Issue03Issue03
March/April 96
Fett Tedget: "Digital Bohemian Lifestyle" has become something
like a Station Rose slogan. It consists of three central terms which are
very suggestive. Let´s talk about these terms and start with "digital".
Of course, the opposite is "analogue". You must have started your
work as artists with analogue machines?
Gary: Yes, we were completely "analogue" until the middle of the
eighties. Around 1985 we had our first sampler, which of course didn´t
make us stop working with analogue machines at once. We became "digital"
step by step. And the greatest leap we made after we moved to Frankfurt.
Q: What was so exciting about "being
digital"?
Elisa: "Digital" gave us the possibility to cut up our material
and to rearrange it without any limitations. "Digital" means your
material never becomes solid, it remains liquid. And, to put it simply:
digital machines are much smaller and easier to handle.
Gary: You simply have to be digital when you are a multimedia artist. Think
of the immense amount of material you´re working with - sounds, graphics,
video sequences, texts. In order to conserve this material you need the
digital medium, it helps you to save space. Furthermore, you can find certain
data within a few seconds, and you can endlessly correct, exchange, combine
or rearrange your material.
Q: What about digital work in the Internet?
Gary: A big chance for "digital bohemians"! Earlier generations
of bohemian artists were working in their often quoted "ivory tower".
They were isolated from society, sometimes dependent on rich representatives
of church or industry, who provided them with money. That was totally different
from archaic times when the shaman/artist was the spiritual center of a
community and acted as an authority in all areas of daily life. Digital
technology gives the artist the possibility to reclaim some of the status
of a shaman. Of course, you´re working in your studio, isolated from
society; but you are interconnected to thousands of other "ivory towers"
all over the world via the Internet. Global communication happens, which
is a quantum leap for bohemian artists.
Elisa: Referring to this development F.E. Rakuschan, a Viennese theorist,
talks of the "return of art into a social context". Of course,
analogue mass media like "vinyl records" already made possible
such a return of art into a social context. One record or CD could reach
millions of listeners. But for the avantgarde artist of today, who is working
in the field of multimedia, digital technology has opened totally new and
infinite channels of communication. They are still working in something
like "ivory towers", in their studios. But what in the past could
reach only a few people now goes out to the whole world.
Q: Which leads us to the second term,
"Bohemian".
Elisa: "Bohème" is an East European term...
Gary: ...and originally refers to the country which was known as Checheslovakia
until lately. But let us keep that aside. What we are interested in is the
special status within society suggested by "Bohème".
Elisa: Above all the term "Bohème" refers to groups of
artists living and working outside the bourgeois society. The first time
it occurred in this meaning was around 1830 in Paris, in the Quartier Latin
and in Montmartre. Today, of course, you would have to redefine the term
"bourgeois". What we have got at the end of the 20th century is
something else than a "bourgeois" society - it is a mass society.
Thus the "Bohème" of today does not only work apart from
the "bourgeois" society, but apart from mass society.
Gary: But the "Bohème" shouldn´t be mixed up with
the so called "underground"! In post-Malcolm McLaren-times there
is no "underground" anymore, the way I see it. The last struggles
of the "underground" were initiated and artistically hyped to
death by a multimedia artist, who used the Sex Pistols as his weapon. Just
listen to the fundamentalist babble in the house/techno/drum&bass scene
and know what I mean !
Elisa: What is also important in connection with "Digital Bohemian
Lifestyle" is a certain "elitist" behaviour. Of course, "elitist"
doesn´t mean we need stupid status symbols like sports cars to express
ourselves. It means an individual way of thinking, a certain attitude. For
example, we can´t be together with too many people in one place. We
don´t like raves, we are in favour of small club events. We constantly
redefine our viewpoint: Why are we different? And where do we belong? It
leads us to small "circles", which - thanks to digital technology
- is something like a "global circle".
Q: Who is part of these circles?
Elisa: The new "circles", the new "digital bohemians",
are people thinking digital. They represent what comes after the TV age.
And, of course, they will produce new icons within the new media.
Q: What is the idea behind your live
appearances in small clubs?
Elisa: Live appearances are an essential part of our concept. "Performing"
is an archaic ritual with a great exstatic potential. But we try to redefine
the forms and possibilities of a live performance. For example, we use our
screens to "create" a room in a special way. And we added "CU/See
me" videoconferencing technology.
Gary: Our recent events were called "Gunafa Clubbing/Internet Lounge".
Which leads us to another important term in connection with the "Bohème"
- the "lounge", or the "salon". "Salons" came
up in the 18th century, in Paris, Vienna and elsewhere. They were meeting
points for smart people working in culture, politics, aesthetics and science.
Very typical of "salons" was a crossover between several scenes.
And that is what happened during all of our Station Rose events. Our events
in Vienna, for example, brought together psychoanalysts, techno DJs, grunge
musicians, philosophers, medical doctors, painters, multimedia artists and
lawyers, discussing the same topics.
Elisa: "Salons" can be an important impulse for social change.
Digital technology and the Internet offers self confident circles enormous
possibilities to communicate and exchange ideas. Hence the term "virtual
community". What we witness in the Internet is the start of a new society.
Q: And a new society will develop a new
lifestyle. Which leads us to the third term of your slogan...
Elisa: Right. "Lifestyle" is the most complex term of our slogan,
because it contains the aspects of being digital and being bohème.
Our lifestyle is a somewhat ascetic lifestyle, a "biological"
lifestyle. And a very "sexual" lifestyle as well, though not in
the sense of going out and doing one night stands ! It is a very hiTek &
modest lifestyle, and the art and the products coming out are very opulent.
Gary: "Lifestyle" is completely different from a "job".
We are not doing a 9 to 5 job, we are digital bohemians 24 hours a day.
And the way we work is completely our own choice. It rather depends on technical
circumstances than on rules and regulations made by your boss.
Elisa: Right. For example, editing a video is a very complex process, takes
a lot of time. So when we want to edit a video we have to make sure that
all the other things we need the computers for have been done. And while
the machine edits the video we can go out or take a shower or...
Gary: Digital bohemian lifestyle has to do with ecological discipline as
well. Working and communicating via Internet, or sending letters via e-mail
can have an effect on traffic. Fewer cars are needed, which keeps down the
air pollution. It also means a reduction of package and paper. So "Digital
Bohemian Lifestyle" is a way of communicating with the earth.
Q: How important are social contacts in the "real world"? And
what do you think of reports and articles claiming that the new media lead
people into loneliness and isolation?
Gary: I don´t understand these theories. People who pay for the Internet
have chosen a strong medium of communication. Digital information may be
different from "real communication", but it is still communication!
And, of course, you don´t give up your social contacts in the material
world. You are still a human being with a body made of flesh and blood,
and you are in need of these contacts. Digital technology doesn´t keep
you from going out. People who don´t go out anymore didn´t go
out before as well.
Elisa: Computers and the Internet are no opposites of social life - they
add to your social life. You don´t lose something - you gain something.
Q: How can I be a digital bohemian?
Gary: That is a very strange question, Fett. Because being a digital bohemian
is nothing you can learn. You can´t read a book or do your "digital
bohemian" workouts. What you need is a kind of natural born creativity.
It has a lot to do with art. It is not an attitude you can take on after
you have left your office.
Elisa: You need a certain chaotic consciousness. Scientists have proven
that chaos really exists & works. And if you live and think in terms
of "chaos" you develop a new way of life, which samples earlier
ways of life. You become part of a new chaotic social system which has nothing
to do with capitalism or communism anymore. You need a "Gunafa"
consciousness, "Gunafa" means "chaos".
Q: Can digital bohemians become rich? And are they allowed to?
Elisa: A loud and clear "yes!" to both questions! I don´t
believe in the old Christian attitude that artists have to be poor. It is
just the other way round: artists should play with the material world, and
they shouldn´t take the material world too serious. They for sure shouldn´t
live and work in pain. For artists like ourselves an important point is
to make money out of the digital bohemian lifestyle. We constantly have
to think about the new Gunafa possee: How large is this possee? Who belongs
to it? Who can buy, and what do we sell? As an artist you have to sell products
like CDs and CD-Roms and sell your information via Internet. Multimedia
artists pay for their art in the net at the moment, which is a kind of perverted
situation. Like rock and pop artists who sell millions of CDs, multimedia
artists have to sell their complex digital oeuvres.
And this will happen - NOW! ;-)
So, that´s it for now!
Read more about coming projects in the next issue of "The Monthly Rosegraph".
Send me pheedback to gunafa@well.com.
A Happy Spring!
yours
