Preliminary note by Evelyne Rogue and Isabel Saij Here is the english version of the interview with Isabel Saij conducted by Evelyne Rogue. We/I like to draw your attention on 2 points : - the english version is not a translation of the french one, though the content is similar. - english is not our/my mother tongue, please apologize for any awkward sentences and errors. Question 1 : Looking at your creation mechanism 1 for the first time, I was thinking about works of Kandinsky. Could we see an influence of this artist on your artistic expression ? Could you tell us which artists left a mark on your artistic practice, and which ones do it perhaps currently ? It may be possible that Kandinsky's works have exerted some influence in "mechanism 1" especially. You can see in a way parallelisms, looking at the use of geometrical forms and their combination of colors. Colors which intensity creates light on a pure black background, and the whole seems to fly in a space without any kind of border. But in an other way, his search of spirituality in art doesn't square directly with my work. Much more I will draw the attention on this abstract and attractive machine that you can move and play with, but which at the end always comes back in its original position, in its system on which you have no effect, the sound underlining this undeniable fact. I have here to mention Tinguely. It was not really conscious as I worked on "mechanism 1", but this artist brought a special world of creation, full of wheels, wood and metal pieces, jointed in mechanisms, moving in an interactive way, creaking in different stages of distressing, and repeating always and always the same, in loops. The list (non exhaustive) of artists who played/are playing a role in my practice, is a very eclectic one. For instance, from my education time at the university : Gilles Aillaud (for his fragmented paintings of animals), Monory (for his sanitized blue spaces), Vostell (for his heterogeneous installations). I would add the american hyperrealism : Chuck Close (cold, huge, artificial paintings with photographic precision), Duane Hanson ( with his realistic disturbing figures : housewife or tramps) Cinetic art left a mark on me : Agam, Cruz-Diez, Soto in their arrangement of colors requiring a change of position to get the different "point of views", Heinz Mack (forms under plexyglass, rotating metallic sculptures). I often had discussions with the austrian artist Marc Adrian, a friend of mine, who made also cinetic works (words under frosted glass) and films with focus on plastic features and structuralist criteria. He was a member of "Group Zero" and exhibited in Düsseldorf with Günther Uecker whose work appeals to me in several aspects : works on light, works with nails, use of wood, sand... Two other artists to mention are Anselm Kiefer and Dieter Roth. The first one for his huge, black, dirty works accumulating waste which can be found also in the work of Roth, in the chaotic mixing up of scraps. Not being an artist, Roth would perhaps had suffered of the "messies" syndrom (persons accumulationg waste in their homes because they can't throw anything away). I have to name Dubuffet because of his successive periods of creation, each one in a very different way. Dubuffet is for me a particularly important artist, I estimate as well some works of Karl Fred Dahmen. I made myself very small or large pictures with all kinds of materials : cement, sand, concrete, teer, latex, gravel, wood, pieces of crates, coffee, coffee filters, honey, scrap of metal, all kinds of acrylic gels, paper, cardboard, papier mâché, etc... My preoccupation was the accumulation of layers with different materials, playing with transparency, scraping, tearing up, pouring traces, with the concern to avoid "clean" works. Here a note, "in memoriam" of my thesis director, Jean Laude, who said that influence was not the matter, but borrowing. In that way I discovered at a later date that some of my creations have similarity with the works made by other artists : certain conditions at a certain time leads to parallel works. The informal painting of Emil Schumacher, the ink sketches of Michaux, made that my creations became more and more relaxed. Maria Lassnig is worth a mention for her particular way of mental exploring, through the projection of her own body on the canvas. The "painters of Gugging", schizophrenic artists living in a psychiatric hospital near Vienna (several books written by Navratil) illustrate what is "said - not said", "given to see - or not", "censorship - self-censorship", "proportion - disproportion". The austrian actionnism (Schwarzkogler, Nitsch), Valie Export in her engagement, they all gave me matter of thinking. The different viennese experiences/experiments cannot be reduced to the visual arts, I must evoke the literature for instance, beginning wth Kafka who, though a native-born Czech, depaints perfectly the atmosphere of the K&K monarchie, and of cities like Vienna. You can feel the same kind of absurdity nowadays. Leo Perutz also gives in his very strange books descriptions of non-sense and of blurr. The confusion is everywhere, leading to destabilization and anguishes. Heimito von Doderer conceives in my opinion his books like a huge field of experiments with a multitude of characters who meet each other at a given time. A stage, a scenario, a laboratory... I could also mention Karl Kraus, Thomas Bernhard or Elfriede Jelinek, in their acute political and social criticism of the viennese society, microcosm of narrow-mindedness... Do you know that Thomas Bernhard forbad in his testament to put on the stage any of his play in Austria for 50 years ! And Jelinek wanted to emigrate, when the party of Haider accessed to power. She stayed. And I saw her several times, taking part in demos, in long walks through the city, each thursday, since this shameful coalition exists. Biotope of inconscious acts and reactions... Freud was on the right place... the fact that he lived in Vienna was in my opinion a necessary condition for his work. As I live since 20 years in Austria, it was an immersion in the culture of the country. My works on "Klimt" (Master) then on Schiele (PhD) as well as my life as an artist in Vienna, left marks. From this life abroad 2 points I already mentioned in my interview for Soundtoys.net : -my dreams are bilingual -new symbols and archetypes appeared At the end I come back to some artists : Dubuffet (again), Klee or Louise Bourgeois. They have all explored many artistic directions. It's something I claim for my own work. Nothing more boring than repetition : systematic production of work or expression. Is a neurotic label of constraint of repetition (Wiederholungszwang) the absolute condition for a true creation act ? Not for me : I need the complete freedom to change at any time in correlation with the needs of a given time. Only rule : a part of unconscious which rises to the surface and pushes me with necessity ("internal necessity"...to come back to Kandinsky) and pleasure sometimes, depending on the step of the creative process. Question 2 : Roy Ascott, considering the positions of the artist facing progress and the emergence of cybernetic in our world, said that the artist can take two positions : he/she can be lead in a semi-conciousness by what is occuring, becoming more and more bitter and hostile, or he/she can live in the present, bringing his/her own contribution, understanding the underlying caracteristics of the current time. Do you agree with him ? If an artist refuses to see, to discern and recognize a perpetual changing world, he will stagnate, will be surely - so R.A - bitter and hostile, opposed to new ways of art... And art is not an island in the middle of nowhere, art lives in its time, or at least should. With the attitude considering the future or present just like a continuation of the past ( it does in a way, if you consider that we build over the past, but without coming backward ), we could be still cavemen... or perhaps the "amishes" of art and culture. We live a revolution that could be compared with Gutenberg's press, or the invention of the bulb, of the phone, railway, aviation, and so on... But don't forget that libraries, museen - all institutions in charge of archiving and preserving works of the past/present - think not only in terms of present, but more and more of future. They see the very fast rise of computer technology as a chance to transport in real time knowledges everywhere on the globus. Many artists try to draw attention on the danger of technology by refusing it, but its inexorable progress is steadily changing our society. What a risk to avoid a danger : the refusal leads a painter for instance to play the role of a dreaming craftman just interested in his canvas and colors. I agree with R.A about the necessity of living in our time. But I am a little bit skeptic, thinking about the fact that an artist could understand the underlying caracteristics of his time. Who could be able to do it... You can critizise, you can suppose, you can attack , you can give your point of view... you can only have a partial approach of the whole and of the subjacent features. So many questions, much more answers, let's try to see things from our small courtyard : it's difficult enough! Question 3 : Do you intend to "please" the viewer ? Is it important that a viewer enjoys your creation and its interactivity ? How could you define this "pleasure" ? Yes, in the way how do you describe it, surely. It is particularly important for me to imagine that a viewer will enjoy my creation. This notion of pleasure in art is for me a central one. I think and always thought, for my current works as well as for my past classical exhibitions too, that the visitor has a right to enjoy a work, and not only in a restrictive visual way. I can't tell you how wonderfull was for me an experience, during the vernissage of an exhibition of my works in Vienna. A blind young woman asked me if I allowed her to touch the works, in order to "see" them...she took her time to feel each work, talked a long time with her mother who guided her, and I noticed that she really enjoyed this moment. Just think what a frustation it is, in a museum for example, to read everywhere... don't touch, don't come nearer, don't make this and that... I understand very well the reasons (due to the problems of conservation or security ). But sometimes it goes too far : before the renovation of the "Albertina" in Vienna (I don't know the situation now) the visitors were contemplating facsimile. The original works were stored in cardboard boxes ! When you know that where is your pleasure ? The fact is that art, who should bring you a feeling of freedom, brings you in fact a lot of constraints and interdictions through institutions who look like churches or tempels. Art leaved churches since the Renaissance... or not ? The pleasure can take the form of multiple choice in the interpretation of a work. In 1992 I made 2 installations which aroused curiosity. -The first one was an installation with fiberglass tortoises. One of them was very big and realistic. It was laying on the ground, in a semy-darkness, in the middle of crates near a hedge. The cold buffet for the vernissage was adapted : vegetables presented in terracotta pots! Astonishing but true : many spectators took the tortoise for real and the vegetables for plastic imitations ! Many viewers were excited because they were destabilized : what was true, what was factice ? It was a game for the spectators and a pleasure. -The second installation was a pyramid made of wood in which I had made some small holes to allow a sight inside. In the dimly lit pyramid were some mummies of insects (of course imitations made by myself) surrounded by jars and gifts. The choice of material like sand, straw, resin,... reinforces the realistic and aged aspect of the composition. 2 reactions once again : many spectators could not believe that I've made the mummies and the pyramid was attracting them like a magnet : just voyeurism ! The pleasure came through the intellectual exercise of perception and interpretation. The pleasure you can feel on the net is that you don't only watch at it. You touch it, move it, push it, drag it... discover it... The viewer is a hunter, a predator, he has found a prey, explores it, finds out, plays with it, and that in the hudge space of internet combined with the intimity of his space, his computer, without any other visitor like in a museum. He is free, alone with the work, but in an invisible communication perhaps with the autor of the creation he is playing with. Question 4 : Pleasure related to net art pieces cannot be understood as an aesthetic emotion given by the contemplation of beauty, as it was in the past. What are the components creating aesthetic emotion in your pieces ? In this case emotion and pleasure are in a very closed relationship. It's no more a matter of beauty, or its contemplation in a passive way - I mean to gaze at a picture or an object, etc... with our eyes only... and without having noticed that being visitor in a museum or a gallery, we are surrended by smells of oil painting, varnish, glue, and many other kinds of materials... I think that Net Art proposes new ways of perception on the one hand, and the possibility of being more and more active as a "viewer" on the other hand. The perception of beauty is very artificial, depending of your culture, surrounding, age, education, interests, and so on, and emotion will depend on the subtle combination of these criteria in a very subjective construct. Perhaps could it be that these new-media, and Net Art particularly, correspond to new ways of active perception, I mean an other combination - of senses : sight, hearing, touch ( I'm dreaming of creations carrying with them smells and tastes. Per internet...?, perhaps it becomes true some day...). - of intellectual faculties to understand the meaning of the work you are looking at, and how that work is a vehicle between you and the invisible creator of the piece, and what kind of message can be delivered. - of some reminiscences of our reptilian brain. Fear, instinct of self-preservation, killer instinct... We are in an unknown space without borders, perhaps in an hostile world, and this strange animal with its own life can be our computer... If you make a mistake, it could be dangerous... or not...it unforseeable... We must survive, and it's part of our genes. A part of our pleasure is directly related to our instincts : watching, catching, killing...in a total impunity... Asocial pulsions as a play activity can be compared with our dreams, as a necessary valve for the pulsions and emotions. Question 5 : Louis Dandrel (during a conference in Paris,"Université de tous les Savoirs") said recently that, if music is the most commun art, it is also the most reactiv one in relation with the milieu and with the mood of the society, because of its original fusion with life. Music reveals, imitates or opposes. In your animation major-domo, we find an atmosphere of the technological world, may be in order to make people think about domotic. Do you believe, like this musician, that sound as well as light are necessary to form a global architecture. Of course. Sounds play a very important role in this architecture, and light too, because the latter is necessary to build a 3D work. Sounds and light compose a unique atmosphere which is the condition to create emotions and feelings. that let you think about. I like here to make a small addition : an extension to my first answer. I'm very interested by percussions and sound design, the use of a diversity of materials to produce sounds. Producing and recording a sound made by an object is not at all related with the future use you will make of the recording : the recording will never illustrate that object. Strange and fascinating ! Concrete music, absolute dissonant free jazz, as well as the mad accents of "Pierrot Lunaire" are somewhere connected to me and source of inspiration. In the first frame, the robot goes here and there, automatically, without aims, with or without remote control... in an illimited space, in a sort of vacuity. Lights/spots follow it in its mechanical way of moving, and the darkness could be the symbol of our limits. Major-domo ist alone and lost here, in a "one-thing show" without any kind of presence. We are its sole spectators, the spect-actors because of our emotional projection in the scene. Its screams are ours. Clicking the button, we repeat and repeat this absurd walk, and it's our own one. Different sounds of the rollovers are those of the every day life. We know them very well. Note perhaps the noises of the communication and control, the phone calls made by a child voice... This small robot could be yours, mine, could be you or me. This little voice is lovely and funny... Is it the sign of our regression ? Our kid, our pet. Whatever attached to us. Do we register these sound waves, the interferences ?... What do we know exactly about this little thing, this "mechanism" programmed for our comfort and pleasure, to make our life easier, while we are spending more time with our hobbies. Major-domo takes over unpleasant houseworks for you, and more... Who programmed it, how, why ? Is this little boy or girl so harmless ? Is it a trap ? Is this "thing", out of mode, piece in a museum of "ex-future objects" less dangerous ? This futuristic object belongs to the past. How long was its day life ? For whom, for what was it working ? And why ? M-D squeaks in its showcase, ridiculous, touching. And what about us, thinking about future and science with proudness and certitude. And what's beyond that ? Question 6 : Beyond the notion of robotic that you evoke in major-domo, J.Baudrillard says that if human beings dream about eccentric and genial machines, it's because they give up hope of their own oddity, or that they prefer to relinquish this ability, just enjoying it through machines. What These machines are giving us may be the apparence of thought. The human beings, operating with them, devote themself to the apparence of thought more than to the thought itself. Do you agree with him ? Human beings are and were always dreaming of all kinds of machines, so I don't know if it's just possible to say they despear of their own originality. In my opinion they wonder at the ability of the human brain and at ist creative faculties. A tacit and necessary delegation is given to the best thinkers, scientists, engineers and technicians, to the experts (and this word is, not entirely by accident, largely spread and used) who are in charge to make dreams true, the unachieved thoughts we all have, the archetype of the future in a way. To discuss science as a matter whithout adding fiction, to make science a coherent unity and a materialization, this is our commun wish. People need something tangible. It allows a handling, an appropriation of the objects which are then part of the human heritage. Guides, references,...are created in that way. I find interesting to mention here religion and its representations in form of images : images of God, images of saints,... The part of the population who didn't get educated or received just a basic education, is often facing an impossible challenge : to play with abstract concepts or imagine a bald, meditative, philosophical religion. Images will answer the purpose. Miracles, places of pilgrimage serve as references, as evidences in order to corroborate the existence of God, who gains in return signification and makes sense. Let me add that the front line between being creative or not is not limitated to the artistic fields. Leonardo da Vinci for instance shows a good example of interdisciplinary creations : artist and engineer (some of his machines were recently built to prove their technical feasibility and efficiency). Creative thoughts are multiple and interdisciplinary, but surely functionning in a very similar process, at the very least in its initial step of conception. Question 7 : We know that the word "robot" got its modern definition (mechanical automaton) with Karel Capek in the 20th century. How could you define this term now ? "Science without conscience is but the death of the soul" said Michel de Montaigne. Knowledeges accumulated during centuries are nothing worth if not moderated. We should always try to look at them with discernment and so much objectivity as we can. We must be able to define necessary boundaries beyond of which great discoveries like atom and genome are misused until unscrupulous experiments. The robot, lifeless and conscienceless by essence, product of human intelligence advances at the rythm of the technical progress. From change to change the robot looks more and more like his Pygmalion and his surrounding world. Definitions of robot are now multiple and the outlines are blurred. The mechanical robot gained an electronic programmation, growingly sophisticated. It looks like an animal even a human, it becomes simulated affects with a discerning orchestration. Its applications include, among others, the industrial, medical, spatial fields,... Programmed, guided, remote-controlled, anthropomorphic, it belongs more and more to our visual, acoustic, virtual every day life (search engines,...) Some robots are well-mannered, polite as gentlemen. You always get an answer to your email, the confirmation that you've fill completely the form and that your order is on its way to you... Thinking of cold machines you realize it could rather be any user you've sent a friendly message. A "being" without "human", the new mechanical automaton ? Question 8 : Do you think that art could have an influence on the future orientation of robotic and on telerobotic, and how ? I can very well imagine a fruitful collaboration between researchers from different fields, scientists, technicians, computer engineers, artists,... The creative minds can work together on specific projects, from the initial idea(s), through its/their development,...until the finalization of the "work". Less glorious : the place of arts and psychology in the marketing, or how to change a consumer good : to give it the necessary emotional flavour with the single aim of "more business and profit". For instance : round or egg-shapped forms, synonymous with sweetness and confort, subtle symbol of femininity or fetal regression. We already know this situation for industrial goods, but what about art applied to robotics ? Aesthetic as integrated department of multinational companies, delivering short-lived taste for mandatory consumption, if you don't want to belong to those who know to late or worse never have known. Tomorow we'll get the : brand new robot, robot new look, robot in old fashion design , hype robot,... or better a signed one, numeroted, digitalised and even secretly archived...for the benefit of the whole community.... Or have we already got to that point ?
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