Bunting/Kennard: Survival Training and dialectical Media Art
Survival Training and dialectical Media Art by General Stumm for DigitalBrainstorming.ch text: German version Original
( see also bblackboxx Mirror No 4 Sept. 2010 as PDF )
Bunting and Kennard have spent the last two weeks in Basel doing their usual thing, just as they do back home in Bristol, among friends: practicing stone-throwing, tree-climbing, and the use of ropes. But Bunting and Kennard are not merely enthusiastic outdoorsmen. Clearly, the art of survival gives them a great deal of obvious pleasure, but they also understand and practice these techniques as a reflection on our overly-technological and media-dependent society. Theirs is no reflection in word, but rather in deed. One could say they are creating a symbolic reaction. As Bunting himself confidently asserts in a short biography on his website www.irational.org, he is the Britain's most important "practicing artist." And according to Kennard, their work is a reaction to contemporary society which "is in decline!!"
Stone-throwing, which harks back to the dawn of our civilization, is a very early form of human use of technology, Kennard said in an aside one of his Blackboxx workshops last week. These early technologies were displays of power and violence, but also of physical splendor, beauty, and drama, Kennard explains (see his video manifesto.) The highway which runs behind the Bblackboxx project space, represents a similar technology, just as violent, just as demanding of human ingenuity. But for Kennard this highway embodies a destructive form of violence.
But the artistic practices of Kennard and Bunting, their attempt to create an alternative form of violence, is meant to be more than just a nonverbal commentary. Bunting demands of himself that his art be useful. His goal, as stated in his biography, is to become "a skillful member of the public." Neither fleeing nor retreating from civilization, but rather searching for a useful life within it, while still maintaining some distance from it, is the ultimate goal. To be surrounded by society and yet to live as freely as possible!
To mediate and manage this dialectical relationship (insider/outsider; participant/rebel) Bunting employs the non plus ultra of the 21st century: a globally networked computer. Already in the mid-90s, Heath Bunting was seen as an internet artist par excellence, but by 1997, just when the internet hype reached its height, he proclaimed himself retired and pulled out of the scene. But his retreat did not imply a disengagement from the computer--after all, he founded the artists' platform www.irational.org. Rather, he wished to liberate himself from society's and fellow artists' expectations, and use communication media with the greatest possible freedom.
To transform a model airplane and a digital camera into a drone, and use what is commonly thought of as military technology for one's own purposes, as Bunting and Kennard have done in Basel (see our report) can be interpreted as doing just that. They have a talent for taking what society offers up and redesigning it to suit their purposes. If reality is a snug necktie, Bunting and Kennard are adept at loosening it in order to breathe more freely. Anyone who has ever walked past a prison (and the route to Bblackboxx leads past a Basel prison and asylum center) knows how oppressive prison walls loom, even when viewed from the outside.Bunting and Kennard's newly-fashioned, homemade drone soared above those forbidding walls and gave the participants in their Basel Bblackboxx project an unsanctioned, unexpected, unofficial view of what is usually kept hidden. This glimpse--made possible by know-how, initiative, and without any outside suport--reveals a great deal about Kennard's notion of positive violence, splendour, and freedom.
Text by General Stumm for www.DigitalBrainstorming.ch / English translation: Danielle Lapidoth / Barbara Strebel
( see also bblackboxx Mirror No 4 Sept. 2010 as PDF )
Bunting and Kennard have spent the last two weeks in Basel doing their usual thing, just as they do back home in Bristol, among friends: practicing stone-throwing, tree-climbing, and the use of ropes. But Bunting and Kennard are not merely enthusiastic outdoorsmen. Clearly, the art of survival gives them a great deal of obvious pleasure, but they also understand and practice these techniques as a reflection on our overly-technological and media-dependent society. Theirs is no reflection in word, but rather in deed. One could say they are creating a symbolic reaction. As Bunting himself confidently asserts in a short biography on his website www.irational.org, he is the Britain's most important "practicing artist." And according to Kennard, their work is a reaction to contemporary society which "is in decline!!"
Stone-throwing, which harks back to the dawn of our civilization, is a very early form of human use of technology, Kennard said in an aside one of his Blackboxx workshops last week. These early technologies were displays of power and violence, but also of physical splendor, beauty, and drama, Kennard explains (see his video manifesto.) The highway which runs behind the Bblackboxx project space, represents a similar technology, just as violent, just as demanding of human ingenuity. But for Kennard this highway embodies a destructive form of violence.
But the artistic practices of Kennard and Bunting, their attempt to create an alternative form of violence, is meant to be more than just a nonverbal commentary. Bunting demands of himself that his art be useful. His goal, as stated in his biography, is to become "a skillful member of the public." Neither fleeing nor retreating from civilization, but rather searching for a useful life within it, while still maintaining some distance from it, is the ultimate goal. To be surrounded by society and yet to live as freely as possible!
To mediate and manage this dialectical relationship (insider/outsider; participant/rebel) Bunting employs the non plus ultra of the 21st century: a globally networked computer. Already in the mid-90s, Heath Bunting was seen as an internet artist par excellence, but by 1997, just when the internet hype reached its height, he proclaimed himself retired and pulled out of the scene. But his retreat did not imply a disengagement from the computer--after all, he founded the artists' platform www.irational.org. Rather, he wished to liberate himself from society's and fellow artists' expectations, and use communication media with the greatest possible freedom.
To transform a model airplane and a digital camera into a drone, and use what is commonly thought of as military technology for one's own purposes, as Bunting and Kennard have done in Basel (see our report) can be interpreted as doing just that. They have a talent for taking what society offers up and redesigning it to suit their purposes. If reality is a snug necktie, Bunting and Kennard are adept at loosening it in order to breathe more freely. Anyone who has ever walked past a prison (and the route to Bblackboxx leads past a Basel prison and asylum center) knows how oppressive prison walls loom, even when viewed from the outside.Bunting and Kennard's newly-fashioned, homemade drone soared above those forbidding walls and gave the participants in their Basel Bblackboxx project an unsanctioned, unexpected, unofficial view of what is usually kept hidden. This glimpse--made possible by know-how, initiative, and without any outside suport--reveals a great deal about Kennard's notion of positive violence, splendour, and freedom.
Text by General Stumm for www.DigitalBrainstorming.ch / English translation: Danielle Lapidoth / Barbara Strebel