How new media art can convey a socio-cultural narrative

Benjamin Low

Interactive Art Level One

An academic paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Diploma of
Media Arts (Interactive Art)

LASALLE College of the Arts

3 April 2011
Abstract

The term “media art” is synonymous with technology, whose first usage coincided

with the invention of photography. Reproducibility of the image revolutionized the art

medium and brought about much debate on the aura of artworks and appropriation.

Modernity brought the moving image - which synthesizes image, sound and text - into public

consciousness via cinema and television.

We are in the “postmodern” age, and in media terms, this would be defined by the

rubric of the digital revolution, the World Wide Web and other media technologies. We are

again at the cusp of another paradigm shift in the methods of artistic expression. As always,

artists have been quick to adopt new mediums to reflect socio-cultural concerns of current

relevance to themselves and the world around them. These new mediums and their

accompanying aesthetics and methods of representation demand resolution from cultural

theorists.
Introduction

The narrative is a dominant cultural force, and traditional art media such as the

written novel, theatre, cinema and film, has evolved the art of the narrative to much

exquisiteness and refinement. This paper puts forth that with the benefits of technology, new

media art can bring fresh ways of communicating the narrative, and perhaps re-appropriate

traditional media for artistic expression.

This paper puts the artist in the role of a socio-cultural communicator (a traditional

role of an artist), as opposed to one who is merely interested in the aesthetics of the form (e.g.

digital formalism) or exploring the technical possibilites of the medium for artistic expression

(a current preoccupation of many new media artists). The artworks discussed in this paper

address socio-cultural issues such as human rights, social identity, ethics or the human

condition, with the artist being responsible for the means of representation.

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Net art and virtual space

“Brandon1”, a web-based artwork, deals with the issue of gender identity, and is

based on the true story of Teena Brandon, a 21-year-old woman who in 1993 was raped and

later killed for passing as a man. Visitors to the website navigate through image fragments

related to gender identity and the narrative of Brandon’s life and murder.

“Mouchette2” as of 1996, purports to be the personal website of a 13-year old female

artist living in Amsterdam. Through the website, visitors explore the inner world of this

adolescent girl and encounter interactive web forms with multiple-choice questions that

trigger delayed reaction emails. The identity of the real Mouchette is a mystery. As an

artwork recognized in its own right by art institutions worldwide, the website can be read as a

commentary on the mutability of an online social identity, which can be easily constructed

and manipulated.

“My Boyfriend Came Back from the War3” by Olia Lialina (1996), is historically

significant in its compelling and emotive narrative about the disconnect between lovers after

the man comes back from an unspecified war. The artwork has subsequently been re-

appropriated and remixed numerous times into other forms by other artists. The non-linear

narrative unfolds by frames that split into multiple narrative threads upon clicking.

The World Wide Web has presented a new medium for artists whereby virtual space

is used to carry the socio-cultural narrative. The reach of the World Wide Web means that

anyone with a computer and an internet connection can access these artworks, thus net art is

able to amplify the voice of the artist and gain a global audience for the artwork through a

1
http://brandon.guggenheim.org
2
http://mouchette.org
3
http://www.teleportacia.org/war/war.html

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trans-border digital realm.

Real time interactivity

“A Room of One’s Own” by Lynn Hershman (1993) is a pioneering interactive

artwork4. The viewer looks into the miniaturized room through a movable peephole and

becomes a voyeur whose eye movement is captured and played back by the television in the

room. The viewer thus becomes a virtual part of the bedroom scene. Depending on which

object in the room the peephole is pointed at, various video channels play out at the back wall

of the room in a feminist discourse ranging from women’s rights to the threat of nuclear war.

Here, the artwork situates the viewer in the centre of the story-telling space, in which the

narrative plays out according to his or her actions.

David Small’s “Illuminated Manuscript” (2002) is about the UN Declaration of

Human Rights. Projected typography onto a physical-interface (a handbound book in a

spartan room) respond to user interaction, allowing the reader to run their hands over, disrupt,

combine, and manipulate the virtual text on each page. The narrative on the four freedoms –

freedom of religion, of speech, from fear and want – is communicated via spatialized

language in electronic media.

Graham Weinbren’s “Sonata” (1993) offers an interactive cinema experience5

whereby the viewer can interrupt the narrative flow of the story anytime via a unique user

interface that allows the viewer to navigate the story in time as well as visit the locations

4
The viewer peeps through a viewing port into the room of the artwork’s heroine, who
suffers from agoraphobia and hides in her apartment, relating to the world through
objects that make her neurosis worse: the television and the phone.
5
In “Sonata”, Weinbren juxtaposes a Tolstoy story of jealousy and mistrust leading to the
murder of the wife with the biblical theme of Judith and the enemy general Holofernes.
The general is decapitated by the heroine Judith, who thereby saves her people from a
calamitous invasion.

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described in the story. A primary aim of this multivalent narrative is to examine the extremes

of emotion.

Real time interactivity means that the user is able to create or modify the narrative of

the artwork. The structure of the interactive narrative would vary between open-ended and

impositional, linearity and non-linearity. This mirrors the everyday experience of a person as

we live in a non-linear world of cause-and-effect. The interactive narrative could therefore

offer a more authentic and true-to-life experience of the artwork, and allow the socio-cultural

content to be better communicated this way.

The mediation of public space

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s “Vectorial Elevation, Relational Architecture 4” (1999-

2002), with its eighteen robotic xenon searchlights controlled over the internet, transformed

the historic centre of New Mexico City into a giant interactive installation6. This raises

interesting questions on the relationship between internet technologies, urban landscapes and

both a local and remote public. Lozano-Hemmer calls this kind of performance “relational

architecture” which he defines as “the technological actualization of buildings with alien

memory7”. The artwork redefines the perception and function of public space by imposing a

kind of narrative into the space, the narrative being in this case a form of public self-

expression.

6
Visitors to the project website could design ephemeral light structures which played out
over the National Palace, City Hall, the Cathedral, and the Templo Mayor Aztec ruins.
These could be seen in a ten-mile radius and were rendered in the numbered sequence
of their creation on the Internet.
7
In other words, lay people and passersby (who possess the “alien” memory of
outsiders) can construct new meanings for edifices, usually via technological tools – such
as internet software and robotic lights.

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 Krystof Wodiczcko’s “Projection on the Hirshhorn Museum” (1988) is an

environmental projection work which covered the façade of the Hirshhorn Museum in

Washington. The image projected from three xenon-arc projectors draws attention to the

power relations which exist between cultural institutions and the public. This artwork is

characteristic of Wodiczko’s works – site specific slide and video projections using

architectural facades and momuments as backdrops. His politically charged works speak to

issues of human rights, democracy, violence, alienation and inhumanity, and using sound and

motion, often includes testimonies of the people whose plights they address8.

Jenny Holzer is well known for her text-based art which consist of aphorisms or

truisms animated on electronic signboards or other computer based mediums. The topics

addressed include anger, fear, violence, war, gender, religion and politics. “Protect Me From

What I Want” (1986) is an artwork about consumerism situated above Times Square in New

York City, which uses the spectacolour board. Media technology in this case allows for a

more public art, accessible to anyone who happens to be walking by, giving them the

opportunity to encounter art and ponder on its message.

Interactive artworks in an urban space have the potential to mediate the relationship

between the human body and space, by intersecting the spheres of an individual’s private

space with that of public space9. Taking the narrative of an individual and amplifying it in a

public space can have powerful emotive and transformative effects for both the participant

and spectator through the social interactions that take place. It can also redefine physical,

8
Complementing these projections are Wodiczko’s nomadic instruments, designed to
empower marginalized members of society such as immigrants, the homeless, these who
lost their closest to street violence and war, women, and children-survivors of domestic
abuse, the war veterans and others. (Taken from
http://visualarts.mit.edu/people/faculty/faculty_wodiczko.html)
9
Imagine if Jenny Holzer’s spectacolour board were modified to be able to receive
messages from the public via the Internet or a mobile phone (inventions subsequent to
1986, the year of the artwork’s inception), it would be able to achieve this effect as well.

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architectural, urban and social meaning and transform people’s experiences and perception,

e.g. by redefining social architectures in an urban space.

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Summary

New media art can tap on the connectivity and reach of the Internet to convey the

socio-cultural narrative to a global audience, hence amplifying the voice of the artist. New

media art also allows real time interactivity with the socio-cultural narrative, enhancing the

viewer’s experience of the artwork, versus experiencing the narrative as a linear one-way

communication between the artist and addressee. Lastly, new media art can change the social

perception and experience of public space, making it a medium for conveying the socio-

cultural narrative.

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Conclusion

The abovementioned characteristics of new media art allow for a revolution for the

public experience of art, art being no longer confined to a gallery, museum or to exclusive

mediums such as cinema, television or a DVD. The narrative of the artwork can be conveyed

via the virtual domain of the Internet or architectural public space, accessible to all.

Technology also makes possible real time interactivity with the artwork, which allows

audience participation with the the narrative, modifying or creating it - an empowering and

democratic process.

The best new media artworks integrate the features of accessibility and participation

for socio-cultural communication. Hence, new media art can remediate or reappropriate

traditional media for conveying a socio-cultural narrative effectively.

Bibliography

1. New Media Art. Authors: Mark Tribe/Reena Jana. Editor: Uta Grosenick. Taschen. 2007.

2. Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age. Margot Lovejoy. Routledge. 2004.

3. 4dsocial Interactive Design Environments. Lucy Bullivant. Wiley. 2007.