Motif: Suzanne Massmann, [DAM] Berlin gallery
Processes and continuous change are today’s major themes masterfully displayed in works such as pixflow#2 and SwarmDots which LAb[au] conceived for their so-named generative art console. The combined presentation of a software artwork together with its hardware in a transparent and perfect shell is rare in the arts. Often the artists reduce themselves to a tinkerer which surely has its legitimate place in the arts and which raised numerous fantastic sculptural works. But for lack of alternatives the spectator of contemporary art misses a corresponding aesthetic and technical realisation, and especially in the field of new media art, he often remains unsatisfied.
The works of LAb[au] are rather attached to the principles of concrete art. Following the manifesto of concrete art one can quote: ‘Before realising a project, it entirely exists in the mind. It is also necessary that the realisation meets technical perfection on the same level as its construct. We work with the parameters of mathematics and science, which means 'with the tools of thinking'. [1]
This theoretical and artistic method of course has its roots in the Bauhaus revealed by the artist group's name: LAb[au]. The sculptures SwarmDots and framework f5x5x5 have a close relation to Làzlò Moholy-Nagys ‘Prop for an Electric Stage’ (Licht-Raum-Modulator) of the year 1930. This object is classified by Tate Modern in London, which owns it, as a key work for 21st century art as it unifies kinetic art, machine aesthetics and innovative materials. [2] Nearly 8 decades later LAb[au] renews this principle using contemporary means and materials.
The minimal realisation of framework f5x5x5 recalls Naum Gabo's Kinetic Construction (Standing Wave). This pioneering work for kinetic art is based on a vertical thin metal stick vibrating due to a hidden electrical mechanism. When creating this sculpture in 1919-20, he still needed the spectator to switch on the motor to get the sculpture into vibration. I dare to say that due to nowadays technical possibilities, he would have conceived it as interactive, which means the sculpture would have started to vibrate by the simple fact of a spectator coming closer. This relation between a minimal artwork and a spectator is skilfully achieved by LAb[au]’s framework f5x5x5 by even adding another parameter: space.
The use of software in the arts is still an uncommon form of artistic expression. Even if it allows the creation of a kinetic work evolving constantly in a given set of rules. This new art movement is called generative art finally extending concept art. Artists such as LAb[au] define the concept of an artwork in form of programs, written codes determining the rules and processes of the work. In this movement, LAb[au]’s are in the line of artists such as Manfred Mohr or C.E.B. Reas. The work SwarmDots transposes in a convincing way biological processes into an abstract and minimal construct of dots.
The idea of an art object following the principle of a game console and allowing executing different generative artwork is unique in the arts and directly delighted me. It raises, nevertheless, the question of why people always look for something fixed, invariable in the arts, such as a painting. In our daily life we need variety in clothing, food, and music: daily, we change them. We even dream in moving images. Isn’t process art closer to human nature than a traditional abstract oil painting? But still 80 years after Prop for an Electric Stage the audience still is prejudiced against kinetic art. Our art education, evolved over centuries, is influencing us up to a point that we still admire static images. It is time to profoundly question this phenomenon while opening up to processed and evolving art. The highly aesthetic works of LAb[au] are a good entry point for this discovery.
[1] Comments to the base of concrete painting in: AC – Numéro d’Introduction du Groupe et de la Revue Concret, 1930. (the text isn’t signed, it’s attributed to Theo van Doesburg, the pioneer of concrete art).
[2] http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/tatepapers/07autumn/lie.htm