There are many 'virtual art galleries' on the Net now, but most seem to
me to be little more than electronic catalogues, providing the visitor
only with images + text in a largely pre-determined sequence (trapped in
the metaphors of pre-existing technologies; but please let me know of
websites you've visited which go beyond this model). Referring back to
earlier discussions of Home Shopping - perhaps what seems so pernicious
in the Home Shopping scenario is the rigid linearity, controlled by the
marketers rather than the consumer/viewer (and I agree, this only because
Home Shopping is a relatively new medium; such strictly-determined
narratives are by no means new). The sense of space is created by the
sequence of objects presented. In this respect most of the Internet
galleries are even less radical than the National Gallery, where at least
the visitor has a theoretically infinite number of trajectories in which
works can be seen (even if few avail themselves of this potential).
Electronic media seem to offer so many possibilities to break out of the
passive viewer/consumer diad, and its concommittant linearity. One model
that has intrigued me in this respect are the adventure games, in which
what you can find, see, do in a game is largely determined by what you
have already done, and what you have yet to do. There is a sense in
these games that the visitor both changes and is changed by the game.
This mirrors both Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger's ideas of co-emergence in
difference, and an installation piece by Laurent Pariente which was at
the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds in the summer of 1996. The
installation is perhaps easier to explain, and I think it may illustrate
in part Bracha's ideas: a white labyrinth of corridors and doorways
fills the three-room gallery space in such a way that even those very
familiar with the gallery cannot identify their location in the larger
gallery space when they are in the labyrinth. The sense of dislocation,
of a familiar space becoming profounding unfamiliar, is both terrifying
and exciting. But further - the walls are sand-blasted with chalk. They
have a pristince whiteness whose texture diffuses the light into a soft,
almost 3-D surface. The scent of chalk fills the space. If I touch the
walls - and their surface is so seductive I am inexorably drawn to touch
them - I mark the walls, and they mark me. If I touch the walls too
much, I will destroy that seductive surface, and I will be covered in
white chalk - a tell-tale trace of my having violated the 'don't touch'
rule of art-going. I become profoundly responsible for our mutual
present and futures, the labyrinth's and mine, trying to negotiate a path
between the moral law of the gallery and my desire.
It can be argued that this relationship of mutual responsibility exists
between any art audience and the artwork, but Pariente's piece hightens
it and brings it to the level of consciousness. How can I create an
electronic environment in which this relationship between viewer and
artwork is equally explicit? This is a problem of a curation practice
which seeks to make the audience into artists.
Alan Julu Sondheim's rich detailing of the 'Phenomenology of Linux /
Unix' (18.06) seems extremely pertinent here.
For another day I'll leave the question of the electronic representation
of the artwork. As any curatorial space, the electronic environment has
its prejudices, privileging some art practices over others...
Nancy Proctor
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