Postproduction

Nicolas Bourriaud delivers a tale of contemporary art of the new media and installation realm. Epitomized by the dj, a recursive culture defined by the ability to respond. The internet and digital media have enabled the masses to rewrite rather than simply read, content is recycled. Cultural language in it's various manifestations, auditory, visual, written etc...is now broadly accessible via the computer and internet, and as a logical extension, modified. As follows the story of art, this evolution requires sampling and mixing, mashing and manipulation in search of new form. Artists have employed such tactics since the beginning of time. The Greek Kourai was modeled on the archaic Egyptian statues. Slowly a sense of motion and controposto was developed through a new emphasis on empiricism and anatomy. Soon, Greek tradition became Roman tradition and later the inspiration for the Renaissance. Leonardo looked at Giotto. Caravaggio to Leonardo and thus leading toward the modern era. Monet admired Japanese prints while Hemingway gained a voice in the shadow of James Joyce. Just as the late John Updike identified with the even later Salinger, (two of my favorites, r.i.p.). Picasso referenced Cezanne and Andre Breton was guided by Freud. And then we have Pollock, who has since become one of the defining visions of abstract art in the post-war period. But I can't forget the mighty Duchamp, who likely took interest in synthetic cubism and Picasso's language games. Appropriation as a tool of specificity persuades with calculated measure. Acute relationships dissolve ambiguity and invite critique as a form of art. Imitation and adaption may be equated to analysis and synthesis, these strategies provide an approach to art that is at once oriented to the past and future. Employ history on behalf of the present and future. To his own admission, Bourriaud presents these contemporary works within a system of shared information, input, discourse - in short, sampling. Perhaps what he means to say is the world is full of prose, waiting for form to make poetry. Or in this case, subversive-gain through critical negation. Which brings me to my questions.

Does Bourriaud's argument feel fresh? Is this evolutionary study the product of a new cultural phenomena? Or does it follow the well trodden historical path? I think this point is contentious because new media artists face licensing issues.

Does the term postproduction imply an inability to create, that is from scratch? And if so, does it also devalue skill and tradition in favor of the sample? Once this has passed, and I think it has, where will these artists be? Artists without formal skill, instead, engaging the world and culture vis-a-vis abundant data and a compulsive need to mix and expose. Creation normally implies addition or accretion, but in this case suggests manipulation as a process of negation. Of course these works are symptomatic of the postmodern period, one marked by skepticism and divorced ideologies.

What if artists decide the culture no longer works, without skill, how will we revolt? What would a 21st century Neo-Dada movement look like?

In an age of postproduction, how has the value of art changed? And as an extension, the individual? The modern period was marked largely by entrepreneurship and an emphasis on innovation. The new dismissed the old. But now, the new exclusively employs the old in service of the new, or i suppose, newer. The exotic once informed Monet and Picasso, while creolization now defines the contemporary world. But with Monet and Picasso, while the foreign reference informed their new expression, the emphasis still rested on the new because the translation marked a radical departure. Postproduction suggests less translation and interpretation in favor of direct citation and manipulation.

Interpretation as transformation embraces the new through the interpretive work of the hand and mind.

Daniel Pflumm
Tony Smith, Black Box, 1962
Allan Kaprow

How has the audience changed? If it expected and encouraged to always participate, does that diminish the value of a finished work, or the efforts of the individual? How has the idea of connoisseurship changed? If everyone has a voice then, effectively, no one is heard. The democratizing process has leveled the landscape.
Jakob Kolding
Liam Gillick