Con(tra)science
Excerpts from
An Interview
by Bryan Alft
Winter 1995
"[...] I've heard a lot of criticism of the Internet - that it allows everyone to just throw out ideas unsubstantiated and becomes just a flurry of ideas...
Well, that's true to any environment. Perhaps there it is more vivid right now because that whole place is in a chaotic sort of state of development. It's beginning, it's becoming as we speak. So, of course if s like looking at things in a Greater scale to see the bolder qualities. And so, of course, there will be a lot of criticism and really disturbing things coming up because it's easier to notice them [...] there is a lot of crap coming out of it... you go to the galleries, museums you always find bad things and completely thoughtless, vacant statements. Everywhere. So, yes, you can see them a little better... you can see them right now because it's still a relatively narrow environment and that's why it's so important to move in right away and try to do the right thing there. So, when I work on anything, I do want to make sure that I work with it seriously. I never put (on the Web) anything that's just reproducing something I've done somewhere else. There is no photocopies of the books or leaflets or paintings or whatever because those belong somewhere else. This is a very different environment - a completely unique place for artists, particularly in terms of social interaction or social responsibility. I think this is twice as vital at this point for any artist, or artists all together as a collective to invade that territory because if that doesn't happen it is going to be lost to the commercial world. They are fast, so before we notice, things will be lost... There is still a lot of good things to be done and there is a lot of good work showing up. So that's sort of the most recent thought in my mind. It is disturbing... but maybe that's what I like about it, that it is still so raw and uncharted. It bugs me when people pull the ugliest things out of it. [...] For example this whole controversy with pornography - like we don't have pornography out there. It's so much easier to see it here and, of course, certain... layers of society will use those problematic issues to organize or control the environment... They are afraid of places where people can really do something quite different than took place before. I really think of it in terms of a major evolutionary event. It is in a sense like the invention of the printing press, because suddenly at that point it was possible to address a large quantity of people. An institution could suddenly put out a book... relatively cheaply. Here comparable things happen except right now it's an individual that can do that and address millions...
So you obviously think it's very important for artists to seize new means - including the Internet as soon as possible to circumvent...
Absolutely. It's as simple as that. There is a whole environment, a whole new layer to life, where we can communicate. Art is about communicating thoughts and, again, in the social context - which I suppose, I just can't avoid when talking or thinking about art anymore - when you think of that you reach people in a very intimate way... Ultimately we're talking about me working at home and another person working - in a sense - on the same piece. So in some ways it is one to one, very intimate, and in other ways it's one to millions. That's a very unique situation...
Is there anything else?
That's pretty much it... Every time I end up talking about the Internet, I'm always scared that people can't cut past the hype that it's "cool" . I always want to talk more and more so that it is clear that I wish that all that press didn't exist so you could really concentrate on the work itself. I don't do it because it's a "happening" place... It is really funny because I never worked on computers that much... but this isn't about computers anymore. This goes past the technology and I'm always scared of using the term - there is no better one to give - because people associate it with technology - pure brains - and I say it is WAY past that. This is no longer about the tools, this is a new possibility of communicating thoughts and feelings and if you looked that way at the art in general, then you can't ask for any more than that. Another thing I'm excited about is that I always - and that has to do with the monetary value of the work - I try to invent new methods of questioning its value, so that when I paint murals I paint them over at the end of the show so that you can't buy them - they don't exist, that if I print a leaflet, I pick the worst possible paper so that it does disintegrate at some point. So I would always try to find ways to insure that this is a temporary, ephemeral work and with the Internet this is like an absolute ideal - the work virtually doesn't exist. I mean... I work on little posters on the Internet, but they are never things, only ideas - that's amazing... Suddenly you can just communicate a thought. Yes, of course, you have to still create the device, but the device in itself cannot have a monetary value because it doesn't exist, it's just an electric impulse... it substitutes for the object that People can sell, buy, trade, or steal. What else can you ask for?"
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