Fred Forest. For an Aesthetics of Communication
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Even though the idea clashes with our humanist heritage, the new technology is progressively modifying our value systems, our thought systems, our perceptions and our sense of Time and Space. It is not at any time the aim of Communication Aesthetics to deliver a naïve apologia exhalting technological prowess. Unlike certain artistic movements, " Fururism " for example, Communication Aesthetics draws attention to the danger of the use of technology growing in a way which is completely divorced from any ethical, philosophical or social consideration. Communication Aesthetics has come forward with the ambition of working towards a new apprehension of reality, and supporting a conception of the world which takes us further towards deeply spiritual goals. A the very moment when Eastern thought in all its forms is exerting a fascination over an ever-growing number of people, an active scientific elite is revealing that mystical thought in fact provides an adequate framework for contemporary scientific theory. Man's imaginary sense and his strained questions as to the meaning of existence remain unchanged since his origin. The most burning questions of the moment are still the mysteries of life, death, love, anguish, pleasure. It is rather the way in which these questions get asked which is changing. The contemporary artist sees himself as equipped with new methods of investigation for exploring the collective unconscious and giving it form. Technological resources take him into unknown territory which it is up to him to explore. The real stakes of centemporary art are now placed well beyond the status of the image and the status of form. We are now playing with the relationship we embody in our contact with the world - otherwise known as Reality. Against a background of aesthetic behaviour patterns which are changing along with technological evolution, artists taking up these new instruments are suggesting the constitution of new anthropological models.
Time and Space will contitute the artist of tomorrow's " raw material ". Just as down through the ages he has worked tone, marble, wood of metal, he must now attempt to leave his mark on these " immaterials "... Time and Space are not just physical concepts, currently seen to be evolving considerably with the progress of knowledge, but also realities capable of being lived. It is on this terrain that artistic practice can take place and be legitimised.
In the unconscious mind of Western man, the notions of Time and Space are indissolubly linked. We, as Werterners, do not have the slightest doubt that Time and Space are organically structured. Three dimensional Space imposes itself as an immanent fact in the world. As for Time, its linear unfolding accompanies us everywhere : with the Past behind, and the Future in front, we advance in the Present. Man builds his temporal horizon along a line of progression the three separate zones of which are delineated by solid but moveable cursors. Up until now, this linear awareness of Time has appeared as being basically unbuilt. The new concepts which science is putting before us, just like the daily use of new technology, may well call these mental schemas into question. Out " certainties " acquired of and based on past socio-cultural data may well need to be rapidly updated. The new structure of Time has already produced some spectacular social effects. In mediaeval times church-belles tolled the hours; Taylor's time-and-motion stop-watch made production time work to within a second; today, the microprocessor allows us to control a process measured in nano-seconds... Micro-electronics is defined as a new structure of time, the fine gradations of which go beyond human perception. What this really means is that if yesterday we could hear the ticking of a watch movement or actually see the swing of a clock pendulum, today it requires a vast leap into the imaginary to understand how a calculator works.
By structuring physical space, the automobile has given us mastery over distance. Its appearance on the scene totally transformed our natural surroundings, our economy, our way of life. Transformations of even greater order are in view with the arrival of the computer. It has managed to colonise us and re-structure, in irreversible fashion, our Time and Space. The computer will soon be capable or bringing about the synthesis of technological and symbolic thought. The steam-engine was a benefical substitute for the resources of man or animal : computers and the computer revolution amplify man's intellectual resources. The current development or computers demonstrate that it is perhaps, in the long run, the machine which will allow us to return to our greatest myths. Return to them to the extent that it will contribute to pushing back frontiers which Time and Space have always imposed on mankind. This particular development in computers is expressed by a sharp increase in speed, that is to to say their increased capacity with real-time operation. The hooking-up of computers to each other, and also to other machines, is a fore-runner of the opening out of the telecommunications netwok and the abolition of certain constraints of distance. The distribution and multiplication of centres of decision, in leading to the " dissemination " of knowledge and power, give us hope for new forms of socio-political structures. Actually, in the light of this we are witnessing a new recognition of, and awareness of, individualiy emerging.
The so-called " fifth generation " computers, lurking on the horizon a few years avay, are going to bring us into the as yet unknown universe of artificial intelligence. Not only will they process data, figures and letters, but also " knowledge ", through the development of deductive reasoning. The difficulty of mastering a new means of expression, whether it is canvas and paint or the resistance or the marble, has always played a role in enriching the creative act. This essential enrichment will come less, perhaps, from the facilities which computer resources offer the artist, than from the difficulties they present when he uses them to express his awareness, difficulties which will involve him in unchartered ways. Are we at the dawn of a new cultural Renaissance ? Will telecommunications technology create the objective conditions for an " alternative " form of being together, on a scale which does axay with physical distance ? In all domains, the act of creation is freeing itself from spatial and temporal constraints, thanks to long distance transmission, to the gathering of data through message networks, to the possibility of meeting without physical travail, etc. We must also take into consideration that the amazing calculating capabilities which this equipment possesses can allow artists the hitertho unequalled power of astonisthingly rapid exploration of the infinite field of possibilities raised by the world of dream, of the imaginary and of human thought.
This is the aspect of the transformation or our relationship with Time and Space given prominence by artists who claim their place in the " community of awareness " constituted by Communication Aesthetics. In their varied work, they all share a concern for questions referring to spatio-temporal dimensions and to chrono-topological realities. Questions which have never been as acute as they are today. Possibilities for geographical travel opening up more and more rapidly, our capital of information widening, scientific experiments being performed on Time, all of these are causing us to vacillate more than a little in our strongly-held convictionbs on this subject and on a good many others! These rifts provide artists with a historic opportunity to bring about a rupture in the conventions of representation, thus setting them on the path of the extra-temporal phenomena, which truly constitute the fundamental problematic of our age. Moreover, signs can be seen of a convergence of " modern awareness " and the profound and ancien sources of religious, philosophical and mystical oriental thought. We can but remark that all these transformations brought about by media systems are, without our knowing it, reorganising our whole system of aesthetic representation.