Departure of All is with Horrach Moya stand 7B05 in Hall 7 for ARCOmadrid 21-25 February 2018
http://www.ifema.es/arcomadrid_06/
https://www.artsy.net/artwork/martin-john-callanan-departures-of-all
Photos Pau Wealder
Notes on Departure of All
Im Dialog mit Amazon – Mallorca Zeitung – Nr. 882 – 30. März 2017
Der britische Künstler Martin John Callanan zeigt bei Horrach Moyà das Wechselspiel von System und Mensch, Von Brigitte Kramer
Eigentlich müssten wir alle unter Atemnot oder Platzangst leiden. Denn immer dichter legen sich die Fäden des weltweiten digitalen Netzes um uns. Immer mehr Stun- den verbringen wir vor kleinen oder großen Bildschirmen, geben Daten ein, hinterlassen Spuren. Einen Teil der Zeit im Internet verbringen wir mit Dingen, die nicht unbedingt lebensnotwendig sind. Martin John Callanan geht es nicht anders. Nur verbringt er sei- ne Zeit im Netz mit Sinnvollem. Er macht Kunst. Derzeit zeigt er sie in der Galerie Horrach Moyà an der Plaça de la Drassana.
„Martin has been alive +12858 days“, schreibt er auf seiner Web- site. Für alle Leser, die das Spiel mit Zahlen weniger lieben als Callanan: Er wurde 1982 in einer Kleinstadt bei Birmingham gebo- ren. Seit mehr als fünf Jahren lebt er in Berlin und wird als Künst- ler von der ehrwürdigen Royal Society of Arts gefördert. Damit steht er in einer Reihe mit Charles Dickens, Karl Marx oder Benja- min Franklin. Nach Palma hat ihn der Kunsthistoriker Pau Waelder gebracht. Es ist die vierte Ausstel- lung des Briten auf der Insel.
Callanan interessiert das Thema Individuum und System. In seinen Installationen unter- sucht er die Interaktion zwischen Mensch und Netz, zeichnet die Interaktion nach. Oft übernimmt oder verändert er die Funktions- weise von Programmen, Syste- men oder Anwendungen und deu- tet sie neu. Damit hinterfragt er die Zustände, demontiert unsere Gewohnheiten und sorgt auch noch für Witz und Überraschung. Der Effekt sitzt auch deshalb, weil seine Arbeiten so clean, so zurückhaltend und unterkühlt wir- ken: Bildschirme, Kleingedruck- tes, ordentlich Aufgereihtes. Im Gespräch mit ihm wird schnell die Tragweite seiner Arbeit deutlich. Dem uninformierten Besucher der Ausstellung „Actions“ entgeht sie aber, ist zu befürchten.
Drei Arbeiten, alle schon ein- mal ausgestellt, bilden die Schau. Da ist „I Cannot Not Communica- te“ von 2015: Eine Reihe von hun- dert Büchern auf einem blanken Holztisch. Daneben liegt eine Lis- te mit allen ausgestellten Titeln. „Das sind die Bücher, die Amazon mir zum Lesen empfiehlt“, sagt er mit einem leichten Lächeln in den Mundwinkeln. Er hat tatsächlich den Spruch „Kunden, die Artikel in Ihrem Einkaufswagen gekauft haben, haben auch Folgendes ge- kauft“ ernst genommen und die hundert ersten Empfehlungen in den Einkaufswagen gelegt. Da- runter sind Fantasy-Romane oder ein Buch auf Französisch, „dabei kann ich gar kein Französisch!“, sagt Callanan. Andere Empfeh- lungen sind einleuchtender: Bü- cher über Kunst, Soziologie, Phi- losophie, von Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck oder John Berger.
Seitdem er im Mai 2015 auf Amazon gehört hat, ist Callanan nicht mehr normaler Kunde des Online-Geschäfts. „Ich bin mit dem System in Beziehung getre- ten“, sagt er mit leiser Stimme, „vielleicht lüfte ich irgendwann das Geheimnis seines Algorith- mus.“ Callanan wird weiterhin auf Amazon hören, immer wieder Empfehlungen kaufen und dabei versuchen, das System zu ent- schlüsseln. Das Ziel dieser Spie- lerei wäre in dem unwahrscheinli- chen Fall erreicht, wenn Callanan schon vorher wüsste, was Ama- zon ihm empfehlen wird. Es wird immer schwieriger, den Beweis zu liefern, dass der Mensch dem Computer überlegen ist.
Noch mehr witzige Tüfteleien gibt’s im zentralen, mit gepfleg- ten, alten Bodenfliesen ausge- legten Raum. „Each and Every Command“ heißt die Arbeit von 2016. Sie zeigt auf sechs hellen Tischen elf dicke, graue Ordner. In ihnen sind auf hellgrauem Re- cyclingpapier „4.144.676 Wör- ter in 198.605 Zeilen“ gedruckt, wie Callanan sagt. Inhaltlich sa- gen sie gar nichts: Es ist die vom Programm Adobe Photoshop ge- speicherte Chronik der Arbeit, die Callanan in den vergangenen zwölf Jahren geleistet hat. Das Programm hat jeden Schritt bei seiner Bearbeitung von Fotos für die Nachwelt aufbewahrt: Callanan zeigt dieses Bemü- hen nun der Welt. Fast schon rührend sind die unsinnig vie- len Seiten, „acht Mal so viel wie Shakespeares Gesamtwerk“, sagt Callanan wieder mit diesem leich- ten Grinsen.
Die exponierte Emsigkeit des Programms wirft Fragen auf, zu Sinn und Unsinn von Archiven, von Erinnerung, von Lernen. Und die Installation hinterfragt auch den Mythos vom kreativen Prozess, dem Work in Progress: Wie wichtig ist es, die Arbeitsschritte eines Künstlers zu dokumentieren?
Trotz aller Ironie und Selbstre- ferenz gibt es „Each and Every Command“ als digitale Version in der British Library, und im Ama- zon Kindle Store kann man das Werk für zwei Pfund zum Lesen auf einem E-Reader kaufen: Nicht ganz so spannend wie die Lektüre eines Telefonbuchs.
Die dritte Arbeit „Departure of All“ aus dem Jahr 2013 schließ- lich stimuliert die Fantasie des Betrachters ungemein – wenn man weiß oder intuitiv erfasst, worum es geht. Callanan hat eine Anzeigetafel mit Abflugzeiten an die Wand montiert. Bei längerer Betrachtung bemerkt man, dass es sich um einen fiktiven Flughafen handeln muss. Nein, es ist die An- zeige aller Flüge, die in Echtzeit von einem internationalen Flugha- fen abheben. Die Anzeige scrollt immer weiter oben, immer neue Flüge rutschen von unten nach, sie sind alle real und die Maschinen rollen im Moment des Betrachtens irgendwo über eine Startbahn. „Man bemerkt, wie eng alles ver- knüpft ist am Himmel“, sagt Pau Waelder, „und dabei kann einem schnell ein bisschen schwinde- lig werden.“ Der blaue Himmel taucht vor dem inneren Auge auf, durchzogen von weißen Kondens- streifen, immer dichter werden sie, irgendwann ist das Netz so dicht, dass man kaum noch das Blau des Himmels sieht. Man könnte Atemnot oder Platzangst bekommen: Das Netz ist überall, nicht nur hinter einem Bildschirm.
Actions, GalerÃa Horrach MoyÃ
Actions
GalerÃa Horrach MoyÃ
25/3 – 7/5/2017
The work of Martin John Callanan focuses on the relationship between individuals and the systems that determine their existence, whether natural, economic, social, political, or that invisible and omnipresent data network in which we all participate. Placing himself at the centre of this research, not as a protagonist, but as a simple individual who is affected by the same systems that dominate us all, the artist elaborates patient and laborious processes with the data that he collects from his interaction with the world. The result of these processes are works that refer to both a personal experience and a condition shared by a large part of the inhabitants of the planet.
As Robert Musil states in The Man Without Qualities (1930), “living permanently in a well-ordered State has an out-an-out spectral aspect: one cannot step into the street or drink a glass of water or get into a tram without touching the perfectly balanced levers of a gigantic apparatus of laws and relations…†This apparatus, which according to Musil becomes so invisible that we deny its existence “as the common man denies the existence of the air,†is what Callanan explores in his work: each action of an individual is recorded by the system and produces some reaction, which becomes visible in the artworks selected for this exhibition.
Horrach-Moyà presents in this, Callanan’s second solo show in the gallery, a selection of recent works that explore diverse forms of representing the relation between the individual and the data that he generates, either through what he consumes, produces, or even where he goes. The works move fluidly between the intimate and the impersonal, between the analog and the digital, capturing a small part of a set processes that will not stop until the individual that generates them or the systems that sustain them cease to exist.
Pau Waelder, Curator
 
I Cannot Not Communicate
2015
In this work, the artist has collected the first 100 books recommended to him by Amazon, based on everything he read and bought since the online retail giant first launched its recommendation algorithm over 15 years ago.
The title refers to the condition of the user of any service on the Web as an involuntary transmitter of information: since the data concerning the actions of the user (day and time of access, duration, contents browsed and so forth) are registered automatically, it is no longer possible to be a mere receiver of information. Rahter, one constantly participates in a data exchange that leads to modifying the same contents that one is accessing. This reflection is not presented as a complex technological installation but as something as simple as a library, which becomes a record of the subject that have interested the artist, although this record was not created by him but has been elaborated by Amazon’s algorithm. These books are not necessarily those that Martin John Callanan has read, but those that he supposedly wants to read.
Each and Every Command
2016
This piece shows all edits done by the artist on the photo editing software Adobe Photoshop during twelve years, from December 23, 2003 to February 7, 2016. Registered automatically by the program, they are presented as a long list on 15,873 pages in DIN A4 gray paper, bound in 11 volumes. There are altogether 4,144,676 words in 198,605 lines of text, which corresponds to eight times the complete works of William Shakespeare. A record of this file is preserved in digital format at the British Library.
With this work, Martin John Callanan suggests the possibility of recording each of the actions performed in a computer, while exploring the romantic myth of artistic creation: the fascination for the creative process of the artist and the conception of the studio as a magical and intimate place where his inspiration is gleaned, translate into a sober file that methodically collects every action carried out by the artist on an image editing software. Reading this register, it is possible (if one can take an amount of time that perhaps exceeds human capacities) to follow the steps of the artist’s working process, both in the elaboration of a work and when editing his website or retouching a holiday photo. The deep knowledge of his work can be found here, buried among thousands of banal data, in a diary as comprehensive as it is, paradoxically, absurd.
Departure of All
2013
Displayed as an airport information panel, a screen shows all flights that are taking off from all international airports in the world, in real time. The time of departure, flight number, city of origin and destination are displayed in a sober list. Every five seconds, two or three new flights appear on the screen, as the list continues to slowly scroll upwards. The global air traffic is summed up in a small set of data that invite us to reflect on the fact that, at all times, there are approximately 500,000 people flying at forty thousand feet.
The speed with which the list is updated indicates an incessant need to move that forms a picture of our globalized society and the impact that our restless lifestyle (particularly nomadic in the art world) has on the environment. The relatively daily act of catching an airplane is actually an action that is part of a precise machinery that works on a global scale: as passengers, we participate in a flow of coordinated activities whose effects are transmitted from one hemisphere to the other. Altering this flow (as occurred, for example, with the eruptions of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in 2010) is chaotic, and therefore it can not be stopped, as the endless list on the screen never stops.
Photos from Berlin Art Prize
My Berlin Studio, November 2016
Exhibition, November 2016
Photos by Anastasia Muna
Real time. Art en temps real
Lo Pati – Centre d’Art
del 27 de gener al 19 de març de 2017
En la nostra societat accelerada, lo temps esdevé una preocupació principal a mesura que intentem mantenir-nos al corrent dels grans esdeveniments que tenen lloc a escala global, intentem ser competitius fent més en menys temps, i vivim en un estat de connexió permanent. Lo terme “realtime†(temps real) s’ha convertit en un terme d’ús comú que fa referència a qualsevol procés que es produix de forma sincronitzada amb lo temps de l’usuari, al fer de “ser allà †i “ser present†en una era que no permet lo més mÃnim retard en la reacció.
Lo terme “realtime†(temps real), provinent de la informà tica, s’ha convertit en un terme d’ús comú: sovint fa referència, no només a la computació reactiva, sinó també a qualsevol procés que es produix de forma sincronitzada amb lo temps de l’usuari, al fer de “ser allà †i “ser present†en una era que no permet lo més mÃnim retard en la reacció.
En lo món de l’art, lo temps és un element crucial en un fet sovint ignorat: la duració de la contemplació de l’obra d’art per part de l’espectador. Com indica Boris Groys, mentre que en los mitjans tradicionals lo temps necessari per a la contemplació és determinat per l’usuari, l’art basat en processos temporals (nous mitjans i performance) passa este control a l’obra. Hi ha, aixÃ, un temps de l’obra al qual l’espectador ha d’adaptar el seu propi temps. En la majoria de les obres de cinema i video, lo temps de la ficció se comprimix per a permetre a l’espectador observar els esdeveniments que tindrien lloc durant un llarg perÃode de temps en uns pocs minuts. Però, què succeix quan una obra d’art té lloc en “temps realâ€, desenvolupant la seua història al llarg de diverses hores, mesos o dècades?
Comissariada per Pau Waelder, Real time. Art en temps real és una exposició col·lectiva que explora l’ús del temps en l’art contemporani presentant una selecció d’obres d’art en les quals lo concepte de “temps real†té un paper principal, ja sigue pel qüestionament de la relativitat del temps, l’ús de dades extretes en temps real d’Internet o per la seua intenció de crear una visió actual, “realista†i sempre canviant del temps en què vivim. Amb obres de Guillem Bayo, Clara Boj i Diego DÃaz, Martin John Callanan, Thierry Fournier, Nicolas Maigret, Antoine Schmitt, Thomson and Craighead, Addie Wagenknecht i Carlo Zanni, algunes de les peces seleccionades se nodrixen de la informació que apareix constantment als mitjans de comunicació, mentre altres extreuen dades de diferents fonts, establixen un procés de producció en temps real o bé proposen un qüestionament de la nostra manera de mesurar el temps i relacionar-nos amb lo present. Les tecnologies que utilitzem actualment en la nostra vida quotidiana tenen un paper principal en estes peces, portant estes reflexions sobre el temps a un à mbit molt proper al públic, que en alguns casos pot interactuar amb l’obra i en d’altres ho fa sense saber-ho.
La inauguració de l’exposició serà el divendres 27 de gener a les 20:00h.
http://www.lopati.cat/ca/informacio/exposicions/real-time-art-en-temps-real/351/
Berlin Art Prize 2016
The Berlin Art Prize is pleased to announce the list of nominated artists for the Berlin Art Prize 2016. Chosen from a pool of over 600 Berlin-based applicants through a multi-stage selection process, the nine nominees selected by the jury are:
Martin John Callanan
Regina de Miguel
Stine Marie Jacobsen
Lindsay Lawson
Lotte Meret
Benedikt Partenheimer
Aurora Sander
Raul Walch
Lauryn Youden
Of the nine nominated artists selected by the jury (Karen Archey, Kito Nedo, Emeka Ogboh, Ahmet Öğüt and Susanne Winterling) and presented in the exhibition and catalog, three will be selected as winners of the Berlin Art Prize. The three winning artists will be awarded a trophy created for the occasion by Berlin-based artist Tomás Saraceno, prize money and a four-week residency in Georgia.
The exhibition will present a broad spectrum of artistic positions – including sculpture, installation, photography, performance and conceptual art. In contrast to previous years, the exhibition will focus on the nominee’s individual artistic positions, with multiple works from each artist.
The exhibition opening on November 11, 2016 will be followed by a special program of events, performances and lectures during the exhibition. All nine positions will also be documented in a publication which will be released on the occasion of the opening. The winners will be announced live for the first time at the awards ceremony at Kühlhaus Berlin on the evening of December 10, 2016 followed by an after party.
( Opening )
Friday, November 11, 2016, 7pm
After Party starting at 10pm
( Award Ceremony )
Saturday, December 10, 2016
8:30 p.m.
After Party starting at 10pm
( Location )
Kühlhaus Berlin
Luckenwalder Straße 3
10963 Berlin
The exhibition will be open November 12 – December 10, Tuesday through Saturday, 1 – 6pm.
5th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art – Departure of All
87 young artists and art associations, representatives of 36 countries.
According to the curator, the artists’ touch the most important problem of our time – environmental crisis, blurring the boundaries between “nature” and technology, the interaction of transparency and lack of transparency in the information age. We live in an era of discontinuity. If modernism was trying to get to the bottom – zero of painting, the basic structures of human psychology, and historical laws of economics – that today we do not harbor such illusions. Naturally, now that artists find inspiration in the uncertainty, ambiguity, ciphers and conspiracies, talking about instability and multi-dimensional. ”
The main project of 5th Moscow Biennale of Young Art with the theme Deep inside will be shown from July 1 to August 10 Trekhgornij factory building, one of the oldest textile factories in Moscow. Moscow International Biennale for Young Art held since 2008, its founders and organizers – the Ministry of Culture, Department of Culture of Moscow, National Centre for Contemporary Arts and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.
The participating artists in the main exhibition “Deep Inside” include:
Ozan Atalan, Turkey — USA
Stacy Belevicheva, Ukraine
Matilde Benmayor, Chile
Julius von Bismarck, Germany
Pamela Breda, Italy
Vladislav Brut, Russia / Alisa Beketova, Kazakhstan — Russia
Ekaterina Burlyga, Ukraine — Germany
Olga Butenop, Russia
Martin Callanan, Great Britain
Noor Ali Chagani, Pakistan
Julian Charrière, Switzerland — Germany
Revital Cohen, Israel / Tuur van Balen, Belgium — Great Britain
Juan Covelli, Colombia — Great Britain
Chris Coy, USA
MarÃa Dalberg, Iceland
Jasmin Daryani, Iran — Sweden
Petr Davydtchenko, Russia — Sweden — Great Britain
Jonathan Doweck, Israel
Liat Elbling, Israel
Hüseyin Mert Erverdi, Turkey
Karin Ferrari, Italy — Austria
Christian Fogarolli, Italy
Verena Friedrich, Germany
Veronika Geiger, Denmark — Switzerland
Adam Gibney, Ireland
Iuliana Golub, Ukraine
Florian Goldmann, Germany
Katharina Gruzei, Austria
Logi Leó Gunnarsson, Iceland
Ali Jan Haider, Pakistan
Elisabeth Haust, Russia — Czech Republic
Joey Holder, Great Britain
Marguerite Humeau, France — Great Britain
Marc Johnson, France
Graham Kelly, Great Britain — The Netherlands
Daria Khlapova, Russia
Felix Kiessling, Germany
Paul Kneale, Canada
Fabian Knecht, Germany
Darya Koltsova, Ukraine
Lilia Kosyreva, Russia
Egor Kraft, Russia — Great Britain — Austria
Ksenia Kuleva, Russia
Joshua Leary (Evian Christ), Great Britain / David Rudnick, Great Britain — USA
Juliana Cerqueira Leite, USA
Ekaterina Lukoshkova, Russia
Eli Maria Lundgaard, Norway
Vlad Lunin, Ukraine — Canada
Steve Maher, Ireland — Finland
Nadja Verena Marcin, Germany — USA
Maxime Marion, France / Émilie Brout, France
Zoë Claire Miller, USA — Germany
Alice Miceli, Brasil — The Netherlands
Marina Moskalenko, Russia / Tatiana Smirnova, Russia
Lee Nevo, Israel
Alisa Nikolaeva, Russia — France
Ismael Ogando, Dominican Rebulic
Tim Parchikov, Russia
Pau Pahana, USA — Germany
Claire Paugam, France — Iceland
Davide Quayola, Italy
Marina Ragozina, Russia
Martin Reiche, Germany
Rune Rasmussen, Denmark
Farid Rasulov, Azerbaijan
Paul Rosero Contreras, Ecuador
Vesna RohaÄek, Croatia — Sweden
Jeremy Santiago-Horseman, USA
Hadas Satt, Israel
Dagmar Schürrer, Austria — Germany
Julia Selin, Sweden
Jura Shust, Belarus — Belgium
Rustan Söderling, Sweden — The Netherlands
Emmy Skensved, Canada — Germany / Grégoire Blunt, Canada — Germany
Joe Sobel, USA — France
Wilf Speller, Great Britain
Yulia Spiridonova, Russia
Arya Sukapura Putra, Indonesia
Natalia Tikhonova, Russia
Alvaro Urbano, Spain — Germany
Ivar Veermäe, Estonia — Germany
Martin Volman, Argentina — Germany
Addie Wagenknecht, USA — Austria
Beny Wagner, Germany — USA
Andrew Norman Wilson, Germany — USA
Helga Wretman, Sweden — Germany
The fifth Moscow Biennale for Young Art, taking place this summer for six weeks only from July 1-August 10, today announced the participants of the main project “Deep Inside,” curated by Berlin-based independent curator Nadim Samman, who co-organised the fourth Marrakech Biennale in 2012. More recently, Samman was also a curator at the TBA-21 Academy, a branch of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Contemporary foundation in Vienna, and oversaw the Antarctic Pavilion at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014.
Taking place in the Trekhgornaya Manufaktura, one of Moscow’s oldest textile mills, the main exhibition will feature 87 works by 93 artists, selected from over 2000 applications, under the curatorial focus of tackling recent issues in ecology and economics. The project will also tackle questions regarding the dangers presented by new technologies and social instability.
“Ours is the time of fissures, of prying apart, of penetration and cavities,” Samman said in a statement. “We are climbing, or falling, ever deeper into a kind of black hole. As we do, it is perhaps to be expected that artists should be fascinated by opacities, by occultations, encryptions and conspiracies—the other side of the event horizon. Also, that they should rhapsodize about instability and polydimensionality. Deep Inside is a view from the chasm,” he explained.
The Moscow Biennale for Young Art was first held in 2008, and grew from the combined efforts of the National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA) to offer a platform for emerging artists. Now in its fifth iteration, the biennale—commissioned by Ekaterina Kibovskaya—continues its mission to draw attention to a new generation of artists representing recent developments in the global art community.
Real Time, Arts Santa Mònica, Barcelona
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Real Time
Art en temps real
Exposició, Arts Santa Mònica
28.01 – 10.04.2016
Guillem Bayo, Clara Boj i Diego DÃaz, Martin John Callanan, Grégory Chatonsky, Thierry Fournier, Varvara Guljajeva i Mar Canet, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Nicolas Maigret, Katie Paterson, Antoine Schmitt, Thomson and Craighead, Addie Wagenknecht, Carlo Zanni
In our society accelerated, time becomes a main concern as we try to keep abreast of major events taking place globally and react to events. We live in a state of permanent connection that leads to anxiety of being part of a present that is not his own, but describing the media and social networks.
The term real time (real time) refers to the ability to display, communicate or react to events when they occur. This term, which is commonly used in computer science, in the media and in all types of stories, denotes a process that occurs synchronously with time the viewer or user. This immediacy means, for example, the ability to interact with a virtual environment, reporting on current events or tell a story that develops over time naturally. This individual is connected with present external or shared driving part of this issue or present an answer. The “real time” is also linked to “be there” or Dasein in the interpretation of Martin Heidegger, which refers to the relationship between the individual and the environment, and indicates that we are all linked to the world we live in and in which we participate. The concept also leads us to question what is “real time” as we measure time and how this measure is relative, but determines our perception of reality.
In the art world, time is a crucial element in a fact often ignored: the length of contemplation of works of art by the viewer. As indicated by Boris Groys, while in traditional media the necessary time for contemplation is determined by the user, process-based temporary art (new media, video and performance) passes this control to work. Usually, the artworks are a special time or action bounded in time, but what happens when a work is developed in the “continuous present” constantly changing and subject to endless process?
“Real Time. Art Real time “presents a selection of contemporary art in which the concept of” real time “has a leading role, either by questioning the relativity of time, using data extracted in real time Internet or their intention to create a vision today, “realistic” and the ever-changing times in which we live. Some of the selected works are fed information that appears on the media, while others extract data from various sources, establish a production process in real time or propose a questioning of the way we measure time and to relate to the present. The technologies we use today in our everyday lives have a major role in these pieces, which brings reflections on time in an area very close to the audience, which in some cases can interact with the work and about others do not know. [Google Translate]
En la nostra societat accelerada, el temps es converteix en una preocupació principal a mesura que intentem mantenir-nos al dia dels grans esdeveniments que tenen lloc a escala global i reaccionar davant dels fets. Vivim en un estat de connexió permanent que ens porta a l’ansietat de formar part d’un present que no és el propi, sinó el que descriuen els mitjans de comunicació i les xarxes socials.
El terme real time (temps real) fa referència a la capacitat de mostrar, comunicar o reaccionar davant dels esdeveniments en el moment en què es produeixen. Aquest terme, que s’utilitza comunament en informà tica, en els mitjans de comunicació i en tot tipus de narracions, denota un procés que es dóna de manera sincronitzada amb el temps de l’espectador o usuari. Aquesta immediatesa es tradueix, per exemple, en la capacitat per interactuar amb un entorn virtual, informar sobre successos actuals o narrar una història en la qual el temps es desenvolupa de manera natural. El present individual es connecta amb un present extern o compartit, impulsant a formar part del dit present o a emetre una resposta. El «temps real» es vincula aixà amb «ser-aquû o Dasein en la interpretació de Martin Heidegger, que fa referència a la relació entre l’individu i el seu entorn, i indica que tots estem lligats al món en què vivim i en què participem. El concepte també ens porta a qüestionar què és el «temps real», com mesurem el temps i de quina manera aquesta mesura és relativa, tot i que determina la nostra percepció de la realitat.
En el món de l’art, el temps és un element crucial en un fet sovint ignorat: la durada de la contemplació de l’obra d’art per part de l’espectador. Com indica Boris Groys, mentre que en els mitjans tradicionals el temps necessari per a la contemplació és determinat per l’usuari, l’art basat en processos temporals (nous mitjans, vÃdeo i performance) passa aquest control a l’obra. Habitualment, les obres d’art mostren un moment especÃfic o una acció fitada en el temps, però què succeeix quan una obra es desenvolupa en el «present continu», en constant transformació i subjecta a un procés sense fi?
«Real Time. Art en temps real» presenta una selecció d’obres d’art contemporani en les quals el concepte de «temps real» té un paper principal, ja sigui pel qüestionament de la relativitat del temps, per l’ús de dades extretes en temps real d’Internet o per la seva intenció de crear una visió actual, «realista» i sempre canviant del temps en què vivim. Algunes de les obres seleccionades es nodreixen de la informació que apareix constantment en els mitjans de comunicació, mentre que altres extreuen dades de diverses fonts, estableixen un procés de producció en temps real o bé proposen un qüestionament de la nostra manera de mesurar el temps i de relacionar-nos amb el present. Les tecnologies que emprem actualment en la nostra vida quotidiana tenen un paper principal en aquestes peces, la qual cosa porta les reflexions sobre el temps a un à mbit molt proper a l’espectador, que en alguns casos pot interactuar amb l’obra i en uns altres ho fa sense saber-ho.
http://artssantamonica.gencat.cat/en/detall/Real-Time.-Art-en-temps-real
Video DOC at Media Art Futures, Departure of All and Text Trends
Video DOC cinema programme at Media Art Futures, Murcia, 15-30 April 2015 features both Text Trends and documentary video of Departure of All.
In his book “The Imaginary Museum†(1965), André Malraux asserted that in the reproductions of artworks published in books and exhibition catalogues we can find more significant artworks that could be seen in the largest museum of the world. Internet has exponentially expanded Malraux’s Imaginary Museum and provided us with unprecedented access to a myriad of artworks. In digital art, the complexity or ephemerality of many artworks makes it difficult to see them in an exhibition and therefore it is the video documentation created by the artists themselves that allows us to discover their works. Two selections of documentation videos present an overview of the many faces of digital art today.
Abelardo Gil-Fournier
Alessandro Ludovico
Aram Bartholl
Aymeric Mansoux
Carlo Zanni
Chris Sugrue
Christa Sommerer
Clara Boj y Diego DÃaz
Dave Griffiths
Evan Roth
F.A.T. Lab
Gordan Savicic
James Powderly
Laurent Mignonneau
Mar Canet
Marco Cadioli
Marloes de Valk
Martin John Callanan
Martina Höfflin
moddr_
Moisés Mañas
Paolo Cirio
Pascal Glissmann
Radamés Ajna
Sander Veenhof
Tempt1
Theo Watson
Thiago Hersan
Thierry Fournier
Tilman Reiff
Varvara Guljajeva
Volker Morawe
VR Urban
Zach Lieberman
Curated by Pau Waelder
See the whole film programme or the whole Festival programme or PDF
How to Construct a Time Machine – This is Tomorrow
How to Construct a Time Machine
MK Gallery Milton Keynes
23 January-22 March 2015
Review by Edwina Attlee
In his essay on the history of photography Walter Benjamin charges patent-law problems and a coincidence of industrious inventors as the cause for the accelerated development and misty history of the medium. Conditions were created ‘that for a long time ruled out any kind of looking back.’ (1) The irony is that photography created the conditions for a backwards-look, an arrest and exposure of the momentary that made looking back, both pastime and pleasure. What was it now possible to look back at? Nothing more than the optical unconscious. This was Benjamin’s term for the hitherto unseen, the blown up, the magnified, the halted and the reversed. After photography people could see, for the first time, ‘their posture in the split second of their stepping out’. It is its revelation of the split second that makes the camera a time machine. Obsession with the split second is not a new phenomenon as the 26 works on show here, spanning 1896 – 2014, make clear. Film, video and still-image animation make up the largest proportion of an exhibition that includes drawings, sculpture, musical scores and recordings. From the grainy magic of Georges Méliès and Louis Lumière to Teching Hsieh’s 8,627 single film frames depicting a year of clock-punching, the screen-based medium seems to be the one that is turned to and returned to for attention to the timely.
The show’s curator, Maquard Smith, set himself this question, ‘what is particular – historically, conceptually, aesthetically – to the recent temporal turn in contemporary art?’ He writes that each work ‘makes it possible to play around with, to transform and reinvent the ordering of the past, the present and the future’. What the works do side-by-side is in fact to reveal the opposite, they might desire to subvert and escape time but not a single one does. The medium of photography and film is satisfying because it can be manipulated; it permits the fantasy of slowing down, speeding up and holding still.
The art historian Carol Mavor has described her essay on nostology (the study of aging) as ‘an embarrassment of helplessness’. This exhibition reveals the construction of time machines to be a similar endeavor. The machines betray a discomforting obsession. Their makers are desperate, compulsive, and I suspect, always to be frustrated. On Kawara’s date paintings are only a more legible version of the lines scored into prison walls, made by a captive so as not to forget. But not to forget what? Are dates so important? Are times? As Martin John Callanan’s ‘real time’ departure board, for all the planes in the world, scrolls through an improbable spew of lift offs from Ho Chi Minh City, from Bradford, from Tibilisi, the effect is nonsensical. These events (flight, waking, falling asleep) are both countable and uncountable, or, counting them does not add up to an amount that contains or stands for what is ‘real’. An attention to time does not hold it still, nor does it empty it of its contents.
Which is not to say that this is a pessimistic exhibition. Although redolent of Samuel Beckett’s gallows humour, a lot of the works are extremely funny. After all, a good joke is all in the timing. Thomson & Craighead’s ‘The Time Machine in Alphabetical Order’ calls out ‘machine, machine, machine, man, man, man, Morlocks!’ A number of the pieces give glimpses of a technological unconsciousness, the unbidden pictures and patterns that emerge from automatic systems of ordering. Manfred Mohr’s programmed expressionism uses algorithms to make art. The humour of these pieces works side-by-side with the discomforting sensation of the inanimate made animate.
It is always funny (and tragic) to think about what is happening at the same time as something else. Upstairs from the exhibition, in an empty Video Room, I watch John Cage and Merce Cunningham dance and make sounds on the same stage. Purposely near to one another but conscientiously dislocated they try to make their work without influence from the other. Cage describes it as ‘two things going on at the same time, which is characteristic of life’. It is the ‘at the same time’ which is the most contemporary of concerns for the time machines whirring in the gallery below. Current technologies make simultaneity visible, splitting seconds and distributing their image. The desperate work of the self-consciously timed machines continues – and the clocks still work.
(1) Walter Benjamin, ‘Brief History of Photography’, One-way Street and Other Writings (London: Penguin, 2009) p.172
British Council Travel Grant Fund
I have received a grant from British Council Travel Grant Fund to travel to the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015. They will be showing Departure of All and Text Trends.
44th International Film Festival Rotterdam
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The 44th International Film Festival Rotterdam will take place 21 January – 1 February 2015, and include Departure of All and Text Trends in the Signals: 24/7 programme.
24/7 will focus on the changing world & technology, and how the attention economy is affecting our lives, how we consume information and how it dominates not only our waking but also our sleeping moments. Our experience of time is mutating at the speed of light, due to the glass fibre and wireless networks that keep us entangled. How this affects our sense of reality now and its impact in the near future is one of the most important discussions in the world today.
In the late 1990s, when Google was barely one year old and was still a privately held company, its future CEO, Dr. Eric Schmidt was already articulating the context in which such a venture would flourish. Schmidt declared that the twenty-first century would be synonymous with what he called the ‘attention economy’, and that the dominant global corporations would be those that succeed in maximizing the number of ‘eyeballs’ they could consistently engage and control.
24/7 is focussed on stimulating discussion on this ‘attention economy’, the global thirst for information and the daily data consumption and mass synchronisation of work and leisure rhythms which are synonymous with this. We are working, communicating and consuming whenever and wherever we happen to be in the world. Divisions between night and day, between rest and work are gradually disappearing. Our experience of time is mutating at the speed of light, due to the glass fibre and wireless networks that keep us entangled.
Therefore 24/7 forces the audience to step out of the cinema, into hotels. A hotel is just like a cinema, a place where one checks in to step out of the daily routine. They are open 24/7 and strongly associated with our need for sleep. While examining the ever-changing world of the 21st Century, this programme challenges the traditional notion of a film ‘slot’ by raising the question of what we now class as a ‘normal duration’.
Films in Signals 24/7
Departure of All at IFFR
Text Trends at IFFR
Signals: 24/7 programme PDF
Made possible with support from the British Council Travel Grant Fund
How to Construct a Time Machine, MK Gallery, Milton Keynes – Departure of All
23 January – 22 March 2015
Preview 22 January 2015 / 6-10pm
MK Gallery, 900 Midsummer Boulevard, Central Milton Keynes, MK9 3QA.
Admission is free
January 2015 MK Gallery presents How to Construct a Time Machine (23 January – 22 March 2015), an exhibition of over twenty-five historical and contemporary works that explore how artists play with media in innovative ways to transform our experience of time.
What is time? How do we order the past, the present, and the future? Why are artists interested in time? How is art a machine, vehicle, or device for exploring time? How is art a means by which time ‘travels’, and how does art permit us to travel in time? Consideration of these and other questions has provided the exhibition rationale for guest curator, Dr Marquard Smith, Head of Doctoral Studies/Research Leader in the School of Humanities at the Royal College of Art, London.
The show’s title is taken from an 1899 text by the avant-garde French writer, Alfred Jarry, written in direct response to H. G. Wells’ science fiction novel The Time Machine (1895). Wells invented and popularised a distinctively modern, fictional concept of time travel, with the time machine as a vehicle that could be operated ‘selectively’.Jarry’s response crafted a pseudo-scientific fiction that presents the time machine and time travel as an instance of ‘the science of imaginary solutions’.
Taking this idea of the time machine, time travel, and perhaps even time itself as an instance of ‘the science of imaginary solutions’, the exhibition is divided thematically across the galleries and includes works by John Cage, Martin John Callanan, Jim Campbell, Edgar Cleijne and Ellen Gallagher, Matt Collishaw, Ruth Ewan, Tehching Hsieh, the Lumière Brothers, Chris Marker, Kris Martin, Manfred Mohr, Melvin Moti, Nam June Paik, Katie Paterson, Elizabeth Price, The Otolith Group, Raqs Media Collective, Meekyoung Shin, Sun Ra, Thompson & Craighead, Mark Wallinger and Catherine Yass, amongst others.
Film work ranges from George Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon (1902), an iconic silent movie which follows a group of astronomers as they explore the moon, to Thomson & Craighead’s The Time Machine in alphabetical order (2010), a complete rendition of the 1960s film version of the Wells’ novella re-edited into alphabetical order.
Sculptural work includes Mark Wallinger’s Time and Relative Dimensions in Space (2001), an aluminium version of Dr Who’s ‘Tardis’ police box that simultaneously disappears into the space-time continuum and reflects its own surroundings, and Ruth Ewan’s We Could Have Been Anything That We Wanted to Be (2012), a decimal clock which divides the day into ten (rather than twenty-four) periods, echoing a bold 18th century French Republican attempt to redefine and rationalise the day.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue, designed by Herman Lelie, featuring an extended Introduction by the exhibition’s curator and a translation of Jarry’s How to Construct a Time Machine, together with essays by Dutch cultural theorist and video artist Mieke Bal and radical philosopher Peter Osborne. The exhibition will be supported by a range of related events including tours by the curator and artists, seminars, academic conferences, and film screenings.
MK Gallery exhibition page
List of works (PDF)
Installation images
Download PDF News Release
Download PDF invite
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The New Yorker, The Fifth Season, James Cohan Gallery
To sum up the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: we’re toast. The nearly two dozen participants in this terrific, if depressing, show propose an art for the Anthropocene, in which time has accelerated (Martin John Callanan’s airport departure board cycles eerily fast), the seasons are out of whack (Charles Burchfield’s “Summer†features a tree, December-bare), and no purchase of organic strawberries will outweigh the ten billion metric tons of carbon spewed forth each year. An eighteenth-century theatrical scene, featuring an artificial sun, leads all too inevitably to AlexisRockman’s trash-strewn seascape, featuring a drowning elephant and a capsizing container ship. The ever-sharp Pierre Huyghe and the young filmmaker Erin Shirreff also make strong contributions, but the most haunting work is an anonymous video from the destroyed power plant at Fukushima, in which a single man points his finger in silent accusation at the camera, at the polluters, at us. Through Aug. 8.
Distribution as a Process for Online Technology
Pauline de Souza
GSTF Journal on Computing (JoC) Vol.3 No.4, April 2014
This article considers how distribution as a process interacts with technology and how users engage with distribution. It is not the first time that the relationship between distribution and technology has been discussed. It was discussed a curatorial practice for online technologies by CRUMB (Curatorial Resource for Upstart Media Bliss) on its 2012-2013 list. some of the discussions about distribution relate it to the visualisation of data within curatorial practice locating it within social and cultural debates. CRUMBS’s online group discussions looked at how the actions of curators, artists and gamers created social environments for people to interact with. Also Furtherfield art projects looked at the accessibility of online technology for people from low economic backgrounds. While mapping projects relate different data to other sources. However, this is not the only way to consider distribution. To comprehend distribution as a process this article discusses the different levels of distribution.
Departure of All cited as example.
The Fifth Season, James Cohan Gallery
24 June – 8 August 2014
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 26, 6 – 8 PM
James Cohan Gallery is pleased to present The Fifth Season, opening on 24 June until 8 August 2014. An opening reception will be held on Thursday 26 June, 6 – 8 pm. This group exhibition explores the seasonal rhythms of natural systems, the human disruptions of these once-balanced cycles, and the increasing alarms of global climate change.
The theme of the “four seasons” has inspired countless works of art throughout history. As a subject, the seasons are metaphors for life cycles and transitions. The calendar propels our existence on a regular emotional and physiological schedule. The rhythm of life is inextricably connected to the quartered year.
Ecological and technological changes have created a less defined cycle of life, one that is sped up by the velocity of communication and slowed down by unpredictable environmental behavior, calling into question our long-held notions of how time behaves. One is confronted on a daily basis by unprecedented connectivity and growing awareness of irregular natural patterns, and we as a species are struggling to understand this new reality.
Whether addressing the conventional notion of the four seasons or reflecting on today’s intense technological hybridity and climate change, the exhibition presents an opportunity to situate ourselves in this fifth season—a highly nuanced, unfamiliar place.
Participating artists: Matthew Brandt, David Brooks, Charles Burchfield, Martin John Callanan, Claude Louis Châtelet, Jacques de Lajoüe, Mark Dion, Spencer Finch, Finger Pointing Worker, Futurefarmers, Carsten Höller, Pierre Huyghe, Natalie Jeremijenko, Beatriz Milhazes + BUF, Katie Paterson, Alexis Rockman, Erin Shirreff, Kota Takeuchi, Alison Elizabeth Taylor, Fred Tomaselli, and Erik Wysocan.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a free publication and guide containing complementary images and texts.
Wie funktioniert Echtzeit, und wie fühlt sie sich an?
Das Irre an der Zeit ist, dass sie trotz eines wissenschaftlichen Einheitssystems eine überaus subjektive, stets changierende Größe ist. Etwa die, auf die Martin John Callanan aufmerksam macht. Sieben Jahre hat er ein Programm entwickelt und es mit Datenleitungen verknüpft, um in Echtzeit weltweit alle abgehenden Flüge komprimiert zu visualisieren. Aber wer mag wohl im Flieger nach Dubai auf Platz E 12 sitzen? Wie schaut er aus? Wie dem Datenmeer Sinnvolles entnehmen? Und was würde es bringen, so lange, wie es vermutlich dauern würde? Ãœberlegungen, die in wenigen Sekunden aufblitzen. Anders Katie Patersons Skulptur nur wenige Meter entfernt: ein Plattenspieler, der in Erdrotationsgeschwindigkeit Vivaldis “Vier Jahreszeiten” abspielt – eine Runde am Tag. Aber Moment: Nach innen verjüngen sich die Kreise. Verlangsamt sich das Gerät? Dehnt sich die Zeit? Zeit ist eben relativ.
Bis 15. Februar, Di-Sa 11-18 Uhr, Friedrichstr. 123