His latest, “Wall and Piece,” was published by Random House and has sold more than two hundred and fifty thousand copies.
“The art world is the biggest joke going” he has said.“It’s a rest home for the overprivileged, the pretentious, and the weak.” As his renown has grown, Banksy has parlayed his knack for reducing ideas to simple visual elements into what a critic recently termed “red nose rebellion.” He is both a lefty and a tweaker of lefty pieties. At a London antiwar demonstration in 2003, he distributed signs that read “I Don’t Believe In Anything. I’m Just Here for the Violence.” Later, he produced revisionist oil paintings (Mona Lisa with a yellow smiley face, a pastoral landscape surrounded by crime-scene tape) and, disguised in a trenchcoat and fake beard, installed them, respectively, in the Louvre and the Tate. For the Natural History Museum, it was Banksus militus vandalus, a taxidermy rat equipped with a miniature can of spray paint. In 2005, Banksy travelled to the West Bank, where he painted the security fence at Bethlehem with a trompe-l’oeil scene of a hole in the concrete barrier, revealing a glittering beach on the other side; it looked as if someone had dug through to paradise. Banksy sometimes satirizes even his own sanctimony. “I have no interest in ever coming out,” he has said. “I figure there are enough self-opinionated assholes trying to get their ugly little faces in front of you as it is.” Still, he posts news clips on his Web site, alongside video footage of successful
It’s a rest home for the overprivileged, the pretentious, and the weak.
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He is the quickest, growing artist anyone has ever seen of all time.
stunts. Whoever he is, Banksy revels in the incongruities of his persona, a taxidermy rat equipped with a miniature can of spray paint. In 2005, Banksy travelled to the West Bank, where he painted the security fence at Bethlehem with a trompe-l’oeil scene of a hole in the concrete barrier. The creative fields have long had their shadowy practitioners, figures whose identities, whether because of scandalous content (the author of “Story of O”), fear of ostracism (Joe Klein), aversion to nepotism (Stephen King’s son Joe Hill), or conceptual necessity (Sacha Baron Cohen), remain, at least for a time, unknown. Anonymity enables its adopter to seek fame while shielding him from the meaner consequences of fameseeking. In exchange for ceding credit, he is freed from the obligations of authorship. Banksy, for instance, does not attend his own openings. He may miss out on the accolades, but he’ll never spend a Thursday evening, from six to eight, picking at cubes of cheese. Banksy is a household name in England— the Evening Standard has mentioned him thirty-eight times in the past six months— but his identity is a subject of febrile speculation. This much is certain: around 1993, his graffiti began appearing on trains and walls around Bristol; by 2001, his blocky spray-painted signature had cropped up all over the United Kingdom, eliciting both civic hand-wringing and comparisons to JeanMichel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Vienna, San Francisco, Barcelona, and Paris followed, along with forays into pranksterism and more traditional painting, but Banksy has never shed the graffitist’s habit of operating under a handle. His anonymity is said to be born of a desire—understandable enough for a “quality vandal,” as he likes to be called— to elude the police. For years now, he has refused to do face-to-face interviews. Having fashioned himself as a sort of painterly Publius, Banksy surfaces from time to time to prod the popular conscience. Confronted with a blank surface, he will cover it with scenes of anti-authoritarian whimsy: Winston Churchill with a Mohawk, two policemen kissing, a military helicopter crowned by a pink bow. Typically crafting his images with spray paint and cardboard stencils, Banksy is able to achieve a meticulous level of detail. His aesthetic is clean and instantly readable — broad social cartooning rendered with the graphic bang of an indie concert poster. Since street art is ephemeral, he occasionally issues books filled with photographs of his work, accompanied by his own text, since street art is ephemeral, he occasionally issues books photographs.
CRAFT*
Elisa Strozyk wood craft by karen day PHOTOS BY sebastian neeb
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“It looks and smell familiar but feels strange, as it is able to move and form in unexpected ways.�
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“Wooden Textiles have various applications, including flooring, curtains, drapes, plaids, upholstery and parts of furniture.”
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he re are many definitions of the word ‘cabinet.’ First, there’s the obvious: a box-shaped piece of fixed or moveable furniture with doors or drawers for storage. Another explanation may refer to a room; a cabinet as a retreat with special artifacts. A cabinet can be a government term, a casing for a speaker, a variety of screwdriver, an inlet of Antarctica; the list goes on and on. We’d like to introduce you to a cabinet that doesn’t fit any of the definitions in this list. Elisa Strozyk of Berlin has crafted a masterpiece out of wood veneer and flexible wood textile. We know her work from the wood carpet she amazed us with; yet again she is skillfully adapting common materials in a challenging, meticulous yet stunning finished piece of furniture. The accordion cabinet is a collaboration between Strozyk and artist Sebastian Neeb. It is a simple framework to start; cabinet shelving sitting
upon slender wooden legs. The beauty is seen in its complexity – the simple base is supporting a beautiful framework of flexible wooden fabric – the accordion-like lungs of the work. This element serves as both a functional door to hide and contain the objects within and an ever-changing sculptural form. As you open and close the accordion doors, the object evolves with you. Such a complex form is complemented by tall slender legs; quite appropriate for the angular shape and multi-dimensional body of work they support. Somehow there is movement in this creation; even without the operation of opening and closing the doors. The rhythmic series of wood textile undulating in and out, the play of shadows and the varying light and dark wood tones create a melody as the object stands alone. It is these eye catching features that draw one into the
object and spark your interest to interact with the cabinet. Opening the doors and watching the fabric stretch and fold; the beauty of natural wood that has become something flexible, it is all an experience that keeps you intrigued and interested. It creates a moment, as the designers had intended, that is an emotional connection. The goal was to create this unique furniture piece with character that promotes a longer lasting relationship between the object and user. It’s as if time pauses for a brief moment as one studies this work of art- just how did they do this? You see, at the end of the day it’s just a cabinet- but not a cabinet at all. Wooden Textiles have various applications, including flooring, curtains, various applications, including flooring, curtains, including flooring, plaids, and parts of furniture.
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“It looks and smell familiar but feels strange, as it is able to move and form in unexpected ways�
CRAFT*
steve mccurry portraits
forever by Jonh Harrys PHOTOS BY STEVE MCCURRY
CRAFT*
“Most of my pictures are grounded in people. I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person´s face. I try to convey what it is like to be that person, a person caught in a broader landscape that i guess you´d call the human condition.”
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teve McCurry, recognized universally as one of today’s finest image-makers, has won many of photography’s top awards. Best known for his evocative color photography, McCurry, in the finest documentary tradition, captures the essence of human struggle and joy. Member of Magnum Photos since 1986, McCurry has searched and found the unforgettable; many of his images have become modern icons. Born in Philadelphia, McCurry graduated cum laude from the College of Arts and Architecture at the Pennsylvania State University. After working at a newspaper for two years, he left for India to freelance. It was in India that McCurry learned to watch and wait on life. “If you wait,” he realized, “people will forget your camera and the soul will drift up into view.”
His career was launched when, disguised in native garb, he crossed the Pakistan border into rebel-controlled Afghanistan just before the Russian invasion. When he emerged, he had rolls of film sewn into his clothes of images that would be published around the world as among the first to show the conflict there. His coverage won the Robert Capa Gold Medal for Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad, an award dedicated to photographers exhibiting exceptional courage and enterprise. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including Magazine Photographer of the Year, awarded by the National Press Photographers’ Association. That was the same year in which he won an unprecedented four first prizes in the World Press Photo Contest. He has won the Olivier Rebbot Memorial Award twice.
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Steve McCurry has covered many areas of international and civil conflict, including the Iran-Iraq war, the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, Beirut, Cambodia, the Philippines, the Gulf War, and continuing coverage of Afghanistan. He focuses on the human consequences of war, not only showing what war impresses on the landscape, but rather, on the human face. McCurry’s work has been featured in every major magazine in the world and frequently appears in National Geographic magazine with recent articles on the Hazaras of Afghanistan, Buddhism, Tibet, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and the temples of Angkor Wat, Cambodia. McCurry is driven by an innate curiosity and sense of wonder about the world and everyone in it. He has an uncanny ability to cross boundaries of language and
culture to capture stories of human experience. “Most of my images are grounded in people. I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person’s face. I try to convey what it is like to be that person, a person caught in a broader landscape that you could call the human condition.” A high point in his career was the rediscovery of the previously unidentified Afghan refugee girl that many have described as the most recognizable photograph in the world today. When McCurry finally located Sharbat Gula after almost two decades, he said, her skin is weathered. A high point in his career was the rediscovery of the previously unidentified Afghan refugee girl that many have described as the most recognizable photograph in the world today, when
CRAFT*
“You felt the horror instintively understood that our lives would never be the same again.”
Tibet, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and the temples of Angkor Wat, Cambodia. McCurry is driven by an innate curiosity and sense of wonder about the world and everyone in it. He has an uncanny ability to cross boundaries of language and culture to capture stories of human experience. Most of my images are grounded in people. I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person’s face. I try to convey what it is like to be that person, a person caught in
a broader landscape that you could call the human condition. A high point in his career was the rediscovery of the previously unidentified Afghan refugee girl that many have described as the most recognizable photograph in the world today. When McCurry finally located Sharbat Gula after almost two decades, he said, Her skin is weathered. “Most of my images are grounded in people. I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience
etched on a person’s face. I try to convey what it is like to be that person, a person caught in a broader landscape that you could call the human condition.” A high point in his career was the rediscovery of the previously unidentified Afghan refugee girl that many have described as the most recognizable. A high point in his career was the rediscovery of the previously unidentified Afghan refugee girl that many have described as the most recognizable, many have described as the most recognizable.
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FUTURE
words windows AND chaos by joshua koomen
when tecnology IMITATES ART by joshua tompkins
collective intelligence: a civilisation by Pierre lĂŠvi
the dreams of an accelerated culture by maads haahr
CRAFT*
Words WINDOWS and chaos Tim De Cort’s ongoing typographic experiments in code
T
he sheer scale of last year’s V&A show Decode: Digital Design Sensations, served to illustrate a surging interest in code among designers, writes John Ridpath. In our Eye 74 ‘Reputations’ interview, John L. Walters asked Karsten Schmidt, who created the open-source identity for the exhibition, if coding could be considered design. ‘It’s funny how the moment you start talking about code, you start being channelled into a technical role’ he responded. ‘When you work with code, actually typing code is absolutely the last thing you think about … Writing code becomes a background task, because you’re actually building a mental model of what you want to do. This is what makes code work. This is where you work as a designer. Mapping is what we all do automatically, but for code it has to become a conscious act.’ Belgian designer Tim De Cort’s recent experiments provide yet another example of a young practitioner adopting programming as a creative tool. A screenshot of the NodeBox application, with an example piece of code and the resulting image. This was De Cort’s first trial work in which he tried to create a splash of water based on circles. His project started out as an attempt to
create a ‘font machine’ that would generate typographic artwork, using NodeBox: an open source application for creating 2D animation and graphics using the programming language Python. With ‘semi-automatic type’ (above), graphical lines of varying lengths are used to fill a pre-determined character grid for each letter of the alphabet. Each graphic is based upon windows that De Cort has photographed on everything from basic houses to cars, churches and modern architecture (below). His work has evolved from randomlygenerated compositions, to a rule-based system in which form reflects content. De Cort explains: ‘I combine scans of manual drawing and parts of pictures with coding in Nodebox to create a sort of “pictorial” language that symbolically represents the content of written words.’ At first, this was used to create a typeface built of lines that symbolically represent the nature of the subject. But over time, the work has taken on a compositional nature: textual input is turned into graphics that are distributed in white space according to a theme-related coordinate structure. The results are chaotic, in a mathematical sense: complex, unpredictable patterns evolve from logical rules and repeating structures.
De Cort explains: ‘I combine scans of manual drawing and parts of pictures with coding in Nodebox to create a sort of “pictorial” language that symbolically represents the content of written words.’ At first, this was used to create a typeface built of lines that symbolically represent the nature of the subject. Writing code becomes a background task, because you’re actually building a mental model of what you want to do. This is what makes code work. This is where you work as a designer. using NodeBox: an open source application for creating 2D animation and graphics using the programming language Python. At first, this was used to create a typeface built of lines that symbolically represent the nature of the subject. But over time, the work has taken on a compositional nature: textual input is turned into graphics that are distributed in white space according to a theme-related coordinate structure. The results are chaotic, in a mathematical sense the work has taken on a compositional nature: textual input is turned into graphics that are distributed in white space according. to a theme-related coordinate structure. Joshua Koomen
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DREAM MACHINE O
n the outskirts of Oxford lives a brilliant and distressingly thin physicist named David Deutsch, who believes in multiple universes and has conceived of an as yet unbuildable computer to test their existence. Deutsch, who has never held a job, is essentially the founding father of quantum computing, a field that devises distinctly powerful computers based on the branch of physics known as quantum mechanics. With one millionth of the hardware of an ordinary laptop, a quantum computer could store as many bits of information as there are particles in the universe. It could break previously unbreakable codes. It could answer questions about quantum mechanics that are currently far too complicated for a regular computer to field. None of which is to say that anyone yet knows what we would really do with one. Deutsch believes that if a quantum computer were built it would constitute near-irrefutable evidence of what is known as the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. A number of respected thinkers in physics besides Deutsch support the Many Worlds Interpretation, though they are a minority, and primarily educated in England, where the intense interest in quantum computing has at times been termed the Oxford flu. But the infection of Deutsch’s thinking has mutated and gone pandemic. Other scientists, although generally indifferent to the truth or falsehood of Many Worlds as a description of the universe, are now working to build these dreamed-up quantum computing machines. Deutsch grew up in the London area, took his undergraduate degree at Cambridge, stayed there for a masters in math and went on to Oxford for a doctorate in physics. Though affiliated with the university, he is not on staff and has never taught a course. Discusses the differences between quantum mechanics and classical mechanics. Discusses the history of theoretical computing from Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine to Alan Turing’s universal computer. Tells how Deutsch came to propose a universal computer based on quantum physics, which would have calculating powers that Turing’s computer (even in theory) could not simulate. Other important figures early in the field include Artur Ekert, Stephen
Weisner, and David Albert. Describes how a quantum computer works. Discusses Hugh Everett’s Many Worlds Interpretation. Deutsch is nearly alone in this conviction that quantum computing and Many Worlds are inextricably bound, though many (especially around Oxford) concede that the construction of a sizable and stable quantum computer might be. Discusses the history of theoretical computing from Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine to Alan Turing’s universal computer. Tells how Deutsch came to propose a universal computer based on quantum physics, which would have calculating powers that Turing’s computer (even in theory) could not simulate.
A quantum computer could store as many bits of information as there are particles in the universe. It could break previously unbreakable codes. With one millionth of the hardware of an ordinary laptop, a quantum computer could store as many bits of information as there are particles in the universe. It could break previously unbreakable codes. Deutsch is nearly alone in this conviction that quantum computing and Many Worlds are inextricably bound, though many (especially around Oxford) concede that the construction of a sizable and stable quantum computer might be evidence in favor of the Everett interpretation. Writer travels to Yale to see a small quantum computer constructed by a team led by Robert Schoelkopf. It could answer questions about quantum mechanics that are currently far too complicated for a regular computer to field. None of which is to say that anyone yet knows what we would really do with one. Deutsch believes that if a quantum computer were built it would constitute near-irrefutable evidence of what is known as the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. A number of respected thinkers in physics besides Deutsch support the Many Worlds Interpretation, though they are a minority,
and primarily educated in England, where the intense interest in quantum computing has at times been termed the Oxford flu. But the infection of Deutsch’s thinking has mutated and gone pandemic. Other scientists, although generally indifferent to the truth or falsehood of Many Worlds. On the outskirts of Oxford lives a brilliant and distressingly thin physicist named David Deutsch, who believes in multiple universes and has conceived of an as yet unbuildable computer to test their existence. Deutsch, who has never held a job, is essentially the founding father of quantum computing, a field that devises distinctly powerful computers based on the branch of physics known as quantum mechanics. With one millionth of the hardware of an ordinary laptop, a quantum computer could store as many bits of information as there are particles in the universe. It could break previously unbreakable codes. It could answer questions about quantum mechanics that are currently far too complicated for a regular computer to field. None of which is to say that anyone yet knows what we would really do with one. Deutsch believes that if a quantum computer were built it would constitute near-irrefutable evidence of what is known as the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. A number of respected thinkers in physics besides Deutsch support the Many Worlds Interpretation, though they are a minority, and primarily educated in England, where the intense interest in quantum computing has at times been termed the Oxford flu. But the infection of Deutsch’s thinking has mutated and gone pandemic. Other scientists, although generally indifferent to the truth or falsehood of Many Worlds as a description of the universe, are now working to build these dreamed-up quantum computing machines. Deutsch grew up in the London area, took his undergraduate degree at Cambridge, stayed there for a masters in math and went on to Oxford for a doctorate in physics. Though affiliated with the university, falsehood of Many Worlds as a description of the universe, are now working to build these dreamed-up quantum computing. Rivka Galchen
CRAFT*
When Technology Imitates Art The result is the seemingly oxymoronic concept of mass customization, in which infinite copies of infinite variations are possible as long as there is stone to quarry.
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few weeks ago, a sculptor in France contacted Studio Roc, a new stone milling company in North Hollywood, Calif., with the type of challenge the company was seeking. He had a 19th-century limestone lion’s face that he wanted to reproduce for a line of fountains. But carving each face by hand was a tedious chore for which he no longer had the time or resources. Instead, he shipped the original work to Studio Roc, where technicians mapped it in three dimensions with a laser scanner. Then they placed a limestone blank in a computer-controlled milling machine and used the scan data to carve a duplicate lion face at the touch of a button. The result required some hand detailing, but that was exactly what the sculptor wanted. In about six hours, the machine had done the busywork that would have taken him much longer with a hammer and chisel. ‘’What energy does he have left after slaving for a week over one piece?’’ said Studio
Roc’s chief executive, Kenneth Kai Chang. ‘’Now he can really get toward the back end, the finished look, much faster than he could before.’’ The limestone lion is an example of how technology is transforming the way sculpture, architectural elements and many other once-hand-carved items can be created or cloned. Scanners, computer-aided design software and automated milling devices are assisting sculptors and in some cases replacing them, creating detailed pieces from slabs of marble and reverse-engineering complex . The result is the seemingly oxymoronic concept of mass customization, in which infinite copies of infinite variations are possible as long as there is stone to quarry. But the harnessing of these granite-grinding Xerox machines, able to duplicate just about any sculpture, may also blur the line between what is authentic and what is not. may also blur the line between what is authentic and what is not. Is such a sculpture art, or merely a computer-aided copy?
In March, for example, using data generated during a monthlong scan of Michelangelo’s David by researchers from Stanford University and the University of Washington, Gentle Giant Studios, a specialeffects firm in Burbank, Calif., turned out a small replica of the 17-foot tall statue. While reasonably faithful copies of David have been created using plaster casts, the 15inch replica is the most perfect scale model ever created of the masterpiece. Made with permission from Italian officials, it could potentially seed an army of near-identical twins. (A Stanford University Web site says the researchers will indeed sell copies of the model eventually, although Marc Levoy, a computer science professor who oversaw the scanning project, said there were no plans to do so.) Studio Roc’s goal is not to upset the art world, but to attract architects and contractors who want custom-carved fixtures turned out faster, at a lower price and with more precision than if they were done by an
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artisan. Mr. Chang, a former architect who describes his company as ‘’on the leading edge of the stone industry,’’ said, ‘’We just felt it was about time someone really put their head to it and pulled together the three or four or five technologies to make this area of construction up to date.’’ William Hablinski, a Los Angeles architect who has designed residences for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Warren Beatty, predicts that computerized milling will become an integral part of upscale home construction, especially for moldings. ‘’You’re basically asking a robot to do what you would normally have to pay a master stone carver something on the order of between $70 and $180 per hour,’’ he said. Mr. Hablinski said he would still hire an artist to create a unique fixture such as an ornate mantelpiece. ‘’We want to keep the craft alive,’’ he said. ‘’We don’t want the craft of stone carving to go away.’’ If the craft does fade, it will be because of equipment like that at Studio Roc, including a huge Italian-made Omag Mill5 five-axis milling machine. Equipped with a scanner and 30 interchangeable diamond-tipped bits and blades, the Mill5 can record nearly any object in minutes and carve a duplicate in any stone in a few hours. The scanner and milling head are housed in a single armature that hangs from a motorized gantry and can deploy its tools at any angle, even aiming upward to trim a cornice detail or hollow out a gargoyle’s maw. Like the lion’s face, each finished product requires some hand work at the end, but the system can shoulder as much as 95 percent of the job, Mr. Chang said. In March, for example, using data generated during a monthlong scan of Michelangelo’s David by researchers from Stanford University and the University of Washington, Gentle Giant Studios, a specialeffects firm in Burbank, Calif., turned out a small replica of the 17-foot tall statue. While reasonably faithful copies of David have been created using plaster casts, the 15inch replica is the most perfect scale model ever created of the masterpiece. Made with permission from Italian officials, it could potentially seed an army of near-identical twins. A Stanford University Web site says the researchers will indeed sell copies of the model eventually, although Marc Levoy, a computer science professor who oversaw the scanning project, said there were no plans to do so. A computer science professor who oversaw the scanning project. JOSHUA TOMPKINS
Creativity in Process W
hile most of the offerings in the present issue of Crossings address the art/ technology interface in the experience of musicians and their listening audience, the themes raised generalise well beyond the musical domain. A particularly prominent theme that will be familiar to regular Crossings readers is collaboration in the creative process. Many of the contributions in the present issue explore the way that technological changes are prompting shifts in the distribution of roles in the creative processes. In the context of music, it is possible to map out four distinct creative processes: instrument (tool) making, composition, performance and listening. In some cases, traditionally distinct roles, such as instrument maker, composer and performer are merging with unknown results for the status of musical production in the future, as Sile O’Modhráin observes in her commentary. The merging of these roles constitutes a different type of interaction between the four creative processes: an intra-personal rather than in-ter-personal interaction. At the same time, incorporating multiple disciplines into one artistic practice requires either polymathic abilities or close communication between people of widely different technical and artistic backgrounds, as Helen Mitchell outlines in her discussion of music education. Artists must either master a broader range of skills or collaborate with others in order to realise their vision. Such challenges aside, technology also facilitates the expansion of creative practice by allowing for collective creation of artworks, thus blurring the roles of artist/performer and audience member. Dante Tanzi explores how online communicative processes (facilitated by new Internetbased tools for music exchan-
ge and collaboration) affect practices of composition and reception. Tanzi takes his starting point in two recent technological developments: the digitisation of audio, and the ability to exchange it over the Internet. He observes that multiple forms of access to a huge body of material allow users to participate in the creation of musical content (and hence take on the roles of composer and performer) and also to improve their interpretative skills. However, there is also a risk of losing the context that would make such musical experiences meaningful. Frank Pecquet focuses on changes in the creative process of music composition using electronic tools. Pecquet shows how the availability of digitised music combined with the increased adoption and sophistication of such tools allow even highly complex scores under composition to be immediately performed (using electronic tools rather than human performers), resulting in a more interactive process of composition than when the composer uses his or her ‘inner ear’ for the purposes of realisation. Focuses on changes in the creative process of music composition using electronic tools. Pecquet shows how the availability of digitised music combined with the increased adoption and sophistication of such tools allow even highly complex scores under composition to be immediately performed (using electronic tools rather than human performers), resulting in a more interactive process of composition than when the composer uses his or her ‘inner ear’ for the purposes of realisation. Focuses on changes in the creative process of music composition using electronic tools. Pecquet shows how the availability of digitised music.
Elizabeth Drew
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Collective Intelligence: A Civilisation Towards a Method of Positive Interpretation
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foretell the coming of one planetwide civilisation based on the practice of collective intelligence in cyberspace. However, before coming to the crux of the matter, I would first like to justify my methodology, which is not that of scientific prediction but rather of poetic imagination. To contrast prediction and imagination in this manner is not to imply that imagination equates with falsehood and illusion. On the contrary, I believe that imagination, and especially collective imagination, produces reality. In choosing imagination over prediction, I mean to underline the fact that the future has not yet been written and that we are probably much more free than we think. We are responsible for the world which we create together through our thoughts, words and deeds. That is why I am convinced that it is much more constructive to use our own powers of perception and freedom of choice in a creative manner rather than denounce, judge and condemn the world as it is, that is to say, at the end of the day, others. Does this mean that we should abandon our critical faculties, our ability to differentiate? Of course not. Rather, every positive thought, word and deed subtly indicates the path which it has chosen not to take. The fact of indicating and then taking a certain path implies a ‘critique’ of those not taken. When we exercise our freedom, and our
poetic freedom amongst other things, we necessarily evaluate the alternatives before making a choice. However, in doing this, creative imagination summons a world yet to come rather than reinforcing negative stereotypes, prolonging conflicts or entrenching differences. It does not do this from nothing, nor does it simply follow its own whims. Proceeding relentlessly by direct observation and attempting to overcome all prejudices, I endeavour to identify, from amongst the thousands of embryonic forms which the current situation has created, those which, given the opportunity to develop fully, will be most propitious to increasing our freedom. As I conceive it, creative imagination cannot therefore be dissociated from a process of reading and interpreting – a sort of profound vision – for which reality and meaning are not a given, but are instead potential, only to be revealed by an act of free understanding. From amongst the infinite number of virtual paths possible, creative interpretation selects one. However, this freedom is not arbitrary – it must refrain from relying on pre-existing concepts and vested interests in its projection of meaning. It attempts to give a certain life back to the text, the image or the situation in its entirety, a life whose outpouring will overturn prejudices, predictions and beliefs. The material objectivity
of the world, the reality ‘which everybody can clearly see’ (and which changes with each culture, period, theory, subjective point of view) is only ever a sclerosis of creative intelligence, an inability to capture the evolutionary and organic nature of the world. Thus I conceive of situations as landscapes of possibility which my perceptions, interpretations and deeds will develop in one direction or another. At any given moment, the world is made up of a mosaic of signs, each of which opens a door onto another mosaic, and so on infinitely. Which handle should we turn? Which link should we click on? In the Romance languages, ‘semence (French for ‘seed’) and ‘semantics’ share the same root; both connote the virtual, the potential of the future, be it in the domain of organic life or in that of meaning. In the immense landscape made up from grains of meaning, which seeds should we water? From amongst the infinite number of virtual paths possible, creative interpretation selects one. However, this freedom is not arbitrary – it must refrain from relying on pre-existing concepts and vested interests in its projection of meaning. It attempts to give a certain life back to the text, the image or the situation in its entirety,
Pierre Lévy
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The Direction of the Evolution
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n constitutes a bridge between Heaven and Earth, he forms a passageway between the natural and the supernatural. Through him, the life of signs is elevated from the life of the body where it was born and attains its autonomy through art, religion, technology, writing, science and through the world of ideas which is today growing ever more complex and functioning like a second biosphere in cyberspace. Human language is a virtual flower which blossoms infinitely as it grows towards the invisible centre of Gaia. Cyberspace is a poetic figure which has suddenly appeared at the horizon of human experience. The constant and surprising nature of its acceleration reveals, in the present, the infinite openness which is the essence of man. The process of cultural and technological evolution is creating closer connections between us which actually open up our mental space. Cyberspace has become the placeless place where humanity’s unceasing dialogue with itself can grow and
expand. Writing, the alphabet, the printing press, the audiovisual media and now cyberspace have all increased language’s power. It is only now that we are beginning to understand the essence which drives us as humans, and this because evolution is bringing us back in time towards a principle which we can see more clearly every day. Language is a machine which weaves together the sources of meaning that are our minds. It is a machine which accelerates the passage of time and which allows us to learn more quickly from ourselves and from the world. It is a machine which produces collective intelligence and one which is now beginning to take control of its own evolution as well as that of the life which it supports. By looking to the future of cyberspace, we are actually travelling back into ourselves, to the period before time where language has its origins. Life became language around the birth of man and language becomes life when turned towards its eternal future. Despite
what the idolaters and materialists think, infinity is not revealed to humanity in one ‘message,’ but rather through language itself, through its unlimited ability to generate meaning, that is to say by the sudden emergence of freedom in the history of the world. Each of us relives the history of our species in our own lives: that of being the point through which freedom emerges from the base matter where it has been growing since the beginning of time in order to turn back on itself and recognise itself for what it is. In the blueprint of creation – or in the adventure of evolution – this is what our species must do: in that ambiguous zone where lines are transformed into dotted lines before disappearing into nothingness, we must draw the line an artist would. Language travels through us and outwards, taking shape in millions of language and culture machines; this allows us to create a new form of artificial life, one which has no name or ego and which is calling to the future. Colin Bell
Cyberdemocracy
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owever, let us begin by examining the heaviest, the most opaque, the most difficult. Let us begin by looking at the structures of power. The first form which cyberdemocracy takes is the digital town, a localised virtual community which renders the social links between those who occupy the same territory more dynamic. It optimises the possibilities of exchange between resources available and projects requiring them, leaves the decision-making process more transparent and allows for a local democracy in which everyone can participate. Indeed, much more so than the nation, it is the town or metropolitan area which constitutes our true living capsule and place of real interaction, the town is one of the building blocks of our planetwide collective intelligence. Cyberdemocracy equally requires that public administration, whether it be at a local, regional, national or international level, follow the example of e-commerce enterprises. That is to say, it must become
more transparent, be accessible night and day and consider us as citizens to be served rather than as subjects to be administered. Around the world, e-government seems to be moving in just such a direction. The new possibilities of online expression, dialogue and coordination which political and social movements benefit from, as well as the blossoming of virtual commercial agorae, can now ingeniously organise the distribution of political information and debates regarding the different possibilities of action in a manner which creates a new public sphere, one which is much more rich, open and transparent than the press or television. Finally, online voting, which has already been envisaged in many countries, will allow members of the public to express themselves on a wide range of topics. Finally, online voting, which has already been envisaged in many countries, will allow members of the public. The new possibilities of online expression, dialogue and coordination which political
and social movements benefit from, as well as the blossoming of virtual commercial agorae, can now ingeniously organise the distribution of political information and debates regarding the different possibilities of action in a manner which creates a new public sphere, one which is much more rich, open and transparent than the press or television. Finally, online voting, which has already been envisaged in many countries, will allow members of the public to express themselves on a wide range of topics. Finally, online voting, which has already been envisaged in many countries, will allow members of the public, pen and transparent than the press or television. Finally, online voting, which has already been envisaged in many countries, will allow members of the public to express themselves on a wide range of topics.
Colin Bell
CRAFT*
The Dreams of
an Accelerated C
ontemporary society, driven by the continued need for acceleration, encourages us to adopt a pace of cultural interaction not easily compatible with the reflection necessary for deeper understanding. This paper discusses the roles of art and technology in the acceleration of culture and, using an example work of art from the digital avant-garde, argues that reflection is important and should not be neglected. More than any other period in human history, the twentieth century was characterised by rapid advances in technology. Among the results have been greatly improved abilities to relieve suffering, treat disease and generally improve the human condition. There have also been advances of less benign nature, and many which some would classify as genuine progress and others as dangerous developments. But overall, it is thanks to science that we now have a better understanding than ever of the way the world works, from the microscopic structures of genetics to the grand scale of astronomical physics. No one would claim that we have the entire picture (or that we are even close) but as a culture we do understand the physical environment in which we live better than ever before. At the entry to the third millennium we are left with a great responsibility to match these advances in other respects. It has been difficult for our cultural maturation to keep up with the possibilities that technological advancements have given us. We are still equipped with the same genetic makeup as we were many millennia ago, but the world in which we apply it has changed dramatically. Fortunately, this makeup has equipped us with a great degree of adaptability that has served us well throughout the history of evolution. As a species we have adapted to some of the harshest environments on
Culture
the planet (Innuit and Aboriginal cultures are good examples of this), and it has been remarkably easy for us also to adapt to new environments such as those presented by the industrial and information ages. However, the ability to adapt comes with the risk of automatically doing so in situations where there might be better options. Innuit cultures, for example, with little or no direct influence on their physical surroundings, could choose either to adapt or leave. In comparison, the environments presented by the industrial and information ages are much more artificial in character; we are less dominated by nature and more by man-made structures, physical as well as cultural. Though we tend to forget it, these structures are under our control, and we therefore have more control over our immediate environment. Admittedly, it is far from easy to understand exactly how to exercise this control but it does constitute an additional option: we can adapt or leave, but we can also change our environment. As an option, leaving is becoming increasingly difficult as our culture expands geographically and our social structures increase in complexity. Adaptation to new environments is our automatic reaction – it is what we do instinctively – but automatic reactions do not always lead to the best possible outcome. In particular, we should be careful not to adapt without conscious consideration to any environment presented to us as part of the information age. Adaptation is a useful skill but it is not our only option; we can also change the world. Give and Take: Accelerated Interaction One characteristic common to many technological advances is that they enable us to do things faster. This is certainly true for transport and communication technologies, which let us move ourselves, our goods and
our information faster, but it is also true for the development-adoption process of new technologies themselves. As an example, a 1996 study by Mary Meeker [5] found that new media are being adopted at an increasing speed. Whereas radio took 38 years to reach 50 million users within the United States, television took 13 and cable television only ten years to reach the same level of penetration. According to this study, the Internet is the fastest growing medium to date, taking only five years to reach 50 million American users. The pattern of acceleration applies to a surprising number of fields. Another example is in news coverage where new technologies, in particular in the audio/video and communications domains, have allowed news to be broadcast sooner and sooner after the event has taken place. The extreme example is live coverage where the time from event to broadcast is effectively zero. Recent news coverage has seen an increasing number of lengthy live broadcasts of events that have traditionally have been covered non-live. Examples are the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and the O. J. Simpson trial in 1994. Hence, the trend of acceleration is visible not only in the development and adoption of new technologies (such as communications and transportation) but also in the applications of these technologies. But keep up with what? We often fail to realise that our interaction with the world is a feedback loop: a circle we can choose to make either benevolent or vicious. The extreme example is live coverage where the time from event to broadcast is effectively zero. Recent news coverage has seen an increasing number of lengthy live broadcasts of events that have traditionally have been covered non-live. Mads Haahr
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The Colour of the Zeitgeist
T
he subtitle of Crossings is Electronic Journal of Art and Technology. We have chosen this subtitle in the recognition that art is a very important part of culture: the art of a culture is the mirror in which that culture’s emerging nature is reflected, often before it can be consciously observed. Art is the dreams of culture, so to speak, and can be interpreted as such. If technology is the tool we use to maintain the acceleration of culture, then art is one place where we can study the effects of this acceleration. Changes of course also take place in other parts of culture, but art is one of the first to react and typically only later followed by the bigger and less nimble ones, such as politics and religion. At its best, art can give us an early glimpse of the current of the times, the heading of the cultural streams, the colour of the Zeitgeist. The role of art criticism is first to interpret
and to understand these messages and then to provide intelligent feedback to art and to culture in general. Hence, artistic expression and intelligent criticism form yet another circular pattern of communication: creation and critique. Art functions in many ways like the unconscious mind; themes emerge, the meaning of which may not be immediately obvious. Criticism at its best works like the conscious mind; it reacts to the ideas presented in art, attempts to analyse them and place them in a greater context. Art responds with new developments, and so on and so forth. When successful, this double interaction – art with criticism, criticism with art – can help us understand the currents of our times (if not ourselves and humanity) better. One characteristic of feedback loops is that they work best when the quality of the content is high. Visionary artworks
Art as Life, Life as Art D epending on their complexity, organic life forms are involved in feedback loops at a variety of different levels: metabolic, communicative and cultural. Increased interaction in art is an important step towards making art more like organic life, and this is an exciting development. While I have claimed that most current interactive works in digital media focus on the input/output rather than the processing, there is a trend towards stronger behaviour models such as the one used in Elle et la Voix. This represents a changing focus towards reflection among the avantgarde of digital art. In general, reflection is a time-consuming and laborious process (and extremely difficult to implement artificially) but it is required for authentic interaction within any domain: human, artistic, etc. The processing, reflection, digestion step is an
important part of any feedback loop, and the fact that our culture currently tends to focus on the consumption/production aspects instead is a reason for concern. Perhaps the trend seen in cutting-edge works such as Elle et la Voix shows us that artists are aware of the need for reflection in interaction and will introduce or strengthen it if it does not already exist, such as has been the case for digital media. At the beginning of this essay, I argued that we as cultural participants have the choice between adapting to the accelerating environment, leaving it and changing it. While adaptation is what we do automatically, it is important also to consider the other options. Leaving culture is becoming increasingly difficult and the same can be said for changing it. To change the heading of culture away from acceleration, we need to shift focus away from acceleration and
deserve intelligent criticism, and criticism requires strong artistic visions to make for a meaningful discussion. In the same way, a classroom works best if the teacher communicates well and the students ask good questions. If we do not take the time and effort to communicate our message clearly, we cannot reasonably expect the response to make sense to us either. In fact, this is true for any feedback loop, not only those involving communication but also for more tangible exchanges, such as metabolism, consumerism and for our general interaction with the environment. The quality of the food we take in matters, as does the quality of the waste we produce. Instinctively, we know this is true and we find the traces of it in our language in phrases such as ‘you are what you eat’ and ‘what comes around goes around.’ BY Mads Haahr
towards reflection. This very act in itself requires insight and reflection, something which the accelerating feedback loop by its very nature makes increasingly difficult as time goes on. The faster we go – the more we adapt to acceleration – the less time we have to think about the other options. Perhaps the most ambitious objective of Crossings is really found in this context, namely to promote and encourage reflection. If the lines drawn in this journal can help us understand the world better, we will have participated successfully in the cultural feedback loop – we will have processed a portion of the vast sea of information, synthesized it into meaning and put that meaning back into culture.
Mads Haahr
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TALKS (Interview)
JAMES NACHTWEY BY JOHN PAUL
CRAFT*
James Nachtwey
To Be on the
Edge of
History BY JOHN PAUL PHOTOS BY james nachtwey
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Photograph by ronald hart
CRAFT*
James Nachtwey grew up in Massachusetts and graduated from Dartmouth College where he studied Art History and Political Science. He worked aboard ships in the Merchant Marine and while teaching himself photography, he worked as an apprentice news film editor and a truck driver.
F
or four years he was a newspaper photographer in New Mexico, and in 1980, he moved to New York to begin a career as a freelance magazine photographer. His first foreign assignment was to cover civil strife in Northern Ireland in 1981 during the IRA hunger strike. Since then, he has devoted himself to documenting wars, conflicts and social issues worldwide. He has worked extensively in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Brazil, Rwanda, South Africa, Russia, Bosnia, Chechnya, Romania,
Viet Nam, and throughout Indonesia and Eastern Europe. His work has appeared regularly in many of the finest international publications, including Time, Life, New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, National Geographic, Stern, Geo, El Pais, L’Express and many others. He has been a contract photographer with Time since 1984, and a member of Magnum since 1986. His books include Deeds of War published in 1989 and Inferno published in 1999. He has had one-man exhibitions at the International Center of Photography in New York, the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, the Carolinum in Prague, the
Hasselblad Center in Sweden, the Canon Gallery, the Nisuwe Kirke in Amsterdam, and Massachusetts College of Art, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate. A Canon Explorer of Light, he has been awarded Magazine Photographer of the Year six times, the Robert Capa Gold Medal four times, the World Press Photo Award twice, the International Center of Photography Infinity Award twice, the Leica Award twice, the Overseas Press Club Award for Best Photo Reporting from Abroad twice, the Canon Photo Essayist Award, the Eugene Smith Memorial Grant, the Bayeaux Award for War Correspondents.
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James Nachtwey: I think the raising of people’s consciousness is the first step toward creating public opinion and public opinion creates an impetus for change. It creates pressure on decision makers, the powers that be, who make choices that affect the lives of thousands of people. Helping create the impetus for them to move in the right direction, through public opinion, is something worth doing. In spite of all the frustrations and setbacks, I think it’s a process that works. Sometimes it’s more immediate, sometimes it’s agonizingly slow. But, that pressure always has to be there to drive the process forward. It helps. It’s quite often at odds with what governments are putting out, the information and the spin they want to put on events because essentially they want to rule the agenda. I think they find public opinion annoying. It gets in their way. And indeed it should get in their way. It should help divert them to the right course. The disaster of U.S. policy in Somalia led directly to our ignoring Rwanda. Our ignoring Rwanda, and knowing that the international community had a degree of accountability for a half million to a million unneeded deaths, led to not accepting what was happening in Kosovo. These things are linked. My book (Inferno) is a record of what happened in the final decade of the 20th century of crimes against humanity that are linked. Sometimes in a very direct way, sometimes in more subtle ways. The book culminates with Kosovo. John Paul: Caponigro Linked in what way? JN: Take the example I gave you of the disaster of U.S. policy in Somalia. The mission began with goodwill and good intentions and was effective. That mission was to protect the distribution of food relief to famine victims. When it turned into a political mission to disarm the militias and then to go after one of the warlords, it changed dramatically and turned into a disaster. That disaster was what prompted Bill Clinton to turn his back on Rwanda. He didn’t want to get burned again in Africa and therefore consciously refused to use the word genocide, because he realized that word carried an obligation to intervene. The United Nations did the same thing. Kofi Annan was in charge of the peacekeeping forces at that time and they pulled out during the genocide rather than going in. Again, that was linked to the disaster in Somalia. It was a public relations disaster. And, as it turned out, so was Rwanda. It was the wrong thing to do, and they understand that they’re
accountable in some way for those deaths. They both went to Rwanda and apologized to the people there, which is a very rare thing for any politician to do. They admitted they were wrong and they apologized. And when Kosovo came around, when the Serbs began to ethnically cleanse Kosovo, I think the international community understood it couldn’t turn its back on Kosovo the way it had on Rwanda. There’s a connection there. JPC: You speak of our “collective responsibility” and I was wondering, for those who are uncertain of how to act after seeing your work, what suggestions you might have to offer them. JN: I think on the most basic level, if people are confronted in the press with injustices and crimes against humanity, they should engage themselves with the issues. They should keep it alive inside themselves and not turn away from it. If it’s challenging to understand, they should try and understand it. They should give it the time to think about it so they come to grips with what’s going on and communicate with each other. In that way, a constituency is formed. That’s how public opinion is created and that’s how it stays alive. A step beyond that would be to communicate with someone, an official at the United Nations, an ambassador, someone in the State Department or the government. Send a letter. Let them know, “I know what’s happening there. I think something should be done about it. It’s not acceptable.” I think it’s a matter of allowing yourself to have an opinion and becoming part of a constituency that has an influence. That’s power. In a democracy, it’s composed of many individual voices - together. That’s what it’s made of and that’s what our leaders have to listen to. I think it has an effect. JPC: Does it? JN: Yes. Unless you think that public opinion doesn’t count for anything. I believe that it does. I think it had a lot to do with the United States getting out of Vietnam, much sooner than it would have otherwise. It had an effect on our policy in Central America. It had an effect on famine relief in Ethiopia and in southern Sudan and in Somalia. It had an effect on Kosovo. I think there was tremendous support for the intervention on Kosovo. People understood it was something that was justified. Again, the initial step is to engage yourself as an individual with what’s happening, to keep it alive inside yourself, to have an opinion, to let that opinion be known, to people around you, and to people in the decision-making sphere.
To remove yourself from that process is really a disservice. There are many kinds of action that are effective. What is not effective is to do nothing. That’s always an option, but what good does it do? In Rwanda a half million to a million people were slaughtered while we did nothing. Is anyone happy about that? I don’t think so. JPC: That is the kind of encouragement I am looking for. JN: There’s also a journalistic responsibility, journalistic publications and broadcasts are responsible to inform people about what’s going on. So much space is given over these days to lifestyle and celebrity, fashion, and domestic political scandals. It’s all become a kind of entertainment, which is certainly one aspect of the press. It is a business. They have to do something which they feel generates income. But there is also something called journalistic responsibility and that requires a certain balance and regard for the intelligence and compassion of the audience. People actually want to know what’s going on. A lot of the decisions that are made now in journalism are market-driven not journalistic. Even the phrase “compassion fatigue” is somehow related to advertisers more than to the general public. Advertisers don’t want their products displayed next to stories about injustices and destruction and suffering. To call that “compassion fatigue” is a kind of apology for not running those stories. Maybe advertisers have to understand their own larger responsibility. In a free society, perhaps they should encourage those stories rather than discourage them because it’s beneficial to the nation and to the world. That might be too idealistic or naïve. But it is one world we live in. JPC: It is. As consumers we also have to provide support for quality information. Demand can drive supply. So can a lack of demand. JN: I’ve never heard them use the phrase “supermodel fatigue”, for example. I think that there are many people in the general population who feel “supermodel fatigue”, but you don’t hear publications using that phrase. JPC: They’re selling something. Famine victims aren’t. JN: When you publish stories and photographs about people who are suffering, you have to be prepared to give something, and not to sell something. Maybe advertisers have to understand their own larger responsibility.
CRAFT*
JPC: How you deal with processing this kind of subject on such a sustained level for such a long time? JN: All I can do is keep going and get deeper into it. There’s no running away from it. There’s no escape. I don’t have any crutches. The only way, for me, is to understand the value of the work and to continue. JPC: How do you maintain your faith in humanity in the face of such inhumanity? JN: The people I encounter when I’m in the field - that’s where my inspiration comes from. To see ordinary people coping with such disasters and such suffering, continuing to go on, surviving, trying to make a life, to maintain their family - it humbles me. I don’t know if I would have their strength and their grace and that inspires me. People deserve better than what they’re getting, and what they’re getting is quite often not necessary. It didn’t have to happen. It’s not the natural condition and something can be done about it. My faith in humanity comes from what I witness it. JPC: It certainly puts things in perspective for me, any suffering I feel I might be going through or difficulty I might be encountering, looks pale, almost inconsequential, in comparison to the suffering of others I see in your photographs. JN: Absolutely. It gives people perspective. JPC: How do you approach the temptation to intervene or become involved in a situation before you? JN: I am involved. Being a witness, offering testimony, is being involved. It’s a choice; an active decision. It’s not passive. It’s a deep commitment. I become involved in a more immediate, hands-on way if necessary. I understand what my function is, but I also recognize that there are certain times when I’m the only one who can actually make a difference in saving someone. When that’s clear to me, I put down my camera and do my best to help. Anyone would do the same thing. Most of the time, for example when I’m photographing someone wounded in battle, they’re already being cared for by their medics or comrades. There’s nothing more I can offer. To meddle with that would only be a way to make myself feel good. As long as I can see there’s nothing more I can do, then I carry out my responsibility in being there with a camera. I’ve seen people being attacked by mobs and I’ve stepped in because I realized that I might be able to save them. Sometimes I’ve succeeded and sometimes I haven’t, but I’ve made the attempt. If I find someone in a famine, who
doesn’t know where to go to receive food, who is lost or powerless to move, I will take them to a feeding center. But most of the pictures I make in a famine are in a feeding center, where people are already being cared for, as much as they can be. JPC: Tell me about your “relationship between conscience and art.” JN: I use what I know about the formal elements of photography at the service of the people I’m photographing - not the other way around. I’m not trying to make statements about photography. I’m trying to use photography to make statements about what’s happening in the world. I don’t want my compositions to be self-conscious. I don’t want them to attract attention to themselves. When the viewers look at my pictures, I want the immediate impact to be directly between themselves and the people I’m photographing. I try to use photography, in a very elemental, very basic way. It’s challenging and I think I’m continuing to evolve in my ability to do that. I don’t want to make generic images. I don’t want to make illustrations that have no emotional or moral impact. JPC: You say that the images that you are creating are both objective and subjective. Help me understand that more clearly. JN: When something is happening in front of my eyes the feelings I have toward it are refracted within me. Whatever I feel about it is a product of my history as an individual. I try to channel those feelings into the pictures so that the viewers are getting my sensibility about the facts of the matter. It can be done. That’s the only way it can be done that’s convincing. JPC: What happens to the objective nature of the work in the process? Is it washed away or are both levels married? JN: The confluence of the objective and the subjective is where it becomes real. I make my communication and where I have things in common with other people is where we share an emotion. I can bring people to a point of view only because they share the emotion. I am amplifying or clarifying something that people feel and they haven’t been able to articulate. Whatever emotions I’m feeling in the situations that I enter into are very powerful emotions. There is a tremendous amount of anger, of sadness, of frustration, of grief, of disbelief. It wouldn’t do any good if I allowed those emotions, strong as they are, to shut me down. Then I’d be useless, I shouldn’t have gone there in
the first place. I have to take my emotions and channel them into the work. I hope that, in the end, they express compassion. JPC: It’s a courageous act to look at the material in the first place, but to go back time and time again, I’m not sure if there’s another word for it other than heroic. It’s very difficult to conceive, for many of us, of even approaching the material. Spending that much time with it is an entirely different thing. It’s pretty unusual. JN: It’s not for everybody to do this, I recognize that. JPC: So some of us are glad that there are people like you, out there doing this, knowing that it’s not for us. JN: That’s good to hear. JPC: There are some who criticize a more arty delivery of this kind of material -coffee table books, galleries, museums, fine prints, all art objects. They claim that these kinds of treatments exoticize this material, making it glamorous, at times status oriented, even fetishistic, pushing it toward sensationalism. Conversely others would say that its entrance into these worlds brings greater and more sustained attention to the material. While some would criticize Inferno as one of these arty objects, at the same time, others would claim that as a result finds greater durability and increased importance. How do you feel about this kind of delivery of this kind of material? JN: To me, Inferno is not an art object, it’s an archive. The basis of the design, the size, the whole physical presentation, is to create an archive that will enter into our collective memory and our collective conscience. The primary function of my work is to appear in mass circulation publications during the time that the situations are happening in order to create consciousness and public opinion and to bring about an atmosphere in which change is possible. That is the reason I do it. A secondary function is to enter into our memory so that these things are preserved and not forgotten. They’re a visual legacy to contemplate as we go into the future. Hopefully we won’t make the same mistakes we’ve made in the past. There’s a value in that. I’ve shown a couple times in museums and that’s also a valid form of communication. The agenda of a museum is not set by critics. It’s not exclusively set by the people who run the museum. It’s also set by the people who attend the museum and by the artists who show there. Because a work hangs on the wall of a museum does not necessarily mean that it’s there to be contemplated purely
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as an art object. It’s there to communicate very immediately with the viewer, perhaps a particular kind of viewer, perhaps a more circumscribed audience, but nonetheless an audience than in journalism but nonetheless an important audience of people who have important opinions. Although I haven’t had one, if I were to do a gallery show, I would try to make it another form of communication, with perhaps an even more sharply focused audience. Collectors are important. They have wide-ranging interests and wide-ranging influence and they’re well worth reaching out to. I don’t see that some dogmatic stereotype about the meaning of a picture because it hangs in a gallery should stop me, or anyone else, from trying to make that communication. JPC: Along those same lines, your compositions are beautiful. What’s the function of beauty? JN: Beauty is inherent in life, and oftentimes, it’s inherent in tragedy. It’s nothing that I impose. It’s something that I perceive. I don’t think that in my pictures the beauty overcomes the tragedy. It sometimes
envelopes it and makes it more poignant. It makes it more accessible. The paradox of the co-existence of beauty and tragedy has been a theme in art and literature throughout the ages. Photography is no exception. The beauty of a pieta is in the body language, it’s in the connection between the mother and the son. The pieta is not a figment of imagination, it’s taken from life. A photograph that resembles a pieta is not an imitation of art. It’s a representation of the source of that art in real life. The beauty is still in the connection between the mother and the son. JPC: I’m reminded of the word you used, compassion. I think as long as that is present, that ensures that that will happen. It’s one matter to make suffering beautiful. It’s an entirely different matter to recognize the beauty of the sufferer. You said, “our ability to communicate produces an agonizing awareness which, in turn, demands response.” Tell me more about your statement “a perfection of means, but a confusion of aims, is the misfortune of our times.” JN: At a time when we have the wealth, the infrastructure, and the technology to accomplish so many things, we are often
confused about how to direct the tools at our disposal. There was confusion about what to do in the case of Bosnia, for example. That was a war that didn’t have to happen. Once begun, it could have ended much sooner if there had been resolve on the part of world leaders to use the diplomatic and material resources at hand. But, there was confusion and conflict and compromise. Those tools were never properly put to use and the war dragged on years longer than it might have. We had the resources to prevent the genocide in Rwanda, and yet, again, there was confusion and compromise, and the resources that were at our disposal were not used.That’s what I meant. JPC: This highlights how important it is to become clear on what’s happened before and where we are today, so that we can take effective action as new situations arise. JN: Absolutely. As best we can. JPC: Fidon Press has published a new book, “Inferno,” that records photojournalist James Nachtwey’s personal journey through the war, pestilence and famine of the last decade. Inferno begins with a quote from Dante:
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Nachtwey’s photographs “There sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the starless air, so that from the beginning it made me weep.” Nachtwey’s photographs for “Time,” the “New York Times” Magazine, and other publications have won an unprecedented five Robert Kappa Gold Medals from the Overseas Press Clubs. Thank you for being with us. JN: Thank you. jpc: What brought you to do this book? These are not easy pictures to look at. JN: “Inferno” is a record of crimes against humanity that occurred during the final decade of the 20th century. I began in 1990, and followed stories as they evolved throughout the decade up to cost slow. -- Kosovo. It’s meant to be a kind of visual archive, so that this work will enter into our collective conscience and our collective memory. jpc: Okay. Let’s start with a picture from Somalia. Tell us about this picture. JN: This was a picture that was made in a small town in the town of Barbera in the intensive care tent that was set up by a humanitarian organization that had gone there to help relieve the victims of the famine. It’s a boy who is near death. His father is trying to comfort him, give him some water. And in the next frame, the boy dies. It’s a moment of tenderness and connection and love of a father for his son that is expressed in the direst circumstances. And it’s moments like these that I’ve seen own over and over again that give me faith in humanity. jpc: : Tell us a little bit about this picture. JN: This is in one of the orphanages in Romania just after the fall of the Ceausescu regime. As I traveled through Romania, I discovered a kind of gulag of dozens of these inhuman institutions, and it’s a stark, graphic representation of the kind of conditions that children and old people and especially anyone who was perceived to have a mental or physical handicap were being kept quite often throughout their entire life. jpc: You said when you were taking these pictures of Romania, you just wanted to leave, but you didn’t leave. Why? What is the value? What is it you’re trying to do? JN: If I cave in, if I fold up because of the emotional obstacles that are in front of me, I’m useless. There is no point in me being there in the first place. And I think if you go to places where people are experiencing these kinds of tragedies with a camera, you have a responsibility. The value of it is to make an appeal to the rest of the world, to
create an impetus where change is possible through public opinion. Public opinion is created through awareness. My job is to help create the awareness. jpc: When did you start doing this? When did you know that you wanted to do this work? JN: I became a photographer in order to be a war photographer, and a photographer involved in what I thought were critical social issues. From the very beginning this was my goal. jpc: Long ago, in the 70’s, right? You taught yourself to do it? JN: Yes. I began after college, about 1972. I began to teach myself photography. I went to work for a local newspaper for four years as a kind of basic training. But this kind of work was always my goal. jpc: And you do certainly shoot war... I mean, I think of this picture, for example, which is from Bosnia, right? JN: That’s from the fighting in Mostar. I managed to get access through a group of Croatian militiamen in the very first days of the fighting as they were trying to ethnically cleanse the city of Mostar. They were fighting from house to house, from street to street, sometimes from apartment to apartment, pushing their own neighbors out of the city. What’s very poignant to me about this particular picture is that it’s a bedroom. It’s where life itself is conceived, where people share love and intimacy. And now it’s become a battlefield and a killing ground. jpc: And you’ve written that you used to think of yourself as a war photographer, but now you think of yourself as an anti-war photographer. Explain the distinction. JN: At the very beginning, I think I was still interested in the dynamics of war itself as a kind of fascinating study. And it evolved into more of a mission whereby I think to present pictures of situations that are unacceptable in human terms became a form of protest. So I found that my pictures were actually specifically trying to mitigate against the war itself. jpc: You’ve written that you used to look for the moment of highest drama, a picture that would tell the whole story in one image, but in this book, here, for example, you’ve got consecutive pictures, almost like... it’s almost cinematic. Explain what you’re doing here. JN: I became interested in portraying reality in a kind of cinematic way through a variety of moments and angles so that the
viewer could piece together a reality that was in a way beyond the presence of the photographer, that had a relentlessness and ongoing quality to it -- that became a reality beyond my own pictures. jpc: And you’ve written that all your pictures are a combination of what is inside of you and what is in front of you. Explain that, too. JN: It’s a confluence. I don’t believe there’s any such thing as objective reality. It’s only reality as we experience it. And whatever emotions I’m feeling, for whatever reason I’m feeling them, get channeled into my work. If I’m feeling outraged, grief, disbelief, frustration, sympathy, that gets channeled through me and into my pictures and hopefully transmitted to the viewer. jpc: And you do certainly shoot war... I mean, I think of this picture, for example, which is from Bosnia, right? JN: That’s from the fighting in Mostar. I managed to get access through a group of Croatian militiamen in the very first days of the fighting as they were trying to ethnically cleanse the city of Mostar. They were fighting from house to house, from street to street, sometimes from apartment to apartment, pushing their own neighbors out of the city. What’s very poignant to me about this particular picture is that it’s a bedroom. It’s where life itself is conceived, where people share love and intimacy. And now it’s become a battlefield and a killing ground. jpc: And what do you specifically hope that people are do after they see these pictures? Let’s take just this one, for example, this is Rwanda. JN: This is a picture of a man who had just been liberated from a Hutu death camp where mainly members of the Tutsi tribe were being incarcerated, being starved, beaten, abused and systematically killed. This man happened to be a Hutu himself, but because he didn’t support the genocide, he was subjected to the same treatment. On the most basic level, I hope that people when they look at this work will engage themselves with it and not shut down, not turn away from it, but realize that their opinion counts for something, that they become part of a constituency, and people who have the power to make decisions that affect the lives of thousands of people know that there’s a constituency forming out there, and they have to do something about it. jpc: Well, James Nachtwey, thank you very much for being with us. JN: You’re welcome.
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MORE THINGS Ryoji Ikeda The Transfinite PERFORNANCE Park Avenue Armory New York May 20 — June 11, 2011 www.armoryonpark.org/ “…an extreme and elaborate visual and sonic environment.” - New York Magazine
YOHJI YAMAMOTO Retrospective FASHION EXHIBITION Victoria and Albert Museum London March 12 – July 10, 2011 www.vam.ac.uk/
The mattson2 Feeling Hands CD 2011 www.mattson2.com/blog/ www.galaxiarecords.com/
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ISABELLA BLOW by Stefan Brüggemann BOOK 2011 www.triangulobooks.com
YAYOI KUSAMA The Passing Winter EXHIBITION TATE Modern London February 8 — May 20, 2012 www.tate.org.uk/ “…This is a varied, spectacular exhibition of a truly unique artist.” - TATE Modern curator
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