Bola de fetiche

Fetish ball is the reuse of a fragment of code already used in another work that produces a different one in a process that is just beginning, since that same fragment can produce many other different works. A ball that approaches and consumes whoever observes it, and then gives the possibility of choosing the point of view, to also consume the work.

Technical, aesthetic and conceptual development

If Aira buys a new paperback edition so as not to touch her Duchamp fetish book, which in turn contains a reproduction of a work by the artist, here a previously used function is reused, it is reproduced but without altering the original, since a part is taken, copied and inserted into a new work, without expense, and without the handling so feared by Aira. The writer traces a brief history to indicate that “the work of art always implied its own reproduction”, in this case it is not reproduced simply to explore what the previous work was like, but rather the previous one produces a new and different one. Even more, there is the possibility that the same code can be reused as is, without modifications, for a new work and then for another and for another. Works that could be completely different.

The fetishism of the sketch, of the reproduction of the sketch, is hidden in the code, there are the social conditions of work, in Marxist terms. Marx also points out in Capital that the luminous sensation that an object produces in the eye is also something physical between two physical objects, “the value relationship of the products of labor has absolutely nothing to do with their physical character or with the material relations that derive from this character. What here takes on, in the eyes of men, the phantasmagoric form of a relationship between material objects is nothing more than a concrete social relationship established between men themselves.” At the same time, in an unpublished chapter of Capital (chapter VI), he points out the difference between productive and unproductive work (to which art would belong), which gives rise to Adorno in his Aesthetic Theory to take it up again to say that not being able to present itself to the market as productive work is “the strongest defense of art against its bourgeois functionalization” and highlights this fetishistic character of the work of art: “in favor of what lacks power only what is not defended comes to the defense.” “it bends to power, in favor of a diminished use value, that which is of no use.”

Regarding the physical nature, we can also include in this work the possibility of interacting with it through the computer mouse, an extension of the arm of the user who thus also becomes an active part, producer. This is reminiscent of the democratizing nature of the installations, which reaffirms the condition of subject of those who participate, returning to Bishop. Obviously here the work only captures the viewer metaphysically and there is a limitation there, but we can also say that every installation experience, no matter how complex it may be, also has its limits since the more decision-making power that is given to whoever is participating, the more power is given to decide not to participate.

Once again, Jared Tarbell’s work has been a reference and generative art in general, since it is a work that does not end.