Panel Statement
Panel: Transmedia Narrative: Modes of Digital Scholarship and Design Across Public Space
The computer is a machine of the future – not only do we still attach to it the connotation of technological sophistication and future orientation, also in its function as an information processing machine it only deals with the present, calculating towards to future. Being solely aware of its current state and the transition rules of how to move towards the next state the computer is an inherently amnesic machine. The memory complement to this information processor is the database, adding the option to store data and keep them shielded from the ongoing memory erasure. But as it is part of the regime of the present the database offers its records as co-present, eliminating the notion of the past as a time vector spanning different chronological instances from past, to future. The paper explores how the project “Bleeding Through – Layers of Los Angeles 1920-1986” uses the presence-structure of the machine to construct an allegory of the process of remembering and the erasure of memory in the interplay of personal recollection and collective memory. Inspired by Norman Klein’s “History of Forgetting” we devised a process within which elements from the past endlessly fold upon themselves in a virtual navigation through Downtown Los Angeles. Using signifying chains following the concept of Markov chains we are devising a mechanism that touches on the subconscious processes of meaning creation described by Jacques Lacan.
- Andreas Kratky, born in Berlin (DE), lives and works in Berlin and Los Angeles. He studied visual communication, fine arts, and philosophy in the Humboldt University, the University of the Arts in Berlin, the Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and the University of Paris 1, Pantheon-Sorbonne. Andreas Kratky is a media artist and visiting assistant professor in the Interactive Media Division of the School for Cinematic Arts of the University of Southern California. His work comprises several award winning projects like “That’s Kyogen”, the interactive installation and DVD “Bleeding Through – Layers of Los Angeles 1920-1986”, the algorithmic cinema system “Soft Cinema”, and the interactive costume projection in the opera “The Jew of Malta”. His work has been shown internationally in Europe, the USA and Japan in institutions like the ICA in London, ICC in Tokyo, HDKW in Berlin, Centre George Pompidou in Paris, or RedCAT in Los Angeles. His current work comprises the interactive installation “The Imaginary Twentieth Century” and “Venture to the Interior”. Previously Andreas Kratky has worked in the ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany, where he was the head of the Multimedia Studio. He also worked as a member of the research initiative “Labyrinth Project”, an organized research unit of the University of Southern California, where he designed the installation and interactive DVD “Three Winters in the Sun – Einstein in California”. Working with the research initiative “Anarchive”, an organized research unit of the University of Paris 1, Pantheon-Sorbonne, he designed the interactive DVD “Title TK” in collaboration with the French theorist and video artist Thierry Kuntzel. Besides numerous works published as interactive media on DVD and in art catalogues, Kratky has published various texts on his research work in human computer interaction, interface design, and the didactic use of interactive media. Kratky has won several awards for his work and held residencies in the ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany, and the Baltic Center for Contemporary Arts, Gateshead, UK. venture-to-the-interior.com
Full text (PDF) p. 1414-1419