Ruins of the Future “Virtual Displacement” by Rusnoto Susanto

Ruins of the Future

“Virtual Displacement” by Rusnoto Susanto

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away.

Philip K. Dick

When I was asked if I could write something for Rusnoto Susanto’s exhibition I was actually very pleased. I already knew some of his former works which had shown more non-figurative elements. His new works presented with an almost graphical style convey insights into the consequences of our increasingly digitalizing world, by depicting computer devices as metaphors for the displacement of reality and the triumph of the machine over man. I was immediately reminded of the times when I was an avid reader of Science Fiction novels where the limits (and limitations) of “reality” have become a favorite subject.

Rusnoto’s new works envision a world which is dominated by modern technology, symbolized by computer modules and cartridges. These worlds are uninhabited and inhospitable, the metallic structures do not look like a nice place to live in. Although initially constructed by humans, citizen dwellers are not needed anymore because the overpowering system consisting of technical units has obviously become self-reliable and self-sufficient. Rusnoto Susanto’s paintings depict cityscapes in a postmodern and even post-human condition. Modern man has made himself homeless (or displaced himself) while the once so different characteristics of city architecture simultaneously have disappeared. High-tech with its functional drive seems to create absolute uniformity. Nature has been totally eliminated by the growth of an overwhelming texture of units that are charged with digital information. The perfectionism of the technological devices is broken with scratches or indications of corrosion. The artist tells us that even the futuristic cities will not escape from doom. Decrepit pieces of a machinery in decay…

The painter makes us conscious of the dizzying pace of technological change In some parts of the world the belief in progress is still strong and futuristic cityscapes are designed and built, especially in the emerging countries of Southeast Asia.

Tokyo – Ruins of the Future

Some days ago the New York Times published an article on decaying single apartment building for bachelors in Tokyo, the 1972 built Capsule Tower, each capsule containing complete modern facilities like TY, tape deck and refrigerators. These buildings were a rare example of the so-called Japanese Metabolism, an architectural movement involved in the resurgence of the war damaged Japan. Their urban visions became emblematic for the Japanese postwar culture. Cities were built and designed as floating systems, symbolizing a rapidly changing society in a transition towards modernity. At the same time structural changes of the Japanese society were visible, signs of the dissolution of traditional family structures and displacements of the national workforce. This Japanese phenomenon attracted a lot of attention worldwide and was enthusiastically welcomed by architects. Now there is an initiative to preserve the squalid building as an architectural museum of a future that has already gone by. In a metaphorical way the destiny of the Capsule Tower resembles Rusnoto Susanto’s digital cities.

Postmodernism, High-Tech Capitalism and Cyberpunk

After a long period of a philosophical discourse which was dominated until recently by the postmodern philosophers any ideas and concepts of ‘progress’ appeared out-dated and old-fashioned. The concern of movements such as Futurism or Constructivism that aimed explicitly to forge new languages and paradigms for societal change has turned out to be impossible now since there is no belief in modernity anymore.

Now the myth of the cyberspace as a sacred realm of data and power evolved from a literature inspired by computer technology and postmodern philosophy. In a globalizing world which is ruled by high-tech capitalism counter-myths of freedom and realms of self-determination are needed. Art and literature belong to the few remaining fields where freedom (relatively) is still possible, actually even required. Oppression kills creativity…

Although it should not be denied that the overall commercialization of the art world bears totalitarian tendencies, like standardization and serialization – processes that already have been caricaturized by certain pop artists like Andy Warhol.

Science Fiction was always torn between utopia and dystopia. Apocalyptic visions were a mirror of the political situation of the times, as well as utopian visions spoke about the hopes and needs for a better world. In contrast to the Italian Futurists the Science Fiction author William Gibson (his novel “Neuromancer” [1984] was the beginning of the so-called “Cyberpunk” wave) felt and regretted the loss of traditional affections, although his vision and style resembled Futurism’s image of futuristic technological transcendence. His novels are written in a mode of dystopian style and his outlook is technologically visionary. According to Norman Spinrad, another well known Science Fiction author, Gibson’s novels are "a fusion of the romantic impulse with science and technology".

Currently the reports of the ongoing financial breakdown are received by many observers with a certain satisfaction. The philosopher Slavoj Zizek commented on the totalitarian domination of the global high-the capitalism: “The true horror does not reside in the particular content hidden beneath the universality of global Capital, but rather in the fact that Capital is effectively an anonymous global machine blindly running its course, that there is effectively no particular Secret Agent who animates it. The horror is not the (particular living) ghost in the (dead universal) machine, but the (dead universal) machine in the very heart of each (particular living) ghost.”

A system of anonymous control and domination, the world as a machine void of human agents… In a culture swamped with such dystopic images this is a clear characterization of the end of civilization as we know it.

May the future be better or worse, visions are necessary, whether utopian or apocalyptic. Shared images might even have some prophetic effects; why should artists as producers of images not contribute to the construction of the future? As long as there is someone capable of responding emotionally to art there is also a chance for change.

Digital Matrix

The series of “Digital Rain” by Rusnoto Susanto could refer in a figurative sense to the movie “Matrix” which is known for its shrewd concatenation with the issues Virtual Reality or the Simulacrum, as it was once described by the postmodern philosopher Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard himself rejected his involvement with the film producers, but admittedly he saw some parallels with his philosophical thinking.

William Gibson maybe quoted here: ‘The matrix has its roots in primitive arcade games. … Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts. … A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the non-space of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.”

The ‘Matrix Digital Rain’ was featured in the ‘Matrix’ movies. A green colored code is falling down on the screen like rain, representing the virtual reality of the matrix. Reversed Roman and Japanese katakana characters and Arabic numerals, as well as pictorial symbol are used, infusing the matrix with a sacred or ancient aura.

Rusnoto Susanto’s “Digital Rain” evokes– besides the mentioned reference to the matrix symbol in general – the atmosphere of autumn rain in a Japanese poem, giving us the chance to contemplate about the course of the world. Certainly his concern is about the structures of communication in modern urban societies, the impact of consumerism by way of the Internet. His critique is focusing on the artificiality of images, on the illusion of reality. But this is just something that is shared between art and virtual worlds. The difference lies in the absoluteness of the technological processes. The digitalized communication structures produce many more images and much faster than all the artists of the world could ever do. The increased velocity of the communication systems plays a decisive role, finally the political and social controller role (cf. Paul Virilio). Our daily lives are steered by the informational inputs from digitalized sources. Everything what happens on a global scale is distributed immediately through the internet and other channels of information, creating a forest of simulacra which cannot be checked or reflected anymore.

The free flow of information over the Internet triggers social and political movements. Its effects were already studied in Moldavia by the US government. During the aftermath of the elections in Iran the social network Twitter was constantly mentioned as the only viable instrument of communication between the followers of Moussavi and the outside world. Foreign media were banned from direct reporting from Iran. Although the Iranian authorities tried to limit the access to the Internet, the flow of messages found its way to the international media, transported from cell phones cameras directly to the evening news programs all over the globe.

The visual has taken over as the main instrument of communication, continually replacing written language with icons and pictures. The printed book and newspapers are about to disappear, sacrificed to the digital behemoth. News transform into visual phantasms and it is not possible anymore for employing categories of the real to discuss the characteristics of the virtual. Indeed, the virtual displacement happens in real time…

Our civilization is in danger to be ground into digital dust, and we will never get back to the point where we once started from.

Rusnoto Susanto gives us images and symbols to think about - the relationship between art, artificiality, reality and illusion. He often mentions the “world of Maya” – the world of illusion or the “dream of reality” in Hinduism. As a manifestation it represents a floating reality, but not the final “Truth”. His colorful depictions have nevertheless an optimistic perspective, on one hand reminding us of the changing conditions in our lives – maybe real or not -, on the other hand he enforces the role of art as a critical instrument of perception by sharpening our minds and leading our attention to the important issues in the world – even if it is a “world o Maya”, we cannot ignore its effects in “reality”.

For another look at reality just a poem:

THE RAIN

Now and again a fairy arrives and hangs from my earlobe — a bit like a horsefly but with a soft voice. (What are you doing right now?) I’m looking at the rainy street. I deliberately keep the TV on and it keeps on televising into emptiness. I like that sort of thing. (And what are you doing?) I’m just watching the rain. When you try making out each single drop of rain, you get exhausted. A factory beyond the rain … and what’s that beyond the jetty? Driftwood? A man? I can’t tell. It’s best to take in the whole sweep of the rain while more or less looking at these individual objects. That’s what it is — the rain. (Sounds so difficult.) Anything which is ‘casual’ is difficult, though a horsefly may not understand that. (I’m a fairy! Though I’m worth just a single drop of your rain.)

1993, Yukio Tsuji From: Kakoh Chohboh Publisher: Shoshi Yamada, Tokyo, 1993

Notes:

Csicsery-Ronay, Jr, Istvan.

Antimancer: Cybernetics and Art in Gibson’s Count Zero

Science Fiction Studies #65 = Volume 22, Part 1 = March 1995

Gibson,William:

Neuromancer

1984

New York: Ace Books

Nunn, Samuel

2/7/2001

www.ctheory.net/articles

Designing the Solipsistic City: Themes of Urban Planning and Control in The Matrix, Dark City, and The Truman Show

Nicolai Ourossoff

Future Vision Banished to the Past

New York Times

July 6, 2009

Virilio, Paul interviewed in Paris by Luisa Futoransky, by the occasion of the release of his new book, The Informational Bomb

Interviewing Paul Virilio

AjoBlanco magazine - February of 1999

Žižek, Slavoj:

Multiculturalism or the cultural logic of multinational capitalism?

2009

www.libcom.org

Anton Larenz, Writer