Specta(c)torship in Net Art(?): Individuation After Simondon

Mihai Băcăran (book draft, unpublished)

Specta(c)torship in Net Art(?): Individuation After Simondon is an experiment at the fringes of academic writing. It draws on a selected corpus of net art(?) works in order to question the experience of embodied subjectivity which coagulates in the context of contemporary internet technology, but also in order to ask: how is it possible to write about this experience in the first place? The embodied process of specta(c)torship can coagulate in writing only as a symptom of its failure and, in order to attend to that which comes to writing from outside representation (and that writing can never fully capture), it is necessary to experiment with the limits of written language.                       

The book contends that net art(?) specta(c)torship, instead of being an encounter between a predefined subject (the spectator) and a predefined object (the artwork), rather constitutes a process of individuation through which the embodied thinking subject is constructed and deconstructed at the very same time. The text critically engages with Gilbert Simondon’s theory of individuation proposing that, in order to account for the emergence of identity (a is a, a = a), the ontogenetic problematic outlined by Simondon (the becoming of being) has to be complemented by a phenomenogenetic one: the question of genesis of genesis of phenomena (i.e. the genesis of specific ways in which phenomena emerge). Upon this background, the process of specta(c)torship is understood as the problematization of the conjunction between the ontogenetic and phenomenogenetic dimensions of individuation. The specificity of net art(?) specta(c)torship rests upon the type of embodied subjectivity that is problematized and (de)constructed in this process, namely a particular instantiation of the modern 'human' subject contingent on the functioning of contemporary digital objects (the <strike>human</strike> spectator). At the same time, as a consequence of the ontogenetic/phenomenogenetic conjunction, the specific problematic that drives and is driven by net art(?) specta(c)torship (the (de)construction of the <strike>human</strike>  embodied subject) is folded back into ontogenesis as the (lack of) origin that grounds the ontogenetic dynamic.                       

The key for understanding processes of specta(c)torship in this sense is the problematic of phenomenogenesis. Yet, while a theory of phenomenogenesis is stringently necessary, nonetheless, at the same time, phenomenogenesis is from the very beginning a fundamentally self-contradictory concept. Rather than a rigorous philosophical text with a claim to Truth, this book will remain then an experimental fiction, erring in search of the meaning of embodied subjectivity in the context of contemporary digital cultures.

 Bacaran_Book_Draft_Spectactorship_in_Net_Art(revised_2024).pdf




(Dis)orientation in Net Art: Disrupting the Feedback Loop of Cybernetic Subjectivities

Mihai Băcăran (published in the #Cycles special issue of NECSUS_European Journal of Media Studies, 12 (2), 2023)

This paper examines instances of (dis)orientation instantiated by net art works which challenge, deconstruct, and remodel our embodied relationship with digital maps. I argue that such (dis)orientation can be framed as a tactical media practice that disrupts the feedback loop of cybernetic subjectivities by: 


  1. bringing into focus aspects of lived experience that do not fit the 'truth' of the cartographic representation, and at the same time underlining the ways in which representations participate in the (de)construction of lived experience;
  2. challenging the attention economy and opening attention towards otherness and towards the intertwined shifting realities (grounds) of contemporary cultures;
  3. questioning the imperative of usefulness inherent in mainstream applications of digital mapping;


The paper contends that such (dis)orienting gestures can be understood as a practice of care towards radical otherness.

https://necsus-ejms.org/disorientation-in-net-art-disrupting-the-feedback-loop-of-cybernetic-subjectivities/

The Problematic of Embodiment in Online Specta(c)torship

Mihai Băcăran (published in In Media Res: Philosophy of Media, vol 12, no 22, 2023)

Digital media, and especially the widespread use of the internet, challenge our experience of embodied presence and consequently force us to rethink thedefinition of the ‘human’ body that informs our social practices. Starting from the online documentations of Guy Ben-Ary’s bio-artwork cellF (2015), Alvin Lucier’s seminal experimental music piece Music for Solo Performer (1965), and Stelarc’s performance RE-WIRED / RE-MIXED (2015) the present articleparticipates in this debate by asking: what type of embodied identity is contouredin online specta(c)torship?                       

From a methodological point of view, the article resonates with Mieke Bal’sinsistence on the importance of the case study in art theory and in the philosophyof art. It aims at performing a philosophical intervention with respect to thecontemporary understanding of embodiment starting from the experienceproposed by the encounter with specific artworks.

                       

Drawing on the case studies mentioned above and on theories of embodiment formulated in a diversity of contexts — such as affect theory (Seigworth and Greg, Clough), feminist critique (Grosz, Butler), performance studies (Salazar Sutil) and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze —, the article contendsthat the problematic of the embodied subject, such as it appears in onlinespecta(c)torship, is that of an ongoing misrecognition: an ongoing decentring of the thinking subject (of the cartesian cogito) in a continuous renegotiation of the bio-techno-logical ‘self’ that grounds the ‘I’ and is in turn grounded by it. 

http://www.centar-fm.org/inmediasres_eng/index.php/mihai-bacaran-the-problematic-of-embodiment-in-online-specta-c-torship                                                

                                                           

    

Revisiting 'Genesis': living as misspelling

Mihai Băcăran (published in Revista humanidades, Vol.13, No.1, 2023)

This paper revisits the online documentation of Eduardo Kac’s work Genesis (1999) in order to address the problematic of embodiment as it emerges in the process of specta(c)torship afforded by this work. The central piece of Genesis consisted in a genetically modified bacteria which incorporated an artist-designed synthetic gene created by translating into DNA base pairs a sentence from the biblical book of Genesis. The reading that I propose problematizes the meaning of the human body in view of the complex entanglement of living and technological systems that appears in this work. Relying on elements from the archival theory formulated by Jacques Derrida, this paper reads Genesis as an attempt to playfully undo the origin (the human master of nature, and the associated duality between culture and nature) form inside the very history that this origin grounds, by folding into one another the cultural archive of the written biblical fragment, the technological archive that makes the work possible, and the DNA as an archive of chemical sequences that constitutes the fundament of life. The article also raises the question of how to address environmental crisis from a perspective that does not rely on the figure of the human and on the nature/culture divide.

Available open access at: https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/humanidades/article/view/52598. 

Snowflakes: The Individuation of Melting Memories

Mihai Băcăran (published in conference proceedings e-book Taboo-Transgression-Transcendence in Art and Science 2020, 2022)

This paper looks at Boryana Rossa, Guy Ben-Ary and Oleg Mavromatti's collaborative work Snowflake (2005/2016) and Sun Yuan's work Honey (1999) in order to explore the question of what Bernard Stiegler calls epi-phylo-genetic memory. I will engage with the philosophy of individuation developed by Gilbert Simondon-a major influence on Stiegler's thought-in order to unpack the main premisses that are at stake in the concept of epi-phylo-genetic memory and to argue that it can be properly understood only in an ontogenetic framework. This article contends that the problematic of memory is uncovered only in as much as we think being as becoming, that is to say, in as much as we understand being as a dynamic pre-individual relational field that produces individual beings. In this light, epi-phylogenetic memory will be framed as a process integrant to the construction of the embodied thinking subject, but a process whose failure (and with it the failure of the embodied thinking subject 'itself') is intrinsic to its movement.

Available open access at pp.323-332 in the conference proceedings e-book Transgression-Transcendence in Art and Science 2020, edited by Dalila Honorato, María Antonia Gonzáles Valerio, Ingeborg Reichle and Andreas Giannakoulopoulos. Ionian University Publications, 2022. The book can be downloaded here: https://avarts.ionio.gr/ttt/2020/en/proceedings/

Imaginary gestures of specta(c)torship: Darie Nemeș Bota’s 'Urban Seashell'

Mihai Băcăran (published in Trivium, Vol. 5, Issue 1, 2021; republished in Revista Muzica, vol. XXXIII, No.2, 2022)

This article considers the process of specta(c)torship afforded by Darie Nemes Bota's imaginary music score 'Urban Seashell', recently published in the collection 'Redescoperind Muzica Imaginara' (2020, ed. Irinel Anghel). 'Urban Seashell' asks the spectator to perform a series of simple movements on a sidewalk near a busy road, movements that modulate the sound experience of the traffic noise. At the same time, the spectator is asked to imagine a sound and develop it in their imagination according to the indications of the score. I take the (im)materiality of the resulting musical experience, the conjunction of 'real' and imagined sounds, as the starting point for theoretical considerations into the consequences of this performative experience of specta(c)torship. After briefly considering the meaning of imaginary music for Octavian Nemescu, the avant-garde composer who proposed this practice in the mid '70s, the article explores the paradoxical conjunction of active/passive listening, movement, and imagination that 'Urban Seashell', as a work of imaginary music, opens up for the spectator. Building on insights from Gilles Deleuze's philosophy, I explore a possible understanding of imagination that would allows us to glimpse the (de)construction of embodied subjectivity and of its associated milieu (in the understanding that Gilbert Simondon gives to this term) as the fundamental stakes of the process of specta(c)torship that 'Urban Seashell' offers.


Available open access at: https://trivium-journal.in/article.php?article=e9236cebe0b8130defbd1969d75a17b5

Version with small but significant modifications republished in Revisit Muzica, available open access at: https://ucmr.org.ro/Texte/rm_2022_2_3_mbacaran_imaginary%20gestures%20of%20spectatorship.pdf

It Is As If You Were Doing Work — A (Mis)Reading

Mihai Băcăran (published în Hz Journal, No. 21, 2019)

Through a (mis)reading of Pippin Barr's game 'It is as if you were doing work' (2017), this essay explores the relationship between bodies, labour, and entertainment. It speculatively argues that performing useless labour seems to be essential for maintaining the illusion that our(?) bodies are still 'human.'

Available open access at: http://hz-journal.org/n21/bacaran.html

“războiul din nordul myanmarului”

Mihai Băcăran (2016, unpublished)

Short essay responding to a work by Zhang Yue (张玥) and Bao Xiaowei (包晓伟). The text is in Romanian. 

Scurt eseu ce răspunde unei lucrări semnate de Zhang Yue (张玥) şi Bao Xiaowei (包晓伟). În limba română.

razboiul din nordul myanmarului - cui can-can, zhang yue, bao xiao-wei.pdf

Alternative / Alternatives

Mihai Băcăran (published in Arhitext, No.4, 2013)

Acest eseu adresează posibilitatea de a reimagina limita între natură și cultură în contextul practicilor artistice contemporane.

Essay on alternative ways of thinking the limit between nature and culture in the context of contemporary artistic practice. 

(Romanian with English translation)

Alternative:Alternatives - Arhitext XX no 4 2013 (img edited out).pdf