msdm: mobile strategies of display & mediation

‘anxiety of contamination’-a catalogue for genetic researchers, art lovers and the general public, printed in an edition of 100 for the installation at the sum gallery, the living art museum,reykjavik: A4 catalogue wrapped in protective celophane, placed in a reading table, with cd player and headphones, accompanied by cd ‘genetic silence’

In June 2001 msdm participated in Polyphony an exhibition about sound art that happened in the Living Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland. After exploring the identity of Iceland through several media sources, from internet sites to governmental documents, msdm interpreted the invitation to work within context of the Living Art Museum as an opportunity to reflect upon the topic of genetic silence/noise, threading inconspicuous links between biogenetics, digital media, modernist architecture and arts patronage, while keeping a foot grounded on the locality of Reykjavik and the well-acknowledged presence of genetic labs.

The media projects, arguably, a stereotypical image of contemporary Icelanders as people who love technology, whose (silent) genes have been made available to Reykjavik-based company deCode in a well-debated case of bio-informatics gone global. Hoffman-La Roche, the Swiss based pharmaceutical company is one of deCode partners (in the most profitable deal in the history of genetic research) and now owns access to the genetic database of the Icelandic population. It is, as well, one of the fiercest art patrons ever, who uses art and architecture to sustain its public image.

The appropriation of Jean Tinguely’s oeuvre by the company and its enclosure in a museum commissioned to architect Mario Botta is, in the words of an art critic, “an example of ideological collection,” questioning the relationship of art to biotechnologies to public discourse. It also raises the problem of the shifting meaning of the artwork due to changing circumstances, from its inception into its presentation within the frame of the museum. The Tinguely museum was criticised, for example, in simply formal terms for its attempt to cut out all views of the adjacent road, proposing an aseptic reading of Tinguely’s motorised vehicles, which entirely dissociated them from real life and from its original critical intentions.

Ironically, more is at stake than just artistic production being used as a clean / safe image for biocapitalism. The word ART itself has been patented by Molecular Bio-Products, Inc., another of deCode and Hoffman-La Roche’s partners in the biotechnology enterprise. ART is now a self-sealing barrier tipet tip for cpr and a registered trademark, protected by U.S. patent number 5,156,811. Will this have any repercussions to emerging art practices and discourses? While it might still be early for any predictions, what emerges is a generalised pattern of what Andreas Huyssen (1986) termed ‘an anxiety of contamination’ referring to an irreconcilable high/low opposition between the artwork and the realm of everyday life, which now paradoxically seems to bring together art and technology.

The space of the Living Art Museum presenting itself as an art space, where people can meet and chat as well as engage in a critical art discourse, proposes itself as open and flexible, and as an alternative practice to the corporate private museum. However, as any other museum or gallery, it inevitably confronts a set of questions related to the way the work of art is mediated and separated from daily life through institutional practice and discourse.

Encountering all these questions, msdm felt that a contribution to Polyphony should be seen as the start of the investigation, rather than a search for answers . msdm used the ART patent number throughout the project , replacing the word art in the Living Art Museum title with its patent number. Tinguely, the car and the road were the other anchor. To explore these ideas msdm set up a live link between Reykjavik and the museum. The van as a mobile platform moved throughout the city, in a tour with pre-determined route and stops at specific scheduled locations. Sound system, including decks, mixer and speakers and a live stream unit equipped the van and streamed the tour live to the museum.

The van was identifiable by its distinctive look. Self-adhesive plastic letters in a contrasting colour spelt out L I V I N G U.S. P A T E N T N U M B E R: 5, 1 5 6, 8 1 1 M U S E U M. The work was represented in the museum by text on the wall, posters, seating arrangements and a video projection of live action as it occured on the bus. A text including a citation from Tinguely about his attempt to connect art and life and question museum practices, was printed on the wall.

reference
Andreas Huyssen from ‘Introduction’, After The Great Divide, Modernism, Mass Culture, Post Modernism, Macmillan Press, 1986, pp.vii-x.