Project R-11769

Everything now; or the future of the artist in an automated society (Research)

Everything, Now presents a broad, speculative discourse on the future role of the artist in society. By deconstructing the incentives to produce art, now and in the past, this exposition attempts to sketch a myriad of possible scenarios of the artist facing the proliferation of computational technology. It is an overview of the society's relation to technology, in the past, the present and the future, in an effort to define the position of the artist in it. The first chapter focuses on the origins of technology and automation in general. Going deeper into the dynamics of computation, as both a technological development and a way of thinking and living — a search for stability and neutrality — this thesis points out the shortcomings, faulty assumptions and potential loopholes of a completely automated environment. Aspects of human life, such as maintenance, care and reinterpretation of conventions, are brought forward as negations of technological totality, and offer a potential playground for the artist of the future. The second chapter delves deeper into the societal position of the artist: the role. By referencing the functionalities of role playing computer games, an image of a future automated society is outlined, in which the role or position of the individual is fixed by the expectations of the game. This illustration serves as a backdrop to construe possible roles for artistic production. The last chapter then defines nine possible roles of the artist of the future. It concentrates on expectations of creativity and artistic desire, bound by dreams of transcendence and nostalgia which a computational world inevitably invokes. Out of these considerations comes a grid of characters for future artists, set out along the possible attitudes towards computation, on the axis of contradictions between assimilation and resistance, and between progressiveness and conservatism: The Avant-Garde, the Specialist, the Artisan, the Narrator, the Maintainer, the Reenacter, the Demolisher, the Generalist and the Saboteur. This conclusion is the basis for a performance parcours which will attempt to display aspects of these different roles. The event will take place at the Verbeke Foundation on the 1st and the 2nd of May 2021 and will be open to the public.

01 March 2019 - 01 May 2021