Situating himself in the
margins, he does not pretend to offer an alternative ideology or political answers;
instead he uses virtual gadgetry, the common (wo)man and public space as raw
material to cultivate something akin to post-modern performative social
therapy. He successfully restores the democratic purpose of the arts by
liberating performance from the theatre, art from the museum and technology
from the narrow functionalism it affords in the marketplace.
He is known mostly for his large-scale and controversially
fleeting photographic images that are projected upon public monuments across
the globe. These projects attempt to reclaim the streets and instigate a
dialogic space amidst the hybrid nature of urban centers. Wodiczko’s current
work, part of which is now on exhibit at ICP in New York, continues to address
his concern for the abuse of power and the silence of the disenfranchised.
Expanding upon his 1990’s series entitled “nomadic instruments,” which
inter-actively functioned as implements of survival, communication,
empowerment, and healing for both immigrants and the homeless, “Dis-Armor” &
“Dis-Armor 2” (2003) was developed as a means of alleviating the psychological
difficulties of high school students in Hiroshima. This includes shyness,
speechlessness and lack of facial expression. Designed with only a laptop
computer, three LCD screens, a speaker with an amplifier, a microphone,
augmented speech recognition software and three video-cameras, “Dis-Armor” is
intended to be worn over the head and around the torso like a space-age
paratrooper suit. The participant has now been given a false sense of security
with two eyes on the back of her head and lunges into previously uncomfortable
settings such as the streets, schools, shopping centers and businesses,
confronting people and situations which had caused paralysis in the past.
Wodiczko uses filmed findings to create elaborate “ethnographic” video
installations, documenting these social and often emotionally riveting
inter-(re)actions.
This recent work continues to challenge the behavior of
dominant culture by raising questions as to how power operates privately in the
public realm, who benefits from the maintenance of certain social standards,
and what governs public communication. Wodiczko’s evolving vision possesses
shades of a Yeatsian gyre, where the intimate and the technological are appositionally
entwined and spinning. Rather than producing art works that merely comment
upon cultural displacement and social discomfort, Wodiczko dons the guise of an
inventor devising pseudo-sci-fi objects that may directly assist the cultural
nomad and the emotionally dis-eased in redefining strategies of subjectivity
through self-framing. Moving beyond the physical body in which the
contemporary art world seems to be obsessively tied, Wodiczko sees the body as
an indefinable, post-human “cyborg” of sorts.
As Director of MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies,
where he also heads the new Interrogative Design Group, Wodiczko has become
deeply involved with incorporating digital-era technology into art works that
address the displacement, voicelessness and alienation of the disenfranchised.
Over the past several years at MIT he has developed what he labels “speech act”
equipment that enables both immigrant and homeless individuals to communicate
in highly unorthodox ways. “Alien Staff” (1992-96), for example resembles a
shepherd’s staff, but instead cradles a small loudspeaker and a high-tech mini
LCD monitor at the top of the arc. The monitor displays pre-recorded images of
the carrier narrating the often unbearable complexity of his/her life experiences,
allows a powerful mode of expression to displaced persons that are typically
faced with communication problems and social categorization. The biblical
overtones combined with the broadcast quality of the pre-recordings offer
immigrants a viable mode of portable public address and a powerful tool with
which to encourage a cultural network for immigrant groups to potentially
organize social movement.
To accompany the “Alien Staff,” Wodiczko developed
“Mouthpiece,” a metallic muzzle-like device with a miniature, clear resolution,
liquid crystal screen that fits onto the person’s actual mouth and also spouts
pre-recorded, edited and electronically perfected statements, questions,
answers and stories. This denies the real “act” of communication to the wearer.
Like “Alien Staff,” the gadget is intended to draw the curious onlooker closer
to the immigrant’s face, in order to hear the voice more clearly, which also
succeeds in reducing the physical, psychological and cultural distance between
the immigrant and non-immigrant. In today’s migration era, Wodiczko believes
that the wearer of the “Porte-parole” equipment appears as a prophetic
storyteller who poetically interrupts the continuity of established life in
public space and dominant culture.” The immigrant becomes a savvy
techno-virtuoso of speech who points to the absurdity of depriving speech
rights in any democratic society. “Mouthpiece,” therefore, serves as an
instrument whose function is to empower and an outlandish costume underscoring
that the alien strangeness imposed externally on immigrants exist as mere
artifice.
For an individual who spent half his life behind the “Iron
Curtain,” Wodiczko’s work is profoundly democratic and his critique of power
highly post-modern. While his projections force viewers to re-examine the
function of architecture and to reconsider the political nature of the steel
and concrete caverns of commerce that comprise large cityscapes, his virtual
“nomadic instruments” re/mind the participant that (s)he is the performer and
the post-human superhero who cannot be controlled by the mental stranglehold of
technology or the industry driving technology. Agency, however, is gained at
the expense of becoming a symbol of one’s authentic self. Given the privilege
of full surveillance, the wearer of “Dis-Armor” acquires control over her
interactions while the other with whom she communicates can only see the
expression of her eyes. However, one wonders whether or not all the
disconnected gadgetry creates a secondary level of displacement from one’s core
self.
In “Power & Ideology,” Joan Borsa quotes Wodiczko as
saying in perfect Barthian fashion that “only physical, public projection of
the myth on the physical body of the myth can successfully demythify. The
look, the appearance, the costume, the mask of the building is the most
valuable and expensive investment. In the power discourse of the “public”
domain, the architectural form is the most secret and protected property.
Public projection involves questioning both the function and ownership of this
property.” “Dis-Armor” then signifies both a departure and return.
Exchanging the cold fa?ade for human architecture, Wodiczko continues to
unearth the silent and gestural operations of power guiding social behavior.
However, as he flies closer to the sun, at the mantel of the unconscious, he
discovers the more personal burning sensations of shame which lie at the root
of both power and the authentic self. Social change begins here.
style=’page-break-before:always’>
REFERENCES:
Artforum,
v. 34, Summer 1996, p. 106-7 (A Review of Krzysztof Wodiczko’s installation
Xenology: Immigrant Instruments at the Galerie Lelong)
October 38
(fall 1986), p. 3-51. A Conversation with Krzysztof Wodiczko
Vangaurd
XII/9 (Nov 1983) 14-17. Krzysztof Wodiczko: Power & Ideology, Joan Borsa.
Art-For-Change.com,
segment on Krzysztof Wodiczko
MIT
Architecture site: Profile on Krzysztof Wodiczko
OUTLINE:
I. Establish
the role of political art and the efficacity of KW’s post-modern style of work.
style=’font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana’>II. Introduce
KW past work and present direction with “Disarmor” experiments, themes and the
role of cultural displacement plays.
style=’font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana’>III. Delve
further into “Nomad Instruments” series; their insemination, a description,
cultural resonance and relationship to the present sociological landscape of
power.
style=’font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana’>IV. Show
how these “post-human” devices are a continuum of his fascination with
exposing/transforming the dominant modes of power and yet at the same time
appear de-humanizing.
style=’font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana’>
style=’font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana’>V. A
turn to the personal. Articulate KW’s shift between broader attacks on power
and a more personal, reflexive examination of power hidden in an individual’s
own shame. |
