In Native
American traditions it is expected that when decisions are made within
a tribe, the implications of their choices are considered and projected
seven generations into the future. What affects will this decision have
on these unconcieved generations? The variables are then weighed and a
decision is made with the long reaching effects in mind. At the rate Western
civilization is growing and technology raging, it is hard enough to envision
the next twenty years, let alone the next seven generations. The visions
we do come up with are often influenced by the minds of science fiction
set designers and writers like Syd Mead and Phillip K. Dick who create
the standard for how
we envision the future. Like a self fulfilling prophecy, the collective
weight of this imagery affects the future we create for ourselves. While
this is not a particularly radical concept, we are beginning to see more
and more people making an effort to dispell of this apocalyptic potential.
Whether through the merging of science and philosophy as evidenced in
quantum healing, or the redirection of communities to a lifestyle that
fosters a sustainable ecosystem; there are a growing number of individuals
who are shifting our paradigms of what the future holds.
The
art community is one that has as many visions of the future as there are
members, expressing everything from moralist whining to cool disinterest,
with every facet
explored in between. As we near the millenium, it too has become a popular
topic of discussion among artists, the hot subject of inquiry. What I
hope to accomplish here is to reveal some of the issues at hand as we
near the the end of this century; found in the work of a few artists who
haven't chosen the millenium as their didactic axe to grind. Instead,
the poetics inherent in their work embody many of the issues we find at
work within the rubric of the millennium: Mortality, History, Future,
Morality, Identity, Place, Desire, Representation, Spirituality. In thinking
about the millennium, one begins to recognize their own mortality . There
is an absence of control, what does the future hold? How do we reconcile
that inevitable notion of death with the present and our view of the future?
How do we create our own immortality? Through progeny, or achievements,
or simply and most beautifully, by affecting the lives of the people around
us so that our memory will live on after
our passing.
In many
ways our future is defined by our histories, whether cultural, political
or personal. Our consciousness is informed by a never ending series of
narratives and representations that are often determined by a select group
of individuals who's own morals and ideals inform the decisions they make.
Breaking from these accepted systems of the representation of African
Americans, the work of Fred Wilson looks backwards as a means of moving
forward towards a new and more informed place in the future. Drawing almost
exclusively from history, museums and Americana kitch as a source of material,
Wilson recontextualises historical objects that have been given the specific
role of one dimensional oppression in our collective, cultural unconscious.
He questions our historical determinism, traditionally told in the hegemonic
voice of the White European Male by offering a new version of history
recounted through the repositioning objects associated with Black culture.
Through the thoughtful positioning of items, like placing silver serving
pieces together with slave shackles in a vitrine titled "Metalwork,1723-1880"
for his Mining the Museum |exhibition at the Maryland Historical Society,
Wilson
reveals an alternate voice of the African American reality. He tells stories
through the juxtaposition of the objects, asking the viewer to consider
the relationship implied and informed through placement. What is as fascinating
as his method of revisionism is his illumination of the fact that that
there is no one objective story of history . Instead his presentations
remind us that the authorized version of history we have been told has
been a systematic form of opression. Whether by slyly redirecting the
methods of display instituted by the traditional museum and revealing
its biased structure, or exposing and collapsing the damaging stereotypes
inherent in ceramic figurines, Wilson achieves this epiphany with elegance.
Wilson's work stands to illuminate that as well as a multiplicity of histories, there are also as many views of the future as there are people to conceive of them- but we carry our history forward with us, creating for the future what we know from the past. Therefore, it would behoove us to consider other voices and perspectives of the past if we ever hope to live in a world of equality and respect.
:::
Japanese
artist Mariko Mori's work seems to operate more as a fatalistic threat
of what the future holds by showing us that much of what we consider futuristic
already exists in contemporary culture. Her "Cindy Shermanesque" cibachrome
self-portraits rely implicitly upon pre-existing social and architectural
constructs found in Japan. By placing herself in various locations like
Tokyo Airport or a simulated beach recreation area and costumed as a female
cyborg fantasy appropriate to the location, she barely projects into the
future a reality that already occurs in muted contemporary tones, like
the familiar colors of seventies
shag carpeting reflected in current fashion.
And it is with fashion as a temporal, short term commodity that she captures the attention of her. Mori carefully choses the way she presents herself. Each role she plays, costume she wears and location she poses within all have a particular reference to an aspect of Japanese culture. And all of which are all found in Tokyo, a city saturated with a sci-fi futuristic glow, where the pleasure principal is dictated by Japanimation, school girls and a prepubescent fixation with the commodity of cute. I am not trying to flatten the Japanese culture into a hybrid of Hello Kitty and school girl panty vending machines, nor do I want to assert that these are the sole signifiers of a cultural identity. I only want to illustrate the targets of Mori's pointed agenda, which encapsulate this world into a slick, stylized vision that is available in Japan.
Mori
refers to the women she characterizes as cyborgs, commenting metaphorically
on the subserviant, Madonna/Whore roles of women in Japan by performing
the tasks required of their imposing culture, whether serving a
tea service or waiting for a man in a love hotel. Her view implies a sort
of "Blade Runner" future where replicants are fabricated to simulate an
extinct community or an undesirable, yet essential class that assumes
the position of worker drone or sex slave. A place where the natural has
been replaced by a pervasive Eccoian hyper reality, where shopping malls
become cultural meccas and feature everything from simulated beaches to
ice rinks and sex
hotels where businessmen can mingle with schoolgirls. A place where utopian
visions merge with Dante's various levels of the inferno.
Is this
Mori's vision of the future, or the present? Is there any difference?
It is apparent in her imagery that there is little distance between fantasy
and reality, and that the crossover between the two can determine the
outcome. How does her work tell us about the future? By speaking about
the present, by revealing some of the desires of contemporary first world
culture paired with cutting edge technology
that defines the coordinates for the future. We hold the key
to how we harness these technologies, but when they are funneled into
the fulfilling of base desires perhaps it is time to rethink where these
desires come from and make efforts to challenge their necessity. Mori's
work seems to make this claim, but still gets caught within the structure
she trys to subert; losing ground to the fantasy she presents. Are we
doomed to find that our paradigms for the future are a self fulfilling
prophecy? Offering no alternative, Mori's futuristic vision paints a fatalistic
picture of warning while still buying into the fantasies she wishes to
deconstruct.
:::
The
year 1996 saw the life of 39 year old, Cuban born artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres
taken by AIDS. Up to the time of his death, Torres' work had been concieved
and created as a means of sharing his experiences through metaphor and
simple imagery that spoke of love, loss and longing. From billboards featuring
a black and white photograph of a rumpled empty bed that were placed around
New York City, to unlimited fields of candies and stacks of posters, spread
out for the taking at the Hirschorn Museum among other places, his work
implies the inevitability of loss within desire and the wish to transcend
the finality of death. Several of Torres' pieces deal directly with issues
of infinate trust and generosity, as evidenced with his mountains if individually
wrapped candies and endless stacks of offset posters. Each pile has an
ideal size and weight which is monitored by the owner of the piece. As
the level of candy or posters is reduced, it is part of a contractual
agreement that the collector entered into upon purchasing the piece whereby
they are responsible for maintaining the ideal size and offering pieces
to all who care to take one. As all the
goodies are free for the taking, the commodity resides in the contract
and responsibility of providing the pieces for consumption, thereby the
collector acts as acolyte to the eternal flame. By means of taking away
objects, treats from the "giving tree" Torres incorporated that interaction,
factoring in the depletion of these yummies as an element
of his work and the contract that binds the collector or institution to
forever replenishing the pile is as much the art as the gift itself.
How can we, the audience, absorb this work? How will we be affected by it? These are the very questions that artists grapple with while conceiving their work. What can the viewer take away? How will the viewer be affected and how can the work help change the perceptions that the audience brings to thework? These questions bear a striking resemblance to that issue which weighs so heavily on the "Millennium". Is this the apocalypse? Is my life going to change? How will I be remembered? While Torres may not have necessarily considered the millennium as an issue in the creation of his work, it most certainly embodies the poetic realization of vulnerability in the face of time and eternal existence. In this way these artists consider their " stamp" on society, whether looking forward, as in Torres' case, at Mori's present, or back as a means of moving forward, as in Wilson's.
The
miracle of Torres' work is in his profound generosity and the trust that
he bestows upon the collector; that they will respect his wish to continue
the giving once he is no longer around to oversee the replenisment of
his stacks. There is a peaceful elegance in the way he handled such politically
charged topics as AIDS and homosexuality, avoiding the typical didacticism
that usually accompanies issues of sexuality and representation in contemporary
art. His work offers a subtle inflection of meaning while operating as
a
sort of "Giving Tree", providing tokens of unconditional love. Torres'
art intentionally transcends the theoretical trappings of the cultural
elite instead appealling to the prime-time television, sit-com audience
as much as the art school marxist; while never dummying his artwork down.
In effect
the gift he leaves behind is not
simply the fleeting sweet of candy or the poster on our wall, but the
fact that he considered how his work would last when he was gone and the
multiplicity of messages steeped in
that simple gesture. His art is that the treats dissappeared
into the hands of his audience, resounding in our fickle memories and
not on the wall of a museum held captive for all eternity behind a frame
of UV coated plexiglass. Torres' preservation is not in a cryogenic deep
freeze but in our recollections, in the poetry of his fleeting spirit
and ours as well.
While
none of these artists deal directly with the issue of the millennium,
it is clear that each has an emphasis within their work that wishes, in
one way or another to leave their mark and affect the way our culture,
on a larger platform, envisions not only ourselves but our place in the
future. When one thinks of the millennium, what do we see,what is happening
around us, how doe we feel? Have the visions of a few select group of
"influentials" shaped our vision of the world at the beginning of the
twenty-first century. The
images and designs of such artists and illustrators as Syd Mead and the
cartoonists for Manga have seeped into the collective unconscious and
have become a sort of visual
self fulfilling prophecy. With such bleak promise as the imagery of Blade
Runner and The Ghost in the Shell, where the force of technological growth
and urban development leave the rustic charm of early 20th century modernist
architecture to moulder in the acid rain, we are forced to rethink the
paradigms that shape our sense of self, place, responsibility and above
all what we envision for the future. The shaping of our future is dictated
not by monster corporations and the visions of Sci-Fi writers, but by
those who chose to take an active role in determining it for themself.
Some of the most frightening aspects of the science fiction narratives
we use as measuring sticks are the social conditions that develop as if
overnight and become the basis for the conceptual movement of the plot.
Whether the stifiling social constriction found in Orwell's 1984 and Atwood's
The Handmaid's Tale or the implanted memories and semirobotic abilities
of augmented humanoids from so many other stories, these tales of warning
and fantasy construct our greater understanding of the future and act
as moral calls to action in much the same was as the work of Torres and
Wilson. Of the three artists presented here, it is Mori that serves up
this fantastic, cinematic view of the future; placing herself within it
as a means of simultaneously challenging and celebrating its devices.
But the question still remains, how can we shift this vision from the
inside
out? The answer lies with those who create the future, each and every
one of us.
Amy
Stafford ©1998
*Surface Magazine issue no. 12
Mariko Mori
Felix Gonzales-Torres