The Leipzig exhibition Dimensions. Digital Art since 1859 at Pittlerwerke from April 19 until July 9, 2023 featured 60 works by artists ranging from Peggy Ahwesh, Refik Anadol to Henri-Georges Clouzot, Ivana Franke, Nam June Paik, François Willème and Wu Ziyang, to mention just a few. Organized by the Foundation for Art and Culture (Stiftung für Kunst und Kultur e.V. Bonn), the show was accompanied by the English and German bilingual catalogue Dimensions. Digital Art since 1859 (Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de), edited by Richard Castelli, Walter Smerling and Dan Xu, and with contributions by seven authors.
Walter Smering, the chairman of the Foundation for Art and Culture, underlines that, since the beginnings of painting and drawing, which we know as the oldest cultural techniques there are, artists have always reacted to new creative media when they became available. Artists were mediators of decisive importance for the development of digital media for imaging. The exhibition and the catalogue examine the question of how new technologies and digital innovations change the work of artists, and how, conversely, artistic creativity exercises influence on digitalisation. What role do apps, augmented reality and virtual immersion play for visitors and those interested in culture? The exhibition and catalogue have a look at the impact of digitalisation on the production and perception of art. They raise questions and provide answers that touch on the relevance of digitalisation for our society beyond the field of art itself and intensify our view on current developments and the related consequences. The focus of the project is on the efficacy of artworks, their sensual and emotional power.
The exhibition venue, the Pittlerwerke in Leipzig, were founded by Julius Wilhelm von Pittler who, over 100 years ago, invented a universal machine for the processing of metal. In other words, the place of the show itself is intrinsically linked to the development of technology.
It is no accident that the main sponsor of the exhibition and catalogue was Palantir Technologies Inc. Its co-founder and CEO, Alexander C. Karp, writes in his “Words of Welcome” that we have reached a point at which the use of algorithms is influencing our reality. The use of Arificial Intelligence (AI) raises a series of questions which require new thinking, a thinking outside of established categories.
According to Alexander C. Karp, art, although hardly mentioned as key in our volatile times, vulnerable to crises, can show us a way out of self-imposed disenfranchisement. Art liberates thinking because it is able to break out of this incapacitation and stimulate new, sometimes irritating thoughts. Art is impetus. Art is freedom. And freedom is ideas, alternatives, possibilities.
Alexander C. Karp stresses that AI, as it is laid out in the arts, is a powerful means, but with human beings still at the focus of its development. He writes that, in the mid-1930s, the philosopher Walter Benjamin mourned the loss of the aura of the artwork, which, in his opinion, had of necessity come about concomitant with the technical reproducibility of the work of art. Alexander C. Karp states that Walter Benjanim was wrong. This aura, depending uponwhere we locate it, has simply shifted. Considered historically, the creativity of the human being has always employed the latest technical means. Not the other way around. Digitalization is changing the manner of appearance of art, but not its foundation in humanism.
The other sponsor of the exhibtion and catalogue, Tim Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom AG, writes that emotionality, intuition and uncompromising curiosity are the driving force for any sort of evolution: in science, business, technology—and in art. We must constantly adapt to permanent change. An environment in which new applications (and apps) areplacing conventional business models in question. We live in an environment in which computing power, memory capacities and new software are opening the doors for surprising possibilities. Whether in medicine, industry, education—yes, in all sectors—and in our everyday lives. He stresses that art shows us how it’s done. Art questions norms and points of view.
Tim Höttges writes in the catalogue (Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de) that, with an international team of music experts and specialists for artificial intelligence (AI), Deutsche Telekom completed Beethoven’s 10th Symphony. In a similar way, AI was used to complement the worldwide hit “Angels” by Robbie Williams with compositions in the style of Beethoven. Tim Höttges stresses that he could not have dreamed of that a few years ago. He want us to be curious, and open. To disruption and the disruptive power of art. To emotionality and intuition. To digitalisation as a bridge.
The chief curator, Richard Castelli, writes in “Dimension: An Introduction” that the exhibition and the catalogue aim to show the most recent trends of the electronic arts as well as to give a perspective about their roots and evolutions. Another focus is the willingness to open up the field of artistic expressions. At Pittlerwerke, experiences in more physical “immersive” environments, whether they still use projection or direct stimulation of the viewers’ brain, were presented.
Richard Castelli underlines that, in Leipzig, special creations, recent artworks and NFT were displayed alongside already classical artworks beginning by the first intuition of 3D scanning and printing concepts by French photographer and sculptor François Willème in 1859.
Richard Castelli explains that François Willème invented the photo-sculpture in 1859. In order to reduce the time his models had to sacrifice to him as a sculptor, the amateur photographer arrived at the idea of surrounding them with twenty-four cameras. When synchronised, each camera provided a different angle: a kind of predecessor of the modern 3D scan. With the help of the twenty-four views, Willème then created the three-dimensional draft for the planned sculpture. His “photosculptures” triggered an embittered controversy in the art world, which is only surpassed by the present debate revolving around the use of AI for generating images.
Among the sixty artworks presented both in Leipzig and in the catalogue, let’s just mention three:
Sound Cracker (1994) by Nam June Paik: Radio cabinet, monitor, speaker, video, metronome, antennas, 110 × 60 × 90 cm. A robot-like face with wildly lit up eyes and mouth, a wild hairstyle of radio antennas and a pointed nose greets visitors with an open and friendly gaze. The face consists of a radio housing of the American brand Philco (probably from the 1930s), the inner life of which the artist replaced with three small video displays (from the 1990s, later replaced by the artist studio with displays from the 2000s) representing the eyes and the mouth. A colourful video collage shimmers in a loopin a rapid sequence on the displays, including psychedelic patterns, Korean and African mask images orthe famous television test pattern. Sound Cracker (1994) belongs to the group of Video Sculptures by Paik in terms of content, which he had created since around 1986. They contain all kinds of media hardware from the various stages of the development of media technology and are a mirror for the rapid transformation of technology. Interestingly, the Sound Cracker has no sound.
One of my favorite exhibits was/is in the catalogue the work Center (2004) by Ivana Franke. It is a stainless steel construction with steel wire, monofilament and twelve spotlights, 3.2 × 3.2 × 3.2 m. Several spherical shapes of light appear within a large cubical construction. As the viewer moves, they change in size and location; they appear, disappear, open and close, in succession. A metal cube contains a three-dimensional radial structure made of mono-filament lines. Twelve spotlights are positioned in the middle of each edge of the cube. They project light onto the structure, and accordingly the structure reflects it back towards the observer, thus creating different shapes that change according to the viewer’s position and movement.
Six holograms after L’Enfer (1964/2017) is a work by Henri-Georges Clouzot, created with the help of Richard Castelli and Martina Mrongovius. It is an example of visual art consisting of six multiplex holograms from six sequences of L’Enfer (Hell). In 1964, Henri-Georges Clouzot, then at the peak of his career, used what was almost a carte blanche from Columbia. With three teams with 150 technicians (!), he developed a bold film that was to combine famous stars and extreme experimentation. He spent several days on test shootings with actors such as Romy Schneider, Serge Reggiani, and Dany Carrel, to name only a few. In addition, he filmed many kinetic art experiments supposed to represent the mental disorders of the main character. Due to several unfortunate coincidences, the film was never completed. Some of the test sequences and several scenes shot on site got a new life. They have been transferred to multiplex holograms. This type of hologram has the particularity of substituting the classical relief of a single 3D image with a multiplicity of 2D images, which are revealed according to the point of view of the spectators when they move in front of the hologram. Thus, it is possible to see an animated sequence from a single holographic plate. While classical holograms are playing with space, multiplex ones are playing with time. Six sequences were selected for this project: four sequences of lights rotating on Romy Schneider’s face; a sequence of her face through a prism; and one with a locomotive rushing upon Romy Schneider tied to the rails.
These are just a few details from a book presenting 60 artworks by a multitude of artists created between 1859 and the present day.
Edited by Richard Castelli, Walter Smerling and Dan Xu: Dimensions. Digital Art since 1859. Wienand Verlag, April 2023, hardover, 256 pages with 201 color and 214 black/white illustrations, 29 x 24 cm. Order the catalogue from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de.
For a better reading, quotations and partial quotations in this exhibition and catalogue review of Dimensions. Digital Art since 1859, edited by Richard Castelli, Walter Smerling and Dan Xu, have not been put between quotation marks.
Catalogue review of Dimensions. Digital Art since 1859 added on August 22, 2023 at 15:13 German time.
