Opening Plenary: The Arts in a Digital Age
Friday, March 27, 1998, 10:00-11:45 a.m.
By: Kathy Brew

The opening plenary – The Arts in a Digital Age – offered perspectives from Joan Shigekawa, Associate Director for Arts and Humanities at Rockefeller Foundation, and Steven Johnson, co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of FEED (www.feedmag.com), with a performance by internationally renowned multimedia artist Steina Vasulka in between.

Joan Shigekawa opened her remarks by advising that the task of the conference should be to emerge from it with the right questions for building on the convergence among art, science, and technology, and in developing new alliances between the arts and business communities, alliances that are already global. She cited the early days of video and described a time when very few people understood the medium, acknowledging that today audiences have matured and this kind of “new” work is much more readily accepted in the cultural mainstream. She also noted that artists have always been boundary crossers and risk-takers and that as artists and arts workers, we are well- equipped for a moment in which the universal condition seems to be confusion. Key questions Shigekawa raised to carry forward into the conference included: What does interactivity really mean? How does the new technology transform the way we create and communicate? Will digital technologies dismantle our conventional ways of writing and communicating? What about the new economic order? How will the next generation of kids be different due to their early exposure to technology? What will happen to intellectual property? To copyright? Will the increasing privatization of the internet reduce equity and access so that there is a new exclusive elite? How can we best support the creative possibility for artists and humanists in the digital age?

She commented on some of her recent travels around the world and cited examples of other countries that have developed organizations and facilities that support artists who are working in new technologies (both in the creation of new work and exhibition). Some of these include: ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany; the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada; Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria; and the ICC in Tokyo, sponsored by NTT. There are no such existing new media art centers in this country, she noted, cautioning that we may face an artist “brain drain” if we don’t work toward equivalent arts centers in this country that will join artists with scientist collaborators. The few examples she was able to cite -- Interval Research and Xerox PARC -- are proprietary situations. She concluded that we need to build spaces for artists to work and dream. Artists can help shift the paradigm, they can challenge scientists to push the envelope in the development of new technologies. And that's the challenge.

Nicki Clarke then introduced artist Steina Vasulka, who performed Violin Power, “a piece about connections.” Steina took centerstage, playing a violin that was connected to a MIDI interface that both transformed the sound of the instrument and allowing her playing to influence and activate the images on three large screens behind her. A close- up scene from nature; a butoh-like dance figure, subsequently joined by other dancers; a close-up of the dancer’s feet on glass; a younger incarnation of the artist onscreen playing violin, almost like a virtual duet with the live performer. Steina’s staccato bow strokes affected the images and their movement; in essence, the violin was powering the visuals.

After the performance, Steina explained how the MIDI violin sends out sounds and a MIDI code; as an image-maker first and foremost, she assigned various violin strings different visual keys so that when she plucks a certain area, she gets the same frame on the screen. She also has speed control, which affects the footage as well.

The final presenter was Steven Johnson, Co-Founder of FEED (www. feedmag.org) He began by commenting on Joan Shigekawa’s comments about kids growing up with computers, wondering what they were going to be like. He described watching a friend’s toddler playing with a computer, and the seemingly intuitive nature of the child’s interaction with the screen, as compared with pan and paper. Even at age 29, he found this enormously intimidating. He inquired about the audience’s technological capacities: “How many of you have a live web connection? How many of you surf the web once a day? How many of you have spent time playing video or CD-ROM games, like Myst?”

He discussed the present moment as a transitional stage, one ripe for making connections among the art world, the creative world, and the technological world. Understanding exactly what technologies are good for may not yet be entirely clear, but in technological development, that nebulous time is ripe for hybrids that should be welcomed and embraced. He commented on trying to figure out what will be indigenous art, and what factors really define the new medium. What exactly is the real native form in this new world? In interface culture, the art of the interface is the art of representing 0s and 1s and turning that into something expressive.

Johnson then commented on the great crisis of our time, the imaginative crisis, as we are confronted with information overload in a sea of perpetual data. Interface is attempting to turn that information into something intelligible. A great social function, which is now turning into an aesthetic and expressive one as well. Still, he cautioned, we're at the very beginning of this phenomenon, and we must take care not to judge these new forms using old language. Johnson’s final words to the audience were ones of encouragement. Don’t consider these tools as gifts bestowed upon us by Silicon Valley, he urged. Realize instead that the arts community has an immense amount to contribute in return. New technologies need creative people to invent ways to represent ideas.

When the floor was opened for questions, Joan Shigekawa commented that in these conferences and other venues, the whole issue of generations comes up and that within decades a whole life experience is different. She advised that in future gatherings, we make a concerted effort to see that the digital young are with us, since they often have the most provocative questions, and that we seek “a little more anarchy for conventions like this.”

One audience member asked, “I've always thought the issue was of layering of information. How do we become literate in this new structure?” Steven Johnson responded by referring back to the toddler he mentioned in his opening remarks. “What that 3 year old has is fearlessness and a willingness to explore without fear of failure,” he explained. “Computer literacy is about all of that…you won't really feel comfortable until you feel you can improvise...I constantly have this conversation with my mother. She panics if anything goes wrong... I tell her to try to think through it, mess around, troubleshoot, but there's a resistance to that, to improvisational familiarity.”