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IDP ART BLOG #44 - Ryan Trecartin's Any Ever
Any Ever trailer
I've been reading The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. As I understand it bicameralism is a hypothesis in psychology that a rues that the human brain once assumed a state in which cognitive functions were divided between one part of the brain which appears to be "speaking", and a second part which listens and obeys. It seemed to have a lot to do with Ryan Trecartin's Any Ever at PS1/Moma. I took notes:
My favorite part of this exhibition was climbing into a bed that had a couch on it. I like elevated seating. The sets of the rooms were fantastic all around. Each room = awesome. Ambient room soundtrack = awesome, too. The videos maybe got repetitive. Maybe that's like a painting show when it seems to be the same painting twelve times. Who knows? I am still not sure I like them. My assitants and I just watched one-eighth of "Roamie View : History Enhancement (Re'Search Wait'S)" and we can't tell what it's saying, "it stresses me out," said one. "What does it mean?" asked the other. Seems to me that it's pretty clever, layered, and meaningful. I haven't really figured out how or why or what yet. Something's here.
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Is this the future?
Seems to me that the amount of information spread in American culture is increasing at least year to year. How old is Twitter? Facebook? Google Plus? All this is just to say that it can't be long until we have advertisements directed directly at our individual person like in the movie "Minority Report" (maybe not actually but I hope my point is clear). Maybe it even says something that I can quote a scene from a movie to describe an idea, and that I could probably find some form of pop (or not pop(?)) culture to reference in whatever I am talking about, and that this would probably make whatever I'm saying easier to digest. It seems clear that as time goes on there will be more and more pop culture items with which I can compare reality to, and given what I believe to be an unprecedented (in terms of history) amount of new information being created daily thanks to the internet, or more specifically YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc..., AND that I can access that information easier and quicker (computers are getting faster all the time, Moore's Law) every day, how long will it be until I am constantly plugged into a never ending feed of information beyond the traditional five senses? What will human life be like once we reach this point, will we have any concept of "reality"? How much of "reality" is already tainted by the media already (probably a lot)?
Trecartin's show addresses all of these points. In twenty years I don't think it's that much of a stretch to assume that life will be closer to the world in Trecartin's videos than the days before the internet was alive. That is, close to schizophrenic. I recently read Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End" which, without giving away too much, deals with the end of the human race. At a point near the end, after the world has reached utopia, a group of artists hole up in a remote island devoting their lives to making art as the rest of the world has entered a state of passive intake- a utopian state. This made me think of what art would be like in the future and what differentiates it from normal society apart from its formal attributes? The Trecartin show seems to be talking about the future of the human race, I think it is incredibly exciting, frightening, and powerful.
E Wiley
Great comment Eric, thanks!!
Great comment Eric, thanks!!
Well, I have spent a fair
Well, I have spent a fair amount of time now watching the videos online (which Trecartin himself seems to be cool with as venue) and reading some interviews with the dude. I don't know - I can see the appeal of a more "environmental" itteration of the work. But,
you know, I could turn on a television and feel the same kind of dread or repulsion - I'm still curious to discuss what you think the function of that kind of response in this work - or in art in general -is or could be. Not because I've decided it's not worthwhile, but because I want to understand it better.
You use a transmutation metaphor above - how do you define "gold" here? The Hermetic philosophers used the exoteric quest for fancy element-making as a metaphor for a kind of enlightenment or alignment (assimilation?) of self and world. As I understand it, anyway.
I've spent good deal of time with the alchemic and hermetic writings/pictures and other accounts of the history of science - and Tarot, for that matter. Radical stuff! To me, alchemy and tarot are about using coded language systems to postulate at nonmaterial phenomena. But, now, hear me out: I'm not SO into the Holy Mountain either. When it comes to the archetypal quest movie, I really prefer Fitzcarraldo. It's sort of like the difference between Dali and Ernst for me - one is a lot of camp and the other is uncanny.
I used the Mapplethorpe example before - and I think he is a real alchemist. He made repulsion and beauty indistinguishable, and the result is mysterious. A successful transmutation might be qualified by one's inability to parse out its constitution. It's a "one-thing." - as noted in the Alchemic motto: "in truth certainly and without doubt, whatever is below is like that which is above, and whatever is above is like that which is below, to accomplish the miracles of one thing."
I'm not quite sure how to elucidate what I'm feeling here. I don't like how Trecartin's work is always breaking the fourth wall - it's seems to always say, "I am Video Art." Do you know what I mean? I can't lend myself to the'illusion' of it - to be transmuted, maybe - because it's always kicking me out. There's no room for me there - the relation is all intellectual. And sure, I can get into it on paper... theoretically - nonlinear narrative, "the universally personal." And I prefer works that punch you in the brain and the heart/gut simultaneously.
But, yeah, I'll go check it out.
The shit = the laziness of
The shit = the laziness of falling into the media set trap of "tweens" and other MTV (or whatever its relavent equivelant is today) etc., endless gossip of teens (and adults)
The gold = using these "characters" to comment on and engage the real-life ... man dunno. Seems to me that he's taking some pretty lousy and anger-inducing shit and turns it into art that explores and expands the possibility of experiencing information he's trying to communicate to us half using a DIY approach to video editing (and endless cultural references) and half using version of the very language he's critiquing.
What's - in your mind - the
What's - in your mind - the relationship between this work & bicameralism?
I haven't been to PS1 yet, but I really don't know what to make of the online content - I think it's very repulsive? If I imagine going into this show, I feel a palpable sense of dread.
I don't watch a lot of TV and have never really lingered over "Reality" programming - but I guess there's kind of an obvious connection here .. the trailer reads like some kind of apocalyptic channel flipping.
I wonder about the function of disgust in art. In my mind - there should be some kind of balancing factor (? ... a kind of beauty?) to keep the viewer engaged and grounded in a place where contemplation is possible. Maybe that's not what makes contemplation possible.
But I think of Mapplethorpe's X portfolio or something and the play of 'sacred' against 'profane' feels more provocative than in this work - like the line between beauty and repulsion is more deliberately confused. I appreciate the frankness and shamelessness in those iamges.
The Trecartin work seems so... cloying? And stressful? It feels like being stoned in some sleazeball's dorm room watching television at 4:30 in the morning. I just wanna get out of there. What's the point? Does it exist so you can leave it? Like, to see its negative in the "real world"?
I thought Nakadate's work is more impressive, in that it left an impression on the soft parts of me. Her video work is also a bit gimicky, but there is palpable humanity, loneliness .. a kind of beauty that shows through, despite.
I felt the same dread.
video art vs. movies
I think directors like Gilliam and Cronenberg are sometimes operating w/ a similar conceptual intention, but I much prefer that work. A narrative - even if it's a disjointed one - is a way of allowing some breathing room and empathy to enter into the (variegated) reception of an idea.
IMHO you should spend
IMHO you should spend time in the Trecartin exhibition. Maybe give the whole exhibition the amount of time you'd give a Cronenberg film. Unless you're the type that goes to see a film and walks out or doesn't finish watching a DVD. It feels like you're doing a lot of set-up work for not liking the show before seeing it or spending time with it.
Several people walked through the galleries of the exhibition, never putting headphones on, never slowing down. I wonder what they got out of the show? Did they just check it off a list of shows they've seen? What's the show like w/o the video's soundtrack and commentary? What if the spaces (which are SUPER interesting combinations of installation, design, cultural critique, use-value, performance, participation, etc.) were experienced with only the ambient soundtrack of the rooms (never putting headphones on and hearing the video sounds)?
Video Art and Film Art are the same thing: Art. When it's not art is when the artiness is removed. A film like Transformers 3 takes a certain kind of art to get it made and the end result is not Art. It's the balance of entertainment value (escapism in various quantities and to various degrees) vs. the art value (some kind of contemplative/experiencial/expansive something or other). There is some not Art that masquerades as Art and some Art that thinks its entertainment. People going to see a "movie" seem disappointed (four people walked out when I saw it and I've heard at least one friend say everyone in the theatre but her left before it was over) when they go to see Tree of Life, a film that is Art of the highest, greatest, and most triumphant order.
In my experience it's often good to know what you're getting into. It's even more valuable to not will what you're getting into. I'm not the best at not trying to will what I'm getting into and am working on it.
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