[spectre] 2005 artpool project - call for participation

[Artpool Art Research Center]

THE TELEMATIC ART - THE ART OF PERCEPTION

2005 - THE YEAR OF THE FIVE IN ARTPOOL

... we should depart from the principle that we are modes of 
junctions, rather than individuals. In other words, "I" is a word 
that others pronounce as "you". Thus, we are dealing with a function 
word:

"I" is the "you" of the other person. Or: in defining my own 
identity, first of all I must distinguish myself. Parity and 
disparity are interdependent notions.

The same can be found in psychoanalysis, neurophysiology and neuropsychology.

These all point to the same direction. At the heart of telematics is 
a type of anthropology that does not perceive the human person as an 
individual, but rather as the manner how systems of relations 
function; as the realization of possible links. The intersubjective 
field is a virtual space in which an individual is a node in the net, 
inasmuch as materiality is a node in the energetic space.

A call to participate in the autumn research project at Artpool

THE EXPERIMENTER

   & THE ART OF PERCEPTION

The Understanding of Freedom in the Correlation of the Apparatus and 
the Functionary.

Starting from the photographic situation, 
<http://www.equivalence.com/labor/lab_vf_info.shtml>Vilém Flusser 
termed the camera as an apparatus and the photographer (the 
experimental photographer) as a functionary.

In his book, 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1861890761/002-4211257-7039267?v=glance>Towards 
a Philosophy of Photography, he described his expansion on this 
model, to arrive at an explanation of human freedom within the 
universe of photography (in the post-industrial context).

The so-called experimental photographer (the functionary) is truly 
aware that the underlying concepts, such as "image", "apparatus", 
"program", "information", are the fundamental problems s/he has to 
tackle. A philosophy of photography is needed in order for this 
photographic practice to be brought to the level of consciousness, 
which is, in turn, required, since in this practice, at least, a 
model of freedom manifests itself, in a post-industrial context.


As usual in Artpool's practice, the participants of the project 
are not constrained in terms of genre, medium or otherwise; submitted 
materials, after having been displayed at the exhibition/event in 
<http://www.artpool.hu/P60/about.html>Artpool P60 and 
<http://www.artpool.hu/2005/Functionary.html>on the website

  will be stored in the <http://www.artpool.hu/archives.html>Artpool Archives.

<http://www.artpool.hu/2005/invitation.html>http://www.artpool.hu/2005/invitation.html

Deadline of submission: October 25, 2005

Artpool Art Research Center, H -1277 Budapest 23, Pf.52 · 
<mailto:project at artpool.hu>project at artpool.hu

Best wishes from <http://www.galantai.hu/default.html>György Galántai

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<http://www.equivalence.com/labor/lab_vf_glo_e.shtml>Vilém Flusser's 
key words, compiled from book and magazine publications, lectures, 
and interviews. Edited by Andreas Müller-Pohle and Bernd Neubauer

(excerpts)

Apparatus: A toy that simulates thought and is so complex that the 
person playing with it cannot comprehend it; its game consists of 
combinations of symbols contained in its program; while fully 
automated apparatuses have no need of human intervention, many 
apparatuses require humans as players and functionaries.

Functionary: The functionary dominates the apparatus through 
controlling its exterior (input and output), and is in turn dominated 
by the opacity of its interior. In other words, functionaries are 
people who dominate a game for which they are not competent. Kafka.

Photo criticism: The question to be asked is: How far has the 
photographer succeeded in submitting the camera program to his own 
intentions, and by what methods? And: How far has the camera 
succeeded in deflecting the photographer's intentions, and by what 
methods?

Photographic gesture: A gesture of hunting, where the photographer 
and the camera unite to become a single, indivisible function. The 
gesture seeks new situations, never before seen; it seeks what is 
improbable; it seeks information. The structure of the gesture is 
quantal: it is one of doubt composed of point-like hesitations and 
point-like decisions. It is a typically post-industrial gesture: it 
is post-ideological and programmed, and it takes information to be 
"real" in itself, and not the meaning of that information.

Picture: A significant surface. In most cases, it signifies something 
"out there," and is meant to render that thing imaginable for us, by 
abstracting it, by reducing its four dimensions of space-plus-time to 
the two dimensions of the plane.

Reality: What we perceive as reality is a tiny detail from the field 
of possibilities surging around us which our nervous system has 
realized through computation. If all reality is a computation from 
possibilities, then "reality" is a threshold value.

Telematics: The technology that enables the present discursive 
circuit diagram for technical images to be converted into one that is 
dialogic. In telematic dialogues, human and "artificial" memories 
exchange information, out of which new information is synthesized and 
then stored in artificial memories. The actual purpose behind 
telematics is to make ourselves immortal. For in telematics one 
becomes aware that freedom does not consist in mere producing 
information but also in preserving this information from natural 
entropy; that we create in order not to die.

Traditional/technical images: The essential difference is that the 
new image is rooted in a scientific theory and is produced by 
apparatuses. Traditional images are views of objects, technical 
images are computations of concepts; the former are reproductions of 
scenes, the latter of calculations.


-- 
Artpool Art Research Center 
<http://www.artpool.hu>http://www.artpool.hu 
1061 Budapest, Liszt Ferenc ter 10. 
tel.: +36-1-2680114, fax: +36-1-3210833 
Postal address: 1277 Budapest 23, Pf. 52