Ding an sich (The Canon Series), Piotr Szyhalski, 1997Piotr Szyhalski created a series of 12 canons as the first commission for Walker's online gallery, Gallery 9. The title literally translates to "the thing itself" and the project serves as Szyhalski's interpretation of the ideas of 19th-century theologian Immanuel Kant's philosophy through the medium of new media. Kant describes the existance of things outside of a human's sensory perceptions. This existance is unknowable, but certainly existing. Szyhalski argues that this idea is manifest through art - it testifies to the existance of things themselves, though this constant is described in different terms by different people.
The site itself features links to 12 different windows, or canons, that will open up in a new browser and are activated through the actions of the visitor. Different actions will produce different results, and the progess of the webpage is entirely dependent on what the visitor does. Joseph Beuys describes the process of Szyhalski's website as exformation, a term meaning "explicitly discarded information" or "everything we do not actually say but have in our heads when, or before, we say anything at all". Szyhalski explains the idea as contained in experience. The arist's descisions in building the work play an inherent role in this, but within the context of new media art the viewer's decisions are just as important because they define how the artwork will be executed. In traditional mediums, art neccistates the presence of a viewer in order to have any meaning as a communicative device. In the forms of new media art that are emerging, the artwork itself would literally not exist without the viewer and is an entirely seperate work for each viewer due to the interactions they have with the work.
Szyhalski's work is not interested so much in providing answers for his viewers or conveying one specific meaning. Their purpose is more to provide an experience and a journey for the audience that is unique to each person who engages with the piece. This interactive aspect of new media art is possible in other artforms, but is not so very essential to the existence of the work as it is in the digital works emerging today.
The site itself features links to 12 different windows, or canons, that will open up in a new browser and are activated through the actions of the visitor. Different actions will produce different results, and the progess of the webpage is entirely dependent on what the visitor does. Joseph Beuys describes the process of Szyhalski's website as exformation, a term meaning "explicitly discarded information" or "everything we do not actually say but have in our heads when, or before, we say anything at all". Szyhalski explains the idea as contained in experience. The arist's descisions in building the work play an inherent role in this, but within the context of new media art the viewer's decisions are just as important because they define how the artwork will be executed. In traditional mediums, art neccistates the presence of a viewer in order to have any meaning as a communicative device. In the forms of new media art that are emerging, the artwork itself would literally not exist without the viewer and is an entirely seperate work for each viewer due to the interactions they have with the work.
Szyhalski's work is not interested so much in providing answers for his viewers or conveying one specific meaning. Their purpose is more to provide an experience and a journey for the audience that is unique to each person who engages with the piece. This interactive aspect of new media art is possible in other artforms, but is not so very essential to the existence of the work as it is in the digital works emerging today.
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