Between Fantasy and Reality.
About 'A Maior Obra de Arte do Mundo' by J. Alvarez. The longest Work of Art in the World

Heidi Gheerardijn  en Monica Van Fleteren

Protocol

 

Maker: Joesér Alvarez.

Title: A Maior Obra de Arte do Mundo/ La Medición del infinito - una operación concepto virtual.

URL: http://www.enter-net.com.br/LineAlvarez/index00.htm

Description: *Main page: Title, subtitle, three language options, a counter, several links to other art related sites, all against a black background. *The work itself: Consists of a black line of 568,188 km against a white background, at the beginning of the line there are some questions that link to quotes. On the line itself, several works of art and monuments are placed arranged by the height or the length of the work presented. The works are clickable and refer to a larger and more detailed picture of the work or to some background information about the work and its creator(s).

Media: image (still), text, no sound.

Interaction: none, the visitor is able to click several items and navigate through the work at his own pace, but his movements do not interfere with the work.

System Requirements: computer, browser, Internet.

Languages: Portuguese, English, Spanish.

Date of description: 06-02-2002.

Permanent: always available online.

Fee: for free.

Article

The notion of 'identity'

The notion of 'identity' has many aspects of meaning and connotation. This multiplicity of meaning is due to the fact that the notion has had a long history, in which it has been interpreted in many different ways.

Etymologically the notion 'identity' is deduced from the Latin word 'identitas', that in its turn reflected the word 'idem', simply meaning 'the same'. Applied to the human or personal identity the notion refers the very unique relation of each person to one's self, equalling oneself and nobody else. There are two kinds of identity to be distinguished: the identity of the body and that of the mind; every person has a unique body as well as a unique mind.

According to the new "Oxford dictionary of English", identity simply means 'the fact who or what a person or a thing is', 'a close similarity or affinity' (Pearsall, 1998). It is in this connotation that the notion tells us something more about the spatial and temporal continuity of man. Spatial continuity points out that the elements of physical and mental identity, actions, thoughts and wants of a person do not form a loose conglomerate, but are internally connected. When this connection gets lost, e.g. due to dementia or a physical disturbance, then this leads to a loss of identity. Temporal continuity means that people, through their entire life, keep, more or less, their same bodies and also their mental configurations, through memory and expectations. When temporal continuity gets disturbed, e.g. by loss of memory, this can also lead to changes in identity.

This spatial and temporal continuity is inherent to every form of identity. Even cultural identity, the identity not of a single person, but of a group of individuals, has this spatial and temporal continuity. A culture is not a loose conglomerate of elements, but it has, like the human body, a certain continuity. Due to new information and communication technologies, like for instance, the Internet, the spatial and temporal dimensions of contemporary culture go through a lot of far reaching changes.

Spatial and temporal continuities of personal and cultural identities act upon us. We live these dimensions. This is what we call the reflexive dimension of identity. Reflexivity means contemplation, having a picture of ourselves. We express ourselves and recognize ourselves in our own representations. Information and communication technology are of great importance for the construction of our identities, which are closely interlinked with the reflexive dimension of identity (de Mul, 2000).

From modernity to postmodernity

How can we briefly explain the complex transition of the modern to the postmodern view on identity? Well, try to picture this: the idyllic village. A place where all inhabitants were known, where everybody knew his place and tasks, where the teacher was the teacher, the reverend the reverend, the butcher's wife the butcher's wife and where the butcher's son was quite likely to become a butcher himself. Entire lives were spent in an apparently narrow environment, many of the villagers did not leave their hometowns but for a few memorable times in their lives. Not much seems to be left of this way of living but a nostalgic memory.

In what we could call 'contemporary network societies' (van den Boomen, 2000), things have changed drastically, not in the least our conception of identity. People move through many different networks, one network seemingly having nothing to do with other networks. Complex systems of time and space management are needed to handle all different domains of work, leisure, family and friends. Since different networks seem to be so separate one from the other, there is no sense of connection to those that do not belong to one of those networks. And of course, social bounds are dominated increasingly by technology. In our idyllic village walking sufficed for transportation and talking for communication, nowadays we need more media and ways of transportation. As communities became complex networks, identity became fragmented and shattered

Identity is fragmented and shattered, but this doesn't mean that we are different persons. I am a woman, a friend, a daughter, a student, a girlfriend, … And I am all that at the same time, only one thing a little more than the other, depending on to the situation. Nowadays nothing seems fixed anymore, in every different network, we live another story and one story does not seem to relate to another. Postmodern living is like jigsawing, every story being a piece of the jigsaw, every individual feeling the need to assemble the pieces into a coherent whole. This is what sociologist Anthony Giddens calls the 'reflexive project of the self' (Giddens, 1991). Every uncertainty about life needs to be put into a coherent biography, reflections about past and future need to be united. In early modern times things used to be more or less fixed, whereas nowadays doubt and uncertainty reign.

Sherry Turkle (1995a) uses the metaphor of Windows, Microsoft's computer program, for the fragmented selves. Windows allows us to use different programs at the same time on the same computer, and just like that, we use different aspects of our personality in one lifetime, in one day.

In what follows we will talk about a very specific kind of identity management. We will explore how we relate our identities to one of the newest forms of information and communication technology, namely the internet. And, even more specifically, we will talk about fantasy and reality, about things that are made possible by the internet, but do not seem to be able to exist outside of it.

* Cyberspace

The term 'cyberspace' was first used by William Gibson (1984) in his novel 'Neuromancer'. Cyberspace is now generally used to refer to that gigantic space of bits and bytes that is the internet. For newcomers on the net, cyberspace may seem as unknown and strange as the new worlds and civilisations that the travellers from the Starship Enterprise encounter in the SF-series 'Startrek'. For old acquaintances, the internet is a source of continuous information and communication, but also one of continuous exploration. And just as the travellers of the starship Enterprise are faced with new frontiers, or rather the lack of frontiers in an endless universe, the traveller on his way through cyberspace discovers that the frontiers of this electronic space are different from the frontiers in the real world.

Picture yourself a cyborg, your fingers grown fixed to the keyboard, your eyes gazing at the screen (Turkle, 1995a). What are you thinking? Would everything in life be possible just by sitting in front of your computer? Your computer, could it possibly be a space to live in? Cyberspace metaphors seem to want us to believe it is. On top of the internet browser, there is an icon with a little arrow and next to it the words 'Go to'. You type the 'address' from a certain website and click on the icon to go to it. The website appears on the screen and so you 'visited' another site. But where are you and where are you going? Physically, you're where you were and you did not 'go' anywhere. Mentally, you're moved from one place to another. You are now in a gigantic, new space: cyberspace.

The internet was born in the early sixties. It started as a military project during the Cold War. The object was to remain able to distribute information through an electronic network, even if one, or more, parts of the network would be destroyed. But internet as we know it now wasn't primarily developed by military scientists and universities. It was the work of students and hobbyists who wanted to change the world (Rheingold, 1993). Their prime concern was communication and during their research and development they showed a lot of creativity. Since a few years many things have changed. It is not that difficult anymore to 'go on the net', but creativity still seems to be a keyword in cyberspace. Where communication is concerned, it is easy to talk about 'playing with identities', you can be who, or what, you want, sitting behind a computer screen. But also 'playing with boundaries' is an option here. MUD's, MOO's and IRC channels not only allow a man to 'be' a woman or vice versa, they also allow us to experiment with the infinite possibilities of the thin line between fantasy and reality, a new borderline, created in cyberspace. In a chatbox, for example, it is 'possible' to smoke a cigarette with your chatmate. Of course, you aren't really smoking, or at least, not really sharing the same cigarette, you are separated by two computers and a lot of wire, but still, it seems possible to act out in cyberspace as you would do in real life (van den Boomen, 2000). And the opposite is also true. In cyberspace you can do things you couldn't possibly do in reality. In cyberspace it is 'possible' to start throwing with objects that in real life you wouldn't even be able to pick up. For instance, two chatters teasing each other might start throwing piano's at each other's heads…

Not only for direct synchronous communication cyberspace has created new options, also in the somewhat less dynamic parts of the virtual realm things that wouldn't be thought of in the real world start to appear. Also in this part of cyberspace 'playing with identities' is an option. Homepages enable their makers to describe themselves in whatever way they want to (Chandler, 1998 & de Mul, 2000). Physical actions that are part of the everyday life in the real world but don't seem possible in something like cyberspace are made possible by the new metaphor of place (cfr. supra). You can 'visit' a virtual museum as well as you can visit a real one. And finally, also in these parts of the virtual space the creative uprisings that balance on the thin line between fantasy and reality find their way through. 'A Maior Obra de Arte do Mundo', the world's longest piece of art, that will be further elaborated in this article, is an example of this last category.

* 'A Maior Obra de Arte do Mundo'

The concept seems simple. The first thing you see when entering http://www.enter-net.com.br/LineAlvarez/index00.htm is the title of the work, three language options (Portuguese, Spanish and English) and at the bottom links to digital museums and other art related sites are mentioned, all against a black background. But when we 'enter' (another example of virtual space/ spatial illusion) the site, the key question of art itself is brought to attention. Immediately we see the beginning of a line. But what kind of a line? This line seems to ask 'what is art?' and 'what is infinity?'. The site proposes some possible answers by means of quotes by famous, or less famous, artists throughout history.

 

Alvarez's line is supposed to be the longest artwork existing up till now. It is 568,188km long. Certain distances are marked with works of art throughout history, arranged by height or length:

 

The line concludes with a question. At 568,188km Alvarez wonders if this is the 'End?'. His line was already preceded by another attempt to create a very long artefact, 'Colonia' (563,62km) by Laue , who had meant to create the longest homepage ever. Apparently without any difficulty Alvarez managed to add 4,568km to this record. When asked what possessed him to create a digital artwork like this, Alvarez mentioned he wanted to question software and its physical possibilities. HTML code is limited but it does enable us to cross a distance of 568,188km in only one second. If you would scroll down by holding the mouse clicked, it would take you almost two entire weeks before you reach the end of the line. Art is meant as a question mark. This particular piece of art questions the boundaries of art and web art in specific .

Art never stands alone. Every artistic novelty is built on previous tradition within the history of art. The same aspect of intertextuality goes for digital art. Its methods might have drastically changed but its contents remain based on traditional art (Yip & Ptasznik, 2001). Joesér Alvarez studied history and, more specifically, history of art. He attended courses in sculpture, engraving, music and computer graphic. In art, so he says, there are so-called breakpoints. And it is one of these 'breakpoints' that inspired him for 'A Maior Obra de Arte do Mundo': Piero Manzoni, the maker of the first line.

Piero Manzoni was born in 1933 in Italy and died in 1962. He got a classical art education and was mainly inspired by expressionism. From the late fifties onwards, he started making prints of objects such as keys and scissors dipped in paint. In 1959 Manzoni produced his first Lines, ink traces on paper rolls of varying lengths sealed in cardboard tubes. The lines were the most effective means Manzoni found to express his concept of the infinite. In 1960 Manzoni travelled to Herning, Denmark where he produced the longest line of his career on a 7200-meter roll of newsprint, sealed in a leaden container (it is this Line that Alvarez mentions in his 'A maior obra de arte do mundo'). Manzoni meant the Herning line to be the first in a series of extremely long lines. He wrote in Immediate Projects (1962): "I shall leave one example in each of the major cities of the world until the sum of their lengths equals the earth's circumference." (quoted in Van der Marck, 1973). From a line drawn around the globe (impractical), we have now moved to the concept of a collection of lines adding up to a desired length. A total of 5555 cities would have to be found if all the lines were of the length of the one in Herning, and one shudders at the time energy and funds involved in the completion of this project (Van der Marck, 1973).

Joesér Alvarez is part of a movement with dadaistic influences, called 'Madeirista' (all artists live around the river 'Madeira', in the Brazilian Amazon). In their Manifesto , the 'Madeiristas' explain how they feel that everything is limited. For the Madeirista, nothing is 'enough', we should try and break through all boundaries, enjoy all dreams. We should make art meaningless in order to give it meaning again. In his attempt to reach this infinity, Alvarez uses digital art. As Manzoni wanted to encompass our world with a line, Alvarez seemingly wants to go even further than that and it's computer technology that seems to enable him to do this. Computer itself and its software might have their limitations, the creative possibilities they provide allow us to create 'objects', 'places', 'spaces', that would not have been taught of in the real world. The manifest of 'Madeirista' ends with this question: 'Where is your voice?'. In line with this thaught, Alvarez wonders why not more people on the net are concerned with projects similar to his 'A maior obra de arte do mundo'. The possibilities are available, why not use them?

Inspired by Manzoni, but also by Christo & Jean-Claude, artists who work with huge dimensions, Alvarez looks for his infinity in the enormously large. A clue for this fact can also been found in the background information Alvarez gives by the works he put on his Line. Every image on the Line is clickable and refers to a new link. For the smaller works only a larger, more detailed picture is given. The larger the presented work gets, the more information on the work and its creator(s) is given. The largest work presented on the Line, 'Colonia' by Laue, will be entirely shown to the audience (but then, this work is on the internet as well…).

At the beginning of this article, we discussed how the upcoming of new information and communication technologies influenced the changes of our concept of identity. We talked about how those who dwell in cyberspace can 'play' with their identities, how they can invent, reinvent and present themselves and their ideas by means of a computer. We talked about how the creative possibilities of digital technology allow us to go beyond our known limitations. What was heavy in the real world becomes light in cyberspace, what was small enormous, in only a second we can travel 568,188km… By deconstructing our familiar boundaries of space and time, we create a new borderline, the thin line between fantasy and reality. Alvarez has made this line a quite literal one. It exists, physically, on a computer, it also exists without an internet connection, but cannot exist outside of a computer. And this would be the fantasy aspect, then. We cannot draw a line of 568,188 km on a piece of paper and put all the artworks and monuments on it as Alvarez did. For him, as stated before, art is a question mark. Web art should make us think about our possibilities and limitations. 'A Maior Obra de Arte do Mundo' is his attempt to reach the infinite. An attempt that undoubtedly will be followed by an unlimited amount of other attempts…

 

*References

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