LT : I see that the avant-garde uses nowadays the Internet, and the Internet means promoting the ideas, sitting with the speed of light. Without it, Mail-Art and the kind of archieving it proposes would be possible only in a Science Fiction vision. You, if I'm not wrong, are one of the first visual artists who use the blog to promote their ideas and work. Please tell us about this aspect.
RJ : Internet is quite old. It only became accessible in the mid nineties for the 'normal people' as a way to communicate. Yes, I was experimenting with electronic communication. Even before it became acessible for normal use. Because of my work and study I am familiar with technical aspects of the Informatics. In the eighties I even had a bulletinboard running that distributed my TAM-bulletin with information about mail-art projects (see:
http://www.iuoma.org/tambulhi.html).
Internet isn't about promoting ideas. The Internet has only one reason for being build: keeping communication open at all times, even in times of crisis. The concept was build in the second world war when the Americans needed a system that would survive a nucleair atack. The WWW-concept comes from Geneve, where they made a language (hypertext) that would word on any computer platform. This way a new tool for everybody was available: communication in all directions to each computer platform. Mail-Art was already dealing with communication in all directions. In the 80-ies i was in close contact with mail-artists in Eastern-Europe. The artists there were not allowed to publish their work in their own country, but sending it through the mail was still possible. A nice sample: A card I received from Robert Rehfeldt (Eastern-Europe)
So mail-Art did something the Internet is now offering too: worldwide communication. It is only natural that the mail-artists embrace the new ways of communication but still see the difference with the traditioal mail. A piece sent my mail can be touched, smelled, is 3D and has traces of the person who sent it and the way it travelled. An e-mail of digital image is clean and just bit and bytes......
When Internet is only used to promote ideas than the visitors often aren't always interested. The freedom in communication is essential. I choose with whom I communicate and what I like to exchange. Communication is always 2-ways. Promoting ideas sometimes is oneway communication.
Internet only brought the speed-element. I can communicate over large distance instantly. Also I can send images quickly without sending out the original. I can even make originals that don't exsist (digital art). I can see what others are sending me (on e.g. a Blog) and anticipate on what I receive before I actually have received it. The time-factor is what makes Internet so fascinating. Projects that would take years suddenly can be done in minutes when one knows the tools and software.
So mail-Art did something the Internet is now offering too: worldwide communication. It is only natural that the mail-artists embrace the new ways of communication but still see the difference with the traditioal mail. A piece sent my mail can be touched, smelled, is 3D and has traces of the person who sent it and the way it travelled. An e-mail of digital image is clean and just bit and bytes......
1 comment:
I don't say that the Internet would be new or old - I know its history; and I don't talk here about the reason it was built for (anyhow, there are enough examples in the history, in which a certain discovery was used in other purposes than the initial ones; the first people had used the fire to warm themselves and to cook their food - their successors, behold, use the fire to melt the metal to transform it, let's say, in tanks; this would be only one example). I was only suggesting that the Internet's evolution brought us in the situation in which a personality like Paul Virilio warns us that we are the first civilisation which has set to work the absolute speed and that the techniques of instant communication give us the possibility (a less desireble one!) to be able to annihilate ourselves as civilisation. Virilio even speaks about the informational bomb and says that our generation would be "the generation of the informational bomb explosion". You say that the Internet has brought only the speed-element. But the acceleration of the information flow, said again Virilio, brought to an acceleration of forgetfulness ("Industralization of forgetfulness", said the philosopher - I hope I have translated the quotations correctly).So, the projects which lasted years, also lasted years in the memory. The same projects, made in some minutes also last in the memory quite less, and this because during a day we have the possibility to achieve, let's say, five or more projects. And because we aren't all Kim Peek, the risk to forget is quite big. Anyhow, I am interested of the mutations these changes produce in art and literature. These mutations determined me to think an opened movement I called gAsPexT. The artistical movements have their tabus. In gAsPexT there aren't limits and it is an invitation to creativity. But, to return, the mutations I talked about mean that we are dealing with a new specie of poets and artists. I have read somewhere that, from the Japanese scientists' point of view, for the year 2040 there cannot be made any assessments. Yet, because you are a poet, too (and it is known that the poets have a special anticipation power), I invite you to make an assessment: how do you think the literature and art will look like in the following 30 years ?
I would also be interested in the impact you think the apparition of this new "specie" of writers/artists will have on the ones who love literature /art (at such creators, how should the receivers look like ?). And which do you think the role of the specialty critic will be in the new equation ?
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