Filmwinter 2006, Stuttgart Germany
Janna Slack
Perhaps one of the stickiest challenges facing art lovers, critics and collectors today is how to classify, appreciate and identify "digital" or "media" art. When does a video game become a digital piece? Where does web design end and fine art begin? Does that line even need to be drawn? Does one’s knowledge of Flash or Photoshop or html make them an artist? Is it the look of a website or its function that matters? Is it a music video or a short film? The question that currently makes some in the art world uncomfortable–"Are standards elitist or necessary to ensure quality and order?"–must be asked again and again when it comes to examining the impact and future of media and digital art.
As critics, professors and artists create and sort through the heaps of newly-created information, programs like Stuttgart’s "Filmwinter" are helping to codify and identify those characteristics that make mere "media" a form of "art." They do this by searching out and highlighting those pieces that are most beautiful, difficult, smart, intricate and technologically advanced. This year, for the first time, "new media" pieces will be split into such categories as "soft ware," "net art," and "virtual communities." Such categorizing is evidence of our growing understanding of these new art forms and the places where we need to put them.
"Filmwinter" has become one of the most important platforms for film and media art in Europe, with over 10,000 visitors and more than 1,500 submissions to the competition. Submissions for the 2006 competition include online games and virtual communities (The Tulse Luper Journey), community outreach projects (De l’art si je veux and UsMob), interactive music programs (Pentafono), socio-political critique and satire (PuppetPresident), as well as ever-utilitarian new lines of code (ap0204).
The breadth of categories covered is evidence of just how daunting the task of understanding these forays into art’s newest branch is. For instance, what makes The Tulse Luper Journey different from The Sims? On the surface, it seems obvious that the former is "art"–the lush pages of the website were not created by someone without a certain visual esthetic, nor were they created by someone without a great deal of industry knowledge. And while The Sims and other online communities and games deal in the more pedestrian language of war, sex and partying, Tulse Luper (in the haute-tradition of Myst) is concerned with researching the life of a noble, fictional man and using recovered documents and artifacts to reconstruct his life. In doing so, the game’s creator, Peter Greenway, hopes to examine and illustrate history’s subjectivity, and, by focusing on a single individual, to "discover the true nature of the 20th century." However, in its basic function–something to stave off boredom at work, to foster community and friendships between like-minded individuals–Tulse Luper is not so very different from Halo. What is the intrinsic quality of Tulse Luper that gives the viewer/player the gut feeling that this is different–that this is "art?" Festivals like "Filmwinter" are helping both to instill credibility in media works, while at the same time, helping to create an audience that appreciates them by beginning to articulate the "je ne sais quoi" that makes Tulse Luper so obviously different from The Sims.
Another work submitted to the festival that functions on a completely different plane is PuppetPresident, by Antoine Schmitt. The piece is timely, pointed and political and consists of a webpage that allows the viewer to have a "conversation" with a puppet "President." The conversation is completely impersonal and devoid of meaning, with the "President" using keywords from the "citizen’s" queries or statements to draft blank, formula responses. Though the "President" remains anonymous, his or her questions such as "What about oil?" and statements such as "Let’s talk about Iraq" give the "citizen" not only clues as to the "President’s" identity, but also to Schmitt’s opinion of him/her and his/her policies. This particular piece–lacking the visual loveliness of Tulse Luper–is decidedly conceptual and designed as commentary. It is also fun and eerie. The speed with which the answers appear onscreen, and their relative accuracy, immediately raises discomforting questions about man’s relationship to machine and, as the machine is "President," we are forced to examine both our dependency on and subservience to machines. The piece keeps to the realm of irony, however–without sinking into Matrix-style brooding and spectacle–because the "President" is, in fact, quite dumb and the conversation, once the initial curiosity has worn off, is akin to talking to our present President, i.e. a pre-programmed machine.
And this, overall, is what "Filmwinter" seeks to examine–the development of artists’ and appreciators’ relations to the digital/electronic world. The theme of this year’s program is "Mondo Cannibale" and will focus on global deformations and social software, as well as topics that highlight such questions as "video art as folk art." "Filmwinter" has grasped upon the idea that European culture has reached the point where technology can join the ranks of embroidery, quilting, and woodblock etching. In its goal to recognize and examine the impact of technology on art and European culture and vice versa, "Filmwinter" sweetens the discussion with prizes totaling more than 14,000 Euros. In broadening our understanding of what is considered art, "Filmwinter" also helps to narrow the field to those works that are truly deserving of that title.
