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Cinema has established a series of conventions according to which movement has come to be represented. It is represented by way of its being processed through databases. The format of the visual database is superimposed upon the cinematic image-field, so fusing the two technologies. With the use of new digital technologies embedded within global systems of warfare, these movements do not so much represent movements as track them. They mark a shift from the presentation to the processing of movement. Crandall is one of the outstanding representatives of a new generation of media artists, who consciously observe and thematise this change from representation to processing of data.
In this shift from the cinematic paradigm to the networked database, Drive emphasizes the arming of perception and the militarised complexes within which contemporary images are embedded. ‘Armed vision’ triggers formats of regulation which deeply alter the patterns of perception and embodiment and their connections.
By means of this ‘strategic vision’ Drive notes a sexual impulse. By transferring military targeting technologies onto subjects, these become objects of sexual desire. Drive observes these new erotic worlds, opening up within a structure, which otherwise are only seen as observation technology between hunter and victim. These worlds embrace new couplings of humans and machines, new invasive pleasures that usurp private space, and new forms of simultaneously seeing and being seen which lead to a new construction of sado-masochistic, exhibitionist or voyeuristic sensations.
The exhibition is accompanied by a 256-page book, which serves as a catalogue of the exhibition and also contains a collection of Crandall’s writings from the years 1994-99. A symposium will also take place during the exhibition. Peter Weibel
Jordan Crandall is an artist and media theorist. He is currently preparing his first solo museum show, curated by Peter Weibel, opening in January 2000 at the Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum in Graz, Austria. He is also currently at work on an anthology of his critical writing on technology and culture, to be published by Neue Galerie and MIT Press in February 2000. Crandall is founding Editor of Blast, director of the X Art Foundation, New York, and Visiting Professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. His current book is Suspension (Documenta X, 1997), the textual component of his installation at Documenta X in Kassel, Germany.
Crandall writes on technology and culture for a variety of media, including Artforum, Atlantica, TRANS.arts.cultures.media, and Ctheory. He lectures widely on the cultural and political dimensions of new technology. Crandall is represented by the Sandra Gering Gallery, New York.
Drive has been produced with the support of Eyebeam Atelier, New York and the Filmmakers Collaborative, New York. Additional support has been provided by ZKM, Karlsruhe. The DVD production has been provided by Zuma Digital, New York.
Exhibition Catalogue:
The exhibition is accompanied by a 256-page book, which serves as a catalogue of the exhibition and also contains a collection of Crandall’s writings from the years 1994-99. A symposium will also take place during the exhibition.
