2.2.5.1.1. Artistic innovation
Processpatching directs us to another kind of artist-innovator. After the technological innovation, (2.2.3.1.1.) the second group of artistic innovators focus mainly on innovation in the arts. This is often driven by technological exploration and here the main motivator is the extension or renewal of artistic means of expression. It might be obvious that, for the multi-professional artist and inventor, there is no need to distinguish between technical and artistic motives. Art inventions are not only related to software and hardware inventions; the modern engineer, painter, animator and filmmaker Oskar Fischinger, for example, already patented his Lumigraph device (1953)[147]. The Lumigraph is a puppet theatre-like interactive projection screen, made of a stretched cloth sheet that could be pressed from behind by the operator’s hands or objects to intersect thin sheets of light that were controlled by foot pedals.
The artist-inventors who work more according to the conceptual art tradition are less occupied with the pragmatic or the general appliance of their inventions. Examples can be found in the dynamic objects of the Belgian artist, engineer, physicist and inventor Panamarenko[148], who builds conceptual prototype machines that deal with concepts like space, movement, aero- dynamics and gravity; or the Dutch artist, inventor, and science educated Theo Jansen[149], the constructor of animal-like skeletons that are able to walk on the wind.
Many technical developments in the past catalysed artistic innovation.
‘I have drawn the conclusion that the artist’s approach to technology can and will lend new life to their stagnating methods, which are often in contradiction with the functions of the epoch of reconstruction.’ (V. Tatlin)[150]
Tatlin states this from an early machine-art, constructivist point of view. Here the artist is supposed to sufficiently master the technology and / or materials, and Tatlin does so for formal exploration. Examples of artistic research and development, which brought along artistic innovation, can be found in the field of photography, film, kinetic art, machine art, video, and the more recent digital media.
Commonly cited works include the experiments from the early 1920s onwards by Man Ray[151] who explored the technical potential of photography and film. Ray experimented with lighting, printing, filters and animation techniques to discover new form of artistic expression. Though he was believed to be a great technical talent Ray stated that the exploration of new aesthetics was the main motivation for his research, not the technical crafts. Ray represents a larger group of artists who study their medium, and through their experimentations, they design their own media technology, or transform known technology for entirely different purposes. This kind of experimentation, and the desire to fully understand the technological matter, has its traditions in many disciplines as the Van Eyck[152] brothers already demonstrated with their oil paint invention. In the 1970s and 1980s the introduction of the medium of video brought a new flock of artistic pioneers. Among those pioneers were Nam June Paik (2.2.5.1.) and the Vasulkas, who explored the possibilities of real time recording, the video signal, the lengths of tapes, and the camera as audience, etc.
‘The work of ‘pioneer’ video artists Steina and Woody Vasulka can be characterized by a continuing inquiry in the electronic processing aspects of the medium ’video’, form an innate desire to understand at first the inner workings of electronic phenomena, and alter of digital ones. In so doing, the artists have not only made a major contribution to art, but also to the development of image processing.’(M. Bijvoet)[153]
Paik and the Valsukas also worked in a field prior to the video pioneering: music. Music and audio research was, like video and film, related to artistic research in kinetics and performance art. These experimentations also included collaborations and the blurring of disciplinary borders. In the field of audience participation and interaction, Marina Abramoviç and Ulay have been a source of inspiration for their integrated works combining video with action performance, experimenting especially with the social interaction in the audience-performer relationship.
Music (and later electronic music) took off at a much faster speed than the visual experiments, as seen in the work of John Cage, Karl Heinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez.[154] Parallel to these developments, artists were working with kinetics[155], machine-like art pieces embodying the industrial age’s time and dynamics. In particular, elements of the material-oriented research approaches known from mechanical kinetic art (e.g. the work from László Moholy-Nagy[156] and Jean Tinguely[157]) can be found back in machine art and robotics. In the Netherlands, artists/engineers such as Dick Raaijmakers,[158] Michel Waisvisz[159] and the co-founders of STEIM[160], V2_, Institute for the Unstable Media,[161] Time Based Arts and the Appel worked as pioneers in this experimental field. All these artistic research trajectories explored new materials or new media and pushed the disciplinary boundaries led by their search for new artistic means of expression and aesthetics.
Laurie Andersen is another world famous artist whose work reflects an ongoing exploration of aesthetics, materials and genres. Anderson is pushing and redrawing the borderlines of disciplines in her electronic music, multimedia, language performances and other art projects.
‘Her complex and multifaceted art crosses and mixes genres with witty grace (she is musician, singer, dancer, sculptor, poet, photographer, technology-freak) and renders these persistent subjects: her country - the United States - and what it means to be an American adult today.’ (P. McCorduck) [162]
Another outstanding example of this ‘material’ research can be found in the oeuvre of the late Dutch composer, theatre maker, painter, and visionary Jurriaan Andriessen[163], who frequently crossed the disciplinary borders in his work. His most significant multidisciplinary material research is probably Hedwig’s portrait that was composed of thousands of musical notes, and each part of the portrait represented a small composition.
In general, material exploration has brought forward a remix culture in audio and music over the last decades in various branches of experimental and popular music. These experiments built on techniques from tape editing by means of audio, to later visual sampling techniques. This took off at high speed when digital means of production were in the hands of the artists themselves. The artists involved in this field mostly explored the material through their own studio experiments. The electronic music assembles such as the Art of Noise took the remix culture to an extreme, as their music is composed from samples. Mixed media expert Brian Eno[164] introduced new music genres by mixing and reworking traditional styles into new blends and directions in popular music. Also in popular music artists play with remix culture, with artists such as Madonna making it her brand. Madonna is famous for her monthly or even weekly metamorphoses in looks and style. The Dutch feminist authors Hanna Bosma and Patricia Pisters[165] bring forward a summary of the styles they observed in Madonna’s musical oeuvre: pop, disco, soul, dance, funk, black gospel, classical string orchestras, noise, rap, hip-hop, house, ambient, all complimented by influences from world music such as Spanish, Latin-American, Middle Eastern, and so on. Recently the dance and club scene has brought forward a range of re-mix styles, which are often live, and created by disk jockeys (djs) and video jockeys (veejees) who often work together on audiovisual shows and have created in their work an new innovative art form. One of the currently celebrated djs worldwide is the Dutch artist Tiësto.[166]
The artistic exploration of materials and techniques brings forward unexpected approaches to material usage and re-appropriation. Michael Naimark[167] writes about the anomalies in mediated sensory experiences and how different disciplines deal with these. He refers to movie-making and montage as means of transporting people in time and space in a way that is impossible in the real world, and other make believe mechanisms from animation and film techniques (such as leaps in time and continuity). Naimark promotes the image of the artist as creator of metaphor and poetry. This artistic intention is very different from most technical research objectives as these usually aim to improve the technique or technology, with physical reality as their sublime reference. Most innovations in visual technology, for example, aim for a continuous representation of our (daily) reality.
‘In all cases, the goal is indistinguishably from first-hand experience in the physical world: ‘just like being there.’ Such VR doesn’t exist and may never,(..) So for now, we live with even the best sensory media having some degree of anomalies, these anomalies are not intentional, and entire industries exist to make higher resolution cameras, better synthesized lighting models and auto-stereoscopic display. The goal is not about creating metaphor and poetry but about re-creating a multi-sensory experience that is as consistent as possible.’ (M. Naimark) [168]
Here it is observed that artists repurpose technology or its shortcomings to invent or create new artistic expressions. This illustrates the gap between the different disciplinary perspectives and research objectives, artists knit together different technological areas and anomalies in technology to achieve something that is totally out of the technical realm. The anomalies and shortcomings of technology and machinery are, in a more general sense, crucial elements of artists’ appreciation of machine aesthetics.
