(An)archive for/by Muntadas

Zsuzsanna Varhelyi

Five years ago, in Art in America, Eleanor Heartney called MuntadasU Between the Frames a retrospective attempt to reveal the invisible structures of the 80Us art world. MuntadasU new project, RMedia Architecture InstallationsS, also has a retrospective aspect, so far as it is based on various installations by the artist in the past twentysome years. In fact, one of the central concerns of the greater Anarchive project (that the new CD-Rom is a part of) is to challenge that ubiquitous concept in contemporary media art landscape, the archive. While many artists today reconfigure archival materials to create a new, artistic sense out of the traditional orders attached to that given set of materials (as for example at ICP's To the rescue), Anne-Marie Duguet, the director of the new project that is to create "Anarchives", calls to modify the traditional concept of archives by adding "an-archival" practices of precision and ifferentiation, rather than aiming at the impossible objective of complete accumulation. She calls "to overturn, to sidestep agreed conventions, to propose unexpected arrangements of other [...] figures."

We need to welcome warmly this new project for trying to provide a long overdue conceptual framework and form to represent the orpus of an artist's work. Yet, as part of our appreciation we need to take a critical look at this conceptual framework as well as the form it takes in the Media Architecture Installations. Most importantly, one has to note that an (An)archive and a media installation are radically heterogenous: the latter being live and unmediated (with an "aura"), while the (An)archive is torn between a desire to represent that very presence of the installation and the necessity to create an order among the included material.

This second, organizational aspect seems to be emphasized by the Introduction that defines Media Architecture Installations as an investigation into "contemporary social spaces through architecture and media archetypes". The 12 original works that form the basis of the lowest level of entry (the "Airport"), while given all the geographical detail of their individual format in various installations, are turned into mediated archetypes, and their original referentiality to the various uses of architecture and media becomes of secondary interest. One floor up, in the "Library" archives are defined as processes that establish a systematic repertory (while allowing open readings), and in fact, the CD-Rom establishes a tangled web of interrelations between the various projects. This, however, does not have so much to do with revealing the invisible political, social and financial interests behind the production and reproduction of common media images, which was Muntadas' original goal in the projects. To take an example, the point that Muntadas once made with the Board Room (namely that the icons of religious leaders from John Paul II to Billy Graham have no real referent) is now turned into a semiotically displaced metaphor for an archetypal place. The emphasis is now on the invisible artistic interests behind the production and reproduction of the original installations. The "Library" also provides a systematic vocabulary to explore Muntadas' work: "project" as an open process, "context" as an integral part of the work, "montage" as an integration of varied meanings and connotations, "medias" as the external landscape of manifestations, "archetypes" as the expositions of identity and memory, "archives" as processes towards a sytematic repertory, and "invisible" whose visualization is the inherent purpose of an artistic practice. Further subordinated levels order many (not just the 12 main) projects to these concepts.

The imbalance towards systematic collection (to the deficit of the original installations) in the "Airport" and "Library" gets somewhat levelled in the third floor called "Auditorium" (that appears to be still in progress). In what seems to me as a rather peculiar dichotomy between the intentions of Muntadas and the greater project under Anne-Marie Duguet, the director of Anarchive, this level includes information that Muntadas did not intend to make available to the public (particularly the plan drawings for the individual projects - as it became clear at his presentation of the CD-Rom at New School, New York). In this light, Duguet's words on precision and differentiation in the archive seem to represent the abandoned strand of archiving: the bind to the original installation process. From the point of view of the artist who is closely bound to (the presence of) his works, the creation of an (An)archive provides an opportunity to reveal the system of his (invisible) concepts, i.e. to create a "Library", -- but from the point of view of the rest of us, this seems primarily as an opportunity to preserve the origin, the presence of those works, i.e. we want to be present in the "Auditorium".

The original format of Media Architecture Installations, an Interom that combines a CD-Rom and an exit to the Internet strengthen the
expressed concern for allowing open readings. By disallowing the seeming contradiction between a traditional archive and the possibility of public entries into the system (or at least to the web-page), the Anarchive takes on here a truly postmodern sense of openness to the unexpected. On the top floor, in the "Observatory", the system opens up on the web-page of the Interom and "provides a place for discussing functions and values involved in hybrid public spaces today" (from the Introduction). Through adding their hybrid spaces to those of Muntadas, the public is offered a unique opportunity to be involved in the project. This is, however, a limited participation. While it is clear that 650 KB can seriously limit artistic freedom - and even more the available level of openness for the public participation, one has to note how much is fixed in Media Architecture Installations. The set levels, the limited information provided seem to discourage alternative readings (could I please be allowed to reorganize the installations and concepts around for example a New Left or a gender theory reading?). The technical possibility of allowing the public to click through the archive at their own preference cannot save the creators from the fatherly sin of insisting on the One, unique order (even if you call it hybrid). Particularly as far as the CD-Rom is concerned, we are left with an archive -- and with all the vices that archives represent.

To conclude, then, let me address the virtues of the Media Architecture Installations. Though mentioned here last, these are assets that few contemporary art projects have taken to such a great level: the excellent original concept of the Anarchives, the aesthetic and technical perfection of the CD-Rom, and the amazing experience of wandering through this most fascinating piece of virtual architecture. And this creates a most unexpected effect: as an imaginary space, the Interom ends up providing the viewer with a postmodern presence of its own, a metaphorical location that stands for creative innovation in contemporary art.

Notes:

1, "Reframing the Eighties", Art in America 82, 1994, 104-109.

2, Notas a la memoria de un informacion desconocida (Notes in memory of an unknown datum), Muntadas Proyectos. Exhibition Catalogue. Madrid 1998, 28-31 (English transl. 185-186).

3, See e.g. Muntadas in Flash Art 143, 1988, 116: "The artist's function and responsbility is to observe, reflect and comment on their time - in their life and in their work. [...] For example, there is a great challenge orchestrated by the mass media. [...] This so-called conceptual approach to making art entails taking into consideration the context of an imageUs production and reproduction. Emphasizing these techniques and strategies mekas visible the political, social, and financial interests that are located behind the images."

4, For the original exhibit, see R.C. Morgan, Art into Ideas. Essays on Conceptual Art (1996), 138-149. The Board Room is now listed, among many other locations, in the Archetypes/Metaphor section of the library, together with the Between the Frames: the Forum, File Room and Words: the Press Conference Room.

5, Much of my understanding of what archives are is based on Professor Jacques Derrida's Archive Fever (1995).