These brief
words are an
attempt to
outline for ECAM
2008 what I
am calling
Cybism by
stating what
I take to be
its
underlying
attributes.
Cybism is a
new
sensibility
emerging in
art
respecting
the
integration
of certain
aspects of
science,
technology
and
consciousness
– a
consciousness
struggling
to attend to
the
prevailing
current
spirit of
our age.
This cybistic
zeitgeist I
identify as
being
precisely a
quality-of-life desire
in
which everything,
everywhere,
all at once
is connected
in a
rhizomatic
web of
communication. Therefore,
cybism is no
longer
content with
the
regurgitation
of a
standardized
repertoires.
Rather I
detect in
art a
fertile
attraction
towards the
abstractions
of advanced
scientific
discovery -
discovery
now stripped
of its
fundamentally
reductive
logical
methodology.
Moreover,
cybism can
be used to
characterize
a certain
group of
researchers
and their
understanding
of where
cultural
space is
developing
today.
Cybists reflect
on system
dynamics
with a
hybrid
blending (cybridization)
of the
computational
supplied
virtual with
the analog.
Digitization
is a key
metaphor for
the cybists only
in the sense
that it is
the
fundamental
translating
system
today.
This
blending of
the
computational
virtual with
the analog
indicates
the
subsequent
emergence of
a new cybrid topological
cognitive-vision
which I have
called the ‘viractual’:
the space of
connection
betwixt the
computed
virtual and
the
uncomputed
corporeal
(actual)
world which
merge in
cybism.
This cybrid space
of cybism can
be further
inscribed as
a span of
liminality,
which
according to
the
anthropologist
Arnold van
Gennep
(based on
his
anthropological
studies of
social rites
of passage)
is the
condition of
being on a
threshold
between
spaces.
Concerning
this cybrid
topological
cognitive-vision,
I am
reminded
here of two
very
different,
yet
complimentary,
concepts:
entrainment
and égréore.
Entrainment,
in
electro-physics,
is the
coupling of
two or more
oscillators
as they lock
into a
commonly
sensed
interacting
frequency.
In
alchemical
terms an
égréore (an
old form of
the word
agréger) is
a third
concept or
phenomenon
which is
established
from
conjoining
two
different
elements
together. We
suggest that
the term
(concept)
cybrid (and
cybism) may
be a
concordant
entrainment/égréore
conception
helpful in
defining
this third
fused
inter-spatiality
which is
forged from
the meeting
of the
virtual and
the actual.
Co-extensive
notions
found in cybism have
piquant
ramifications
for art as
product in
that the
cybists are
actively
exploring
the
frontiers of
science/technology
research so
as to become
culturally
aware of the
biases of
consciousness
in order to
amend those
biases
through the
monumentality
and
permanency
which can be
found in
powerful
art. They
begin with
the
realization
that every
[new]
technology
disrupts the
previous
rhythms of
consciousness.
Then,
generally
speaking,
they pursue
their work
in an effort
to
contradict
the dominant
clichés of
our time as
they tend to
move in
their
regimented
grooves of
sensibility.
In this
sense their
art research
begins where
the hard
science/technology
ends.
Most
certainly
cybists
understand
that in
every era
the attempt
must be made
anew to
wrest
tradition
away from a
conformism
that is
about to
overpower
it. Hence
the role of
the cybist
is that of
the
explorer/researcher.
The function
of such an
explorationaly
inclined
artist
however is
not to only
find, but to
participate
in and
foster a
constant
instability
of
consciousness,
to mitigate
against
self-stabilizing
formations
so as to
encourage
internal
‘cybomatic’
connections
to sprout
and expand.
This
integration
goes far
towards
exemplifying
an aesthetic
which has a
problematic
relationship
to material
science-based
reality.
Today, with
the
emergence
and
continual
growth of
cyberspace,
it seems
that no
sense of
closure will
ever be able
to contain
the
deterritorialization
articulated
and
monumentalized
by cybism.
Consequently, cybism has
begun
articulating
a new
techno-digital
sense of
life. By
looking at
the complex
social and
technological
changes
already
occuring
within the
21st
century, cybists
seem
to perceive
the world
now as a
kaleidoscopic
environment
in which
every
tradition
has some
valid
residual
form as
information
and
sensation. A
world of
perpetual
transformation
has emerged
and
established
a seemingly
unrestricted
area of
abundant
options.
