OSS/**** (article)
Article by Miklós Peternák about JODI's OSS/**** (1998).
In many respects the features of on-line web communication and
consequently those of web art are rather different from the interactive
multimedia of the CD-ROM. Thus, for some it was a great surprise that
Joan and Dirk, who were known as devoted net-artists, presented an
off-line work, although it must be an acknowledged cliché, even for
those who were surprised, that artistic freedom allows one to use the
medium most adequate for one's message - even if this message is created
by the analysis of this very medium. In any case, it is not difficult
to notice the similarity between the web-aesthetics of the Jodi project
and the CD-ROM realized by them: it is a media-conscious approach, the
focus is exclusively on the given medium and what it can create.
Naturally, beyond the instrument itself, this approach calculates in the
spectator as well as the given circumstances of perception.
The
multimedia CD-ROM denoted by the above secretive subtitle, in its
present form consists of three parts - yet as the artists have
acknowledged, originally they wanted to design a four-part piece - which
is signified by the three thicker lines of the square appearing within
the grid of the first page / homepage??. These parts are not arranged in
any special order and as a result of the non-linear nature of the
medium the user might choose the starting point as soon as he recognizes
the requirements of the next steps. Beyond the initial 5x5 grid that is
similar to an "empty" magic square, there is another sign that implies
something unusual: the unfinished lines of two squares in the bottom
might indicate that this grid can be taken apart after the small
individual squares are placed on the desktop one by one, which then
appear as empty files or windows behind which there is nothing.
As
for the title, the first part of OSS/**** could be described as a
"tongue-in-cheek" anagram, inasmuch as OS might stand for Operating
System as well as refer to SOS (with a slight acronymic twist) and the
cluelessness of the user. The second part might formally denote a
four-letter password and in this case it is again one of the most common
functional gestures among those who use the computer that is emphasized
through a formal representation outside of the context where it is
normally used. (It belongs to the story of creating this CD and where it
was meant to be distributed, since it is important for the artists that
the public is introduced to their activity.)
Selecting the first
part by random choice we reach a black-and-white pattern, which is
similar to one of the earlier "sounds-in-motion" broadcasts by a
Jodi-website or those found by desperate technicians in an early age of
television. The speed of the programmed noise to be found here can be
controlled with the mouse or if nobody interferes the pattern changes
automatically every 30 seconds. The interference generated by the
intra-linear pattern and the dissolution of the screen becomes
intertwined with approximately eighty electronic pages and the
experience of the elementary motion picture derives from the mutual
inter-relation of these three constituents, sound, gesture and moiré, as
well as the additional motion, which is the contribution of the user.
This accidental-pattern is similar to natural mechanisms like the
pattern of leaves on the ground in a forest clearing during the early
fall. Certain sounds appear to be "didactic", in the same way, for
instance, the dots along the sides of the screen support a sense of
speed. The shifts between electrical ornaments are signified by sound
effects: when the mouse/searcher reaches a "sounding noise" it denotes
another level, where one arrives at a different pattern. It is not
difficult, by tracing a relationship to early experimental films or the
similar ambitions of formal/structuralist films, to show the connection
between elementary motion as well as the tension stretching between the
systemic and the accidental (Kubelka, Tony Conrad) and this
"movie-game".
The basic element in the piece is the two major
motions of the user, i.e. when he affects the mouse with his hand and
when he affects the screen with a click or the keyboard. The latter is
known as scrolling, which when related to the fast-forward button in
video editing is the only instrument that directly links screen and
motion picture together. The only difference perhaps, is that in the
case of e-mail, for instance, one selects the speed of motion for
oneself, and in that sense a computer image is dynamic while video and
film are both static. (One might remember that in his "Scenario du
Passion" Godard presents the basic principles of motion by the video
mixer: the shift of two images models the scrolling on the computer;
this is what the effect of the motion picture is based on - almost
nothing happens yet the sense of motion is there.)
At certain
points a running image is possible to stop by delicate motion of the
mouse, which produces a unique graphic effect. In fact, the dynamics of
the image can be arranged like a hook, which allows one to experience
the transmission of a still image into a moving one, which in the
meantime is in interference with the displaying "canvas" itself.
*
Jumping
onto the second level the user encounters a black screen, the toolbar
being replaced by a congregation of numerous black dots and one standing
alone. This is a drawing software; the user of the CD can draw by means
of moving the mouse and when he stops the software displays the
coordinates of the dots at the end of the line and releases a series of
random sounds: one sound representing one letter of the keyboard.
Beyond
this there are also hidden menus in the application: the software opens
random windows which can be closed yet can also be replaced by new ones
- a sort of parody of windows, where one finds the desktop full of
windows which already cover each other up. The text files behind the
windows are random combinations - textures that are somewhat like random
bits of programming or viruses or secret codes but even more are parts
of a greater visual poetry. The sense of the latter seems to be
supported by the fact that the earlier mentioned letter-sounds emitting
an acoustic display of a coordinates can be connoted even further
towards a kind of acoustic poetry like that of dada - one might think of
Kurt Schwitters, or even some of Morgenstein's poetry, which is a
better example inasmuch as it indicates the sense of humor and play. The
whole thing looks like the marriage of a psychotic drawing program and
windows.
In certain cases the drawn lines become colorful, which
is an uncontrollable exit from a black-and-white order. One can save the
whole picture (drawing), which was made while using the program at only
one single point and the creators reveal it also through a visual
procedure: if one chooses the singular point that replaces the toolbar,
the screen turns into its inverse: on a white surface there appears a
black horizontal line, which can be moved to the bottom of the page by
the mouse and then - and only then - the icon denoting saving appears.
The whole procedure is precisely described by what one of the creators,
Joan, has said is: "A study on the behavior of an application which does
not have any function."
*
The third - and in the
traditional sense most spectacular - part of the CD is based on the
instability of the desktop: it immediately removes the images "covering"
the screen and seen by the user; the wallpaper or the abundance of
icons - or anything that is visible on that specific computer - and
afterwards are used as "working material". Through certain letter
combinations or the typing of certain letters the most diverse effects
are displayed in a transformed way, treating the already mentioned
opening page as an image. The effect is similar to the first shock - it
is as if the computer went out of order or the screen "went crazy". Yet
in another way, as if out of this singular never-used-image all of a
sudden a whole movie emerged.
This part is also full of hidden
elements: certain letter combinations might be controlled with the mouse
and even certain gift sounds are revealed: a "Japanese song", for
example, which in fact consists of sounds generated by the computer.
At
a certain point the command blows up the desktop to a large degree so
that the grid of the screen becomes visible and naturally one can also
move and navigate within the image, and, as opposed to the other two
parts, color has an important role here: there is an abundance of
colorful variations, it is almost as if one was in a posterhouse - there
appear a rainbow of colors which move, while the colors that were
already there constantly go through transformation.
In fact, what
is happening is the filming of an indefinite existence. The message
transmitted to the (regular) user is an aha-experience about creativity:
in certain cases gained at the cost of a little stress or some shock
(when the effect is explained in terms of the computer's crash). This is
a dynamic deliberation of images from the customary cover page by means
of "peeling away the surface" of the screen. And then from the
beginning again.
