i
i
… and here we twiddle in a world of computer glitz,
as the winds rise
and the seas rise
and the debts rise
and the terrorists rise
and the nukes tick.
-
Ted Nelson speaking in memory of Douglas
Engelbart
at the Computer History Museum,
December 11 2013 (Nelson, 2013).
Front cover image: Mitch Goodwin (2011) Panel #7 from the Dark Euphoria series (Goodwin, 2011)
ii
00 :: 01 Abstract
This is a project in two parts. The text presented here is the major component. This exegetical
document provides the theoretical context for a series of media art works that were produced
between 2011 and 2012 in response as much as in parallel to this analysis. The creative work, the
online media assemblage Dark Euphoria: Unclassified Media (archived at http://darkeuphoria.info),
should be seen in a non-traditional sense – a research-led practice component – contextualised by
the broader theoretical narrative.
Together, these two components produce a visual communication analysis of historical
events, cultural artefacts and media art and the artists who produce them to reveal the nature,
attraction and power of the dark euphoric temperament inherent in millennial technoculture. It is
important to note however that this is a particular type of exegetical response not a reflective
exegesis. This is not an analysis of my practice – the history or technique – rather this is an analysis
of the context that informs that practice. Yet this text does include a discussion of several of my key
works in relation to specific issues unpacked by the broader thesis and also in relation to the work by
other media artists who explore similar territory.
This text explores the recent history of western technoculture and the corporate and
political myth making associated with network technology, techno-futurist marketing, consumer
electronics and mass media production. It questions how the image constructs of corporate
advertising – especially those which promote communication technologies and services – have
perpetuated the glossy myth of a technological Utopia, commonly associated with notions of
western progress. Using advances in machine intelligence, ubiquitous computing, and personal
communication apparatus to facilitate this narrative these marketeers have blended science fiction
fantasy with near future projections to author a false reality. Simultaneously this project responds to
the cinematic fictions of filmmakers, media artists and visual communication designers who have
summoned a far more dystopian vision of our future selves and thereby forging a dark visual
aesthetic in contemporary media culture.
The aim of this project then is to answer the following by way of narrative construct,
theoretical analysis and creative endeavour: What effect has the 20th century futurist narrative of
technological Utopianism (and therefore its neo-gothic Dystopian mirror) had on the emergence of a
iii
new contemporary digital aesthetic and a broader cultural condition at the beginning of the new
millennium?
And moreover, what are the origins, means and purposes of the concepts of dark euphoria
and gothic high-tech inherent in the narrative of millennial technoculture that informs this emergent
aesthetic and the art works that are submitted as part of this thesis?
iv
00 :: 02 Statement of Originality
This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of
my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another
person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.
Mitch Goodwin
v
00 :: 03 Content Index 00 :: 01 Abstract .................................................................................................................................... iii 00 :: 02 Statement of Originality ............................................................................................................ v 00 :: 04 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. vii 00 :: 05 Notes On the Text .................................................................................................................. viii 00 :: 06 Notes On the Author’s Creative Work ..................................................................................... ix 00 :: 07 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ xii 01 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TERRITORY 2 01 :: 01 Data Spaces: A Guide to the Cyber City .................................................................................... 3 01 :: 02 A Methodology for the iUser .................................................................................................. 21 02 THE EMERGENCE OF THE DIGITAL AESTHETIC 35 02 :: 01 Chromatic Painting Becomes Digital Synaesthesia ................................................................. 36 02 :: 02 Machine Translations .............................................................................................................. 59 02 :: 03 Liquid Electric Ambitions ......................................................................................................... 90 03 THE PROMISE 118 03 :: 01 Future Pixel Perfect ............................................................................................................... 119 03 :: 02 Space Dreaming .................................................................................................................... 134 03 :: 03 Digitizing Dystopia ................................................................................................................. 167 04 THE DARKNESS 197 04 :: 01 The Black Mirror ..................................................................................................................... 198 04 :: 02 (Falling For) Dark Euphoria..................................................................................................... 220 04 :: 03 Gothic High Tech ................................................................................................................... 258 04 :: 04 Ground Zero .......................................................................................................................... 285 04 :: 05 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 301 List of Illustrations ............................................................................................................................... 307 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 316 vi 00 :: 03 Acknowledgements
Thank you internet.
...
Also many thanks to the two significant women in my life
who at various times over the years
endured the weight of this task as much as me,
Eve & Elly.
And to the newest woman in my life, little Maisy may you safely navigate your way to the other side of the grid.
...
Much fondness and gratitude to the following locations where
much of this was written: Eugaree Street, Southport | Hekarwe, Tully
Queens Road, Hermit Park | The Strand, Townsville |
& Picnic Hill, Cape Nelson.
...
I am also enormously grateful for the conversations, illuminations
and raised eyebrows of my brave supervisors over the years:
Peter Wise & Stephen Stockwell.
...
I must also raise a glass to Ryan Daniel for providing me with the
precious time away from the classroom to make this happen,
a more supportive colleague one would be hard pressed to find.
And I also owe Sally Breen a bottle of something sophisticated
and expensive for her herculean efforts in editing
this into shape, line by line, space by space.
...
Morgs, Azza & Jack - the true believers. Job done.
Cheers!
00 :: 05 Notes On the Text
This is a thesis in two parts: the narrative exegetical component represented by this text and the
online archive of media art works developed for the exhibition Dark Euphoria: Unclassified Media.
This text was designed to be read in PDF format on a computer or tablet device. There are sufficient
images embedded in the text to identify the media artefacts discussed and visually illustrate key
points so the text can be read without a direct connection to the web but, the experience is greatly
enhanced with internet access.
Numerous art works, media samples and advertising ephemera associated with the analysis
have been hyperlinked to an online repository. In most cases I have uploaded copies of this material
to a YouTube channel to ensure that these links remain active for the duration. When this was not
possible I have endeavoured to use links to content on corporate and organisational websites,
commercial YouTube channels or Wikipedia. In such instances it cannot be guaranteed that these
links will remain unbroken.
The media art works which form the creative component of this project are also archived
online at the exhibition site, Dark Euphoria: Unclassified Media. These works are referenced
throughout the text and have been strategically placed in the narrative where most appropriate. It
would be my preference that readers access these works in the order that they appear in the text so
that the context of their creation is fully understood. In most cases these links go to the web page of
the specific art work which includes either the art work in full (in the case of video and digital media)
or the documentation of that work (where the work includes a physical installation component).
Each page includes a brief artist statement and some background information on the development
of the work.
While there are numerous hyperlinks scattered throughout the text the most critical ones to
follow are those which pertain to my own art works and of other cultural artefacts which feature
heavily in the exegetical analysis. Rather than there just being hyperlinks in the body of the text,
there are also hyperlinked images positioned as near as possible to the relevant discussion. These
images have been highlighted with an RCA AV connection panel icon superimposed over the image to
indicate that these images represent a hyperlink to an online resource.
viii
00 :: 06 Notes On the Author’s Creative Work
Besides this text, the author also explores his thesis in a series of creative works developed for the
exhibition Dark Euphoria: Unclassified Media which was shown in a physical space in 2012. For the
most part the works are digital in nature and are archived online for purposes of analysis with
regards to the ideas explored in this text. Below are a list of these works, hyperlinks to their
respective web resources and the details of where they appear in this document. The hyperlinks are
included here for future reference only. It would be my preference that readers access these works
in the order that they appear in the body of the text so that the context of their creation is fully
understood.
Scream 2.0, 2011, A2 digital inkjet print on metallic gloss paper
Website link: http://darkeuphoria.info/the-scream-2-0/
Comprised of 649 profile pictures from my Facebook profile’s friends list. These images are used to
create a mosaic self-portrait of myself recoiling in at the vastness of the network from which the
images were originally sourced. This work appears alongside a discussion of user generated content
and media assemblages by artists Evan Roth and Mclean Fahnestock (pages 29-30).
Glitchaclysm, 2012, 1min 56sec, 720P video
Vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/67447853
Sampled screenshots from a content survey for another work in the exhibition. The glitches which
appear in this sequence are derived from scrappy interpolation of frames in MPEG4 files. The images
are mostly from video samples of disaster films. The work appears in a discussion relating to
synaesthesia as explored by the Italian Futurists, Wolfgang Ernst’s ideas around the processes of
signal delivery and the signal disruptions of video artist Chris Cunningham (pages 43-44).
Dark Euphoria, 2011, a series of A2 digital inkjet print on metallic gloss paper
Website link: http://darkeuphoria.info/dark-euphoria/
These works are dotted throughout the text as emblematic image compositions of my aesthetic
response to the notion of dark euphoria. They are also an intervention into the fabric of the digital
ix
image and an attempt to expose what I understand to be the properties of the digitally captured and
manipulated photographic image. Several works from this series appear in the discussion pertaining
to the light on dark aesthetic and machine visualisation of scientific data (pages 34, 159-161 & 196).
Primary Propaganda, 2011, 4min 19sec, 1080P video, four channel video installation
Website link: http://darkeuphoria.info/primary-propoganda/
Vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/41703510
This installation is a conceptual exploration of movement across multiple video frames and a
response to the exploitation of primary colours to advertise and sell consumer electronics and
software services. It is also a personal response to the feeling of alienation that technology and
information can evoke in a dense urban environment. This work appears in a discussion about the
use of primary colour symbolism in the chromatic painting experiments of Robert Delaunay, the
advertisements by Samsung and Sony as well as the corporate iconography of Microsoft and Google
(pages 83-86).
Cyber City Mesh, 2011, photographic installation, light table, inkjet print of enlarged detail of
Arkihabara satellite image, wooden photo frames, inkjet prints on Kodak translucent plastic paper
Website link: http://darkeuphoria.info/cyber-city/
A “dromoscopic” view of Tokyo’s Electric Town functions as the background surface of this
photographic installation. Upon this glossy luminous surface are placed portraits of Tokyo and
Sydney commuters. The portraits are printed on translucent paper so they appear to glow upon the
surface of the light table. This is a work which responds to – and critiques - the notion of the 21st
Century urban citizen as network node and appears in a discussion of manufactured social networks
and utopian futures by Nokia, Ericsson and Microsoft and the idea of “context collapse” as proffered
by researcher Michael Wesch (pages 128-131).
Vonnegut’s Fire Fight Fuzz Box, 2010-2011, 7min 41sec, video installation, PAL video, television,
DVD player, assorted plush toys, artillery shell carry cases, leather office chair and TV remote
Website link: http://darkeuphoria.info/vonneguts-firefight-fuzz-box/
YouTube link: http://youtu.be/azoiNzgWEdk
A media assemblage (or remix) of content from a media survey conducted during the period 20012011 from television, film, web video and video games. The backbone of the construction is an
extract from a Kurt Vonnegut lecture on story structure entitled, “The Shape of Stories”. This is
intercut with the cat and mouse game between George W. Bush and Osama Bin Laden and the
various fantasies and media concoctions that represent that period of history. This appears in the
text after the discussion of simulated realities of the video games Homefront, Modern Warfare 3 and
Command & Conquer Generals (pages 181-182).
x
My Endless Dystopian Summer Blockbuster, 2011, 2min 55sec, 1080P video, two channel projection
Website link: http://darkeuphoria.info/the-endless-dystopian-summer/
Vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/42345058
Featuring two projections which are designed to face each other at the ends of a gallery space the
work is made up of samples from over 70 films which deal with notions of the apocalypse, large
scale disaster and systematic failure of machines and network technology. The work is constructed
in three parts beginning with 25 split screens and ending with a single full screen close-up of
performers witnessing a catastrophic event – or the simulation of that event via computer graphics
and data visualisation. The work is used to highlight the prevalence of simulated apocalyptic
scenarios in recent Hollywood cinema and the emergence of the supercut as a media art form in
contemporary networked culture. This argument is presented alongside an analysis of the works of
Christian Marclay, Jeff Desom and Kevin Lee (pages45 & 185-189).
xi
00 :: 07 Introduction
At Reboot 11 in Copenhagen in 2009
– “a community event focused on
digital change and culture” Bruce
Sterling delivered a bristling keynote
address in which he outlined his
impressions of the coming decade
(Sterling, 2009). He proposed two
key terms: dark euphoria, proposed
as
the
defining
cultural
Figure 1 Bruce Sterling, "On favela chic, gothic high-tech" at Reboot 11,
Copenhagen (Sterling, 2009). A full transcript is available here.
temperament of the times and the
modalities of its representation, gothic high-tech. I have borrowed Sterling’s terms and used them as
the key defining concepts in this project. Where Sterling was explicitly referring to the “twentyteens” the decade immediately following Reboot 11, I have taken a more historical view reaching
back to the early decades of the 20th Century to present a much broader and evocative pathway to
the current dark euphoric moment.
While this study will be contextualised by an examination of cultural artefacts by film
makers, photographers and media artists it is also a narrative exposition on the visual
documentation of key historical events which map the emergence of a pervasive dark cultural
aesthetic. I have plotted out a sequence of events, which supports my central hypothesis by
following a very particular strand of Modernism – the narrative of technoculture. I will achieve this
by examining the visual language and manifestos of the Italian Futurists, the works of their French
contemporary Robert Delaunay, the origins of corporate idealism in the World’s Fairs of 1901 and
1939, the design and symbolism of technology marketing, the ramifications of the Challenger
Disaster in 1986, the symbolism of the Chelyabinsk Meteorite blast in 2013, the militarisation of
robotics and artificial intelligence, and most potently the visual representation of the events of
September 11 2001.
xii
In the broader sense, one could read this project as an investigation into the story of
Modernity, Modernity and its various forms of visual representation as the screws tighten on a
century of unprecedented horror and destruction. The polar dynamics of the trauma of the real – as
experienced by people firsthand – and the detachment that the perception of that trauma
engenders when viewed second hand via mediated simulation are central to this analysis. Running
parallel to this rendering of Modernism is an exploration of the Utopian techno-futurist narrative –
in science, politics and art – which has permeated 20th century cultural production and created a
false-future space of technological idealism. This futurist expression is as much a cultural marker as
an aesthetic blueprint preserved in the media archive of recent cultural history; a space largely
online, mostly networked and nearly always digitally rendered. This project explores such artefacts
within the framework of a visual communication analysis. As the narrative unfolds I will establish
links to a range of socio-political conditions including techno-futurism, political idealism, corporate
propaganda, commercial salesmanship, science fiction fantasy and military futurism in order to
demonstrate that the neo-gothic roots of this emergent aesthetic is not limited to the arts and the
media industries exclusively but across the full human experience. This is best represented by the
presence of a deep visual trauma in contemporary image making, whether that be commercial,
historical or fictitious.
The first half of this project will spend considerable time on early 20th Century events and
their visual documentation in order to establish that a very long and complex transition is taking
place in western society and particularly the culture produced. When I use the term millennia and its
variants I am mostly referring to the decades that precede and the decades that follow the year
2000. I will also demonstrate that there exists alongside the futurist narrative a concurrent
disconnect of the global audience from the recurring themes of the end times so entrenched in late
20th Century mass media and so prevalent in this millennial period. It would seem that the
amplification of apocalyptic scenarios has reached such saturation levels that what remains in the
absence of said destruction is instead a disconnect from all future scenarios – utopian, dystopian or
otherwise. What is left then is a restless uncertainty about the future that haunts media and culture
with a dark anxious gothic tone.
In theoretical terms of course, this aesthetic darkness has numerous precedents. Jaron
Lanier has hypothesised that we are experiencing a “new Dark Age” (Lanier, 2011, p. 56) while Paul
Virilio cites the “obscenity of ubiquity” of the real-time image loop – the vision machine – for the
imposing atmosphere of the mediated apocalypse (Virilio, 2007, p. 11). Filliping Baudrillard’s pre9/11 pre-millennium treaty on the “end of history” (Baudrillard, 1997, p. 450) Slavoj Žižek proffers
instead an “endless utopia” of things as evidence of a gothic disquiet permeating a post-9/11 world
xiii
(Žižek, 2002). Baudrillard’s notion of the “weak event” in relation to the Cold War and America’s
misadventures in Iraq (Baudrillard, 1989) and Fredric Jameson’s writings on postmodernism
especially the concept of the “allegory” are also important framing devices (Jameson, 1971). Aspects
of these concepts are utilised in the analysis to establish the rhetorical tone of the discussion with
the principle goal being to move on from these theories to propose new ground and fresh
associations. The text also intersects regularly with science fiction imagery by noticing that science
fiction symbolism and fantasy iconography appear in some very real and very peculiar places namely
government sanctioned military research and the PR speak of government funded contractors. It is
important then that several contemporary science fiction author’s observations – outside of their
fictional oeuvre – are included here, primarily Kim Stanley Robinson’s anticipations of strangeness
(K. S. Robinson, 2009), Bruce Sterling’s atemporaility (Sterling, 2010) and William Gibson’s
observation that the non-mediated world has become a lost country which we cannot get back to
(Neale, 2000).
This project is an examination of
artefacts at both ends of this spectrum
including
dystopian
and
apocalyptic
Hollywood cinema, the representations of
the liquid electric in film and advertising,
the obsessions of the Italian Futurists, the
promotional
ephemera
of
tech
companies, and the observations of
contemporary media artists working in a
post-9/11 environment. My use of the
term gothic high-tech should be read as a
reaction to this narrative – a very
personal and very deep anxiety – about
the competing futures and lifestyles that
such media artefacts purport to predict
by way of cultural signification and
aesthetic construction. This anxiety exists
because
Figure 2 National Geographic, September 2013 issue, "Rising Seas"
cover (National Geographic Society, 2013)
the
brightest
streamlined
future
corporations
and
appear
to
and
presented
marketeers
contradict
most
by
would
collectively
xiv
recognised realities: imminent climate collapse, dwindling natural resources, the dissolution of ageold traditions, the loss of privacy, the commodification of identity and the ubiquity of stealthy
invasive technologies. All of this is in turn amplified by a steady stream of popular cultural products
which depict exaggerated apocalyptic scenarios with surprising regularity.
By carefully examining a variety of cultural artefacts – across film, gaming, media arts and
advertising – I will endeavour to frame the neo-gothic narrative of millennial technoculture as not
just a millennial affliction but a prevailing condition with a deep history rooted in the 20 th Century. A
complicated and multifaceted history that is (like all gothic traditions) not immediately obvious and
not entirely sure of its motivations. By conducting such an examination I hope to tease out the
presence of a new dark aesthetic in contemporary digital culture. This, I will demonstrate, is a dense
and evolving narrative that has been operating at the intersection of art and technology for the best
part of a century. In this regard, both components of the project – the exegetical study and its
creative component – should be read as a visual communications analysis focusing on the rhetorical
import of design decisions inherent in the construction of key media artefacts and the political and
social effects of the aesthetic principles used. Together these artefacts represent cultural markers –
plot points if you will1 – that hint at the gothic anxieties below the surface and map the trajectory of
technoculture deep into the archive of the contemporary network.
In Part One: An Introduction to the Territory I outline the theoretical position of this
exegetical project by examining Bruce Sterling’s notions of dark euphoria and gothic high-tech and a
broader interpretation of our relationship with the world we live in. Particularly important is our
collective understanding of the concept of the Earth and how we have re-organised our
interpretation of its signification in the age of the World Wide Web and electronic interpersonal
communications. I will state how Manuel Castell’s “space of flows” and his definition of the
“informational society” are important in framing the location and methodology of this investigation.
I introduce the theoretical foundations which compliment these terms, in particular those of
Paul Virilio, Jean Baudrillard and Slavoj Žižek. In this section I introduce the iUser as a composite
character, both principal investigator and primary audience member, for the media artefacts and the
associated narrative plot points unpacked by this project. I also define the primary site of this
investigation as the Cyber City – a mostly western, highly networked metaphorical urban space in
which these cultural events take place.
1
Hayden White describes this method of narrative construction through assemblage of cultural events as the
procedure of “emplotment”. In his 1978 essay, Content of the Form, he writes: “Any given set of real events
can be emplotted in a number of ways, can bear weight of being told in any number of different kinds of
stories” (White, 1978).
xv
Part Two: The Emergence of the Digital Aesthetic establishes our Modernist relationship
with vertiginous space, electricity, and human flight. In this section I unpack the concept of
simulation and the making of the invisible visible. The concepts of synaesthesia and simultaneism by
the Italian Futurists and the chromatic painting in the works of Robert Delaunay are examined
alongside the works of contemporary video artists and the corporate image making of Samsung,
Sony, Google and Microsoft. Thomas Edison’s promotional films documenting the illuminated
pseudo-cityscape of the 1901 World’s Fair are presented as one of the first cinematic techno-futurist
simulations. While the World’s Fair of 1939 in Flushing Meadows New York is highlighted as a pivotal
moment in the techno-cultural narrative foregrounding the utopian image constructions by
electronics manufacturers and communication service providers.
Advertisements, corporate films and science fiction cinema which utilise simulated
electricity, liquid energy and specifically luminous blue electrical currents to communicate the
invisible intelligence, speed and power of technology are examined in detail. This passage illustrates
that the use of electricity as both metaphor and aesthetic embellishment has barely altered since
the manifestos of the Italian Futurists some one hundred years earlier.
In Part Three: The Promise I present the most explicit rendering of the technologically
streamlined utopian ideals of the corporation as presented by Microsoft, Sony Ericsson and Nokia.
We see how the spaces rendered in these advertisements are free from advertising and corporate
marketing in a way that makes the everyday seem futuristic – minus the commercial presence of
products and their advertorial ephemera. This section also includes an extended examination of the
commercialisation and militarisation of space and the incorporation of science fiction tropes into
military space projects – the new space dreaming – by deconstructing the post-NASA hypersimulation of fantasy, paranoia and military bravado.
I show how acts of simulated reality blended with CGI fantasy in the hyper-detail of digital
image making in DIY cinema, animation and major video game titles evoke a dark neo-gothic
tendency in reaction to and sometimes in concert with corporate media production. I explore the
practice of video assemblage via remixing and supercut techniques to emphasise the notion of the
remix as a very contemporary and very powerful ontological force in the manufacture of meaning.
The last section of this document, Part Four: The Darkness, highlights the contemporary
state of the dark euphoric experience and demonstrates the notion of gothic high-tech at its most
explicit. Using Charlie Brooker’s concept of the “black mirror” I dissect the technological symbolism
of liquid metal, conflict minerals and machine intelligence. I propose that a superior liquid like
substance has always existed across a range of disciplines and technologies all the way back to the
xvi
origins of the Big Bang, this I argue is the aesthetic inverse of the liquid electric as proposed in the
previous section.
I return to the Italian Futurists and their deep attraction to human flight and vertiginous
space, particularly the later works of Domenico Bell and the work of French artist Robert Delaunay.
This feeds into a discussion of King Kong and the Hindenburg disaster to foreground the notion of
falling that so characterises Bruce Sterling’s dark euphoric moment. The 1986 Challenger disaster is
examined in detail as well as the work of contemporary media artists whom address the notion of
falling. This is then woven into a discussion of Robert Drew’s photo The Falling Man and the
continual revisiting of this visual motif in popular culture. I will question the absence of superheros
at America’s most vulnerable time of need and contextualise the gradual darkening of the superhero
aesthetic. The move away from a skyward vision towards a more earthly perspective is fore
grounded in an analysis of the first person perspective in film, video games and 3D animation. This
will indicate that it is in fact ourselves – the viewer, the end user – who must now assume the role of
falling object.
The final chapters of this section deal with the symbolic objects of gothic high-tech and their
associated anxieties and uncertainties. I demonstrate the aesthetic links between military machine
vision, computer gaming technology and science-fiction cinema. The proliferation of drone
technologies and the increased focus on robot automation in military conflicts and defence research
projects is discussed in relation to the dominant gaze of the vision machine. The works of media
artists Trevor Paglen, James Bridle and Thomas Ruff are presented as evidence of the small number
of voices operating in direct critique of these developments.
I conclude by reflecting on a personal visit to Ground Zero in New York City. A site of
endlessness, a site of absence. The end game of all of this is the very gothic rejection of the technofuturist quest and a simultaneous anxiety for the dominant power structure created by ubiquitous
machine vision in what can only be described as a collective turning away.
xvii
xviii
Figure 3 “The Eiffel Tower as a Gigantic ightning Conductor” opp , 1902
i