Dear Juliette, dear everyone,
Having been on the road in Europe since the beginning of May and in the
process of developing a new piece called “Far-Flung’s future” – a second
installment of the real-time data and performative installation series
called “Far-Flung” – I unfortunately only found time this week to follow
up on (most of) the exciting and informative posts on this panel. Thank
you, Juliette, for inviting me to be part of this, and having the chance
to be connected to a lot of inspiring thoughts.
As the panel will come to its end soon, as I understand, I’d like to touch
upon just a couple of thoughts that caught my attention, and also refer
briefly to my own art practice.
In my work I utilize real-time processes of a variety of sources and
re-enact them through other process-based “languages” – physically or
virtually or both. I started working in that way – with real-time data –
about fifteen years ago, being intrigued by the idea of “liveness” as this
novel and uncontrollable parameter adding a new layer of reality, or
medium, to my work.
In earlier works HTML code became dance and then performed HTML again, or,
more recent, remote weather data controls the performance of different
components in Internet art works or "physical" works. In the above
mentioned “Far-Flung” series, I find myself dealing with a variety of
processes. One, the software-based part that constantly reaches out to
weather stations and grabs the data to choreograph the space itself,
controlling video, audio and lights in a theater space,
while, secondly, performers and the audience are to follow the same
“rules” as the media. I am fascinated by bringing machine language and
human/physical language together, while applying the “on-the-fly”
character of computer processes to human performance.
Reading through the posts in this panel I was smitten with the discussion
about “residue” versus “object” in process-based art, brought up by Ashok
Mistry and Victoria Bradbury.
Also, I find Stephanie’s installation “Reversal of Fortune: Garden of
Virtual Kinship” such a strong example for a contemporary process-based
art work, as it uses an actual (and social) real-time process
(crowd-sourcing) while reenacting this virtual process through another
process, through the watering system of plants.
I often think about such complex works as flexible “frameworks” that
become alive and "animated” through real-time input. I usually describe my
own work as this kind of framework, which I would call an object, no
matter if it consists of a physical or virtual framework, but I think what
makes it contemporary is, that it is a “live” object, one, that only
completely exists when some sort of “life-line” is hooked up to it.
I wonder, Juliette, when you think about “curating” the process, do you
maybe see a parallel here, meaning: do you think about showing
process-based artworks through other processes, and if yes, what kind?
Looking forward to hearing back…
Thanks,
Ursula
Ursula Endlicher
www.ursenal.net
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