This is where we continue the story - interview with Manuel Abendroth - LAb|au]

++ Nowadays the newspapers are full with the climate change problem. Do you think in a thousand years’ time will be human on earth?

I think yes, but maybe modified. Humans adapt to its environment, we shape the environment around us and the environment shapes us. So yes; I think there will be a form of human life.

++ Do you mind if maybe a computer is placed in our mind or our eyes will be replaced by cameras?

I think the relation between man and technology is not limited to the question of the computer. The history of man is also the history of technology. We always augment our senses; here technology acts as an interface between us and the world. Of course technology changes how we perceive the world and consequently changes our understanding. A simple example is the telescope. The augmented view allowed Copernicus to proof the earth being a sphere and gravity the reason we don’t fall of mother Earth. Consequently, he removed the fear of reaching the boarder of the earth perceived at that time as a disk. He removed the idea of destiny, as being the will of god that we don’t fall down; as such he replaced belief with rational thinking.

When referring to this example I want to line out, that when looking through a telescope, it maybe affects something totally different from what you expected. Of course the computer, gene technology, information technologies will play a bigger and bigger role, and maybe at the end all of these will be reduced to a superpower brain, I have no clue; but i think at the end its much more complex than this.

++ Lets go back to colours. I went through your webpage and there are some texts about colours, interaction of colours. For me the biggest wow-effect was when I read somewhere that more than 3 milliard of colours exist. After that, I started to see differently. I read also that you thinking about colours.

I think you can read and understand our work through different aspects. For me the core of our work is not the theme of colours; but let’s approaches it through that angle to get to the core! We have a lot of works which deals with the notion of colour, like the one of the ‘Chronoprints’. What we do in this work is to assign red, green, blue, the 3 primary colour of light, with the three basic units of time: hours, minutes and seconds. The result is 24 prints setting colour to time. This relationship is a very traditional theme in the history of painting. If you take for example Monet, he was painting the same motif, in spring, summer, autumn, winter, and in the morning, at noon, evening. What he wanted to capture, and what he called impression, can actually be understood as painting time. I think the Lilies are the best expression of this reading. In the ‘Chonoprints’ we take away the motif and reduce the relation between colour and time to its most concrete expression.

Another work is a monochrome using radioactive pigments. The lifetime of the pigment is 1600 years than the pigment will be dark, black, because it lost all its energy. In front of the monochrome stands a Geiger counter and its ticking makes the invisible visible. You assist in the decline of a painting, which opposes completely to the notion of Yves Klein monochromes as being related to infinity, a space-time proper to the painting. Our monochrome is the opposite.

Another aspect of the work is the fact that you, the spectator, will never see the pigment getting black or experience its actual alteration. So what you are confronted with is the idea of the work. Here we come back to the conceptual aspect of our work, and which is actually beyond the material experience: it is the idea inherent to the artwork. The artwork is a kind of auto-reflexive investigation of what art can be? What is the meaning?

We make works where colour is a possible reading, but at the core of our work is the question of art. What is the language of art? Of course, you can talk about the language of forms and colours. For the ‘Chronoprints’ we apply a systematic approach, but behind is the question of language. It's much like building a language; there is a grammar, syntax. But when you look to the Monochromes, it's more about the terminology and its definition. We play with its history, and put it into a nowadays context.

++ The question of the language of art started a million years ago. When I went to the Venice Biennale last time, I saw more and more conceptual works, but sometimes it needed 10-15 minutes to read it, which was not good. Do you think people understand your concept behind your works?

If you look at the work of Joseph Kosuth, the chair, the photo of a chair and its definition put one next to each other he analyses language in reference to Wittgenstein. The question is: the actual chair does not give you any idea about the definition of a chair - and the definition does not give you any description of the chair in front of you- and the photo has no spatial and material quality. This means, whatever we use to define reality we can only frame a part of it.

++ But do we want it?

What is of interest in regard to art is that very few disciplines have as main topic its definition. I think that the core of art is to ask the questions: what art is. By doing so, you directly say something about your time. If you take away the specificity of art than art has no sense, because it could be replaced by anything else.

For me the beauty of this self-reflexive way of looking at art is that it defines another access to describe the world which surrounds us. The act of art start with something I make, and that I say: this is art. Than starts the discussion if we can agree about this definition and as such it is also an intersubjective question, it's not subjective. This is the beauty of doing art, it’s a form of philosophy, and for me this is what makes art unique, why I love to do art.

++ You mentioned art but we discussed about the language...

Now, of course, when I say art I also speak about language. Language means in this case that you have a sender and a receiver. The artwork is the sender and the viewer the receiver, a communication necessarily based on language and signs. That’s why we define our practice as: art as language; involving as much communication and information sciences as aesthetics.

++ We are getting more and more complex...

That's because you ask wide question! I just cannot leave that not answered. A rhetorical question: would you ask a physician dealing with quantum physics if his work makes sense? When nobody besides him actually know what is spring theory? What I want to say is that thousands of years of culture have produced knowledge and its proper signs and fields of research. You can't expect an artist having gone through this history to ignore its culture and to permanently reinvent the wheel. So for me the problem is not the one of the artist or the artwork, the problem is doing the right mediation. If there is a problem in understanding, maybe the question you have to dress is towards the institutions, art critics..., the people who show art and which may does not do their job.

++ It is quite complex, I agree. I have in my mind two basic word you mentioned: the language and the communication.

I think this is not new taking communication and information theories into account when discussing art. In the 1960's, concept art and Fluxus have their origin exactly here, in linguistics. Or if you take the Ulmer Schule, the following up of the Bauhaus, its fundament is communication science. You know Max Bill, Max Bense, Otl Aicher... and all those people. They all draw very clearly the relation with the issue of language through information science and linguistics. I think this approach even becomes more relevant now since these topics define somehow our time.

++ Do you think art should be joyful? I mean when a viewer sees an artwork, do he/she feels joy?

I would say yes. Maybe art should only be joyful, or painful. Both are allowed. But the question is how you define what is joyful. Is it only a subjective argues?

++ Should be.

So if I go to the street and ask someone: what would be joyful work of art, and the person would show you a painting, the risk that we would not agree with that person is very high. I like to be challenged, get confronted with something I am not, or I don’t see, or I don’t know and suddenly I will start to smile because i am triggered.

If I see Malevich the black square on a black surface, there is nothing pleasant and joyful for the eye. It’s just black. But once you understood its meaning, maybe it’s one of the most joyful experiences.

++ Ok, continuing from Malevich, this reminds me your work Origami Lexicon. Here you play with a programming sequence, how to put something on a white paper, and in the 1600 steps the paper becomes black. What we see in the paper are the first steps.

It's not the best documented work besides that it is a continuous work in progress and maybe there is even no end to it. The work starts with a simple task: how to fill a white page until it's filled, black. Of course the white paper stands for the starting point of any artistic act. So you make something, fill a page and then the question can be raised to describe this process. In the project each new try-out become a chapter, a book, and this book will be put in a shelf, and slowly the shelf will become a kind of lexicon indexing all possible ways to achieve this simple task. Of course by doing so we most likely will cross the entire art history. Art always relies on rules or settings, and artist always formulate a process or language. So the process we set up is a way to put into play all possible manners of art making. We don’t describe the artwork but its process and further encounter the limit of language to define art. It is this self-reflexive aspect of the work which is at its origin.

++ So you saying you better do one artwork in your entire life?

If you see the work of artists like On Kawara or Roman Opalka..., you see a very ritual and repetitive work, and its make sense because it is about time. If you do not invest that amount of time, the work may have no sense. But I am not interested in this ritualism since it blurs the reading of the artwork with the personality of the artist. Sometimes you see that an artist is so encapsulated in his/her work that it appears obsessive. Art can be obsessive, of course – but what we do is not obsessive. For me the lexicon does not have this quality of personal obsession. Now we are back to the issue of the communication, the work should not see be perceived as obsession but as an investigation about what art is.

++ Where we talking now, is not just a studio for you but also an exhibition space. Why do you think it's important to have here an exhibition space as well?

It is an artist run space, and it addresses the question: how conceptual art and Fluxus has grounded nowadays art practice and how we can approach these issues nowadays. Of course, you will ask: is there a link between conceptual art and algorithmic art? A question we approach through the angle of language. Our space is called Société, we have two shows a year. This year themes have been chance and error. Next year show will deal with the absence of art. For me, it is an extension of what we are doing as artists, a place where we can think about art and give reflections and theoretical thinking a place while exchanging with others. It is a bit like getting out of our imprisonment and it even has turned into a tool for us to produce new artworks.

++ How is the art life is Brussels? Comparing to Paris or London, the first thing is that here you don’t have the biggest institutions, like Tate. Ok, Kanal is just coming as a Pompidou branch, and you have also the Bozar. How is the art scene working here?

With our artist run space we take part of around 30-40 artists run spaces which exists in Brussels. I think it's quite unique since we have so many artist run spaces in Brussels. At the same time we have a lot of collectors, a lot of them have their exhibition platforms, and they are very engaged. I never counted them but it's amazing how many we have. I think it's also because we don’t have the big institutions. We have some institutions, The Wheels, Kanal, La Central, Bozar, but we don’t have Tate, Guggenheim, The National Gallery, Centre Pompidou. Maybe the collectors and artists as private initiatives wanted to encounter the missing public institutions. We have around 100 serious contemporary art galleries, not necessarily all of my style, but there is a serious contemporary art program. This means, when you are in Brussels, and the season is coming, from Monday to Sunday every day you can see several exhibition openings. What I like is the accessibility. You can come here, every artist will open the door, and you can talk with them like we talk. Not an institutionalized relation to art, which I personally love. Probably the biggest quality of the Brussels art scene is its accessibility. If you go to a collector, most probably the collector will open the doors and talks to you personally. And of course, we are profiting from the fact that we are not far from Paris, 1, 5 hour from Amsterdam, from Cologne, and 2 hours from London. Brussels is very good situated, and has interaction with all these cities. Even you pass by here on your way to Paris.

++ So you not plan to live in big canters like Paris...

Last week I was in Sao Paolo. It was very nice, but I can’t imagine living there. Everything is far! In Brussels, in 20 km we have 3 other cities. I can drive to Rotterdam to an exhibition opening and I can drive home after easily... The same with Paris, I can go in the morning and come back in the evening...This extremely defines the local art scene here.

++ I see it is very international. Like you. I went through your CV, and I found that you are exhibited in Moma New York in 2003. Did the Moma exhibition means a lot to you?

Maybe a Moma solo exhibition would give you international recognition. We participated in a small group show and even if your work is hanging there in the corner, you think it’s meaningful, but the next day actually the most of the people don’t remember. But yes, it's a step in a carrier. I don’t want to diminish its importance...but, please talk after we had a solo show in Moma, which I think will not happen, but who knows... (laugh) Actually for me the most important thing is the studio, we have 7 people employed, allowing us to do our work.

++ Do you have favourite exhibition from this year?

I think if you want to see our work, the show in Luxembourg, which open 27th September will be the highlight of our year. It’s difficult to understand our approach just though one single work. I think in this exhibition you can really read the entire story. There will be over 20 artworks from our studio. The exhibition title is: If than else.

++ You can use these words in programming.

Or maybe look the tractus of Wittgenstein. It comes all from there. Again, how the philosophy of language- which has been taken by Kosuth to concept art - draw a link to algorithmic art.

++ Condition statements.

Yes. Boolean language. This is where we continue the story...