The Introduction establishes Forest’s artistic identity as a trickster and troublemaker through s... more The Introduction establishes Forest’s artistic identity as a trickster and troublemaker through some of his most famous publicity stunts and subversive public interventions. Works discussed in the Introduction include 150 cm2 of Newspaper (1972), The City Invaded by Blank Space (1973), The Artistic Square Meter (1977), The Golden Mean and the Force Field of 14,000 Hertz (1987), Fred Forest for President of Bulgarian National Television (1991), and Forest’s unauthorized protest performance at the Centre Pompidou’s Vidéo Vintage exhibition (2012). The Introduction also discusses Forest’s contributions as a theorist and educator, his ties to leading intellectuals and critics like Vilém Flusser and Pierre Restany, and his tense relations with French art institutions, including his epic legal battle with the Centre Pompidou (1994-97).
Chapter 1 traces the early development of Forest’s artistic vocation beginning with his productio... more Chapter 1 traces the early development of Forest’s artistic vocation beginning with his production as a self-taught painter while still working for the French postal service in Algeria and focuses on his work in the 1970s. It places particular emphasis on projects undertaken in the name of Sociological Art (defined as “sociological praxis in the guise of art”) using video, the press, and different modes of public intervention. Works discussed in Chapter 1 include Family Portrait (1967), Senior Citizen Video (1973), Electronic Investigation of Rue Guénégaud (1974), Video Portrait of a Collector in Real Time (1974), Biennial of the Year 2000 (1975), and The Video Family (1976). Chapter 1 also examines different categories of Forest’s diverse work in video and discusses the aesthetic and epistemological ramifications of Sociological Art as theorized by Forest and Vilém Flusser.
Chapter 3 considers Forest’s internet-based art from the mid-1990s through the present, with part... more Chapter 3 considers Forest’s internet-based art from the mid-1990s through the present, with particular emphasis on ritualistic and festive manifestations of public liminality that take place online or make the internet an integral part of the event, and on more whimsical exercises in parody and the détournement of interfaces reminiscent of his early experiments with print and broadcast media. Works discussed in Chapter 3 includeFrom Casablanca to Locarno: Love Updated by the Internet and Electronic Media (1995),Time-Out (1998), The Techno-Wedding (1999), The Center of the World (1999), Territorial Outings (2001), Meat: The Territory of the Body and the Networked Body (2002), Memory Pictures (2005), The Experimental Research Center of the Territory (2008), The Traders’ Ball (2010), Ego Cyberstar and the Problem of Identity (2010), Ebb and Flow: The Internet Cave (2011), and Sociological Walk with Google Glass (2014). Chapter 3 also explains Forest’s unique position in the acrimoniou...
The Conclusion looks more closely at the utopian thread that runs through Forest’s artistic pract... more The Conclusion looks more closely at the utopian thread that runs through Forest’s artistic practice beginning with an overview of his lifelong preoccupation with immaterial forms of territoriality and his personal preference for more “realistic” forms of utopia. After outlining the symptoms of a postmodern crisis in western utopian thinking in its dominant perspectival form emphasizing visual projection, collective projects, and social-technological progress, it goes on to examine the ways in which Forest’s art represents a fundamental reconfiguration of the notion of utopia that differs from the enfeebled western paradigm in several important respects. Foremost among these differences is that Forest puts utopia in reverse by making utopia (i.e., the everyday pseudo-utopia of the modern mediascape, which he subjects to defamiliarizing realism) the mundane starting point rather than the ideal culmination of his utopian artistic practice. The Conclusion closes with a retrospective lo...
Chapter 2 examines Forest’s work from the 1980s through the mid-1990s, which was characterized by... more Chapter 2 examines Forest’s work from the 1980s through the mid-1990s, which was characterized by greater emphasis on simulation, symbolism, and the sensory; a more varied “palette” of artistic production ranging from more conventional multimedia installations to ambitious attempts to create temporary alternative channels of networked mass communication; and a series of conceptual experiments in metacommunication as defined in the Aesthetics of Communication movement. Works discussed in Chapter 2 include The Territory of the Square Meter (1980), The Stock Exchange of the Imaginary (1982), Here and Now (1983), Press Conference of Babel (1983), Learn How to Watch TV with Your Radio (1984), In Search of Julia Margaret Cameron (1988), The Electronic Bible and the Gulf War (1991), Telephonic Faucet (1992), and The Watchtowers of Peace (1993). Chapter 2 also discusses Forest’s greater interest in ecological themes, the ramifications of globalization, and more explicitly political subjects...
This book introduces readers to the iconoclastic work of the French media artist Fred Forest. A p... more This book introduces readers to the iconoclastic work of the French media artist Fred Forest. A pioneer in the fields of video art in the 1960s and internet art in the 1990s, and cofounder of the Sociological Art Collective (1974) and the Aesthetics of Communication International Group (1983), Forest is best known as an ironic media hijacker and tinkerer of unconventional interfaces and alternative platforms for interactive communication that are accessible to the general public outside the exclusive precincts of the art world. He has also made headlines as an outspoken critic of the French contemporary art establishment, most famously by suing the Centre Pompidou in 1994 over its opaque acquisitions practices. This book surveys Forest’s work from the late 1960s to the present with particular emphasis on his prankster modus operandi, his advocacy of an existentially relevant form of counter-contemporary art―or “invisible system-art”―based on the principle of metacommunication (i.e.,...
these misshapen or viscously formless sea creatures and their sexual connotations. Food and sexua... more these misshapen or viscously formless sea creatures and their sexual connotations. Food and sexual desire are, of course, intimately linked. Brillat-Savarin, author of the endlessly entertaining Physiology of Taste or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy (1825), held that humans have six not five senses: the sense of physical desire was considered by him the natural consequence of a good meal served up preferably with truffles. Speaking of this genial gastronome, I would quibble with one example supporting Michael Garval's view that Grimod de la Reynière's journalistic writings laid the foundation for Brillat-Savarin's more meditative work. The case for Grimod's influence on Brillat-Savarin is well argued in Garval's excellent contribution, but that Grimod used an old Spanish proverb first-"tell me whom you frequent; I will tell you who you are"-does little justice to the latter's originality. Brillat-Savarin's alleged borrowing of the proverb from Grimod was a stroke of genius: "tell me what you eat; I will tell you what you are." French Food compellingly takes stock of the omnipresence of food in culture and the arts and its ever shifting meanings in the debates that characterize the complex field of gastronomic discourse.
Page 1. Laicism, Religion and the Economy of Belief in the French Republic1 Michael F. Leruth To ... more Page 1. Laicism, Religion and the Economy of Belief in the French Republic1 Michael F. Leruth To say that relations between Church and State in France at the time of the Dreyfus Affair were tense would be an understatement. ...
Page 1. THE FRENCH REVIEW, Vol. 73, No. 5, April 2000 Printed in USA The French Fate de l&#x2... more Page 1. THE FRENCH REVIEW, Vol. 73, No. 5, April 2000 Printed in USA The French Fate de l'Internet by Michael F. Leruth IN 1998, FRANCE WELCOMED the return of spring by celebrating its first-ever Fete de l'Internet. The ...
Page 1. ISSN 0963-9489 print/ISSN 1469-9869 online/01/040467-16 q 2001 ASM&CF DOI: 10.1080/09... more Page 1. ISSN 0963-9489 print/ISSN 1469-9869 online/01/040467-16 q 2001 ASM&CF DOI: 10.1080/0963948012008668 0 Modern & Contemporary France (2001), 9(4), 467–482 Abstract France ushered in the Year 2000 with ...
Page 1. 051 François Mitterrand's 'Festival of the World's Tribes': th... more Page 1. 051 François Mitterrand's 'Festival of the World's Tribes': the logic of exoticism in the French Revolution bicentennial parade MICHAEL F. LERUTH* Towards a ritual history of the Mitterrand era With the recent ...
... View full textDownload full text Full access. DOI: 10.1080/17409290600883803 & Michae... more ... View full textDownload full text Full access. DOI: 10.1080/17409290600883803 & Michael F.Leruth ... actuel » qui donne lieu à des évènements éphémìres et interactifs au lieu de produire des objets artisanaux à l'« aura » sacrée (selon l'expression de Walter Benjamin), dont la ...
Journal article by Michael F. Leruth; Mosaic (Winnipeg), 2004
... by Michael F. Leruth. ... Much has happened in the nearly forty years since Walter Benjamin f... more ... by Michael F. Leruth. ... Much has happened in the nearly forty years since Walter Benjamin first published his famous essay known in English as "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," in which he argued that techniques of mass production and the new media of ...
The Introduction establishes Forest’s artistic identity as a trickster and troublemaker through s... more The Introduction establishes Forest’s artistic identity as a trickster and troublemaker through some of his most famous publicity stunts and subversive public interventions. Works discussed in the Introduction include 150 cm2 of Newspaper (1972), The City Invaded by Blank Space (1973), The Artistic Square Meter (1977), The Golden Mean and the Force Field of 14,000 Hertz (1987), Fred Forest for President of Bulgarian National Television (1991), and Forest’s unauthorized protest performance at the Centre Pompidou’s Vidéo Vintage exhibition (2012). The Introduction also discusses Forest’s contributions as a theorist and educator, his ties to leading intellectuals and critics like Vilém Flusser and Pierre Restany, and his tense relations with French art institutions, including his epic legal battle with the Centre Pompidou (1994-97).
Chapter 1 traces the early development of Forest’s artistic vocation beginning with his productio... more Chapter 1 traces the early development of Forest’s artistic vocation beginning with his production as a self-taught painter while still working for the French postal service in Algeria and focuses on his work in the 1970s. It places particular emphasis on projects undertaken in the name of Sociological Art (defined as “sociological praxis in the guise of art”) using video, the press, and different modes of public intervention. Works discussed in Chapter 1 include Family Portrait (1967), Senior Citizen Video (1973), Electronic Investigation of Rue Guénégaud (1974), Video Portrait of a Collector in Real Time (1974), Biennial of the Year 2000 (1975), and The Video Family (1976). Chapter 1 also examines different categories of Forest’s diverse work in video and discusses the aesthetic and epistemological ramifications of Sociological Art as theorized by Forest and Vilém Flusser.
Chapter 3 considers Forest’s internet-based art from the mid-1990s through the present, with part... more Chapter 3 considers Forest’s internet-based art from the mid-1990s through the present, with particular emphasis on ritualistic and festive manifestations of public liminality that take place online or make the internet an integral part of the event, and on more whimsical exercises in parody and the détournement of interfaces reminiscent of his early experiments with print and broadcast media. Works discussed in Chapter 3 includeFrom Casablanca to Locarno: Love Updated by the Internet and Electronic Media (1995),Time-Out (1998), The Techno-Wedding (1999), The Center of the World (1999), Territorial Outings (2001), Meat: The Territory of the Body and the Networked Body (2002), Memory Pictures (2005), The Experimental Research Center of the Territory (2008), The Traders’ Ball (2010), Ego Cyberstar and the Problem of Identity (2010), Ebb and Flow: The Internet Cave (2011), and Sociological Walk with Google Glass (2014). Chapter 3 also explains Forest’s unique position in the acrimoniou...
The Conclusion looks more closely at the utopian thread that runs through Forest’s artistic pract... more The Conclusion looks more closely at the utopian thread that runs through Forest’s artistic practice beginning with an overview of his lifelong preoccupation with immaterial forms of territoriality and his personal preference for more “realistic” forms of utopia. After outlining the symptoms of a postmodern crisis in western utopian thinking in its dominant perspectival form emphasizing visual projection, collective projects, and social-technological progress, it goes on to examine the ways in which Forest’s art represents a fundamental reconfiguration of the notion of utopia that differs from the enfeebled western paradigm in several important respects. Foremost among these differences is that Forest puts utopia in reverse by making utopia (i.e., the everyday pseudo-utopia of the modern mediascape, which he subjects to defamiliarizing realism) the mundane starting point rather than the ideal culmination of his utopian artistic practice. The Conclusion closes with a retrospective lo...
Chapter 2 examines Forest’s work from the 1980s through the mid-1990s, which was characterized by... more Chapter 2 examines Forest’s work from the 1980s through the mid-1990s, which was characterized by greater emphasis on simulation, symbolism, and the sensory; a more varied “palette” of artistic production ranging from more conventional multimedia installations to ambitious attempts to create temporary alternative channels of networked mass communication; and a series of conceptual experiments in metacommunication as defined in the Aesthetics of Communication movement. Works discussed in Chapter 2 include The Territory of the Square Meter (1980), The Stock Exchange of the Imaginary (1982), Here and Now (1983), Press Conference of Babel (1983), Learn How to Watch TV with Your Radio (1984), In Search of Julia Margaret Cameron (1988), The Electronic Bible and the Gulf War (1991), Telephonic Faucet (1992), and The Watchtowers of Peace (1993). Chapter 2 also discusses Forest’s greater interest in ecological themes, the ramifications of globalization, and more explicitly political subjects...
This book introduces readers to the iconoclastic work of the French media artist Fred Forest. A p... more This book introduces readers to the iconoclastic work of the French media artist Fred Forest. A pioneer in the fields of video art in the 1960s and internet art in the 1990s, and cofounder of the Sociological Art Collective (1974) and the Aesthetics of Communication International Group (1983), Forest is best known as an ironic media hijacker and tinkerer of unconventional interfaces and alternative platforms for interactive communication that are accessible to the general public outside the exclusive precincts of the art world. He has also made headlines as an outspoken critic of the French contemporary art establishment, most famously by suing the Centre Pompidou in 1994 over its opaque acquisitions practices. This book surveys Forest’s work from the late 1960s to the present with particular emphasis on his prankster modus operandi, his advocacy of an existentially relevant form of counter-contemporary art―or “invisible system-art”―based on the principle of metacommunication (i.e.,...
these misshapen or viscously formless sea creatures and their sexual connotations. Food and sexua... more these misshapen or viscously formless sea creatures and their sexual connotations. Food and sexual desire are, of course, intimately linked. Brillat-Savarin, author of the endlessly entertaining Physiology of Taste or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy (1825), held that humans have six not five senses: the sense of physical desire was considered by him the natural consequence of a good meal served up preferably with truffles. Speaking of this genial gastronome, I would quibble with one example supporting Michael Garval's view that Grimod de la Reynière's journalistic writings laid the foundation for Brillat-Savarin's more meditative work. The case for Grimod's influence on Brillat-Savarin is well argued in Garval's excellent contribution, but that Grimod used an old Spanish proverb first-"tell me whom you frequent; I will tell you who you are"-does little justice to the latter's originality. Brillat-Savarin's alleged borrowing of the proverb from Grimod was a stroke of genius: "tell me what you eat; I will tell you what you are." French Food compellingly takes stock of the omnipresence of food in culture and the arts and its ever shifting meanings in the debates that characterize the complex field of gastronomic discourse.
Page 1. Laicism, Religion and the Economy of Belief in the French Republic1 Michael F. Leruth To ... more Page 1. Laicism, Religion and the Economy of Belief in the French Republic1 Michael F. Leruth To say that relations between Church and State in France at the time of the Dreyfus Affair were tense would be an understatement. ...
Page 1. THE FRENCH REVIEW, Vol. 73, No. 5, April 2000 Printed in USA The French Fate de l&#x2... more Page 1. THE FRENCH REVIEW, Vol. 73, No. 5, April 2000 Printed in USA The French Fate de l'Internet by Michael F. Leruth IN 1998, FRANCE WELCOMED the return of spring by celebrating its first-ever Fete de l'Internet. The ...
Page 1. ISSN 0963-9489 print/ISSN 1469-9869 online/01/040467-16 q 2001 ASM&CF DOI: 10.1080/09... more Page 1. ISSN 0963-9489 print/ISSN 1469-9869 online/01/040467-16 q 2001 ASM&CF DOI: 10.1080/0963948012008668 0 Modern & Contemporary France (2001), 9(4), 467–482 Abstract France ushered in the Year 2000 with ...
Page 1. 051 François Mitterrand's 'Festival of the World's Tribes': th... more Page 1. 051 François Mitterrand's 'Festival of the World's Tribes': the logic of exoticism in the French Revolution bicentennial parade MICHAEL F. LERUTH* Towards a ritual history of the Mitterrand era With the recent ...
... View full textDownload full text Full access. DOI: 10.1080/17409290600883803 & Michae... more ... View full textDownload full text Full access. DOI: 10.1080/17409290600883803 & Michael F.Leruth ... actuel » qui donne lieu à des évènements éphémìres et interactifs au lieu de produire des objets artisanaux à l'« aura » sacrée (selon l'expression de Walter Benjamin), dont la ...
Journal article by Michael F. Leruth; Mosaic (Winnipeg), 2004
... by Michael F. Leruth. ... Much has happened in the nearly forty years since Walter Benjamin f... more ... by Michael F. Leruth. ... Much has happened in the nearly forty years since Walter Benjamin first published his famous essay known in English as "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," in which he argued that techniques of mass production and the new media of ...
Uploads
Papers by Michael Leruth