New Aesthetic New Anxieties - Institute for the Unstable Media

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7. ERROR 404: NO AESTHETIC FOUNDAt the core of new media art is the question of how culture is embracing digitaltechnology. Representing digital artefacts and online behaviours in the physical worldis a recognized artistic strategy among new media artists to address this question (foran example, Bartholl 2012). Although many new media artworks are part of orcomment on the “eruption of the digital into the physical” (Sterling 2012) that the NewAesthetic speaks to, we have been challenged to think why many of them would beout of place posted on the New Aesthetic Tumblr or grouped as part of that meme.THE REPRESENTATION PROBLEMThe New Aesthetic meme lives online (Bridle 2012a, 2012b), which by default meansthat any physical thing or event it embraces is by definition a digital representation ofthat thing or event. This is problematic for an artwork that is conceptually grounded inthe fact that it is physical, taking place in three dimensional space and time. Thisincludes many new media artworks that formally fall under the New Aesthetic. TakeAram Bartholl's artwork Maps (2006-2010) for example, posted on the New AestheticTumblr on June 2, 2011. In Maps Bartholl places actual-size Google balloons in publicspaces to investigate the aesthetic of "the red map marker of the location basedsearch engine Google Maps" (Bartholl 2006). Clearly, it is the sheer overwhelmingimpact of a larger-than-human-sized Google Maps balloon that communicates theawkward relative measurements of digital artefacts that we seem to accept withoutquestion in the digital realm. This awkwardness only really becomes apparent howeverwhen one physically encounters such an 'out-of-proportion' Google balloon. Bydocumenting and posting such an encounter on a Tumblr, the Google Maps balloonis re-introduced into the digital realm in which its proportions are commonly accepted,which consequently radically decreases the artwork's communicative power.Even better examples of this 'representation problem' for new media artworks in thelight of the New Aesthetic exist outside of the New Aesthetics Tumblr. Take AramBartholl's Dead Drops (2010-2012) project for instance, "an anonymous, offline, peerto peer file-sharing network in public space" (Bartholl 2010). The file-sharing networkexists of USB flash drives 'embedded into walls, buildings and curbs accessible toanybody in public space' and on which everyone is invited to drop or find files (ibid.).The Dead Drops concept can undeniably be communicated through photo or videodocumentation, but the artwork itself can not. The artwork consists of physicallystanding outside in the street with ones laptop pushed against a wall mounting theUSB drive while receiving suspicious looks of passers-by as one drops files or picksthem up. It is this embodied experience imposed by the materiality of a dead drop thatmakes a user think 'Is this legal?', 'Do I owe somebody copyright?', or 'Are the lyrics tothis song perhaps too explicit?' In other words, it's the fact that Dead Dropsmaterializes file sharing in our daily urban environment that confronts us with theethics of online file sharing, which moreover happens anonymously and usersconsequently feel less accountable for their actions.35
Similarly, performative projects that (by definition) belong to the realm of the NewAesthetic suffer this 'representation problem'. Topshot Helmet (2006/2007) by Juliusvon Bismarck for instance, recreates the bird's eye (or 'topshot') perspective that iscommon in the digital realm, for instance in video games or online navigationapplications such as Google Maps. It recreates this perspective by means of a headmounteddisplay that depicts live video from a camera floating above the user's headpointing downward. The artwork comments on the unnatural perspective that thisbird's eye view is to humans - it's even hard to navigate an empty room withthe Topshot Helmet on. More important, it conveys this reflection on the bird's eyeperspective common in the digital realm through the physical experience of thisperspective. Topshot Helmet, the artwork, is the embodied experience of the 'topshot'.Any form of online documentation of the artwork is mere representation of the actualwork; something that might convey the idea behind the artwork but not do justice tothe artwork itself.For many posts on the New Aesthetic Tumblr, the fact that Tumblr only allows forrepresentations of projects in the physical world is not at all problematic. A glitchdesign is a glitch design when captured in the photograph of a billboard or flyer.Similarly, a military vehicle with pixel-like camouflage does not transform its meaningso much in the documentation of the vehicle; it is already a surface print afterall. Manyartworks that represent digital artefacts and behaviours in the offline world (andhence thus by definition belong to the 'New Aesthetic'), however do reference stronglydifferentiated experienced in the physical world. For this reason, artworks such asDead Drops and Topshot Helmet sit uncomfortably under the New Aesthetic meme.The meme lives online, while these artworks live in the world, are conceptuallygrounded in their materiality, and convey their concepts and material-semioticnegotiations through embodied experiences.BEYOND THE PIXEL SCULPTUREMany of the posts on the New Aesthetic Tumblr are relatively straightforward physicalrenditions of a digital aesthetic. Take the many pixel sculptures for example thatfeature on the New Aesthetic Tumblr and those that appear in the lectures thatfollowed it. They seem to say not much more than something in the vein of "We lookperfectly normal on a computer screen, so what are you looking at?!" Besides perhapsprovoking awareness regarding the low resolution of the digital realm in comparison tothe world offline, these sculptures do not really affect our view on pixels, and it's safeto say that pixel sculptures do not influence our behaviour when we engage withpixels. Many artworks that by definition would qualify as belonging to the NewAesthetic however do much more than that. We might ask why it is exactly thoseworks, that aim to affect our views and influence our behaviour, that seem to bemissing in the New Aesthetic discourse. Take Domestic Tension (2007) by Wafaa Bilalfor instance, a perfect exemplar of a 'native product of modern networkculture' (Sterling 2012), but never discussed in the light of the New Aesthetic.In DOMESTIC TENSION, viewers can log onto the internet to contact or "shoot"Bilal with paintball guns. Bilal's objective is to raise awareness of virtual war and36
Page 2 and 3: NEW AESTHETIC NEW ANXIETIES
Page 4: TABLE OF CONTENTSNew Aesthetic New
Page 8 and 9: 1. AESTHETIC TURNSA month before th
Page 10 and 11: arguably animated all of these scen
Page 12 and 13: esource for curators. She has writt
Page 14: INTRODUCTION3. INTRODUCTION4. NEW A
Page 17 and 18: This is followed by a series of ref
Page 19 and 20: Jumping from the medium of the scre
Page 21 and 22: Aesthetic seems to evoke what alrea
Page 23 and 24: 4. NEW ANXIETIESThe # tumblresque i
Page 25 and 26: worked to propane-fuel this intelle
Page 27 and 28: “pigeon language” that takes pl
Page 29 and 30: NET EFFECTSThe new aesthetic episod
Page 31: CURATORIAL READINGS5. A BLOGPOST AS
Page 34 and 35: the image are those that can be dis
Page 36 and 37: which radiate a lightness of form,
Page 38 and 39: intends to produce connections betw
Page 42 and 43: privacy, or lack thereof, in the di
Page 44: IRRUPTIONS8. THE NEW AESTHETIC AS R
Page 47 and 48: are in danger of further 'screen es
Page 49 and 50: 9. WHAT ARE THE CONDITIONS OF POSSI
Page 51 and 52: at-hand/ ready-to-hand) - this is a
Page 53 and 54: the difference between aesthetic fo
Page 55 and 56: engaged which computationally inter
Page 57 and 58: Kant argues that ‘mere reason’
Page 59 and 60: 11. THE POLITICS OF EMERGENT AESTHE
Page 61 and 62: We now find ourselves in a situatio
Page 63 and 64: crisis-ridden economic condition, i
Page 65 and 66: ultimately responses that together
Page 67 and 68: ‘informational societies’? How
Page 69 and 70: 12. BIBLIOGRAPHYADILKNO (The Founda
Page 71 and 72: Bridle, J. (2011a) 'The New Aesthet
Page 73 and 74: Heidegger, M. (1977) The Question C
Page 75 and 76: Globally', empyre, http://www.maila
Page 77 and 78: 13. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSBy its very nat

New Aesthetic New Anxieties - Institute for the Unstable Media

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