Page 47 - Famous

A PERFECT VISUAL OPERATOR OF THE

IMMEDIATE FUTURE BY PIERRE RESTANY

The double globalisation, comprising the economic and the cultural,
that accompanies our entrance into the third millennium, emphasises the
 PENTA PLANETA, BIENAL DE BUENOS AIRES ARGENTINA 2002. FIVE PLASTIC HAND
PAINTED SPHERES INSTALLATION AT THE BUENOS AIRES INTERNATIONAL ART BIENALE electronic fate of the image in the most inexorable of ways, as far as
smoothness of communication is concerned.
Indissolubly linked to the incessant development of information
technology and to its role in the globalisation process, the electronic image
affirms its supremacy in the visual field, fully assuming the fluidity of its
condition through the evanescent and ephemeral character of its mount,
the television screen.
We have reached the end of a long process that will radically affect our
perceptive structures and our entire existential condition. We are witnessing
a consolidation of the profile of a new civilization based upon electronics
and biotechnology, the civilization of virtual reality, of the world-wide trend
to live a hybrid condition between the natural and artificial life. The might of
the Media, as a determining factor in this revolution, bases itself upon the
superior communicative power of the image, as opposed to the traditional
static means of information.
The pre-eminence of the image in motion puts an end to the immemorial
monopoly of the static image. The notion of “art” appeared with the first
cave paintings, and remained linked to the notion of “information” due to its
various mounts, from temple walls to church altarpieces, without forgetting
the palaces of noblemen. Printing and easel painting created the diversity
and the hierarchy among the mounts, and contributed to the formation of a
graphic art, considered superior to the general information products and
inferior to the one of painting. From Gutenberg to Niepce, the static status
of the image, its monopoly of information and the cultural differentiation of
the mounts, will remain unaltered. With the advent of photography, the fate
of modern image changes, as it nears the global flow of communication and
hauls art with it. The evolution towards a cultural alliance between art and
information is accentuated by the invention of the image in motion, soon to
be followed by films possessing sound, and the creation of television and
video as a result of cinema . The presence of the media is thus rendered all-
powerful as it is created to the rhythm of the electronic information
technology. Laser provides the new image with a third dimension as well as
with a virtual reality, and the computer intelligently substitutes the pencil or
the paintbrush, while Internet becomes our planetary memory.
What we call, since the beginnings of the 60s, the electronic arts,
comprising video, holography, numerical photography and virtual realities
installations, including the immense possibilities that the computer has
opened up for digital art, do not constitute, as many supercilious and
conservative spirits had believed at the beginning, the folklore of electronics,
but rather, the art of today and beyond: the art of tomorrow, as the most

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