INTERVIEW

Tim Berresheim Wolfgang Brauneis Aachen, march 2012 WB: The term Dazzlea special type of painting warships to confuse the attackeris part of a paintings title in the exhibition (in which camouage and deception plays an iconographical role as well). This technique is being addressed here by aligned hand drawings. TB: Dazzle makes localization almost impossible. With a periscope, you have to line up two pointsand then you do not know what part of the ship you hit. It is also very difcult to detect space in a picture in the areas dominated by dazzle there are strong effects of abstraction. This is indicated by peas and beads generated by the advanced computer equipment MLT. They allow a form of mapping, which is plastic, and show what the exhibition is about: a heightened plausibility caused by proximity and image-based illusionist mapping. WB: So a plausible representation is a key moment in the whole thing? TB: Exactly. And not only concerning the images plausibility, but also concerning their physical plausibility. At certain points, the peas actually interact with the loops in a physical way. WB: And why is that physical plausibility so important? TB: Because it is tied to mimesis and because of the kind of apparitions that are lifted from our worldthe one we experience as a plausible phenomenainto the world of images. If I would arrange and place the beads, it would lead us right to the topic of abstraction and ornamentation. The beads arrangements would only be plausible by having been through modernism. WB: So the more of such arrangements you literally let out of your hands, the more plausible it gets? TB: Exactly. WB: This central term of plausibility reminds me of the concept of credibility, which you strove for in your very rst picturesnamely your rst photographs in which gures have been incorporated by the means of mapping. Already back in 2003, 2004 it was about systematically ignoring the additive principle of collage in favor of a cohesive, symbiotic alternative. Meanwhile, looking at the current exhibition, it is clearly evidenteven for a laymanthat a lot has happened technology-wise. TB: Absolutely. What I used to call credibility years ago was, of course, a credibility that you would expect from a computer screen. Those were unbiased computer images, because the rendering method was standard ray tracingand that always comes with a computational look. WB: It actually does look computational?

Edward Wadsworth Dazzle Ships in Drydock 1919 oil on canvas 304.8 243.8 cm Dazzle camouage, also known as Razzle Dazzle or Dazzle painting, was a military camouage paint scheme used on ships, extensively during World War I and to a lesser extent in World War II. Credited to artist Norman Wilkinson, it consisted of a complex pattern of geometric shapes in contrasting colours, interrupting and intersecting each other. At rst glance Dazzle seems an unlikely form of camouage, drawing attention to the ship rather than hiding it, but this technique was developed after the Allied Navies were unable to develop effective means to disguise ships in all weathers. Dazzle did not conceal the ship but made it difcult for the enemy to estimate its type, size, speed and heading. The idea was to disrupt the visual rangenders used for naval artillery. Its purpose was confusion rather than concealment. An observer would nd it difcult to know exactly whether the stern or the bow is in view; and it would be equally difcult to estimate whether the observed vessel is moving towards or away from the observers position. www.wikipedia.com (24.4.2012)

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TB:Yes. When you think of the stages, with protagonists, in this strange lightit really looks like computer and video games. . WB: So the images did not actually meet the specication of credibility? TB:Yes, they did, because they were hermetic and deliberately situated in the uncanny valley. They were supposed to look a little bit computational and alienated. But we have now long gone from this uncomfortable valleystrictly speaking with this very exhibitionbecause you can now skip it by using the MLT algorithm. WB: But who was actually inside the uncanny valleythe deformed gures or the overall situation in which these gures have been located? TB: The entire pictorial space. The attribution surreal would always come up in this context, because you couldnt keep up with it by the means of language. WB: Uncanny is the translation of the German adjective unheimlich, a term that Sigmund Freud used for describing a feeling of being uncomfortably strange or uncomfortably familiar. Was it programmatic for you to create uncanny images? TB: No, rather it is the idea of making the dark side of the alarm oscillate. After the dark side then came the cheerful side: colored hair and what-not, euphoria and fun. I assume that in between these two poles there is a silent alarm, where you stand in attention and feel no fear or euphoria, but just a what the fuck (WTF). WB: Does this mean that the notion of uncanny or the dark side of the alarm was caused to a certain extent by technology? TB:Yes, that was the choice of means. If I had rendered the pictures with a different algorithm back then, it would not have become the dark side of the alarm. WB: So the images were unbiased computer images. And now, with the possibilities of MLT, there is another form of unbiasedness? TB: With the MLT algorithm, with which the images are calculated, you get what you expectbut from a mathematicians perspective. They started using the algorithm in 1996. And now in this exhibition, we have a form of unbiasedness, which, I believe, is strongly oriented towards mimesis. I get almost what I wanted, for example, from staged photographyjust without the dirt and the errors that aw the analog world: a wind that is suddenly blowing from the left, an object that will not yet be in the correct position or the fact that the protagonists eyes just twitched. WB: Has the algorithm previously been used for acquiring an image at all? TB:Yeswhere unbiasedness is the most important thing for the value chain, namely, in advertising and architecture simulationwhere you may not be distracted under any circumstances. WB: Since the late 90s? TB: Exactly. But in the print medium, with a grainy resolution and on a small-scale level, because the whole thing is insanely CPU-hungry. WB: Can you elaborate? TB: Computing power. For example, for calculating my exhibitions most expenThe Metropolis light transport (MLT) is a SIGGRAPH 1997 paper by Eric Veach and Leonidas J. Guibas, describing an application of a variant of the Monte Carlo method called the MetropolisHastings algorithm to the rendering equation for generating images from detailed physical descriptions of three dimensional scenes. The procedure constructs paths from the eye to a light source using bidirectional path tracing, then constructs slight modications to the path. Some careful statistical calculation (the Metropolis algorithm) is used to compute the appropriate distribution of brightness over the image.This procedure has the advantage, relative to bidirectional path tracing, that once a path has been found from light to eye, the algorithm can then explore nearby paths; thus difcult-to-nd light paths can be explored more thoroughly with the same number of simulated photons. In short, the algorithm generates a path and stores the paths nodes in a list. It can then modify the path by adding extra nodes and creating a new light path. While creating this new path, the algorithm decides how many new nodes to add and whether or not these new nodes will actually create a new path. Metropolis Light Transport is an unbiased method that, in some cases (but not always), converges to a solution of the rendering equation quicker than other unbiased algorithms, path tracing and bidirectional path tracing www.wikipedia.com (24.4.2012)

The central processing unit (CPU) is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. www.wikipedia.com (24.4.2012)

sive picturewhich is equipped with multiple lighting scenesthe latest, most upgraded computer would need 91,000 hours.
In statistics, the bias (or bias function) of an estimator is the difference between this estimators expected value and the true value of the parameter being estimated. An estimator or decision rule with zero bias is called unbiased. Otherwise the estimator is said to be biased. In ordinary English, the term bias is pejorative. In statistics, there are problems for which it may be good to use an estimator with a small, but nonzero, bias. In some cases, an estimator with a small bias may have lesser mean squared error or be median-unbiased (rather than mean-unbiased, the standard unbiasedness property). The property of median-unbiasedness is invariant under monotone transformations, while the property of meanunbiasedness may be lost under nonlinear transformations. www.wikipedia.com (24.4.2012)

WB: And what was the case for the pictures three or four years ago? TB: There, the CPU-hunger is really homeopathic...only once a week would be calculated then. With the algorithm that is being applied now, we are beyond good and evil. Talking about unbiasedness, unlike earlier, very different demands on the physical correctness of the objects in the pictorial space have been raised in this exhibition. WB: What do you mean by unlike earlier? TB: In fact, until last year, image production was still almost entirely based on the structure of collage and I placed objects in space in a way that satised my idea of composition. That has changed. Now, not only my imagination gets satised, but also the physical correctness. WB: And the desire for this was already resonating back then? So basically, a few years ago, only inadequate images have been produced because there was no other way? TB: No, I just instinctively avoided that by making use of pseudo-abstraction. That is to say, for a few years Ive avoided images as they are being made now, with a real stage, real charactersmeaning that they stem from this world, not from the pictorial one. However, mappability, depth of eld, illusion of depth and proximity have been resonating the whole timeas in the hair-pictures in the exhibition Condition tidiness (Rude). The more I was confronted with this proximity, the more I realized that I have a desire to utilize it. It is simply impossible for these hair formations just to work well because we had modernism and gestural painting. There is this one condition that, I believe, is proximity and I can now go through with it. This means I need physical accuracy; otherwise it cannot be produced in a plausible way, with the viewer having to smooth it out. ...................... WB: And the differentiation of modernism is happening in the context of the collage, as a kind of placeholder for modernism? That again would be the common denominator between the early and current images. TB: Exactly. WB:Yes, but why the collage? TB: Because I think that the effect of collage hasnt been managed welland that was a mistake. In fact, collages have been painted, sculpted, spoken... WB: So its not just about collaging of taped, found... TB: Noeverything that is intended to be a collage. There also is collage painting. WB: For example? TB: It started with Picabia, and then there was a high level of abstraction, and therefore... WB: ...early collages? TB: Early collages, exactly. But from time to time you have to consider the fact that Surrealist collage has been expatiated upon for one hundred years now. Not

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so much has happened concerning the additive knowledge of how to produce an image. WB: Whereas the origins of collage were a giant step, in contrast to what had happened twenty years before? TB:Yes, but the only giant step was to call this thing art. Already in the early 19th Century, citizens have been making collages as a pastime. I think it was a hobby for producing images of athletes. Hence the citizen scientist, whom Google has declared, existed already two hundred years ago. And then people said, from now on this is art, lets take it up and generate an agreement system around it. But then it would have been off the table relatively fast. In my opinion, not much has been addednot concerning the image itself, but concerning image production. WB: And you would consider surrealism the beginning of collaged painting? TB: Right. Or Meret Oppenheims fur cupa collage sculpture. WB: Meaning the combination of incompatibilities? TB: Exactly. The implausible combination of incompatibilities. WB: Why implausible? What is implausible about the fur cup? TB:You would have to take a look at its bottom to see if everything is sewn beautifully. This is actually a bad example for a lack of plausibility. In fact, any collageeven if you look at the early Max Ernst, you dont see a universal source of light or a universal shadow, but always a rupture. And the fact that we have been looking at collages for a hundred years now should not be underestimated. I think that if today we would be confronted with a collage for the rst time, the rst reaction would be: What the hell is that supposed to be? WB:You think so? TB:Yes, I think so. If I were to ask, for example, my 94-year-old grandmother what is more plausible for her, the Snickers ad where a monster st consisting of 10,000 Snickers bars sweeps across a stadium, or a collage by Picabiait would be the Snickers-st. But that is certainly not a criterion for art... WB: ...I just wanted to say that. TB: But it is still about plausibility. WB: But we are also talking about an exhibition. TB: Right. WB: Well, it sounds as if plausibility should be the basis for good art... TB: ...Im not saying that it is the motivation; Im just saying that it is a condition. The fact that the query can be the plausibility of the whole thing. If I just forget about what I call the world of agreement. One could even take the trouble to stand naked in front of a picture, just for practicings sake and for asking oneself how plausible the whole thing seems to beas an artifact, as a surface, as a composition. WB: And in your opinion that has been completely ignored so far? TB: Not completely ignored, but neglected. It is still a ruling system of interpretation, not of seeing.
The uncanny valley is a hypothesis in the eld of robotics[1] and 3D computer animation, which holds that when human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The valley in question is a dip in a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a function of a robots human likeness. The term was coined by the robotics professor Masahiro Mori as Bukimi no Tani Gensh ( ) in 1970. The hypothesis has been linked to Ernst Jentschs concept of the uncanny identied in a 1906 essay, On the Psychology of the Uncanny. Jentschs conception was elaborated by Sigmund Freud in a 1919 essay entitled The Uncanny (Das Unheimliche). Moris original hypothesis states that as the appearance of a robot is made more human, a human observers emotional response to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong revulsion. However, as the robots appearance continues to become less distinguishable from that of a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-to-human empathy levels. This area of repulsive response aroused by a robot with appearance and motion between a barely human and fully human entity is called the uncanny valley. The name captures the idea that an almost human-looking robot will seem overly strange to a human being, will produce a feeling of uncanniness, and will thus fail to evoke the empathic response required for productive humanrobot interaction. www.wikipedia.com (24.4.2012)

WB: Why is nobody taking care of this phenomenon?

A cognitive bias is a pattern of deviation in judgment that occurs in particular situations, leading to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality. Implicit in the concept of a pattern of deviation is a standard of comparison with what is normatively expected; this may be the judgment of people outside those particular situations, or may be a set of independently veriable facts. A long and ever-growing list of cognitive biases has been identied over the last six decades of research on human judgment and decision-making in cognitive science, social psychology, and behavioral economics. Cognitive biases are instances of evolved mental behavior. Some are presumably adaptive, for example, because they lead to more effective actions in given contexts or enable faster decisions when faster decisions are of greater value (heuristics). Others presumably result from a lack of appropriate mental mechanisms (bounded rationality), or simply from mental noise and distortions. www.wikipedia.com (24.4.2012)

TB: Because it is leaving the comfort zone. WB: Is that so? TB:Yeah, I think so! At least for now. The viewers always feel more comfortable if they have something to say as well and if they have everything under control. We already had to suffer from this bias in the 70s and 80s, when they taught us at school that you could actually grasp and explain the whole thing. WB:You mean that the traceability of the process, such as collage, is also a reassuring moment? TB: Traceability, yes; and if you also know the text, the meaning. Lets just think about an example that is a really terrible case. I would imagine that it could be Kai Althoffs work, wherever it comes to memory and the 70sa painted pony, warm shades of orange, brown ... indeed, this is not about the plausibility of orange and brown, but about the 70s and about education. WB: And thats bad? TB: Not bad, but incredibly boring, because it has been ruminated hundreds of times until everyone had something to say about it. An incredible boredom. WB: That means there is no need for producing art that deals with the 70s? TB: No, denitely not! WB: I see. TB: Denitely not. WB: Well, it has been done to a greater extent than both the producers and the recipients want to believe. TB: Right. What happens here is one fucking recycling after the other.You have the texts, you have the viewing habitsnow you just have to change it a little bit, and its art again! And thats just wrong. WB: And why does it work? TB: Because everyone feels comfy and has learned the texts. And no one feels like just throwing it all overboard. WB: To come back to plausibilityis it virtually an anchor at ones disposal, in order to drop it at a different location? TB: Precisely. WB: The ultimate onethat is, in combination with the technical possibilities? TB: I do not know if it is the key anchor. It is what is available to mewhere for me the indication is the strongest that it is about seeing and not about interpretation. WB: Would it theoretically be possible to produce contempo-

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rary art that is not plausible? Or is that really set aside? TB: Non-plausible art is being produced the whole day! WB: Good art? TB: Oh, good art... I would imagine that its over. Indications in the world of television, the series for example... That was it, thats off the table. The only problem that could happen, is the producers starting to think about a production method for plausibility, instead of a new condition for looking at images. WB: Are you talking about a painterly method? TB: I do not know, because Ive never seen anything successfulunless we go back all the way to Dali. But even there it gets boring at some point, because he has developed a methodology. If you have seen his hundredth painting about similaritythat an egg is similar to an eyethen it will eventually get boring, too. The essence of new modernism or of what we are stuck in right now, would be a compression of one hundred of Dalis paintings into tenand then you realize that its been enough and that you need to change the strategy or the mission. WB: So the proposition that we are now dealing with claims that a form of contemporary (post-postmodern, neo-modern, you name it) art could be established based on a momentary plausibilityand that this art could leave behind modernism and postmodernism, which are mainly dened by non-plausible images. TB: Exactly right. WB: Is it possible to inate the concept of plausibility to such an extent that you can really make it collapse and start again? And if the concept of plausibility is being promoted so stronglyas the indicator of difference between ancient art and modern art, or old world and new worldwould it not be obvious to promote the concept of unbiasedness in the same way? And not only as a purely technological, but as an art-theoretical concept? TB: Absolutely. The terminology can be promoted so strongly, because regarding the idea of image production, there is a paradigm shift happening right now. By making use of these new technologies, I can successfully reect on the difference between expectations and resultswithout having to consider things appearing in the end that I did not intend to be there in the rst place. When I look at modernism, at the last one hundred years, this very difference has been used for making art and art history. Errors, dirt, patina, or lens areeverything that is not unbiasedhave been tackled with great enthusiasm and incorporated into the value chain. Now I can work in an unbiased manner, and that is, I believe, larger than I even suspected. WB: In modernism and postmodernism, the bug itself was practically an important... TB: ...a genre on its own. And thatthe slip of the brush, the splash of painthas so successfully been established in the world of images that it has been incorporated in an additive way. Only that now its mere folklore. If I want to let it splatter and drip, then I can let it splatter and drip unbiasedas it is the case with some of the pictures in the exhibition, because there we have the effects of fast painting. But they result from thinking about a physically realistic momentum. In these areas, the same effects as in fast painting occur. But Ive been thinking about it in an unbiased way instead of approving the error as an inherent part of image production.

WB: That means, to keep on splattering is like playing in a Dixie band. TB: Exactly. WB:You can do it, but it is over. TB:Yeah, right. WB: And its a shame because its just so comfortable. TB: Exactly. And because its fun, too. WB: What is it like to walk around an art fair at the moment then? A brunch with countless Dixie bands? TB: With polonaise and the whole shebang, yes. WB: But because this thing seems to work somehow, it could even be sustained for a few decades, right? TB:Yeah, but sooner or later everyone must be so bored that it will no longer be maintainable. WB: But dont you think that at least our generation will continue this way? TB: This is the valley of the clueless. They allow themselves to be outpaced by anything, by the world of moving images as well as by what has happened in terms of narration. But the world is already in a completely different place. Completely different! WB: I wanted to come back to the notion of proximity. If I understand correctly, both the plausibility of what one sees, as well as the unbiasedness within these pictures are dened by proximity. It is no less important to come back to these peasquantity, meaning the immediate vicinity of many very precise details. TB:Yes, that is mutually dependent. Proximity and quantity are part of the experimental setup. WB: Mutually dependent? TB: Thats what I would I say. The most plausible proximity I can produce is by the means of a pictures quantity and size. They are lush prints with an extremely large number of elementsup to two million visible beads. TB: In one picture? TB:Because the most plausible way of examining the condition of proximity and mappability is by means of such an experimental setupI cannot think of a better term. If I arrange only four elements in a space of 2.20 meters by 1.80 meters, it gets incredibly difcult to decide whether this is really plausible. But in case of two million elements, every painter, illustrator or photographer has to contend with the obstacles, which the viewers will eventually have to smooth out by their level of projection. WB: The viewers projection was already important in the 2010 exhibition Future Anti-Gypsy folklore (What?)also referring to Ernst Gombrichs studies. He claims that certain objects can be linked to a narrative folkloristic whole by a specic cultural knowledge and that, on the other hand, repage 64

ally abstract details become representations. In Gombrichs example those are many, very little cherubs heads that are actually only spots of paint. TB: Exactly. WB: And both, if I understand correctly, are dened by a sense of exclusion, which results from specic knowledge and attributions. The idea of authenticity plays an important role and loses its footing on both countsby the deconstruction of gypsiness as an ultimate placeholder for folklore and by the abandonment of painting. The belief in the authenticity seems to drive you up the wall. TB:Very much so. And also the belief in passing on the baton, in just leaving the ruling system of images behind. I think it is an incredible fallacy that this would be a good thing for art in the long run. I am interested in the ruling system of images. Opening the oodgates to it in order to talk about itwhat is in fact happening by projectionjust means that great damage was done. We now nd ourselves in a world that is highly complex and elusive. And then people are still holding on to a ruling system of language... Considering the fact that the boom of painting happened in the 00s years, right when the digital revolution hit the worldthis is the clearest indication that it is all about comfort zones, about maintaining old ruling systems. WB: But this projection is also happening with regard to the construction of objectivityconcerning Gombrich, by the identication of paint splashes as cherubs. TB: But he says that, with van Eyck, there was a rupture. This rupture was aimed at peoples viewing habits, because van Eyck came to the point where this tiny element is still a splash of paint onto which the viewers would project a button. I believe that since 1996 and regarding MLT techniques, we are now at a point where we can break it down again. Then the smallest recognizable unit is the pictorial illusion of a buttonor just photo paper, if you are able to perceive that. WB: And you do not believe that there simply is a need for experiencing this exact moment of translation when looking at an imagebeyond comfort and escapism? TB:Yes, but there is still plenty of projection, I think. Well, considering the images produced with these new possibilities. WB: Still? TB: Sure.You have something hanging on the wall and you translate it into an image.You translate the highest abstraction into an image. WB: Thats another form of projection. TB: But the one that I consider the most important. That you have an artifact in front of you and then translate it into an image. Although this is only a small step, it is perfectly ne. Right now its all about reorientation, as we have stated in the title SOS. SOS does not actually mean save our souls, but is just the most easy Morse code to type. Three long, three short, three long. The fact that it turned into save our souls is indeed a mnemonic. The abstract Morse code was rst, and the attribution of meaning came later. WB: But of course it is no longer reversible. The question is also whether it is the same when it comes to pictures?

TB:Yes, but thats where we are right now. We have now been doing this for a hundred yearsit is irreversible. But we are now able to deliver a range of abstraction by plausibility, proximity, and so on. The attribution of meaning will happen later, but now we can organize ourselves in a new way. And it must be reorganizedotherwise incredible boredom will persist. ......................

WB: The title of the exhibition consists of three elements, camouage and deception, SOS and tl;dr, a common internet abbreviation for too long; did not read. The acronym SOS, which practically implies the highest degree of attention, for it is a matter of life and death, gets confronted with the abbreviation tl;dr, which formulates the highest level of disinterest: I do not even read. TB: Right. WB: Why this clash? TB: Its just very good taste. WB: What now? TB: My own. The combination. WB: I see. But the SOS-caller, the one seeking for help, also gets confronted with the tl;dr-person, the one who refuses to helpbecause he or she has no time. TB: Right. Uninteresting. This tl;dr is actually a phrase that is often used in image boards, where the main task is posting pictures. If someone has the idea to add a caption of just a few sentences, this is the answer. WB: What is this phenomenon of image boards, anyway? TB: There is an incredible demand for interesting images. We are probably talking about 16- to 23-year-olds who have developed a methodology to produce what the fuck images. And there is simply a need, because they are not taken seriously by the professional world of images. Images are being offered to them that could have been produced in 1930. They need to make images themselvesand then do it with swarm intelligence. WB: One could say that SOS represents the 20th century in the same way as the collageand that too long; did not read represents the 21st century. TB: Right. WB: I would like to briey come back to the concept of the valley of the clueless, which already came up before. The question of accessibility plays a role here, namely the lack of proximity to the present, to present opportunities. TB: I like to temporally locate it close to the SOS. Well, to the fact that the term had something to do with the issue of sender/receiver in the 70s and 80s. WB: But is it only a media-specic metaphorthe fact that certain things are out of reach or that there is no access to certain technologies? Or is this a metaphor for the state of the
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art world? That is to say that the residents themselves now have virtually dug out their own valley of the clueless? TB: Absolutely. Thats what it isthe valley TB: Thats the valley TB: The art business is not in the GDR, but the valley itself. WB: So at the moment every art fair is a walk through the valley? TB: Absolutely. No signals from the outside, hermetically sealed. Contemporaneity does not matter, does not exist. WB: And shouldnt even knock at the door? TB: It arrives in a sense of collage. It is called upon to give testimony. This is already happening. Just that art has been overtaken by its own termseach blog by a 16-year-old is better informed about secret knowledge than the artists. WB: In comparison to lm and television one could think that no one is currently missing the signals as much as the world of ne art. TB: Precisely, because you get used to the leftovers of modernism. WB: Eduard Beaucamp has introduced this term in the FAZ newspaper two years ago when he spoke of the aesthetic energies of the twentieth century as being used up. In political science we speak of the short twentieth century, which began in 1917 and ended in 1989precisely the period in which an alternative to capitalist society existed. Applied to art, one can actually say that 1910 began with the isms. Actually, around 2010, its about time to stop. TB:You bet. I nd that this endpoint already existed in the 80s, when the world of agreement was abandoned and turned into a little joke. This was not a starting point after all. WB: And contextual art and institutional critique then followed in the 90s. This is all about institutional architecture, history or nancial conditions. That is, we have two self-reective decades, based on image content, even in the broadest sense, on one side and based on the conditions, the display of art, on the other. And then the 00s, which do not really work? TB: Right. WB: And in your opinion the 00s do not work, because by using conventional methods and media, nothing can occur that is not already checked off? Referring to the processing of the 70s again, is it time to give up that specic form of meaningfulness? TB: Well, for now. Its about a certain orientation. We do not even know where we are, what is whateven in art. Time to look inward. WB: Time for formalist work? TB: Exactly. What currently stands out in the new American TV series and advanced Hollywood movies is the fact that form is a much bigger deal than content.
cf. Beaucamp, Eduard, Wir brauchen den Bruch. Die Resteverwertung der Moderne muss aufhren, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 08.01.2010, Nr.6, S.34 old ARD Logo Tal der Ahnungslosen (Valley of the Clueless) was a satirical designation for two regions in the southeast and northeast parts of former East Germany. The inhabitants of these areas were not able to receive television stations form West Germany. West-German television stations were considered more reliable than their east-German counterparts and therefore the people who could not receive those stations were thought to be less well informed about the (political) situation in their country and in the world.. www.wikipedia.com (24.4.2012)

WB: Since when? TB: Since the last ve or six years. In this case, I consider the TV-series Lost the Big Bang. WB: Whereas Lost comes with a highly branched system of reference, let alone the philosophical...
Eric gets his roots done from HBOs True blood Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series 2011: Game of Thrones/HBO 2010: True Blood/HBO Breaking Bad/AMC 2008: Lost/ABC www.wikipedia.com (24.4.2012)

TB: ...but uninteresting, so never mind. A plus is the fact that it is simultaneous. And looking at images produced in the 00s years, there is little simultaneity. It is all narrowed down, meticulously crafted, small and sanded off at one cornerbut not a broad range at all. WB: So the worst-case scenario would be that things would become hermetic again, including further maintaining a subsidized, self-contained system. That is called Fine Arts and will go on for decades, while something else establishes, which takes place at the fringes but in different areas. Its a noble approach to say, hey, we have to do something else. But maybe nobody wants that. TB: Im not sure. I believe... WB: ...within the system. TB: But when I take a look at Damien Hirsts self-denition for example, who says he is 51% entertainer and 49% artist... this is a highly successful model, also in terms of distribution. The ones who come next cannot do anymore what Hirst did, but will have to adjust to what happens out there. If we want to keep up or catch up, then art has to accomplish a lot right now. WB: And what would the Art Cologne 2020 look like? TB: Well, I cannot imagine that this can be sustained forever. There is too much happening with the computer at the moment. Exhibitions like The Real Fake in Chicago are trying to incorporate thatand by trying I mean, of course, that the vocabulary for the evaluation of such images is missing. If we are unlucky, everyone will grab a computer now and make little 80s picturesold thinking for new situations. Its also a way of old thinking when you take Photoshop and then pretend to use brush and scissors. If now MLT is used in terms of collage, then once again we have skulls, owls and vases. And thats the only danger I see. The game will go on, because then we will also have new images, where everyone has a say and then it gets easy... WB: ...even worse. TB:Yes. Right. Thats the danger. WB: That sounds very plausible. But if that should happen, then it can also remain inside the system. TB: Inside the system, yes, exactly. WB: And the system would not realize that ultimately it is working on its self-dissolution. TB: That I do not know. WB: No one will say it.

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TB: There is just no uent thinking in artno letting go and admitting that what was said in the 00s is no longer true. I mean, it would be a crazy step to say that one was wrong, also regarding the evolution of prices. Then we could all take a deep breath. At the moment, the world is indeed forced to proceed like that all the time. And at some point we will hopefully let go of art as well. And if that was done and said by many, then it can be great again.