Barbara Rauch in conversation with Christian Nold
27 November 2008
Chelsea College of Art & Design
Context
1. Brief outline of the artist’s practice
Barbara Rauch
Where would you position yourself?
Christian Nold
I am interested in the social aspects of technology. I am trying to unpack that.
BR
And how about your working processes; would you describe them for the piece you have been doing here? Where did it all start?
CN
Always historically; I try to unpack the beginnings of something. In this piece, I am trying to find the root of the idea of the crowd. I am trying to find the point where technology starts mediating ideas of people and the city. So I felt it was worth going back to Victorian stories and Edgar Alan Poe. In terms of translating some of the methods Poe was using, I was thinking that the ways we use information today are quite similar to the way Poe describes people. This is where the tag cloud idea comes from. I was thinking about classification systems. I want to reflect on how the human impulses take different shapes and forms at different times. For a Victorian artist or a contemporary artist it might be the same impulse.
BR
Another question that belongs here, is: Do you think the work that you have produced for the Personalised Surface project, will lead to another piece? Or is it rather exceptional because of the brief that was given.
CN
It was unusual, but it was really interesting. I have been being wanting to do something like this…There are a lot of people who are trying to think about what physical data visualisations might look and feel like. I think a lot of people who come from the design world, end up thinking about physical pixels. They try to think about RGB LEDs, something that you can easily control. I think of my project as a kind of physical information visualisation.
I wanted to use several mechanical reproduction forms… we used a zinc plate, which fits in the way the newspapers were printed at that time. The reason why we use computers today, is about the simplicity of shuffling data around digitally, so it is about industrial processes in a sense. For me it ties it much more into the social history around this time, rather than being a simple way of outputting something into the physical which is loaded with the social and economic, rather than only addressing the physical digital divide.
BR
This brings us back to question I.3. the relationship of digital technology to other processes/technologies.
In a way just describe that as being interconnected with other processes, such as social, cultural, economic.
CN
Yes, I thought the discussion at the ICA panel was interesting, because people were talking about the digital in a way that I just didn’t associate with at all. I see it as another model of production.
BR
Where do you see this going? At the ICA evening you tackled the question that there is no divide, that the digital is just part of the way we function. Digital technology is available to us and we make use of it.
You wouldn’t want to say the digital is taking over, because it hasn’t and it will not.
CN
Well if it does, then it took over a long time ago. It took over with the telegraph and the first audio recording. It’s about recording and the idea of editing. But I think this has happened a long time ago. And I think that had the most effect on literature, multiple editions. For me this is where documentary comes from and all the discussion about documentary and things that came along with it, film. It is the idea of being able to record and then play it back. That’s where the shock of the new came.
In terms of transforming what’s coming in the future …
BR
Where do you think your work is going? Where would you put your emphasis next?
But of course you don’t have to tell me!
CN
Oh, I just don’t know. I guess consultation and working with local government…
The main issue is about power. People like art, but they will not take it seriously. It might open certain doors, but there is a glass ceiling which you cannot break through by approaching contexts as art. I feel there are two directions that I can currently go towards. It is either going creating more concrete plans and designs with architecture or alternatively it is really working with grassroots groups, and going for the activists’ route. And I think that’s the divide. At the moment it is a strange no-mans land that I work in, where you are in between the officially understandable visions and the activists’ discourse. I think for my work to have more effect on the world I need to choose which path to take.
BR
But isn’t this one of the beauties of your projects (mapping projects), that it is not easily located. You don’t speak the language of the other but it falls in between.
CN
I agree but that is why my work has been hosted by organisations in this kind of ‘open’ and ‘loose’ way, without really being able to change peoples’ lives. Once you go through a reflective process, you want to make it into something else, you have more to gain by engaging with people…
So I guess for me it’s about working with a bigger group of people. I am trying to set up a design company that can do the architectural intervention, that can do big proposals, that allows people that take this work more seriously. But also working really closely with community groups and allow them to make their visions palpable and powerful. I try to do this without loosing the reflective critical angle. I think production doesn’t have to be at the cost of thinking.
The people who I want to work with, at the moment, one is an architect, the other a strategic planner, somebody else does workshops with young people, another is a graphic designer, somebody else does technical networks. That’s the structural setting, but in terms of interest, this has to be so closely shared, it’s a way of working together, without people stepping on each others’ toes.
BR
The Distance lab is a different kind of setting that you have just described:
an MIT model of collaborative innovation research, would that interest you?
CN
Yes it is either that or research, that is my division point. And at the moment with academic research I am not going anywhere, so it’s probably the ‘commercial’ model.
BR
But this doesn’t need to exclude research and, to turn it round, the Distance lab also has commercial interests, outputs, money making policies.
CN
It’s not about money, it’s about changing something. That’s what I find interesting and this is possible when working with concrete sites.
BR
True! a good result might not bring in any money…
Let’s get back to the questions
4. Indication of how they regard the surface in terms of importance,
BR
We haven’t used the word surface much during our discussions, and yet surface is quite important in the work that you have produced for us.
CN
I struggle with these different concepts of surface…
BR
The personalised surface doesn’t necessarily mean that this is the starting point for your work. But we need to address it perhaps in terms of printmaking processes and this might not be your primary concern, but in this research we have addressed the surface that way.
CN
I think in that kind of way it has been really interesting. The way I see your project, you are trying to personalise a mass mechanical reproduction technology. I think this is an interesting way of thinking about it. And then it becomes political again, and then it becomes something that I think is interesting. It reminds me of the way people stick little bits of chewing gum on tube adverts. They are trying to have some kind of personal impact on what is spread around them, in that case I think it is an reactionary approach. It is like, the power is out there and the only thing we can do, is interior decorating. I think you can turn the concept the other way around. Rather than personalising the surface, you can look at the way subjectivity has created the surface and how desires are being constructed to shape these tools in the first place.
BR
Your response is interesting…
I need to get this right….
Turning the idea around and starting with the individual and not with the fabricated surfaces that we try to personalise in the aftermath, like embossing a digital print, but rather taking your personal history into the process.
CN
The tools are the desire of some person, the printmaking came about at some particular point, through some people’s desire and through certain economic desires. So unpacking those desires I think leaves you able to grasp a new understanding to how one might develop new technologies…
Because there is something powerless about sticking the little bits of chewing gum on the advert. I mean people don’t like the advert, and that’s the point. But rather than getting rid of the advert, they decorate it…
BR
Some down to earth questions
Specific issues regarding the new piece of work
1. At what point in the development of the work is the size of the image fixed?
CN
At the end
BR
With knowing what size of paper?
CN
Sorry this is really just a mechanical thing. It is the maximum size that you can print….
The first restriction was the maximum size the printing bed can print…and secondly it is a cost restriction, because it gets ridiculously expensive when you start expanding in 2D.
BR
But how is this for other works? The maps you produce.
CN
Just right at the end, depending on basic usability criteria, it’s got to be big enough to see levels of detail, sometimes I tried to design maps that have different levels of details, that can be seen from a distance and some can be seen when you walk closer. Yes practicality and usability criteria!
BR
I don’t know if this is a relevant question for you….choice of paper, and so on
2. At what point is the actual surface considered?
CN
Yes, I think this is important. I spend quit a lot of time fiddling with the paper.
I chose a semi handmade paper, I wanted to have some handmade quality, but also wanted that silver metal picture frame that referred to the zinc plate, the mechanical aspect. It wasn’t just a cheesy wooden frame that makes it kind of ye-olde-worldly. So I guess I wanted to bring across the idea there is some kind of mixed or multi layered process involved in making this thing.
BR
We have probably addressed this before:
3. What factors determine the choice or creation of the surface in this new work?
CN hesitates …
4. How does working digitally contrast with other practices they have used?
BR
Would you think the digital processes are quite dominant in your work?
CN
On one level I don’t understand the question, on another level I could say I got my first computer when I was about 13 and I think the idea of computing for me started in about 1988 with my Amiga. I think that was the point when most people’s lives were changed through computers. And I think it starts off with computer games and then people get into seeing these other methods of doing stuff.
BR
You are of a different generation compared to the other case studies I reckon.
CN
It’s a generation issue …
BR
If you would have been in your 30s or 40s when you started to use computers, you probably wouldn’t start with games.
CN
Laughs
BR
But I really need to make sure that we have covered the basic questions here.
CN
No, I think we can do this.
I think this is really interesting.
BR
Sure!
CN laughs again
BR
Because this is our final interview, I was interested to know how happy you are with the result of your work at the ICA.
CN
Oh I think it’s great. It’s not like what I do normally. I almost forced myself to make this in a strange kind of way and that was really interesting. It made me think of physical and tactile stuff which I kind of dismissed but also usually think that it is not that important. Somehow this was good fun and reminded me of going to art school and being an artist. And reminds me of the discussions I used to have and I haven’t had for fifteen years.
So, I think it’s interesting because it reminds me that people have very different ways of reading what they see. That’s important to me. Thinking that what’s in your head is also in other people’s heads is a mistake. I was thinking about Dan Hays’ work. The way he talked in detail about the way he took raw material from the internet, and then visually transformed them. And the way he focused on his processes between the pieces. It never occurred to me that this is important or that I would want to disclose this to an audience. To me it’s almost as if I talked about my toilet habits on a public stage. I feel slightly private, somehow it’s revealing certain things that are not …that are not meant to be looked at….
BR
But isn’t research about revealing these processes?
CN
But there are different types of processes…
I almost try to exclude myself from my pieces. And of course I know that you can never really do that. Dan’s presentation was interesting in the way he talked about this external stuff, but actually it was all about him. It’s interesting where you place yourself in the work. In some ways when I present my work, I don’t really resolve where my position is. The way he presented had a much clearer position for himself in that whole thing.
Very interesting!
BR
He almost made it the subject area.
But do you think you have presented a personalised surface in your particular work?
CN
To me the personalised surface is no longer a question. It reminds me of the discussion about do you represent the politics of aesthetics or the aesthetics of politics.
And in some ways a lot of people are trying to politicise aesthetics and in some ways this is what this discussion is about. I am trying to work out the possible interpretation or effect this might have. If you look at the aesthetics of politics it’s a different approach and you are looking at it from a different kind of view. I guess I hide my process much more than other people do.
BR
No, you didn’t hide processes in your talk. But it is not so obvious on the surface layer of the print. Take this as a very dull question that is concerned about the physical print itself. The print presented behind the glass.
Your revealing was different, it was actually beautiful to see the different processes you are engaged with. And how you are physically engaged. This is a hands on approach. You throw yourself into processes that you were not familiar with at all. Putting the person in could mean personalising…but probably I am taking this too far now?
CN
Sure. This is an interesting question, but it is something I don’t consider. There is a language issue here but fundamentally it is a question of where to position subjectivity. One notion is that subjectivity is in the artists marks in the other, subjectivity is the quality of interaction the viewer has with the work.
Are we talking about choices?
Or what is the personalised surface for you?
BR
I think I differ from the printmaking approach as well. You might recognise that the case studies that I have invited in are all discussions on emotion, consciousness, society, self.
That’s my personal interest in the subject area…I am attracted to the artists rather than their finished works….I like the insight to their ideas.
In fact, I thought you would come up with an emotion map!
I did mention this at the ICA evening.
And that it didn’t happen, and you produced an individual piece, was a surprise…and I think it is beautiful that it happened that way.
So probably this is what I call personalised.
Personalising processes that are mechanical. Putting emotions in. Decisions that make the works
become individual.
The creative processes of the making will be described for all my case studies.
And this includes that I have to define surface with each artist individually and take it from there.
We all approach and use the word differently.
I will have to discuss each artist individually and will call this a personalised surface approach.
CN
I think it is an interesting phrase, because it is a very loaded phrase, and I think it comes from a tradition of thinking about making stuff. There are some interesting mismatches though…you were thinking about me in a certain way that I normally do not highlight.
BR
Like writing a nonsense poem…throwing stuff together that usually doesn’t go together.
CN
I agree, it’s almost better. You need to find the friction point. Otherwise it is just descriptive.
BR
I have one last thing and this would be a nice ending
I have some notes from your talk,
The working relationships between the workshops, the gallery, the research group and your own processes, that you need to go through.
Was there anything that was different with the process we took you through, because you had to address this issue of the surface? Did it alter somehow the way you usually work?
CN
I am normally used to doing everything myself. With this project, the particular mechanical process we chose, forced me to work with different people. I was working with James on finding out what’s possible, and then actually print the zinc plate. I loved that whole process, I find it fascinating walking in to the zinc plate workshop, because it was two guys and they really reminded me of that kind of artisan tradition, that has been lost in some way. Nowadays in the popular imagination you only get unskilled labour, but these guys were skilled artisans, and they had all the right mannerisms. You could just look at the whole laboratory environment and see them almost living in that place. It was in North London, I loved going there. It was perfect. Having to engage with these processes was great.
Something interesting happened when you rely on people for doing those things for you, it is frustrating, but interesting…it took me to funny places and I really enjoyed talking to James. We were printing a whole day. It was beautiful just talking to him about his work and how he was thinking about what he was doing. And I liked the way he was making a project setting 6 point type. On a computer you would not able to read this, but 6 point in hot metal looks great. This gave me some interesting ideas that I would not have had just sitting in front of my own computer. So by working with people, it actually socialises your work.
BR
Also skills and crafts that might be lost at some point.
CN
Yes it was amazing that you can set fonts in 6 point and that it can be readable.
BR
Beautiful!
Thank you!
CN
Good, I enjoyed it!
