Retrograde Technicity in Artistic Photographic and Cinematic Practices

Since the early 1990s, the use of obsolete media and technologies has figured prominently in contemporary art. What is remarkable about this turn to the so-called outmoded is the sheer range of inventiveness with which old media are applied, bestowing upon them new and original uses. This engagement with the materiality and historicity of technology in general and photography and cinema in particular offers a way of (re-)interrogating the very idea of these media and of making manifest their inherent qualities. Assembling an international and trans-disciplinary team of artists and scholars, this arts-based research project will explore the widespread pursuit of photographic and cinematic devices from the viewpoint of retrograde technicity. The project will be led by Edgar Lissel, whose artistic work exemplifies the topic. Two key questions are: How does the concept of retrograde technicity create new knowledge? How can the productive nature of artistic research and the effects of artistic production be mapped? The term retrograde technicity is situated within the broader field of obsolescence, but clearly engages with the historicity of technological forms. In a more general perspective, retrograde technicity is characterized by the replacement of technical devices of a higher order by technical devices of a lower order, and it can take a variety of forms. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the phenomenon of retrograde technicity today is prominent not only in art, but also in popular culture (from the revival of Polaroid photography to such recent inventions such as the LomoKino). Hence, retrograde technicity is a broad social phenomenon that is having a considerable impact on the ways we interact with (audio)visual media. In cooperation with our national and international partners (Austrian Filmmuseum; Hubertus von Amelunxen), seven international artists (David Gatten, Sandra Gibson/Luis Recoder, Rosângela Renn, Hanna Schimek, Gebhard Sengmüller, Apichatpong Weerasethakul) and three external experts (Ruth Horak, Jan Kaila, Kim Knowles), our project will provide an experimental platform for arts-based research that will benefit all participants and, we hope, observers. This project will result in both a new methodology for artistic research as well as new insights into the concept of retrograde technicity. One of the key methodological tools and means of exchange and dissemination will be the project website (including a blog and a database), which will document the research process and its results. As well, a workshop, an international conference, a final presentation of the research process and the resulting artefacts, and a compilation of printed materials will be provided.

RESET THE APPARATUS! A Survey of the Photographic and the Filmic in Contemporary Art gathered together film and photography artists and theorists in the hope that together we might come up with a different take on contemporary photographic and filmic practices based on opto-mechanics and/or photo-chemistry, that is, supposedly "obsolete" analog film and photography. Photography and film share more in common than what is frequently cited as what differentiates them, namely, the difference between stillness and movement. Both, for example, were regarded as "new" technologies during the 19th century and - at their respective beginnings - were greeted with suspicion as artistic media. Moreover, photography and film shared the same technological base. Finally, at the present moment, their very existence is under threat due to the spread of digital technologies and media convergence. Not to forget, analog photography and film are technological singularities that allow for immediate intelligibility by the user (whereas the digital requires transcoding). This has far-reaching consequences, such as, for example, the impact of technological change on the human body and its modes of sensation. Our enquiry was focused on artistic methods and procedures that make clear reference to the material and technological conditions of the photographic and/or filmic and, at the same time, open onto an "expanded field" of practice. The terms "photographic" (instead of "photography") and "filmic" (instead of "film") no longer adhere to the respective mediums' technological implementations as we know them; rather they appeal to the concept underlying photographic and filmic practices. As the project's emphasis lies on deviant uses of media, photography and film are not only addressed as media but also as apparatuses or dispositifs, a perspective which widens the scope and allows for their being looked at them in terms of their operational use. Equally important was to foreground the process of production, as opposed to that of reception alone, traditional apparatus theory's main issue. In order to understand the working procedures underlying each artwork in question, a renewed perspective on the history of technics and technology became necessary. Far from romanticizing the pre-digital/analog past, RESET THE APPARATUS! asserts a critical engagement with the conventional apparatus, and exemplifies the rich potential that can result from artistic practices that modify, repurpose or even dismantle their own apparatus. The photographic and filmic, as the site of innumerable productive contaminations, not only expand our notion of photography and film as commonly understood, but also generates insights into the contingent nature of their apparatuses and provokes new forms of artistic production. In the light of today's embracement of "new" media, the return to allegedly outdated media and their apparatuses appears as a resolute resistance to the norm, thereby too fulfilling a critical function.