From: Photographie
Plasticienne:
lÕextrme contemporain
by Dominique
BaquŽ
in Editions du Regard
Terror runs through Steve Miller's and Joseph Nechvatal's representations,
not because of any ambiguity between the analog and the digital, but because
the exhibited works are an extremely violent attack on the subject's identity -
and hence on our own as well.
True, there exists a tradition of medical photography, but here
subjectivity seems to have imploded or, more accurately, it seems entirely
concentrated and reabsorbed by the pure icy surface of the medical
imagery. The complete absence of
subjective inwardness is further confirmed in Miller's "portraits" -
the term seems ironic - and in Nechvatal's Computer Virus Project. For Miller,
making a portrait of an individual means working from a specific representation
of the body, the body subjected to x-rays, scanner, sonogram, magnetic
resonance imagery, and then, in the last stage, after a series of extremely
complex manipulations - medical, photographic and digital - transferring the
positive onto a silkscreen, the final medium of the "picture". The
resulting colorized picture shows skulls, teeth, bone structures and includes
numbered data, codes and various markers in such a way as to permanently
eradicate any humanist temptation...
His is a kind of radical materialism, which exploits the epistemological
rupture introduced by the new imagery, and extends Nechvatal's investigations,
the latter being defined as a "computer assisted post-conceptual
artist." Positioning himself as
the heir to Duchamp, Kosuth and conceptual artists, Nechvatal asserts that computer-assisted
production has "overthrown our heritage of ocular meanings forever and
hence overthrown meaning in general." A path of investigation has thus
opened up which consists of "redefining the heritage of meaning by linking conceptual art to
computing." The working
hypothesis being twofold - in that, on the one hand, wherever information may
go, a virus may go with it, on the other, the body-subject carries viruses -
Nechvatal presents large "pictures" made with the help of a computer,
in which local viral transformations are introduced and gradually spread until
they take over the entire work.
-Translated from the French by Catherine
Temerson
Un effroi qui traverse Žgalement les
reprŽsentations de Steve Miller et Joseph Nechvatal: non point parce qu'il y
aurait ici ambigu•tŽ entre l'analogique et le numŽrique, comme chez
Cottin-gharn mais parce que les oeuvres exposŽes s'en prennent, avec une
radicale violence, ‰l'identitŽ du sujet. Ë la n™tre, tout aussi bien. JI existe
certes une tradition de la photogra-phie mŽdicale: mais ici la subjectivitŽ
semble avoir implosŽ ou, plus exactement, s'tre concentrŽe, rŽsorbŽe tout
entire dans la pure surface glacŽe de l'imagerie mŽdicale. DŽfec-tion absolue
des mythes de l'intŽrioritŽ subjective que viennent confirmer des ÇportraitsÈ -
ironie du vocable - exposŽs par Miller, ou te Computer Virus Project de
Nechvatal. Portrai-turer un individu, pour Miller, c'est ainsi
travailler ‰ partir d'une reprŽsentation spŽcifique du corps, le corps soumis
aux rayons X, scanner, Žchographie, imagerie par rŽsonance
magnŽtique puis, ˆ la suite d'une sŽrie extrmement complexe de
manipulations tant mŽdi-cales que photographiques et numŽriques, reporter, en
bout de cha”ne, le film positif sur un ecran sŽrigraphique, support
du ÇtableauÈ final. Un tableau colorisŽ qui exhibe cr‰nes, dents,
ossatures, et s'accompagne de donnŽes chiffrŽes, de codes et repres divers
pour Žra-diquer dŽfinitivement toute tentation humaniste... Un
matŽrialisme radical, en quelque sorte, qui s'appuierait sur la rupture
ŽpistŽmologique introduite par les nouvelles images, et que vient prolonger la
recherche de Nechvatal, dŽfini comme Çartiste postconceptuel
assistŽ par ordinateurÈ. Se positionnant lui-mme comme hŽritier de Duchamp,
Kosuth et des conceptuels, Nechvatal affirme que la production assistŽe par
ordinateur Ça renversŽ ˆjamais notre hŽritage de significations oculaires et ainsi
la signification en gŽnŽralÈ. Une voie de recherche s'ouvre alors, qui
consisterait i ÇredŽfinir le patrimoine de signification. en liant l'art
conceptuel ˆ l'informatiqueÈ. L'hypothse de travail Žtant double - ˆ savoir
que, d'une part, lˆ o peur aller l'information, un virus peut l'accompagner et
que, d'autre part, le corps-sujet incorpore des virus -' Nechvatal prŽsente de
grands ÇtableauxÈ rŽali-sŽs ˆ l'aide de l'ordinateur, dans lesquels sont
introduites des transformations virales locales qui, peu ˆ peu, se propagent
jusqu'ˆ dŽvorer l'oeuvre.