|
To conduct an interview with Randall Packer without
fully understanding post modern thought, or having had
some knowledge of the history of communication and technology;
is like sitting down to play the piano without knowing
what the keys are for. There is potential for beautiful
music but all that is made is a cacophony of noise.
An excerpt of one of Packers course syllabus for MICA
will introduce him best.
...pioneering artists and scientists who have
brought about the dissolution of boundaries that have
traditionally existed between the artistic and technological
disciplines...work and ideas of artists who have explored
new interactive and interdisciplinary forms, as well
as engineers and mathematicians who have developed information
technologies and influential scientific and philosophical
ideologies that have influenced the arts...invention
of information technologies and new human machine paradigms
that have come to define the medium of the personal
computer, including: cybernetics, augmented intelligence,
hypertext, human computer symbiosis, graphical user
interface, etc. 1
Randall Packer is a new media artist now based in Washington
DC. He has his BS from the University of Oregon; MFA
from the California Institute of the Arts; and his PhD
from the University of California, Berkeley. He has
taught at US universities, such as John Hopkins, Maryland
Institute College of Art and he is currently Assistant
Professor of MultiMedia at American University in Washington
DC. Packers teaching directly relates to his own work
which has been well exhibited; InterCommunication Center
in Tokyo, Biennial Exhibition and ZKM, Center for Art
and Media, Karlsruhe in Germany to name a few. Packer's
repertoire of art communication includes Internet Sites,
Happenings, Performance Art, Exhibitions and Installations
supported by and working in tandem with his literature,
manifestos and staged speeches. He is the co editor
of Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality.
It is significant that Washington DC is Packer's home
base, Washington is rich in American history and considered
the hub of American politics and informed on current world
events. Packer has developed an ArtLife, or aesthetically
constructed political persona, his music training has
led him to look at the world as a performance, and he
utilizes the rich Americana of Washington as the backdrop
for his art. For Packer it is important to make work in
and of this current cultural setting using experimental
forms of communication and embracing developing technology
in his art life. In his book MultiMedia: from Wagner to
Virtual Reality he begins with a quote from Wagner;
Whereas the public, that representation of
daily life, forgets the confines of the auditorium,
and lives and breathes only in the artwork which seems
to it as Life itself, and on the stage which seems the
wide expanse of the whole world. 2
Packer's Net specific work consists of websites and
interactive blogs. Zakros is Packer's website which
supports and informs the audience about his work. In
this site one will find links to his actual online work
and essays, introducing his understanding of the "Aesthetic,
philosophical and socio-cultural impact of Newmedia
in an increasingly technological society." 3
USDAT is on of Packer's online pieces produced to emulate
standard news or government type internet information
systems. This site "comments on unfolding political
and social events in Washington, America and around
the world."4
Packer conveys these ideas through manipulated video
clips of CNN or similar. Through the political persona,
Packer's own self-made government position, Secretary
for the US Department of Art and Technology, he uses
"...the insertion of art and the artists voice
into the larger cultural dialogue for the purpose of
mediating or intervening in the forces of social and
political events."5
As a form of political critique or a "laboratory
for social experimentation which implement new ways
of seeing and understanding the world around us through
the process of Virtualization."6
Packer has positioned himself as an integrated artist
and politician using the new media tools where he can
then subvert the normative reading of current media
manipulation.
"New models as seen in the imagination
by the artist, become the foundation for new concepts
and new possibilities for change. The insecurity of
these models into reality, however temporary or ephemeral,
bring opportunity for social transformation through
exploitation of the power of the collective imagination."
7
Packer suggested to President Bush that the artist
should be represented in a political position "I
sent a proposal via e-mail to President Bush requesting
that he consider the formation of a new department,
the US Department of Art and Technology."8
Packer received and automated response that wished him
well in his endeavors. In the spirit of a true American
thinker, he self-initiated the political position. On
November 30 2001 Randall Packer was sworn in to The
US Department of Art and Technology as Secretary .The
website where this Department resides (USDAT) has since
been hacked by Randall himself as his four years as
official secretary have come to and end and again to
subvert systems of any kind.
Footnotes:
1 http://www.zakros.com/mica/wvrF03/wvrF03.html
2
http://www.amazon.com/ gp/reader/0393049795/ ref=sib_fs_bod/104
9650583 8567905?%5Fencoding= UTF8&p=S016&checkSum=sG9H0
ldrtIW1Ii4tyWOnOlFt7 Q7B%2BtzTP9ki6DSyacY%3D#reader
link
3 http://www.zakros.com/bios/packer.html
4 http://www.zakros.com/mica/wvrF03/wvrF03.html
5 http://www.usdat.us/
6 http://www.zakros.com
7 http://www.usdat.us/
8 http://www.usdat.us/secretary/index.html
|
