[spectre] Tiia Johannson's last interview

[Raivo Kelomees]

Mari Laanemets and Killu Sukmit ask 10 Questions from Tiia Johannson
Published in Estonian Art 1/2002

1. You started as a painter, then emerged as an Estonian video pioneer, 
and then came web art. How did these transitions come about? Did they 
involve certain thematic/essential changes, and if yes, what kind?

This progression has certainly not been straightforward, and starting as 
a painter was by no means clear either. The progression has been towards 
constant immateriality. Where, however, is the beginning? If you 
consider the start of producing professional art to be the moment you 
get your diploma, then I do have a painter's diploma, but I haven't 
actually produced a single painting since my diploma work. Before 
studying painting, both during school and university, I was more active 
in photography, video, happenings, collages, installations and all sorts 
of art forms; besides, I first studied history. Painting is just one 
stage between and alongside the others; no definite transitions from one 
form to the other can be outlined. In 1989, as a first year student of 
painting, I had an opportunity to go to Helsinki to study video art. I 
was there for the spring semester 1990. My first computer course took 
place in 1985, which means that all the developments have been parallel. 
Still, during the last six or seven years I have stayed with web art 
that is, of course, largely intertwined with video or rather moving 
images in the internet environment. Web art also contains my entire 
previous art experience. I have not detected any thematic changes; all 
alternations have issued from changes in life.

2. What changes have occurred in web art since you started?

As the computers are now more powerful and the internet connection much 
speedier, the main transition has been from text (so-called ASCII-art) 
and audio-focused art to a more visual one.

3. Olga Goriunova expressed the opinion (autumn last year) that web art 
was dead without any of the artists involved ever becoming famous. 
No-one seemed to build a noticeable career and the artists have quietly 
withdrawn from the territory. This is what Goriunova thinks, but what 
about you? What comes next?

As far as I can remember, it was Heath Bunting who declared that 'Net 
Art is dead, Web Art lives on...' Other sources refer to Vuk Cosic. The 
Russian-language version of Shulgin is: 'Net Art mjortv, a ja ishjo 
njet'... This resembles a manifesto-style declaration that essentially 
claims that web art started and finished with the work of five people: 
Cosic, Bunting, Shulgin, Jodi, and Lialina. Similar 'history-writing' 
phenomena can be found closer to home as well... We have also had those 
who call themselves 'the most sought-after artists in Estonia'. Science 
should not recognise authorities and methods 'argumentum ad hominem', 
which are, true enough, and hugely popular amongst people and the press. 
My Self.Museum page was visited last year by more than 5000 people (?), 
a fact easily proved.
Coming back to the manifestation, however, part of those prophets of 
doom have used it as an excuse for justifying their own subsequent 
activities within an institutionalised sphere - the good old wish to sit 
in the Presidium and hide underground at the same time. One comparison 
here would be the project carried out years ago, which contained the 
sentence: 'This is the last page of Internet'. Due to insufficient 
temporal distance, it is not possible as yet to draw any final conclusions.

4. To specify and continue the aforementioned: Goriunova considers the 
main reason to be the fact that art institutions (and hence their 
authorities) have infiltrated into the formerly free autonomous zone. In 
her 1996 interview, Nelli Rohtvee was quite optimistic regarding the 
possibility of web art. How does it feel now, six years later?

Nelli Rohtvee's and my work don't have that much in common. Nelli is 
socially a very sensitive artist, whereas I am much more self-centred. 
And I won't offer an answer for her either - you should ask Nelli 
herself. It would naturally be naïve to think that web art, although so 
far the least institutionalised, is at the same time most vulnerable, 
considering the problems with servers that emerge and vanish like 
mushrooms during rain, and the administering of web art has partly 
turned into a playground for art-political forces. About one third of my 
own work, and the majority of the earlier Estonian visual web art 
(1996-2000) has been destroyed. Both Nelli and I no longer have access 
to most of our remaining work. Many works require special servers, so a 
lot of them are found on Japanese or Australian servers. The most ideal 
solution would probably be to have one's own server, or maybe it's high 
time that such a small place as Estonia had its own so-called art server 
where someone would be able (i.e. prepared) to look after works of art. 
Alas, there's no reason for optimism so far.

5. It says in one introduction: Nelli Rohtvee is trying to make simple, 
unpretentious pages which, from the point of view of the technology 
used, are very cheap: only mixed messages... Do you work intuitively or 
do you occasionally accept (web) art theory (if one may put it like 
that)? Will you describe a web artist's work process: you surf around, 
find a piece, load it, connect?

It is possible to create a theory for each work. Practice and theory, in 
turn, always exist in a certain split state: And again - Nelli is Nelli, 
and I am me... Work processes are vastly different. I've produced a work 
within seconds, but another has taken weeks. There are the so-called 
original works, and those where all basic material has been scratched 
from the internet: chance, too, has its charm. Mind you, this activity 
is not always web art-conscious, I have put up some earlier videos that 
were originally just videos. The whole point of the internet, after all, 
is to be one huge recombination.
I certainly don't theoretise when I create. The work process often 
depends on the computer, its power and the available programmes. I've 
got one 'weakness', though: I can't work when I'm not connected. To the 
internet, naturally. Even when I don't need the internet for hours, it 
must be open on the computer.

6. What is web art for you, and what isn't? When can web art be 
considered 'real art pages' and when is commercialism glowing like 
tinsel? What is (ideal) web art anyway? Should this be sought in 
technological craftiness or social effect? What should we take note of 
in your work?

Web art and web design are by no means similar areas. There can, of 
course, be overlapping areas between the activitiy of a web artist and a 
webmaster, but the aim is quite the opposite. Web art used in any other 
way but for artistic purposes is for me essentially applied web art 
where something is documented, displayed, advertised or whatever... Web 
design is by nature an area 'to be employed'. One should perhaps instead 
ponder the relationship between art and design. In compiling the 
relevant study programmes, which trend to follow and what exactly to 
specialise in should be considered.
What is ideal for me is simple, clearly perceived art, both internet and 
other arts. Less is more. Overburdened and vague works are not to my 
taste. When the technological side exceeds the contents or the visual 
part, then something is not right, at least to me.
More generally, this not only concerns web art, but also the problem of 
what is quality in culture, whether and to what extent it can/ought to 
be measured.

7. Some of your videos can be, and have been, seen from a feminist point 
of view; at times they are (e.g. the black sun) even mercilessly 
self-centred. This kind of personal approach also seems to exist in your 
web art. You seem to work with your real physical experience. The web 
where you work, however, is something virtual? Is there a link?

Real physical experience, as a rule, appears when it amplifies on a 
vital level and the relationship between real and virtual is in fact 
that field of tension that invites us to play and ponder within its 
vague limits and limitlessness. The more possible it is to be 
self-centred in art, the less need there is to be self-centred in life 
and society.


8. Internet is regarded-glorified as a public forum. At the same time it 
is difficult to imagine anything more private than being on the net 
anonymously. What is the character of internet's intimacy in terms of 
(social) interference and engagement? How are such private-social 
relations dealt with in your web work?

The treatment of space has pretty much been derived from the constraints 
or non-constraints of physical art space, and the movement is from 
constrained space towards liberating virtual and dematerialising space; 
the private/social criterion is not that important.

9. As for web art, let's talk about cyber-feminism. You have said that 
you were waiting for cyber-feminism to arrive in Estonian art. Would you 
characterise, briefly, cyber-feminism/cyber-feminist: does this signify 
critical women artists or is it more complicated, and what are those 
pressing problems in Estonia that have a need for cyber-feminism?

I did not actually mean only art, but cyber-feminism in general. The 
modern notion of 'distance work' has not fully materialised yet, and 
people still mostly operate on the office-home axis, while continuously 
moaning about the low birth rate. Accepting distance work and study in 
society would in my opinion be one of the best solutions from the point 
of view of uniting the environment of home and work/study primarily, but 
not only, for women. For me, feminism means the return from the other 
extreme, or from the achieved opportunities of study and career, to the 
primeval role of women, and the uniting of these halves. The cyber world 
is part of the solution, at least in my experience. Cyber-feminism in 
art is a wide area seen from a woman's angle, where art, technology and 
different ideologies meet. For me, the most unacceptable part of 
feminism is the welfare feminism that seems to be on the increase in 
Estonia.

10. What is your opinion of the fact that web art is often difficult to 
access: computers are sometimes not able to deal with web art or have 
insufficient power. So it is all relatively technical, and one is left 
feeling that if you don't 'sit on the net' and are not 'online' 24 
hours, then all this will stay a remote and closed sect...Moreover, even 
24 hours does not seem to be enough, and it's not the main thing either. 
Ever more often, in recent times, artists, cyber freaks, hackers and 
other types of web activists leave the net to participate in social 
life. What about you: is it at all likely that you will one day come 
(back) to the streets again?

My works have been tested with 200 Mhz and 64 Mb RAM computers which are 
worse than the average office computers; some of them require a modem 
with more than 56 Kb. The problem lies in not knowing how to install the 
gadgets that are legally accessible, cost-free, and need just a quarter 
of an hour to be workable. Nowadays such problems really belong in 
kindergarten. If you enter a dark room, but are not able to switch on 
the light in order to view the painting on the wall, you shouldn't blame 
the artist because you cannot immediately see the work of art. Besides, 
I have not vanished from social life, I'm busy outside art as well. It's 
just that our paths obviously don't cross.

Tiia Johannson
08.09.1965-11.06.2002

Links:
http://www.hot.ee/getrealgetsreal/
http://www.artun.ee/~tiia/netproject/
http://old.artun.ee/homepages/xtiiax/mikki/

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Raivo Kelomees
e-mail: offline@online.ee