Category: Experiment #1 Try Things Out

Reflecting on The New Aesthetic 

I chose the three images of The Fish Doorbell, Collaged Group Photo and An Aldi Self-portrait to showcase differing aspects of my interpretation of what James Bridle calls “The New Aesthetic”.

Fish Doorbell

Image by Vis Deurbel

The Fish Doorbell photo is a screenshot from the Fish Doorbell’s website, showcasing 16 photos from the Nicest photos of 2024 section. The photos present the view of fish, and other river life, passing through an underwater gate in Utrecht, Netherlands from the perspective of an underwater camera. The camera is stationed on a gate under the river, when users waiting on the website see a fish appear in view of the camera they can press a button (doorbell) that opens the gate for the fish to swim through (Vis Deurbel, n.d.). These are some of the shots of aquatic life passing through the gate from 2024. I chose this project to outline Bridle’s (2012) observation of the Technological view, Bridle noting that “We have become accustomed to the non-human viewpoint” (p. 70). This example being that most people wouldn’t see the underwater life of a river in Utrecht through their own viewpoint, nor prior to this platform would strangers from around the world have had an influence on said aquatic species lives. Its truely bizarre and amazing, in its harmlessness. Though could it be a negative use of technology in the way that it say “defies god” or the unnecessary use of human intervention? But what is necessary and unnecessary? Anywho, I think this is a pretty cool technological view of the world, even if the concept is slightly unnerving when analysed. I guess it just makes me think about the morality of technological viewpoints and advances, and the ways in which this technology could be used for harm rather than for good, like in this case: “The doorbell also provides information on the species and numbers of fish travelling through Utrecht’s waterways. We can use that information to improve the quality of underwater life in Utrecht.” (Vis Deurbel, n.d.)

An Aldi Self-portrait

Image by @g.an0n4 [Instagram]

An Aldi Self-portrait depicts two customers (my friends) taking a selfie in the security video monitoring on all self serve checkouts at Aldi stores. This selfie was posted on to their story and I screen-shot it with their permission. Similarly to the Fish Doorbell, I chose to include An Aldi Self-portrait because of the technological viewpoint, and the subsequent attraction of subjects to this new form. That’s not to say that video monitoring is a new form, but more so that seeing yourself in a screen whilst doing everyday acts, such as grocery shopping, in real time takes on a new form of technological viewpoint in my mind. A pervasive and intrusive one at that. I think this falls into the New Aesthetic because of how individual’s take this opportunity to photograph themselves from this viewpoint, it’s a non-human perspective that generates human interaction. This real time video monitoring and at its accessibility emulates the role of a mirror, but it goes further to record the image that it perceives. As Bridle (2012) wrote “The distinctions between physical and digital are rapidly breaking down; or rather, the ways we have conceptualised them are no longer tenable.” (p. 71). I honestly think it’s concerning the way that CCTV is being used, or more so how digital it now feels; in some ways I’d rather be ignorant to when I am under video surveillance, especially if it meant I didn’t have to have my face reflected to the entire grocery store checkout as I scan my items. And I understand that the idea is for individual accountability, but it’s more about control of big companies profits and I don’t like that, or I don’t like technological invasion of that kind more generally? I don’t know. But I also think it’s funny that the way the monitoring is being engaged with as if it’s a new way to show the self, online and through photography.

Collaged Group Photo

Image by Author

Collaged Group Photo is a photo of my friends and I from 2018, that we took on a self-timer and that I edited to post online. I chose this image firstly because of the black and white filter, which falls under Bridle’s (2012) understanding that “Filters help us negotiate one aspect of the transition from physical to digital, from linear to chaotic time and from experience to memory; because they provide an aesthetic cue for the formation of new metaphors.” (p. 68). I think it’s ironic that these visual aesthetics are a result of a former, necessary, physical processes, and I don’t think that that’s something people, if not only I, analyse or even think about whatsoever. People in the past probably thought moving from black and white to colour was making great leaps in the capability of humans and technology, and yet with the access we have to photography – that almost perfectly emulates reality – we return to past restrictions on the medium. Secondly, I chose this image because of my artistic decision at the time to make the image appear like a collage. Coming back to the physical processes here, I think again ironic that digital innovations is just the condensing of physical processes into a digital space. That’s not to say that I don’t like this look, because I do, but it’s the return to “vintage” or analogue or physical looking aesthetics through a digital advancement. It makes me feel lazy to know that the look I want to achieve could just as easily be done physically, as in I could have just printed out the photo and collaged it. But then that comes around to the positive of accessibility of digital technologies; that is if you already have one or can afford it. Do I want the look of film or collaging to be accessible though? Would it not be better to have distinctions between differing modes of making? Why does technology just nullify art mediums that already exist? 

 

References

Bridle, J. 2012, “The new aesthetic”, British Journal of Photography, vol. 159, no. 7804, pp. 66-71.

Itai. [@g.an0n4]. (2024, August 9). Screen Selfie [Self-portrait in Aldi camera monitoring screen with music playing over the photo]. [Story]. Instagram.

Vis Deurbel (n.d.). About the fish doorbell. https://visdeurbel.nl/en/about-the-fish-doorbell/

Vis Deurbel. (2024). Nicest photos. https://visdeurbel.nl/en/nicest-photos/

An Ode to a Calculator

Reflection

In this experiment, it frankly felt wrong to take the calculator apart. I did begin my experiment by leaving every piece of the calculator in tack – by just taking off the hard outer case – but for the sake of experimenting I took it apart further, to the point it cannot be reconstructed. That feels wasteful, even if it was just a $5 second hand calculator. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see the different pieces involved in something as seemingly simple as a calculator, even if I don’t understand all their functions.

In reading Balbi and Magaudda’s book chapter Why Study the History of Digital Media and How? I came to understand the ever evolving role that the labels of “digital” and “analogue” have played over the rise of new technologies. Namely, Balbi and Magaudda’s (2018) assertion that “digital is often defined in contrast to analog almost as if they were two extremes on a scale, even if they are not.” allowed me to understand that there are intersections between the two technological modes (p. 7). I think prior to this reading, I had this belief that analogue defined older modes of technological devices or devices lacking screens, rather than understanding the difference in how these technologies transmit information. I chose to take apart a calculator because I would have prior (unsuitably) labeled it digital due to it’s screen appearance, ignoring its contents and the fact that it is really a small computer. Seeing the inner workings of the calculator reiterated for me that the label “digital” is not confined by the technology most of my generation would equate the word with – e.g. iPhone, MacBooks, TVs. A real life example of what Jonathan Sterne said, as quoted by Balbi and Magaudda (2018): “the idea of analog as everything not-digital is in fact newer than the idea of digital ”.

I am not a very tech-savvy person, I know a little bit but I feel like that is more a result of growing up in a generation teeming with technology. So coming out of this experiment, my main question about technology would be “How does a CPU chip work?” and “was my deduction correct?”; is it impossible to hack – in the sense of alter the capabilities of the current calculator – a CPU chip when its encased in the glob? Is there another way to hack a calculator if not through the CPU chip? I do not know.

Also, I took the approach of ease of destruction of a piece of software – a calculator – so what would it look like to make an artistically charged representation of digital technologies? What would I make? and What would I want to say in my art? This I also do not know.

References 

Balbi, G., & Magaudda, P. (2018). A history of digital media : An intermedia and global perspective. Taylor & Francis Group.

Gronlund, M. (2016). Contemporary art and digital culture. Taylor & Francis Group.