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images by extinguishing single components of it. Ephemeral image vacancies are
inscribed in the mobile display as a layer of defective pixels and can be read
as an intervention in the technological conditions of devices that serve for the
representation of reality by digital means. Equally,
blemish
is an intervention in
the public space, giving priority to the context of the global art world as well
as targeting the blind spots of its modes of production and representation. The
unstable nature of reality as well as the contemporary methods of its reproduction
is called into question: Which of the significant components of a digital product are
visible, which are not? Which components of an overall image are not on display,
deliberately or accidentally? Which of the many artistic formats appears in the canon
of contemporary art, which of them are blanked out in the files of its operating
system? The immaterial defect of form—a dead pixel—is inscribed in the auratic art
spaces of the Venice Biennial. Barely perceptible for the viewers it is disguised as a
loose arrangement of black squared errors which finally can be read as an abstract
comment about the blemished context of art” (CONT3XT.NET
2011
).
Constant Dullaart's
Invisible Watermark
and Jon Rafman's works
Pollock Tank,
Georgia O'Keeffe Spinner
and
Matisse David
, forming part of the series
Brand New
Pa in t Jo b
, have much in common with the 'New Aesthetic' theorized by James
Bridle (Bridle
2011
).
Lots of images made up of lots of pixels was the answer to a figurative approach
to the New Aesthetic's reproduction of reality, questioning the unstable nature of
the real world and the contemporary methods used for its digital reproduction.
Working on the Invisible Pavilion project for the 54th Venice Biennale, it so
happened that we came across another group of artists working on much the
same issue, so we decided to cooperate with them and launch a joint attack on
the Biennale from different fronts and perspectives. In June 2011, the cutting-
edge international cyberartist group Manifest.AR (MANIFEST.AR
2011
) issued a
statement to the general public and to the president and director of the 54th Venice
Biennale informing them that they had created additional pavilions in the Giardini
concourse, built in the new medium of augmented reality, and that some of the
works had leaked out into the public space of Saint Mark's Square. The artists Mark
Skwarek, Sander Veenhof, Tamiko Thiel, Will Peppenheimer, John Craig Freeman,
Lily and Hong Lei, Naoko Tosa and John Cleater all took part directly in the project.
As Tamiko Thiel explains, “Augmented reality has redefined the meaning of
'public space.' As corporations privatize many public spaces and governments put
the rest under surveillance, augmented reality artists take over the invisible but
actual realm that overlays real space with multiple parallel universes. Augmented
reality actualizes the metaverse in the real universe, merging the digital and the real
into a single, common space.
Augmented reality can conquer space but it is not indifferent to space. With my artworks
you must negotiate real space in order to view the works. They are usually not single images
or objects, but installations that surround you. In order to look at them you must move your
body in space, looking up, down and twisting around (Thiel
2012
).
