Issue 3, December 21, 2001
ISSN 1499-5085
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Instant Coffee Saturday Edition Issue 3, December 21, 2001 ISSN 1499-5085 |
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International Coffees Eric Zimmerman interviewed by Jenelle Porter Artists Space Newsletter Fall 1999 Instant Coffee recently met Eric Zimmerman on the top floor of Europark, a huge urban car park in Amsterdam. The World Wide Video Festival co-opted the space for its opening night party. The festival organizers managed to change the space into a elegant and ultra swank place to sip single malt whiskey (a maker sponsored the event so it was free flowing) and of course to view art. Seven or eight videos by South African based artist's were projected on individual screens built to fit the specs of the space. They also hired some break dancers and drummers to entertain the crowd. We guessed break dancing and drumming go well with car parks or is that with South African art. But really who knew we were in a car park, it just looked like a great space to party, and Martijn, a friend we were lucky to make in Amsterdam, spent most of the evening planning his own party there. That night we chatted with Zimmerman about game design, a project we had in mind, the internet, graphic design, languages, art and people who we knew in common. Eric Zimmerman is quoted as one of thirty individuals to watch for in the wired/tech world in Oct 1999 issue of INTERVIEW magazine, their 30th year anniversary issue. "Gamers think he's too into cultural theory. Academics think he's tainted by commercial games." We had no idea who he was until we did some surfing. We lost Zimmerman's email so if anyone has his address please forward it to saturday@instantcoffee.org. The interview Jenelle: A few months back I read an article you wrote in If/Then (an art/design journal) about your collection of board games. It was illustrated with tightly cropped photos of board games. After reading the piece and studying the images I found myself reconsidering board games as no longer horizontal playing fields, but as vertical objects that could possibly be hung on the wall. I began to think about them in relation to painting as well as design, and curatorially, how these games might slot into other concepts. That's when I e-mailed you and asked if you'd like to get together to talk about your ideas. And you told me how you had just designed these games for gallery visitors in Grenoble. After meeting with you and discussing games, play and entertainment, I decided that we should do a project together. You'd already begun to address the artificiality of the art space that I was so interested in pursuing. I'm interested in questions like: What are the aesthetics of game and chance? What is the aesthetic of a simple taped-out game on the floor with a set of accompanying rules for engagement? What is the aesthetic of people moving about in a space defined by certain rules? Eric: What are the aesthetics of a game? Some things are really unique to games as designed objects. For example, games have a formal system, a set of rules. Other cultural forms don't have such a clearly delineated formal system. Take poetry for example. What is the formal system of a poem? Is it the grammar of the language in which its written? Is it the rhyme and meter of the poem? Is it the visual layout of the type on the page? It's debatable. But with games, the formal system, the set of abstract mathematical rules, is very explicit. If you have a game like tic-tac-toe you can summarize the formal system. It's a set of a few rules from which the game play emerges. I've been thinking a lot about the relationship between play and games recently. In creating games, the designer is essentially designing a set of limitations on people's behavior. By designing these limitations you are actually doing the opposite, opening up possibilities. Often when people think of computer games, for example, they think about simulating everything, about being able to talk to everything, move anywhere, be anything. But actually, good games, whether they are 3D virtual world-type games or very stripped down geometric games like Tetris, are all about designed limitations that you inhabit. And by inhabiting a kind of fascist, fixed system of rules, play results - and improvisational, creative, unpredictable play is the opposite of rules. J: During our first conversation we talked about your desire to employ the same conceptual framework applied to design and art to games and play. I found myself surprised that one was not in place but also wondering why one should be created. E: In the commercial game industry there is virtually no critical discourse about games and game design like in other design fields such as architecture. A lot of my thinking has to do with aesthetic questions like: What are the ways in which games are representational systems unique from other representational systems. I think it's increasingly important as interactivity becomes sort of a trope for contemporary living: commerce and sex and information are all thought of in an interactive context. Games are an ancient form of designed interactivity and can offer these incredibly rich models for understanding how meaning is produced through choice-making and how people can interact via and within dynamic systems. J: Part of your interest in cultural research involves games for people to interact with in a public setting. You created three games for a group exhibition called Pl@ytimes at Le Magasin, Center for Contemporary Arts, in Grenoble, France. One of the things that fascinated me about the games was that they looked like these minimal, rigid grids that were stunning as objects. And then they became objects altogether when people played the games. Would you describe the project in more detail? E: The games were designed specifically for a gallery. They consisted of black duct tape on the floor with the rules pasted on the wall and they were all games in which players used their bodies. Duel was physical, Race was social, and Capture was strategic. In my artist's statement I was basically begging gallery visitors to play the games. For me, the success or failure of the games was whether or not people played them. But I realized that as conceptual objects and as aesthetic objects they also were interesting. The idea of putting a game in a gallery and the idea that the game is this a kind of minimalist object, a conceptual statement as a game in a gallery, and also being a bonafide game that grows from the craft of game design. I really learned about what a gallery can teach us about objects in space as multifaceted experiences. J: What led you begin examining participatory experiences? E: When I was doing painting in college I was always really interested in relationships between the work, the artist, and the viewer. I would draw diagrams to figure out these relationships and, for instance, think about how a flat picture plane was different from a representational picture plan that a viewer could enter. As a game designer I'm making objects that require participation rather than objects of passive contemplation. I'm really designing those relationships that I used to diagram to the exclusion of all else. In a sense, I'm engineering social relationships. J: It's interesting that you would be interested as a painter in a cause and effect relationship considering it's a relationship an artist often can't control or even witness in an art setting. Most often an artist installs their work (if they install it all) and then departs, never to return. E: Unlike games, there's no user testing the artwork. J: What is your experience of designing games for new contexts like for an art space? E: The gallery setting is very overdetermined. It determines people's expectations and the way that they will interact with a piece in quite an inescapable way. It's not necessarily good or bad. Designing games for a gallery does allow me to explore different contexts for the reception of the work. One of the things I really treasure about working in an art context, even a classical art context like an enclosed white room, is the artificiality of it - that it creates a rarefied space. The idea of artificiality is very important to games because a game is essentially an artificial space. There's a Dutch historian and philosopher, Johann Huizinga, who in his book Homo Ludens (Man the Player) talks about the magic circle of the game, that games have a definite boundary in time and space. You're either playing a game or you're not. In a sense, games provide an artificial way for people to communicate with each other, a sort of stylized discourse that creates its own meaning and its own set of particular relationships. I think that one of the challenges of doing games for a gallery space is this magic circle. It's a challenge to seduce someone into beginning to play the game, and it's a challenge to seduce them into continuing to play the game--a double seduction. There are expectations and notions of how one interacts with culture that one finds in a gallery that work against overt and extended participation with the game. So, these are the challenges that we're going to be working with as we design the piece for Artists Space. J: The magic circle of the game as a metaphor for a gallery. When people come into a gallery their experience is overdetermined. They are experiencing a specific aesthetic opinion, of the curator, the dealer. They experience an assigned quality judgement. E: Why is it that you have brought designers, architects, and now a game designer into Artists Space? J: My intention is not necessarily to bridge gaps between artistic fields. I think these connections evolve on their own, and I'm not interested in forcing evolution. What is compelling about bringing in a graphic designer or bringing in a game designer is really about trying something different, playing all the cards, if you'll forgive me. I'm interested in different modes of aesthetic application. When is a designer Ñ graphic, game, or otherwise - redefined as an artist? Or, when is their production value and output situated on an aesthetic level equal to more traditional modes of artistic practice? I'm interested in connotation. E: I'm curious what you find interesting about games in particular? J: It's funny you ask that because growing up, I hated playing games and I can't say my present experience is much different. I'm talking about card games and board games. On the other hand, I'm sort of a sucker for video games. For me the entertainment quotient is higher, more cinematic. But truthfully, my reasons for selecting you are not personally historical. And I don't think your being a game designer is what specifically intrigued me. It's really, as I said, a curatorial interest in extending a definition of art to other fields where I see a lot of merging, areas such as graphic design, music, film, and game design. I'm interested in extending definitions and classifications but not in making pronouncements about what qualifies as art. Now that's not to say that by inviting you to do this project I'm not making any number of curatorial statements. I don't know that a game is necessarily art but I'm willing to pose the question. E: Calling something art or not, for me, is a question of cultural semiotics about the term art and its meaning within culture. For me, context of reception and audience demographic are sort of things for me that determine if its art. Is it a toy? Well can you buy it in a toy store? The art world serves that function too. J: Do you think of your gallery games as art? E: I don't think of myself as an artist. I think of myself as a designer. For me it has to do with the fact that, and here comes an arbitrary definition, design is more about problem solving and art is more about expression of idea or self. On the other hand, if I'm doing work for a gallery space then I feel obligated to engage with the idea that what I'm doing is art because that is part of the context towards which I'm designing. To put a game in an art space could be just a game in an art space. However, it is also an interesting opportunity to explore a game in a new context. The whole cultural context that you're designing for is part of the design problem. I'm extremely interested in context of reception. Maybe that's why I see myself as a designer. This interview can be found at: http://www.ericzimmerman.com/acastuff/asinterview.html For more info on Zimmerman Check out: http://www.ericzimmerman.com http://www.eyebeam.org/replay http://www.ps1.org/cut/animations/web/zimmerman.html http://www.sissyfight.com |
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Mr Brown instant coffee coffee link http://www.bgsales.com/gourmet/latte.asp This little item will make any cup of coffee instantly more tasty (the AGO gift shop has them) selected links http://switch.sjsu.edu/ Switch--social networks 2: Switch is the new media art journal for New Media at the School of Art and Design at San Jose University. They say, "Switch aims to critically evaluate developments in art and technology in order to contribute to the formation of alternative viewpoints..." We've come across a couple of good articles here, namely one, by Steve Dietz (the new media guy at the Walker Center). http://switch.sjsu.edu/ ART CRIMES is an online monthly magazine. They are all over the place, but worth checking out. http://www.casualkiss.com Casual Kiss: Kate worked with the guy who built this site. he did it all on his own time. He was pretty funny. Ironically he had no social life, and no luck in dating for a long time because he was geeking out so intensely on trying to make a go of selling/expanding the site. He is now successful. He sold the site and maintains some control. And as far as dating sites go it's pretty good.High on humour low on total cheez. submitted links http://gforcing.tripod.com GForce: This rebound enthusiast is the father of a girl at work. I barely know her, but would probably like working more with her. p.s X will love the sexy, Rebounding you! - KM & SS ic supporter links http://www.1000kmdesignburo.com http://www.easydns.com http://www.tone.net http://www.techno.ca |
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Tasters Choice Instant Death Cocktail: Ingredients: 3 oz. Bacardi 151 Proof Rum 3 oz. Everclear 3 oz. Jagermeister 5 oz. Water 1 tb. instant coffee Dash of Salt |
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Ten Ten 1. Gooze™ made by Nickelodean, Ages 8 and up It's Christmas so I thought it appropriate to review a toy. About a month ago Jin & Jen and Andrew and I were at Dufferin Mall in Toys R Us and I saw this product called Gooze™. It comes in several different colours and containers ("you can collect all six Gooze™ canisters! Each one filled with a different colour Gooze™!"). I bought the flower canister in clear plastic, and the Gooze™ inside it was pink. The purchase price was a reasonable amount under ten dollars. When we left the store I immediately wanted to take out the Gooze™ and play with it. It took me about 3 minutes to get the canister out of the package and another couple of minutes to figure out how the thing opened. So, finally I go to open it, and I have to say I was kind of excited... I stuck my finger in it, thinking it would hold up to the touch, but instead I found my hand suddenly covered in a very wet, sticky substance, similar to snot. I was confused. How could a child play with this and not instantly cover the room in Gooze™? I would soon discover that the simple answer to that was that they could not. I decided to put the Gooze™ away and conclude my investigations at home (at this point it was quite clear that I would not be getting any quality playtime with my Gooze™. It was now transformed into a specimen. It took another 3 minutes to figure out how to put the lid back on (the canister is a 12 petal flower, each one a slightly different size) as it was not an easy task to line up the edges, or even to snap it on once they were in place. How in the world a kid was expected to deal with this was beyond me, since by this time I felt like an uncoordinated boob. So, I get home, I open up the canister once more and it takes me about three minutes to get all the Gooze™ into my hand... and another 10 or 15 to figure out how to get it back in - and off the counter, door handle, and the taps ... I can say one good thing about it, it was cool to the touch and had a mild but refreshing smell. It's a few weeks later now, and as I went to write this article I thought I'd see if the Gooze™ had "gelled" up at all. To my horror I see it has grown multiple white moldy spots on the surface of the pale pink Gooze™, which has evaporated by half (or maybe that was just the amount that got left all over my kitchen?). Just for fun lets read a few of the no less than 9 warnings and clean up directions on the product packaging. Each one is hilarious because it's impossible to avoid any of these things, either because Gooze™ is inherently in contact with one's skin at all times, or because it is impossible to clean up without getting it on something else: KEEP AWAY FROM FACE AND HAIR AVOID CONTACT WITH CARPETING AND OTHER FABRICS REMOVE GOOZE™ FROM CARPETING OR FABRIC AS SOON AS POSSIBLE CARPET CLEANUP: 1. Remove excess Gooze™ from carpeting. 2. Moisten area with sponge and hot water. 3. As Gooze™ Softens, remove remaining compound with light brushing. 4. If stain remains apply carpet stain remover. Some carpeting may stain permanently. I have never 'played' with a more fraudulant children's toy in my life. Gooze™ sucks. I'm considering sending hate mail to the parent company, Viacom International Inc. - Kate Monro Rating: 1 out of ten (I like the mold) 2. Lights On Lights Off Sucks and Ain't Afraid to Say So "Work No. 127, Lights Going On and Off" (2001), Martin Creed I wanted to write about Martin Creed's piece, which won the Turner Prize this year. It consists of an empty room where the lights go on and off every 30 seconds. A version of it is currently showing at the Art Gallery of Hamilton as part of their Contemporary Projects Series. I want to say that I hate this piece, and I don't feel any responsibility to defend it - I say that because that's what I feel is going on. Too many critics are talkin' about how good it is, which it seems they have to do to justify their education and the establishment represented by the Tate Gallery. I also want to say that just because I hate this work, doesn't mean I have anything against Mr. Creed personally. I can well imagine us bonding over the inside joke nature of this controversy. The work does have its merits. The part of me taught to be politically correct and open-minded can find some reasons to like it. I'm especially drawn to Creed's statement about how he didn't want to clutter up the world with more stuff. However, that being said, I resent being in the position where because I'm supposed to be an artist with a modicum of intelligence, I am supposed to line up and defend the committee's decision to give the prize to what I think is an insignificant work, to fulfil my duty in educating a misguided public. While I have no problem with Creed's right to express his idea, what I really have a problem with is that it was awarded the Turner Prize and that it was part of the Turner exhibition. It's a minor work that doesn't deserve to be given hierarchical status by the Tate gallery. They could have gone with his "Half the Air in a Given Space" (2000) which consists of balloons filled up with just that. A better work it seems to me, mostly because it involves something and requires some effort of execution. Now if only they had The Clapper installed in the room where they gave out the award, so that the applause would recreate the piece, then I would be ecstatic. That would have been great. It would have been dependent on the audience's participation and presumably the lights would have flashed on and off much more rapidly. It would also have echoed the original work, and made it instantly more complex. The Turner Prize has become associated with rewarding shock art, to such an extant that the Channel 4 website (co-sponsors of the Prize) list a chronology of Shock Art in order to make the point that "the shock of the new" is old school. What we/they/whoever accept as the banal establishment, was once controversial. So the agenda seems to be set: the award goes to what pisses off the "ignorant" and media jaded public. It seems so glaringly obvious that he won only because his work was the most controversial. Before Creed was announced the winner, people were already complaining about it. The works by the other artists, Richard Billingham, Isaac Julien, and Mike Nelson, had more going for them aesthetically, if not conceptually. (Personally, I like Billingham's photos, so I was rooting for him). But my discomfort is not merely the disappointment of my fave losing. It's because the winner is so literally vacuous. This work is too easy. It's too easy to explain as something wonderful. This is a pure bullshit piece. It is too easy to defend using bullshit. It is too easy to say stuff like 'it represents the dialectic of good and evil ' (Christ is often metaphorically referred to in relation to Light, right?) too easy to say that it encapsulates in a silent (and therefore poetic) way the relationship between life and death. And extending this life vs. death concept, is it too much to say that "Work No. 127, Lights Going On and Off " reminds me of Buddhist teachings of what happens in death - the question being where does the soul go when we die? The answer: do we ask where a flame goes when we extinguish it? F-off I want something more substantial! The National Post stated in its Commentary page "Mr. Creed literally made nothing. He has achieved the logical end of art, for if anything and everything may be regarded as art - even a room devoid of anything except a light bulb - then nothing is art. This is obviously all to the good. The practitioners of contemporary art can all go home - and we can all ignore them". "For if anything and everything may be regarded as art - than nothing is art." Isn't the Post the very paper run by capitalists that want anything and everything to have a price? I suppose then, in the end, nothing will have a price? If I pulled this argument on them they'd shake their heads and call me a stupid artist. I could say that this twisted argument is thus far the most convincing in favor of neo-liberal economic theories. Open markets will make everything in the end free, for if an empty room is not art because it is art, than Winnona Ryder is not guilty of shoplifting, since she already owned those clothes. Not so far fetched actually. One of the Buddhist mailing lists I'm on had a quote by Zen master, in which he stated that the whole world belonged to us. His glasses for example - we let him wear them because we knew his eyes were bad. They didn't belong to him, and they didn't belong to us. They represent an act of mutual agreement, rather than of ownership. I appreciate this piece in the sense that it is able to inspire someone like me to consider what I feel is valuable in art, but "Work No. 127" is like a naked Osama streaking through Time Square - an obvious and glaring target. In this case, x marks the spot for this kind of cynical and nihilistic criticism lobbied by people who don't care about art to begin with. Instead of going with the "everything can be art" and suddenly digging Fluxus and Yoko Ono, and appreciating the wonderful variety of life (that's what it does for me anyway) they have to go with "...therefore nothing is art and we can ignore artists". Nothing is art anyway, just like nothing has a price - these are just constructions we cherish for whatever stupid reasons we humans have. These jerks have been ignoring artists all along, and are seizing this masterpiece as the proof that they were right - just like I seize on the fact that that free trade is rotten if it requires CSIS investigations of the Ragging Granies and Jaggi Singh (while Montreal terrorists plan to blow up the Los Angeles airport) to be implemented on a hemispheric scale. Does that mean I get to ignore evils of capitalism? My attitude may suggest he should have censored himself, to know better than to provoke the right wing. To me, it's no so much about censorship as it is deciding what's worth one's time. It's not worth the time of the right wing because they've got their golf business meetings. Golf isn't worth my time since I've got openings to go to. But I hope that the opening is going to be rewarding in some way. If I thought about making a piece consisting of lights going on and off, I'd think I could do better than that. I don't want to waste the gallery's time, or the audience's, with something so vacuous. And I don't feel that driving down to Hamilton to see this work is worth my time or the gas. The context that the gallery provides doesn't do enough for this piece - I still feel that if I want to experience it I can just play with a light switch. There's no reason that Creed need censor himself, but I thought the whole jury process involved in getting an exhibition helps guard against works that waste our time. Unfortunately, given that I haven't heard a lot of glowing reviews of much of anything in the art world lately, it seems the juries aren't doing their job - leading to an attitude that says "we might as well have lights going on and of in a room, and might as well give it a prize". This type of thing was done much better 40 years ago by the Fluxus crew - and their legacy set the stage for this work. As the headline for the artnewspaper.com article, (link below) says, it's "as exciting as hearing old jokes retold". As such then, it's the perfect artwork to end this stupid year, full of foot and mouth disease, kamikaze terrorism, and a war, crises that haven't been examples of the best thinking. From now on, I'd like the Powers That Be to have more brains, which would include awarding the Turner Prize to something more deserving and not necessarily controversial. In the meantime, I have to make a salad. - Timothy Comeau Related websites: http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/story.html?f=/stories/20011212/858202.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/arts/newsid_1706000/1706637.stm http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/turnerhome.htm http://www.channel4.com/turner/NoFlash.htm http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=8410 http://www.artgalleryofhamilton.on.ca/current.htm Contemporary Art Project Series: Martin Creed continues at the Art Gallery of Hamilton until Feb. 3. Rating: three out of ten 3. Martin Creed wins Turner Prize Congrats for Martin Creed for scooping up the Turner Prize. You see I feel invested because I met him when he played a concert at Art Metropole just a few years back. I partly like Martin Creed's work because he seemed like a nice guy and we had a pleasant chat about this and that. Other reasons for liking his work also relate to his personality, but more so to the way I see it unfold in his practice. Meaning, what makes Martin Creed's work worth knowing is not so much that it is made by an art star but because he is a sort of nice fellow who you wanna get to know and hang out with and could see yourself working with. The art star thing might carry some benefits, but it'd more likely get in the way. After learning about the Turner prize thing, I'm left wishing I bought one of those crinkled up paper pieces of his at Art Met.. Bet they've doubled or tripled in price? Probably not because wasn't he already an art star? Regardless, I am also very sorry that I never bought a CD after his pathetic performance that night. - Jinhan Ko Rating: six out of ten 4. Intestino Grueso at La Faena, Mexico City, December 14 Flash back or is it that I just don't go to punk rock shows any more. Intestino Grueso (large intestine, but grueso also implies hard rock) played in Mexico City last Saturday evening at la Faena. La Feana is this old timer cantina with decaying mannequins dressed up in dusty matador out fits. The homo-eroctic sub-text is likely too overt to be subtext, as mannequin wrists rust to limp and bullfighters slip from their stands to lean loving in the arms of the next rico suave matador. The venue, I hear, comes in and out of fashion as an alternative place to host rock shows and the like (I was there the night before for a magazine launch and a non-stop onslaught of drum'n'bass). Intestino Grueso really suck, but of course that is what they are after. It is punk rock--now so predictable. But none-the-less, its great to see them perform. They hadn't played for a year (well, actually they did play last month, but before that). The lead singer, Miguel, puts on a good drunken show of obscenities, belches and high jumps. He even got some kids on stage who were too worried about looking good to really get into the music. But it was funny. I've met most of the members of the band before and Instant Coffee will be showing videos by two of the members (Zulu and Miguel) in Toronto with Pleasuredome in the Spring. Ibraham who played bass lives down the hall from the apartment Jin and I are subletting while in Mexico. I just don't know the drummer, but I do know that their old drummer lived in our sublet. Yes, it is a cozy scene and they definitely brought it out for this their last performance? - Jenifer Papararo Rating: eight out of ten |
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