The Art of Open Systems
Arjen Mulder on the art of open systems during the DEAF04 symposium: “Feelings are always local“.
Arjen Mulder – Body and Soul: Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s Biological Worldview.
Collective memories are the products of our society, we can find them for example in our museums. The museum too can be seen as a system, to be closed or to be opened up. Today we have entered a new level of networks: networks of cultural products. Starting from Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s biological worldview, Arjen Mulder tries to come to a theory of interactive art: The art of open sytems.
The worldview:
“Subsystems determine the functioning of a larger system just as much as the larger system determines how its subsystems function. Thus, when you get a stomach-ache, you should look for the cause, not only in your subsystems (such as the stomach wall releasing too much acid), but also in the systems of which you yourself are a subsystem (for example, your job).â€
Arjen Mulder conceptualizes Art as a system and tries to look at this system through Ludwig Von Bertalanffy’s worldview. According to Mulder the art making process is always an open system. For instance when you are writing a book, then it is an open system, it is evolving. But when you finish it, it is closed. The artwork eventually becomes a closed system. Interactive art on the contrary tries to stay an open system. The work of art is always depending on the input of the audience. It is however a complex phenomenon because it are two systems (the work of art and the audience) that are coming together. Mulder goes even a step further by stating that when a system is placed within a network, the system as such stops being a system, it gets emerging properties. So with Interactive art the system Art and the system Audience are placed within a network of which the characteristics are very difficult to foresee. (to be elaborated in the future…K.R.)
Example of Interactive Art?
Run Motherfucker Run – Marnix de Nijs (NL)
“Run Motherfucker Run is a trip through nocturnal Rotterdam in installation form. The visitor’s running rhythm determines the speed of the threadmill, and this drives up the speed of the pictures. After every film fragment, one can choose between two more short films by turning left or right. In Run Motherfucker Run one is seized by an oppresive feeling. Running through the deserted nocturnal panoramas, one has the feeling one is being chased. While one thinks one has a certain control over one’s running speed and the selection of the images, one ultimately realizes that one is being controlled by the machine.”
Hello Kris,
first, thank you for these reports on the symposium “Feelings are always local”.
It is not very clear to me what we do gain if we use the “Open/closed system” paradigm to describe the relationship between object/user/public/creator/art/museum. What do we understand better, then? How does it change our understanding of an art object, of interactivity? In which sense is it different from the Duchamp’s approach(C’est le regardeur qui fait le tableau)?
see you
n
Hi Nicolas,
Thanks for the remarks. In the first place I wanted to give an overview of the different speakers to make clear how the open vs closed question was tackled by presenting different case studies. But you are right, it is not
very clear to see the surplus of thinking in terms of the open vs. closed dichotomy when thinking about for instance Interactive Art.
In the panel discussion after the presentations often was referred to the ‘ethical’ implications of opening up or closing down a system which was an interessting discussion but in the end it seemed difficult to come to some sort of generalization because this question is different for every sort of ‘system’. I think that one of the remarks of Manuel de Landa in his introduction actually made clear how difficult it is to talk in terms of open vs closed systems because we are talking about complex levels of interactions. However the case studies made this very clear, no kind of theory came out of it.
As for the specific case of Interactive Art it is even more complex. The post-structuralist claim that the ‘meaning’ of a work of art is ‘constructed’ while the spectator is looking at (experiencing) it off course is very much present in these debates. But how is this notion different in Interactive Art than in non-Interactive Art? This is a very difficult question and I think Arjen Mulder tries to make a distinction by referring to Figurative Art as a closed system and Interactive Art as an open system, and takes this as a starting point to think about the emerging properties that might come to live in the ‘interaction’.
This same discussion comes back in the interview I did with Willem Elias (a Culture Philosopher) who didn’t agree with the fact that Figurative Art would be a closed system. I hope to present you this interview really soon (I just need to find the time to type it out ;-), so we can come back to this topic.
all the best,
Kris