Osciloscopios: agujeros negros y nuevas poéticas

In the 1950s Ben F. Laposky (American mathematician and artist) achieved the first images generated by an electronic machine. At the same time and on the other side of the ocean, the German scientist Herbert W. Franke uses the same technique for the production of images such as “Elektronische Grafik”, among others. The procedure for both involves entering instructions into an oscilloscope and then photographing the signals returned by the machine. As a result, they obtain static images that generate a sensation of movement. From the mechanical to the abstract. From order to chaos. A new poetics is launched: that of digital art. It makes its way like a black hole in space/time: it absorbs everything and nothing escapes from it.

Technical, aesthetic and conceptual development

Inspired by the aforementioned artists, this work attempts to represent not only the aesthetic aspect of those images but also their production instance. Intermediate values ​​of gray and desaturated tones are combined to achieve opacity, texture, and light values ​​similar to those of Franke and Laposky’s images. The arrangement of the ellipses and curves in the plane attempt to generate sensations of organic movement in a still image, similar to those in the work “Tanz Der Elektronen” (Franke, 1962). In it you can see a series of circles and lines that seem to deform and swallow the light, like black holes suspended in infinite space. In turn, the work consists of three moments or movements. The first emulates the oscilloscope in a standby state waiting for instructions. The second introduces chaotic movements that represent the moment before the photograph. Finally, the still image captured by the camera is generated.

As José Luis Brea points out in “Redefinition of artistic practices” (2008), productions no longer focus on particular objects but on the impetus of circulatory effects (of meaning, symbolic, intensive, affective). In this sense we could notice that the images of Laposky and Franke move away from representation and are more linked to experience and the order of the performative. The interaction with oscilloscopes in real time generates unique and unrepeatable images that later find a material support in photography. The work, although mediated by the author, includes the component of chance and moves away from the object. In Brea’s words: it is more similar to the dream and its apparent content. Without any fear we could say that these works transport us to dream worlds where form and appearance have no sovereignty. This idea of ​​mediated production of chance, developed by Peter Bürger in the theory of the avant-garde (1974), opens the following question: could these works be avant-garde? On the one hand we can affirm that the production method used by these artists undoubtedly establishes a break with tradition and introduces the category of novelty, as a condition of avant-garde work. Chance is involved in the precise calculation of the tool, but the result is quite unpredictable. On the other hand, taking Walter Benjamin’s concept of allegory, these artists tear the element from its vital context and strip it of its function. In this fragmentation of reality and the essential transformation of the object, montage occurs and the work acquires the enigmatic character of the avant-garde: oscilloscopes are no longer signal meters but vehicles that lead to impossible universes.

Literature

BREA, José Luis. (2008). “Redefinición de las prácticas artísticas” en El tercer umbral. Estatuto de las prácticas artísticas en la era del capitalismo cultural. Murcia: CENDEAC, pp. 106-113.

BÜRGER, Peter. ([1974], 2000). “III. La obra de arte vanguardista”, en Teoría de la vanguardia. Barcelona: Ediciones Península, 3ra ed., pp. 111-149.