DEBATES & CREDITS
2001

Sergeev Arseny, P.A.R.K, Myznikova Galina and Provorov Sergey, Archaeopteryx, Koenen Arno and Bosma Rene, DEPT

Media Art in the Public Domain

A Dutch - Russian art project.

Presentation in Moscow

Saturday, 13 October 2001
Time: 16.00 hrs

INTRODUCTION:

Debates & Credits is an attempt to search for possibilities to enter into a direct dialogue with mass audiences by intervening with a series of artist projects in public space, both physical as well as public media spaces. The project aims to accumulate the creative potential of art, which is a priori based on a critical attitude to reality, to find appropriate tools for artistic invention that can address problems of life in contemporary society by means of electronic media. These media are so deeply ingrained in the body of society that they start to act as an organ of the social organism, whose functions equal those of the circulatory system. The information flows transmitted by media do not necessarily need to consist of the ordinary digestible tranquillising mixture of daily news, advertising, entertainment, etcetera.. They can also contain disturbing alien ingredients.. These may be viruses, or rather injections of vital antidotesS

The fusion of different media in contemporary visual arts, mass communication - political and commercial propaganda -, and the electronic media and city space as public domain, create a triangle of themes which are the principal focus and point of artistic intervention for the project "Debates&Credits".

The first stage of the project will happen in Moscow, Russia. Surprisingly it now seems natural and logical how the language of mass propaganda has passed through various stages of transformation in Russia and the former USSR, from avant-garde AGITPROP of social action, via the monumental style of communist proclamations of "the right way to the enlightened future", to the insane optimism of slogans and faces represented by the fictions of commercial advertising or election-campaigns. How to make words and images work for the distribution of either ideals, or ideology, or products, or politicians is a purely technical problem, which can easily be resolved with implementation of smart PR techniques.

The problem of the contemporary media environment, an arena of PR technologists' battles, is a function of the gap between the vigorous development of the means of production, i.e. media technologies, and the worthlessness of the product (i.e. content) that is produced and distributed with their help. Blind trust in the omnipresent and pure power of devices and mechanisms, whose sensational evolution created a general obliviousness to the poverty of the product, produced a bubble formerly known as "new economy". What are positions, reactions and actions of content producers, i.e. artists and cultural activists, in relation to this "new media rush"?

Debates & Credits will explore new hybrid tactics, developed often beyond the context and aesthetics of visual arts. Led by centrifugal forces, these tactics tend to explode the structure of information consumption from the inside.

The project is organised in two stages. In the spring of 2002 Russian and Dutch artists will realise eight projects, four from each side, in public spaces, first in Moscow, and subsequently in Amsterdam - where the project is hosted by De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics. In their works the artists will focus on the exploration of the local urban and mass media visual environments, by questioning certain problematic nodes of social communication.

In October 2001 Dutch and Russian artists come together in Moscow for the first time to make themselves familiar with the local situation and discuss the strategy for the development of the project. On the 13th of October they will present their activities to the Moscow audience at the Art Media Centre "TV Gallery". The presentation will start with an introductory overview of current critical strategies and tactics of new media artists and activists, by media theorist and co-curator Eric Kluitenberg. He will discuss art projects, culture jams and creative campaigns that exemplify this new approach to media.

CURATORS:
Tatiana Gorucheva ( tangor@redline.ru )
Eric Kluitenberg ( epk@xs4all.nl )

ORGANISERS:
The project is realised by Art Media Centre "TV Gallery", Moscow, De Balie - Centre for Arts and Politics, Amsterdam, with support of the Netherlands Royal Embassy, Moscow.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

Oleg Kireev/RU

Oleg Kireev presents a project under development called "ghetto", dedicated to the cultural and political analysis. "Ghetto" consists of the site http://www.getto.rema.ru , the mailgetto mailing list, and publications such as a collective edition "Against all P's" which was the first of its kind. The project is focused on influencing public opinion and has definite political aims, a counteraction to the Chechen war first of all.
Besides that, Oleg Kireev will tell about the similar social-political initiatives of the 90s like net activities, "Against all parties" campaign, "Svoi 2000" movement, "Radek" magazine.
http://www.getto.rema.ru

------- Archaeopteryx /RU

This group of young artists from Izhevsk have already produced a series of actions where they represented their art reflection on functions of different archetypal images of both traditional folk, and contemporary mass cultures. The project PACKAGE was presented at the festival Cultural Capital, 2001 The idea of the Package action Painting of 9-storey buildings ("boxes") in Izhevsk with protection labels, which are usually used on packed boxes and give notice of the requirements during transportation and usage. The action Package uses the language of advertising posters to present anti-publicity of consumer advertising totality; it works with common relations of projecting them from the objects onto people themselves, as if urging to protect people: DO NOT WET, DO NOT BREAK, HANDLE WITH CARE.

Arseny Sergeev/RU

An artist from Yekaterinburg, also one of the editors of the art magazine "Komod" and a member of Yekaterinburg affiliate of the State Contemporary Art Centre. He will present an art project-action "Agitation for Art", which has recently been realised by the Centre. During the project the artists made works in the genre of leaflets "agitating for art". The content and range of artistic manifestations is defined by the "leaflet' genre. From advertising of contemporary art and artists as useful, attractive, prestigious "goods and services", to the popularisation and social advertising of contemporary art as a life-style, a new religious confession, a party, and contemporary artists as political and spiritual leaders.

http://www.gif.ru/agitazia

Galina Myznikova and Sergei Provorov/RU

The artists from Nizhny Novgorod work in different genres: video art, installation, sound poetry, clothes design, TV advertising. In their work they touch the problem of the functioning of the communication mechanism per se, first of all its visual aspect, structure and representative models.

--- Arno Coenen/NL

Arno Coenen is a representative of a young generation of media artists. Coenen has produced a diverse range of spectacular works that dissect all possible media. Surprisingly he uses digital imagery and 3D computer graphics modelling as the connecting point for all his work. His images are first modelled in 3D and then exported to a range of different media, to video, film, photography, billboards, ceramic tiles, glass mosaics, multimedia installations and even architecture. In his work Coenen shows a profound fascination for visual cliches and pop-icons of contemporary mass culture, understood by him as an updated version of folklore.

http://www.solidrocketboosters.com

---- DEPT /NL

DEPT is a collective of young designers / artists from Amsterdam that operates consciously on the exact boundary of art and design: Active in both of these world, DEPT is never completely defined by either of them. Throughout the nineties DEPT created a large body of work ranging from sleeve designs and graphic print work to media installations, visual environments for club events and concerts, to video and VJ work. DEPT developed a keen sense for transforming private media into public messages. T-shirts with smart slogans attracted attention, critiquing social issues. Famous was their project "Bezet" (occupied), which combined weekly issued plastic bags and associated web pages that addressed the politics of the contemporary media society: The bags in their stark neo-agit-prop design became distinctive mobile signs in the city-scape of Amsterdam.

http://www.dept.nl

------ P.A.R.K.4DTV /NL

PARK4DTV is an Amsterdam-based organization that specializes in one thing: every night PARK4DTV broadcasts a 60 minute televison-art piece made by one artist. The works vary from computer-generated abstract work (including pure noise) to ultra hard-core reality tv. Our programs are sometimes exciting, sometimes boring, but always art. Apart from our daily broadcast in Amsterdam, we have weekly programs in Rotterdam, New York (Manhattan only, sorry) and Berlin. PARK4DTV has collaborated with a number of public & commercial TV-stations around the world, and our tapes have been shown in museums, galleries, bars, theatres and basically wherever there's a tv-set or video-beam around. P.A.R.K4DTV is convinced that art is an important, even fundamental part of any society, and for everybody in it. Therefore it should be made accessible for everyone, everywhere. The TV-screen being the most popular canvas in the world, P.A.R.K4DTV concentrates on distributing Television Art, in a very simple and straightforward format: 1 hour, 1 thing, pure sound, pure image. Good art can make itself clear to its audience without further explanation: it speaks for itself. We don't offer interpretations, we show the raw data. Although television and the audience it reaches is considered low-culture by most high-culture institutions (and therefore a less serious platform for art), PARK4DTV believes that television, with its great impact on society, is the most interesting and most challenging environment for artists to display their talents. Another fundamental issue: artists should be paid for their work, and that's what we do.

http://www.park.nl

DELTA /NL

Delta (Boris Telegen) is a young visual artist who works primarily in the field of graffiti painting. In his visually spectacular work Delta significantly transforms both the traditional presentation mode of visual art, as well as the genre of graffiti painting itself. He introduces an alien and idiosyncratic aesthetic into graffiti painting that escapes the common logo-like word IDs that make up most of graffiti production. Simultaneously he significantly transforms the domain of visual art by introducing an abstract and highly architectural style of painting, in a literal sense, to the street, and to the often illicit context of graffiti and street painting.

LINKS:
www.debalie.nl

www.adbusters.org

www.waag.org/free/

www.rtmark.com

The site has been created with the assistance of the "Open Society Institute" (Soros Foundation). Russia