Violence Online Festival - New Media show curated by Agricola de Cologne

VIOLENCE - online festival and exhibition

Version 2.0

Review

REVIEW - 24 October 2002 - as seen on Rhizome

Ryan Griffis
Review
"Day Jobs"
Violence Online Festival Version 2.0
http://www.newmediafest.org/violence/index.htm
current venues:
Computer Space Festival 2002 Sofia (Bulgaria), 18-21 October
Liberarti Festival – Liverpool Bienniale 2002, 10 October - 01 December

"One major difference between the age of the virtual and more primitive times is that the contemporary idols have no metaphysical referent. The ones that have been constructed are… end-points, empty signs. To this paper master, sacrifice has no limit. The stairs of the temple flow with blood every day." Critical Art Ensemble

Agricola de Cologne’s recent (and ongoing) work, "Violence Online Festival," brings together the diverse works of many artists, ranging from networked productions to digitized flat works to documented performances and numerous other forms – all addressing in some way "violence". These
various works are assembled within a Flash site created to appear as a corporate interface for the fictional Violence Media Incorporated (VMI). One accesses the different artistic products through navigating the "departments" of VMI, "Violence Marketing," "Violence Broadcasting," etc.

As many current "New Media" works seem to be dealing with the relationship between the "virtual" and the corporeal, and how to reconcile (or not) these realms, the Violence Online Festival is an interesting and tangible aesthetic and critical project. The physical and social relations brought about through networked culture have been theorized and discussed, but it’s obvious that more work can, and should, be done to continue the dialogue. Thankfully, there are enough efforts included in the VMI interface that bring other aspects of the dialogue to the table, aspects that should be necessary for any examination of the relationship between violence and representational media.

Institutional violence, especially in the form of state repression acting in the interests of capital, and against the interests of citizen collectives, plays a major role in several of the productions included in VMI. Francesca da Rimini and Michael Grimm’s "Los Dias y Las Noches de Los Muertos" visualizes the connections between nationalistic imperialism, Western capital, and public displays of death. Words of the Zapatistas, Napolean’s "How to Make War," images referencing the "Day of the Dead" celebration, and photos of the deadly results of police force on protestors at the G8 Summit in Genoa are juxtaposed in a disorienting grid. Other works, like Joy Garnett’s "Smokescreens," Babel’s "Protestors, Police, Politicians," Deb King’s "Collateral Assets," and Rika Ohara’s "Une Semain de Bonté" take on the institutional (mis)representation (or denial) of violence.

While it may be easy to see the connections between mediated
representations and institutional (in the form of organized entities) violence from a critical perspective, the intersections of less organized forms of violence and representation are, apparently, more difficult to get at from a constructively critical perspective. The difficulty of dealing with desire and its disparate forms of expression on a personal and institutional level (especially in the US, where the representation of violence and sexuality is simultaneously repressed and exploited for profit) makes it even more important to explore. Though many "groups" become the targets of repressed institutional violence, "domestic abuse" and other forms of oppression against women would seem to be the most virulent and pervasive. (I may feel this way due to my relationship with women working in the field of domestic violence prevention, but the case they make is a compelling one.) Cindy Gabriela Flores’s "Subway" examines the mass transit system of Mexico City in the current (!
sociological and personal) condition of "riding while a woman". Depicting the "compulsory gender border" (the use of women only and co-ed trains) active in the subway through textual narrative and second-person, sequential images, Flores presents us with the observation that segregated travel is self-chosen by women (it’s not enforced). But, as she makes clear, the context creating the gender border was not. Self-segregation is a matter of safety and survival, as the rate of abuse against women in the co-ed trains, and the acceptance it enjoys, is high, and especially violent offenses not unheard of. With a lot of ongoing discussion occurring around issues of borders, "Subway" adds a problematic and complex statement into the mix.

Other interrogations of the connections between personal and societal expressions of desire are also present in VMI. Jody Zellen’s "Crowds and Power" is a web-based work that uses multiple, repeated images and texts, revealed in varying levels of ambiguity and clarity, often through suggestive cropping (a method used by the artist in "Ghost City" as well). As the title suggests, "Crowds…" takes on the psyche of masses and how perception and action can shift based on the proximity and personal identification of subjects. The relationship between architecture and crowds is interestingly explored through dynamically displayed images of crowds of people and the empty shells of architecture meant to accommodate them. "Hate," a series of acted, interview-like statements by Humberto Ramirez, presents us with one reason why Zellen’s crowds can be frightening rather than comforting collectives. The speakers, all represented in close-up interview fashion, proceed - in a one-after-the-!
other barrage of sound bytes – to declare their hatred for other people. Seen in the visual, sequential form, these recorded statements can be dismissed as easy targets (who advocates open hatred and racism?), although we definitely can’t deny the persistence of such thoughts and actions, even for ourselves.

This all brings me to looking at VMI as a project in itself, alongside the individual components that are included. In Ramirez’s video work, there is a diversity of people speaking, mostly seeming North American, but at least diverse in those terms. Obviously, hate (and violence) is not the exclusive property of white males, but what is gained from representing hate as a "multicultural" phenomenon, other than a vague sense of humanism that says "Hey, we all hate, we’re all really the same." VMI, it its attempt to encompass the wide range of desires and actions called violence, creates a similar problem. The curatorial tone, deeply rooted in universalist tendencies that override the specific and critical pursuit of many of the artistic projects included, can be discerned in the project’s introduction:
"The human character contains both a light and a dark side, good and bad, individually manifested. Deeply rooted is a dark-sided element: Violence."
The representation of a corporate entity (VMI) rightly replicates the personification of capital’s interests and its increasing, global ubiquity, but becomes overwhelmingly self-referential and metaphysical: from the eerie opening audio track "Violence is fun, Violence Festival is pure happiness"; the classification of the works into whimsical departments whose names float and pulsate; to the saturated red ground that envelops the entire experience.
Although I’m not sure it adequately represents the interests of all its various works, VMI is ambitious, interesting, and necessary. Unfortunately, the specter of disembodiment is strong and ever present; it’s too easy to
connect to the network and not question the latent violence in that act alone.
As Bruce Sterling once (sarcastically) wrote:
"The price of liberty is said to be eternal vigilance – but that’s a pretty steep price, isn’t it? Can’t we just automate this eternal vigilance thing? Maybe we can just install lots of 24-hour networked videocams."
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version 1.0 presented on Violens" Festival Tábor (Czech Republic) 17 - 31 August 2002
version 1.1 - featured project on A Virtual Memorial during September 2002
version 2.0 presented on Liberarti Festival at Liverpool Biennale (UK) October/November 2002
Computer Space 2002 Festival Sofia (Bulgaria) 18 - 21 October 2002