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Film/Video

edited by Timothy Druckrey.
MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London, England, 1999.
$ 40.00
ISBN 0-262-04176-6.
Reviewed by Yvonne Spielmann, Germany. E-mail: spielmann@medien-peb.uni-siegen.de


"Ars Electronica" started in Linz, Austria in 1979 as a festival concerned with the future of arts, technology, society and culture, and their interdisciplinary crossings in the face of a new millennium. Over twenty years the festival has invited experts for debates on topics like computer and culture, possible relations between human (brain) and computer (machine), sciences and arts, and on other fields of synergy, most recently "Life Sciences". The festival also provides the Prix Ars Electronia for computer animation, interactive arts, net works and digital music.

"Facing the Future" is a book of collected essays that Timothy Druckrey has compiled together with "Ars Electronica" to historically, theoretically and also practically reflect steps into developing and thinking the "digital"on the eve of the third millennium. Starting from the themes of the annual festivals the book covers two decades of ongoing preoccupation with a future that is regarded as en era of transformations and crossings based upon the development of microelectronics thereby entering the "third industrial revolution". The essays of this survey are taken from the festival's catalogues and viewed together predominantly foster the idea of the "break", the "shift", the "new", where the meaning of "going digital" is discussed in discourses on networking, Artificial Life, but also in political terms of "Electronic War" and "Information Warfare." Retrospecitively it is interesting to note how the figure 2000 has become an almost magic barrier and quite literally a trademark dividing life into "before and "after". In this view the festival's own approach towards the future stresses techno-enthusiasm and increase of acceleration ending up into a count down, especially when "Ars Electronica" 1990 is announced "Millennium III minus 10."

On the international scale "Ars Electronica" merits to have hold up the concern with electronics arts over two decaces, nevertheless the festival has been taken under critique for going commercial with regard to the Prize winners and at the same time marginalizing the experimental that is critical arts. Albeit justifiable critical standpoints it is commonly agreed in the media community that "Ars Electronica" has constantly taken up issues that are/were at stake and has presented advanced positions in theory and practices. Against this background the reader of "Facing the Future" is invited to follow a young history of research and thinking that step by step demonstrates development and changes in discourse and technology.

The themes of over seventy articles are organized around the three sections history, theory, and practice in chronological order. The history starts with Gene Youngblood' s discussion of video as visual art in 1984, where he points out the potential of the medium as digital video and videodisk in clear distinction to cinema and television, because what matter in digital video is "simulation", not "fiction." At the end of the section Friedrich Kittler analyzes the results of "digital simulation" where "information counts in war". Kittler dismantles the techno-political prefidiousness in scenarios of "information warfare" where the global computer network allows for a new dimension of merging espionage with communication.

In between Peter Weibel informs us with great technical knowledge about the integration of video and computer in the "digital image" and states precursors of "digital art" in the history of experimental arts. While HervÚ Huitric/Monique Nahas closely describe steps in computer programming of visuals, and Heidi Grundmann's well informed contributes to the "language problem" (sound and noise) in radio arts, Kristine Stiles looks into cultural phenomena of destruction in art, unfortunately not even mentioning the works of destroyed architecture by Gordon Matta-Clark Another series of writings is concerned with robots (Hans Moravec), cyborgs (Hari Kunzru) and neurophsical experiments to connect brain and computer (Peter Fromherz).

These issues are continued in the theory section with reflections on synergy effects of "mixing listening and seeing" (Daniel Charles) and on their history that, as Douglas Kahn points out, in particular refers to the Russian film avant-garde, namely Dziga Vertov. The discussion of virtuality is led by experts in physics (most prominently Otto Roessler's explanations of "endophysics" and Weibel's elucidating analysis of scientific approaches towards the co-evolution of man and machine) and philosophy, namely VilÚm Flusser's concern with human capacities, such as memory. It is Manuel de Landa who discusses the military and the market interests in computer networks and calls for a stronger consideration of economic history, including ecological aspects. More recently we are confronted with conceptualizations of life becoming artificial where identity, body and mind is shifting in time and space. Against this background Meltia Zajc discusses the physical experience of the body and how "life" aspects are "used" in media when operations are transmitted through, whereas draws upon the line between life and death with regard to viruses eating up their host.

The ways that artists' projects encounter and deal with these serious matters are certainly more playful such as Steve Mann's efforts to build a "personal information space" that he is carrying around with himself in a helmet equipped with camera. Another striking example described in the practice part of the book is the "Human-Plant" growing project by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau. Here, plants on a projection screen take the shape of evolving organisms in accord with real plants that are touched by the visitors, so that visitors can interactively manipulate shape, colour and position of virtual plants through contact with real plants. However, some readers will find it difficult to imagine the artists' projects by textual description alone and would be grateful for additional visual materials that could have been easily provided on a CD-Rom. Since this survey is discourse oriented we need to consult Ars Electronica's annual catalogues for more information on the artworks.

Druckrey's editorial introduction hightlights historical aspects of the implementation of technology into arts by referring in particular to the activities of EAT (Experiments in Art and Technology) and the group of artists and engineers around Billy KlÄver who initiated and organized collaborative pojects in the late 60's and 70's, among them were Robert Rauschenberg, Yvonne Rainer, Lucinda Childs, John Cage. Therefore, the aim of the editors to present collected essays in the name of "Facing the Future" is better understood in terms of continuation and as conceptual prolongation of historical roots into the future in order "to sustain a focussed assessment of the impact of computing on all aspects of culture and creativity." (P. 19.) Surely, the book is a "must" for all readers interested in new and latest media culture, because it not only represents what is and was going on, but also gives insight into the debates of the "use" of challenging technologies that also challenge our understanding of society, creativity and human intelligence.