I'd
like to introduce the Library of Marvels. Through this project, I'm
interested among other things, in examining the cultural impact and
possibilities created by computers as machines that can generate books
and libraries.
The
Library of Marvels is a collection of "artists' books" on
the web. These books are electronic narratives that use several media
and processes: pictures, sound, texts, movement, games, simulation,
programming, and interactivity or a simulation thereof.
The
library got started in 1999, and already contains five volumes: "White
and Black, Reflections on Fog" (1999) - , the "Book
of Sand" (2001), "The
Psychiatrist, Net.art / Web.art and other stories" (2002),
"The
Newest Song of Exile: Sabiá Virtuality" (2003), and
the most recent volume: "Viewing
Axolotls"(2004), to which I'd like to call your attraction,
or better yet, draw your eyes... The starting point of my research is
always SEEING. Whether we are looking at fog (1999), looking on in horror
(2001), looking at madness (2002), looking at culture (2003) or viewing
axolotls, which once again involves looking at fog, or the impossibility
of seeing clearly, but with a different focus (2004).
According
to Merleau-Ponty, the world is what we see, but we must learn to see
it. In this sense, my main every-day occupation is learning to see.
And yet...
Everyone
sees the world in his or her own likeness and therefore the dialogue
between "Me and the World" is different from person to person.
We can illustrate this best with the metaphor of colors: Who is right?
Color-blind people who see red as green and vice versa, or so-called
normal people who see red as red and green as green? Do we side with
the latter because they are the majority? It's said that some animals
see the world in black and white. What colors would an extraterrestrial
see in our world? In fact, what color is our world, if colors themselves
are just classifications?
It
seems we have established an impasse: Is reality possible? Can it be
possible, as phenomenology has suggested, for art to make the invisible
visible? Could Reality be a Fantastic Fantasy?
What
about the new media? And the new narratives?
The
pixels light up and a caption appears: "Viewing Axolotls…"
The magic of a narrative is recreated in this world, and immediately
everyone takes on the appropriate stance to follow it: the "view"
of the spectator-subject (with all his/her blindness) and the gaze emitted
from the electronic book-object (with all its slyness) clash in a duel
of interpretation, simulation and interactivity. A woman who, because
she loved so much or looked so much, turns into an axolotl. "Dreams
are a point of view. They are a place from where one sees. Nightmares
are a way of looking at the world in the eyes of the dreamer."
In other words, dreams let us see otherness, while in our nightmares
we find the fear the "other" can inspire. In the fictional
world, the narrator can direct our gaze to the viewpoint of dreams,
while simultaneously turning that gaze to the nightmare of entering
an aquarium, an unknown watery world. This move could bring an end to
the blindness inherent to all views, enabling them to distance themselves
reflexively and see themselves while looking (or not)…
These
are some of the reflections that arise when attentively analyzing "Viewing
Axolotls," which is based on the Fantastic Realism of Argentine
author Julio Cortazar and Dúvida de Flusser - Filosofia e Literatura
(Flusser's Question - Philosophy and Literature) by Brazilian essayist
Gustavo Bernardo.
.
Here are some added reflections:
>Seeking
another view… Can the imagination create worlds beyond our realities?
What would real be? Unreal ? And virtual? A sand woman opens her eyes,
shows us her smile...
>"Escher's
lizards leave the paper and run onto the table.
These lizards are realistic: their heads are real; their tails are simulacra.
They are chimeras."
>Is
every image a fraud, like a dragon sculpted in sand? Sensible visual
reality or tangible virtual reality? Is virtual reality more attractive
than reality itself? Dragon tattooed in the bytes…
>"After
500 years of printing, 150 years of photography, a century of film and
50 years of television, reality programming has reached maturity.
Consumers live scripted lives, while reality-creating machines predict
all their movements. This phenomenon is so powerful that everyone actually
has two bodies: one real and another fictitious (shaped by received
data)."1
How can we change the bundles of pictures that falsify reality? Is this
a desirable "reality"?
>So
the next revolutionaries could be "imaginers" who create fiction
and take pride in what they do - whether they are artists, writers,
photographers or software programmers - people who have rediscovered
the silent pleasure of handcrafted creation combined with the stimulating
pleasure of a game? Lifting fog or seeing through it - what would their
task be?
>"Humankind
is divided into two types: people who like diffused light, and those
who don't. Mystery fans and crossword puzzlers. The profound and the
enlightened. The inspired and the skeptical. Those interested in the
differences that set things apart. In short, metaphysicists and phenomenologists.
The first type tries to see through the fog and the second type tries
to lift it." 2
>Which
type are you?
Notes:
1 BERNARDO, Gustavo. A dúvida de Flusser - filosofia e literatura.
São Paulo, globo, 2002.
2 FLUSSER, Vilém. Os Gestos - Naturalmente, apud Bernardo Gustavo.
A dúvida de Flusser - filosofia e literatura. São Paulo,
globo, 2002.
