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Mit Werken von:
Silke Briel
BURGHARD
Frank Eickhoff
Brenna Murphy
Jaakko Pallasvou
Jon Satrom
Sinta Werner
Kuratiert von Stephan Köhler (frontviews temporary)
„Ausführen, materialisieren, realisieren, produzieren: es scheint, als sei dies die ideale Bestimmung eines jeden Dings, nach einer zugleich vom Fortschritt und einer inneren Notwendigkeit bestimmten Bewegung vom Zustand des Möglichen zu dem des Realen überzugehen.“ (Jean Baudrillard „Die Intelligenz des Bösen“ , S. 16, Zeilen 4-9 (zweite Definition der „Intergralen Realität“), Passagen Verlag Wien, 1. Auflage 2007)
Frontviews möchte mögliche Verbindungen von J. Baudrillards Argumentation in “Die Intelligenz des Bösen” auf Phänomene und Tendenzen in der zeitgenössischen Kunst offenlegen. In diesem Buch führt Baudrillard einen neuen Status für die aktuelle anthropologische Entwicklung ein. Er nennt diesen Status „Integrale Realität“. Folgt man seinen Ausführungen, gab es eine Zeit in der Glauben, Idee und Vorstellung klar getrennt waren von der materialistischen, physischen Welt. Natürlich haben einige Ideen, einige Utopien, einige Erfindungen diese Grenze überschritten und wurden „wirklich“, aber in diesem Moment war es offensichtlich, dass sie ihren Status geändert hatten: Aus dem Reich der Vorstellung in den Bereich der Realität. In seinem Buch attestierte Baudrillard bereits 2004 ein Ende dieses alten, ausgewogenen Dualismus zwischen der Imagination und der Realität, denn die Dominanz der Realität werde in unserer aktuellen Gesellschaft stark forciert. Das zeigt Baudrillard an vielen Entwicklungen auf, unter anderem an der weltweiten exponentiellen Zunahme der industriellen Produktion, der Dienstleistungen, der Datenmengen, der Massenmedien und nicht zuletzt der code-basierten Virtualität in unseren Leben. Es gäbe das große Bedürfnis in unserer Gesellschaft mehr und mehr „Realität“ zu produzieren, egal in welchem Medium, in welcher Größe, in welcher Materialität. Baudrillard nennt diesen alarmierende sozialen Sog also „Intergrale Realität“ und er lässt keinen Zweifel daran, dass dieses Phänomen eine große Wirkung auf uns haben wird.
In den laborartigen Räumen der Studiogalerie des Hauses am Lützowplatz wird das Kunst-Kollektiv frontviews der Frage nachgehen, ob und wie sich diese Thesen Baudrillards eventuell auch auf die Zeitgenössischen Kunst niederschlagen. Von Stephan Köhler wurden dazu einige Positionen in einer reduzierten Selektion zusammengeführt, welche – bis auf eine prägnante Gegenposition – die Prinzipien der „Integralen Realität“ scheinbar mühelos aufgreifen und noch potenzieren. Es sind Werke, die ohne große Widerstände zwischen den Medien und den Zuständen fluktuieren. Gerade noch imaginierte Idee sind sie jetzt schon Zahlencodes, welche durch die Medien wandern, nur um sich hier und da als einzelnes Bild, als eine Operation, als eine Reihe bewegter Bilder oder als Objekt zu manifestieren. In allen diesen Formen sind sie nach Baudrillard bereits „realisiert“ und überschwemmen uns in der enormen Diffusität ihres Facettenreichtums und Ihrer Anpassungsfähigkeit. Mit Hilfe einer strukturierten Textarbeit und der Diskussion am einzelnen Werk wird die Ausstellung versuchen, die Phänomene zu erschließen und gleichzeitig die Thesen Baudrillards zu hinterfragen.
Hinweis: Wegen Ausstellungsumbau in der Großen Galerie des HaL vom 30. Juni bis zum 10. Juli ist die Studiogalerie geschlossen.
Coverbild:
Frank Eickhoff
‘Unique Forms of Continuity in Space’, 2012
Mixed Media Installation, variable size
chrome sculpture, iPhone App
With works by:
Jon Satrom
Silke Briel
BURGHARD
Frank Eickhoff
Brenna Murphy
Jaakko Pallasvou
Sinta Werner
Curated by Stephan Köhler
“To perform, to materialise, to realise, to produce: it appears as if this is the ideal purpose of every single thing, following a movement determined by progress and a inner necessity, passing from a state of the possible to that of the real.” (Jean Baudrillard „Die Intelligenz des Bösen“, page 16, lines 4-9 (second definition of „Integrale Reality“), Passagen Verlag Wien, first edition 2007)
This exhibition intends to reveal the possible connections between J. Baudrillard’s arguments in ‘The Intelligence of Evil’ and phenomena and tendencies in contemporary art. In his late work, published by Passagen Verlag, Vienna, Baudrillard introduces a new status for anthropological development. He calls this state ‘Integral Reality’. In addition to the quote at the beginning of this text, he specifies ‘integral reality’ for a second time: “By ‘integral reality’ I am referring to the implementation of a borderless operative project targeted at the world: everything should be real, everything should be visible and transparent, everything should be freed, everything should be fulfilled and have a purpose (however the idiosyncrasy of meaning is that not everything has a meaning). There should be no more of that which has nothing to say.” (Jean Baudrillard „Die Intelligenz des Bösen“, page 13, lines 1-7 (first definition of „Intergrale Reality“), Passagen Verlag Wien, first edition 2007)
If one follows Baudrillard’s model, there was a time in which belief, idea and imagination were clearly separated from the material, physical world. Naturally certain ideas, certain Utopias, certain inventions have transgressed this boundary and became ‘reality’, but in this moment it was clear that they had changed their state: from the realm of imagination into the realm of reality. In his book Baudrillard attests as early as 2004 the end of this old, balanced dualism between imagination and reality, because the dominance of reality is strongly promoted in our current society. Baudrillard shows this in many developments, including the worldwide exponential growth in industrial production, service industries, data volume, mass media and not least the code based virtuality in our lives, which leads to manifold effects on the physical world. The increasing production of reality has consequences.
1. There is always more and increasingly less of that which never existed.
2. The boundaries of states dissolve. Today the outcome of an idea, a thing, a process can take the form of numerous ‘qualities’: as a picture, as a film, as a program, as an object, as a mechanical process, as the blocking of a credit card, as the passive collapse of a bank but also still as a dream.
3. The interconnectivity of the processes increases and leads to uncontrollable, hypercomplex systems. Upon this premise lies the current fundamental question concerning representation and thus the crisis of the image, what is real and what is a simulation? What is generated and multiplied and what is documentation? The term ‘truth’ unravels. Furthermore, the question of the production of reality arises. Is reality based on ‘digital operation’ or physical material? Is everything not an all-embracing production? What is real if everything is real? The differentiation grasps at thin air, the term loses its meaning. Thirdly, the question of causality arises when we can no longer decide what is real, or how things are linked to each other; how do we intend to act rationally? The implications of these developments manifest themselves amongst us in a multitude of ways; examples include the phenomena of high frequency financial trading, whose collapse bankrupts entire communities in the blink of an eye, or on screen killing assisted by a joystick and an armed drone.
To summarise, according to Baudrillard, the greatest need of our society is to produce more and more ‘reality’, regardless which medium, which size and which material. These desires are generated through the conditions of global capitalism. Baudrillard calls this alarming social undertow ‘integral reality’; he leaves no room for doubt that this phenomenon will have a major impact on us.
This development cannot leave the production of art in our time untouched, even when many established institutions in the art world wish it would. We will bear two manifestations of this ‘dynamic’ in mind with regards to the selection of artists and works in this exhibition.
1. The expanded reality – the ‘integral reality’, a form of hyperreality leads to a collapse of reality as a category. The division of fiction and reality becomes obsolete; everything will be available in all ‘forms’. Current works of art are examples, indeed forerunners of expanding ‘realisation’, because they produce virtual phenomenon through the demonstration of their materialisation and thus fulfil the physical in the material. They are the manifestations of uncommon virtual and synthetic visions.
2. Through the dispersion of ‘integral reality’ arise irresolvable hybrids from various media, conditions and formal characteristics. This means that things exist multimedially and manifest themselves fluxionaly in different ways. It becomes increasingly difficult to draw boundaries and to keep processes and things accessible and under control. This hybrid essentiality is in many of todays art works already clearly applied.
Based upon the above, »For Jean B.« brings together a selection of positions in the laboratory–like rooms of the Studiogalerie in the ‘Haus am Lützowplatz’. These works – with the exception of one incisive contra-point – take on the principles of ‘integral reality’ as if seemingly self-evident. There are works, which already in production and pre-production for the next exhibition oscillate without resistance between media and states. Still just an idea they are already numerical codes, which transverse through media only to manifest themselves here and there as a single image, as an operation, as a series of moving images or as an object. Their source code is immaterial and remains flexible. According to Baudrillard they are already ‘realised’ in all these forms and inundate us in the enormous diffusivity of their facets and their adaptiveness.
In the light of the connection between the exhibited works and the underlying theoretical framework, it remains important to point out that this exhibition addresses the Baudrillard’s theses by using artistic evidences for his central paradigm of an ‘integral reality’. Thereby the exhibition is indeed literally »For Jean B.«. The presented works are testimonials of an ‘integral reality’, which Baudrillard in fact explicitly classified as a negative and dangerous development. In this respect the selection supports his late ontology by showing something that is not good, namely the corrosion of reality. Through this quality the selection becomes at the same time an accomplice of this criticised development. The works are forerunners of an ‘integral reality’. They substantiate the development; in the best instance they initiate the test or the malfunction. That takes place mostly subversively in the context of typical forms, such as code based paintings, programmed processes, mechanical production and crossing of medial parameters. Or the works let the digital process fail at the boundary to the physically material, or rather they place these boundaries explicitly in focus.
Although during the nineties a critical Internet art in Berlin based around the groups ‘Bionic’ and ‘The Thing’ and ‘ZKM’ in Karlsruhe politically tested the possibilities of a collective-libertarian digital space, current market led tendencies, such as the Post Internet-Generation, are occupied with an intoxicated appropriation and utilization of the potential of digital expansion. It is not interface and the limits of categories such as private / public, free / controlled or real / virtual which are decisive; instead it is the desire for unscrupulous genesis, a boundless ‘realization’ and overcoming all categories. The clear objective is also financial participation in the global art market, even the representation of their aesthetic products by a gallery is strived for – an idea from analogue times.