apologies to those who are already on the thing list, but simon rightly
suggested this discussion could have a good place here too, so I've
copied the relevant posts over re lyotard's exhibition...


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: <thingist> immaterial semiotics
Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2001 11:22:50 +0100
From: Simon Biggs <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]

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I am not familiar with the Berlin show, but Les Immateriaux was certainly
very important. Curated by one of the then defining voices of contemporary
thought (Lyotard) it was of direct relevance to the development of new
media art (especially art that uses "the media") for several reasons.

Firstly, the show focused as much on the installation of the works as the
content itself. The aesthetic, as the title of the event suggests, was to
dematerialise the artifacts so that the systems of communication, value and
power that they existed within, and were defined by, could be revealed. To
achieve this the show was designed such that individual exhibits became
blurred in their boundaries, one piece merging into another. Some exhibits
were distributed so that you would not be able to determine just where they
began or ended. Many of the works were also physically transparent or
almost immaterial in their physicality anyway (one of the few "serious" art
shows ever to include holography, for example). These characteristics, and
that the show also made little attempt to distinguish between "artistic"
artifacts and those of a more manufactured or simply idiosyncratic
character, also functioned to dematerialise or deconstruct one of Lyotard's
primary targets in the show (and his theories of the time) which was
Benjamin's notion of the "aura" (and its dependent narratives, upon which
contemporary art - theory and practice - so depends...still, sadly, today).

Another interesting aspect of the show was its information system. Rather
than use conventional text on the walls, or info-kiosks, the curators used
a mobile audio-system (now familiar from more recent events and
exhibitions, but then a new idea). Essentially this worked by the
exhibition visitor carrying with them a hand held audio device which picked
up data depending on where the viewer was. This allowed for a poly-valent
narrative to emerge in the show, allowing the viewer to find their own
chronological and heirarchical path through the work, thus also functioning
to further simultaneously reveal and dematerialise value.

Thirdly, the catalogue for Les Immateriaux was one of the most chaotic you
are ever likely to see. Not bound (just loose paper sheets) and pages
unnumbered, it might as well have been put together randomly. In this
design the catalogue also sought to reveal value through the now classic
Cagean deconstructive trick of rendering all information equal in its
delivery, the idea being that new or unusual readings of value could emerge
as new patterns and relationships between things could be discerned. Given
that it was printed in French (although bits have been translated by third
parties) also lent the texts a certain obsfucating character.

Today many of these techniques and strategies are part of the established
curatorial vocabulary, but in 1984  this was a new language seeking to
reflect on what was proposed as an emerging information based cultural
economy. This was ten years before the popularisation of the Internet. In
this Les Immateriaux was a very important show, probably on a par with
earlier, although quite differently oriented, shows such as Osaka,
Software, Nine Evenings and Cybernetic Serendipity.

Interestingly, Les Immateriaux sits, historically, rather on its own. There
were the series of shows just mentioned, which were part of a discourse
established throughout the 60's which faltered and became comatose in the
early 70's, and then that which emerged in the late 80's (mostly through
the European media festivals of that time) and has developed into the
current rash of shows in the USA. This rupture, into the middle of which
Les Immateriaux chronologically falls, is placed into profile by this
exhibitions very existence. That Lyotard's writings underpinned a lot of
art, and especially media art, theory in the 80's echoes this.

My own curatorial practice (particularly Interface: a survey of art and
technology for the 1984 Adelaide Festival of Arts; and the 1999 digital
media galleries for the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television
in the UK) has been profoundly influenced by Lyotard's ideas in Les
Immateriaux and his other writings - although funnily I was not aware of
the Pompidou show in 1983-4 when putting together Interface. However, at
the NMPFT there was a concious attempt to echo the Lyotard show of 15 years
earlier as a means to refocus on where these media had brought us since
then.

There has been so little debate around these histories (which are both
contiguous and disconnected) and I sometimes get exhausted by the
ahistorical tone of contemporary media (especially net based) art
discourse, which not only leads to history repeating itself but also
profound miscomprehension.

best

Simon





Simon Biggs

[log in to unmask]
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
The Great Wall of China at http://www.greatwall.org.uk/

Research Professor
Art and Design Research Centre
School of Cultural Studies
Sheffield Hallam University
Sheffield, UK
http://www.shu.ac.uk/


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