Virtuelle verdener og rum

X: 17. april 2002

- Kunst i virtuelle verdener

Primærlitteratur: Primærlitteratur: Johansson, Troels Degn. 2000: "Staging Collaborative Relations: Superflex' Art for the Internet"

Kunst i virtuelle verdener

- Hvordan kan virtuelle verdener bruges som medie for samtidskunsten?

- Hvordan bruger den danske kunstnergruppe Superflex virtuelle verdener i deres såkaldt relationelle/sociale kunst? Hvordan hænger kunstkritikeren Nicolas Bourriauds begreb om relationel kunst sammen med Superflex’ praksis?

Staging Collaborative Relations: Superflex' Art for the Internet

Troels Degn JohanssonAssistant Professor

Staging Collaborative Relations: Superflex' Art for the Internet

- foredrag ved netkunst-konferencen CULT 2001, Kulturnet Danmark, 3.-5. oktober 2001

Superflex as “Net-Art” or “Collaborative Art”?

• Not only because some of their projects make use of the Internet: Superchannel, Karlskrona2

• Not only because Superflex establishes project networks for cross-disciplinary collaborations

• Perhaps especially because Superflex establishes a common “net environment” that both make use of the Internet and networks based on art

Superflex’ “Net Environment”

• The Internet as technology seems less important than the “net” as a conceptual principle

• Networking as an organisational principle seems less important than the idea of networking, that is, network as a principle of art

• Superflex’ thematises the “net” and “networking” by staging them: Staging collaborative relations by means of the Internet

Collaborating with Superflex

• Two years strategic partnership with art group Superflex with reference to the development of the Karlskrona2 concept: a geographically based, virtual 3D-world (3D MUD).

• Applied research as a media studies scholar in Internet-based visualisation of landscape and urban space -- using e.g. Karlskrona2 as a medium.

• Research also in problems regarding Superflex’ work as fine art: relational art, cyberculture, etc.

Superflex - www.superflex.dk

Superflex - Introduction

• Superflex are: Bjørnstjerne Christensen, Jacob Fenger, Rasmus Nielsen; students from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts; currently holding the Danish state art foundation scholarship.

• Considerable international interest for app. 4-5 years, part of the ‘wave’ of Scandinavian relational artist

• Also a company which should be economically ‘sustainable’. Office in central Copenhagen.

Karlskrona2 and Superchannel

• Two out of Superflex’ current main projects; both based in the Internet as a ‘relational’ medium and cyberspace as a communication environment

• Karlskrona2: a 3D Multi-User Domain (MUD) based on a digital model of the minor Swedish city Karlskrona’s central, old square.

• Superchannel: A combination of streaming media, web-chat and a local, public accessible studio.

Superflex’ Project Karlskrona2 / Wolfsburg2

Superflex’ Karlskrona2

• A 3D Multi-User Domain (3D MUD) based on a digital model of the city centre incl. the UNESCO-protected square

• Video screen linking real and virtual city centres

• Special privileges to local citizen users

• Addressing an IT strategy for regional development in Karlskrona/Blekinge council

Superflex’ Karlskrona2

Superflex’ Karlskrona2

Karlskrona2’s current ActiveWorlds interface featuring a 3D display, a chat window, a navigation panel, and a web browser

www.karlskrona2.org

• Download install program and install the K2 application

• Further info on site

www.superchannel.org

Superflex’ Superchannel

• Web-casted streaming media (RealMedia)

• Local art galleries used as Superchannel ”TV studios” - or libraries and public spaces which are made into ‘art spaces’ by the staging of Superflex.

• Continuous web-chat dialogues by the web-cast audience.

• A common Superchannel site featuring a list of channels, a news section, and an archive

Superchannel and Karlskrona2

• Locally anchored networks featuring “concentric communications” staged by relational “net-artist”

Superchannel and Karlskrona2

• Locally anchored networks featuring “concentric communications” staged by relational “net-artist”

Staged by Art”

- dealing with Karlskrona2 as a planning studies scholar I am:

• Staged as a common 3D MUD user

• Staged on the ‘art scene’ to present my experiences with the application of relational art

• Staged as a media scholar using K2 as a concept and a technology to promote a critical understanding of 3D-visualisation in planning communication

Superflex’ ‘Art Stage’

• Superflex thus stages processes, actors, and project partners on the ‘neutral foundation’ of art: It creates networks, makes thing happen -- and documents the results as stages of development before in the art world (galleries, etc.)

• Superflex works ‘outside’ the art world in ‘the name of art’ -- their projects have a particular aim and cause in a society, they are not aimless as in traditional art (aimlessness, aesthetic pleasure and contemplation).

Superflex’ ‘Art Stage’

• Staging of relations seems to be a general strategy for Superflex as relational artists

• Anything, that is, any system of relations seems in this sense potentially to be ‘stageable’ in the ‘name of art’, with Superflex’ ‘signature’: social, economic, representational, etc. - perhaps also urban systems?

• To stage relational systems is for relational artist just to recognise the basic function of art.

Staging of Future

• Reality is staged as ‘realised scenarios’

• The staging of relations applies to a possible causality, not to prognoses, and a particular outcome that may finalise the project: it is about ‘If’, not ‘when’: “What if …”

• Relational art is in a fundamental sense opportunistic: Its material is opportunity, what may possibly be realised

Staging of future

• The staging of relations is progressive, ideally infinite -- unlike most art works!

• Relational art is in this sense ‘larger than life and art’ -- since both are usually understood in terms of an ending: The limitation of Life and art form.

Superflex - Characteristics

• Superflex consists of anonymous artist personalities -- what is important is business, the case, the cause: To make things happen

• The orange colour is Superflex’ ‘signature’: Anonymous orange connotes both ‘techno aesthetics’ and (public) service functions.

• Although Superflex seems to devote themselves primarily to function, service, and technology, their art should be understood critically as fine art.

Superflex as Relational Art

• Nicolas Bourriaud: “esthetique relationelle”

• Relational art: A conceptual orientation in art that seeks to create relations between individuals, institutions, etc. -- sometimes also designated as social art.

• Relational art is about the special (economical) contexts which are established and maintained by art as such: marginal/alternative economies.

Relational Art • Nicolas Bourriaud: “the work of art can be approached as a form of reality, and no longer as the image of an image.” (Bourriaud - with reference to Plato)

• Nicolas Bourriaud: to establish a ‘network or relational universe: current art is composed of these mental entities which move like ivy, growing roots as they make their way more and more complex.’ (of “Esthetique relationelle”)

Relational Art as Net-Working

• We should perhaps understand pictures in art, pictorial art, as invitations rather than representations? Invitations to continue oneself the work which has been initiated by the art-work.

• Invitations are directed towards the future, re- presentations towards the past.

• Networks (Internet, relations) are seen as something organic: Art grows as art work becomes inspired by art work.

Superflex’ Network-Art -- based on invitations

Karlskrona2s log-in-interface