Review
DATABASE IMAGINARY
Runs until January 23
Walter Phillips Gallery (The Banff Centre)
In 1971, the microchip was invented and a future that could not be imagined was unleashed.
From computers that can process billions of pieces of information in microseconds to the World Wide Web, information-sharing is now without precedent in the history of human existence.
And standing back from this digitized Pandora’s Box are a few select writers, social critics, philosophers and artists. Interpreting the world as it passes by, and then re-introducing it at some later date to show us all that happened when we weren’t paying attention, is arguably the most vital task for an artist.
It is within this context that Database Imaginary is currently being presented at The Banff Centre’s Walter Phillips Gallery. Thirty-three artists have contributed 23 projects that were completed between 1971 and 2004. What they have provided is a roadmap to help us better navigate a world tied together by databases crammed full of the most intimate details of our lives.
Along the way, this exhibition provokes questions about privacy, protection, censorship and the meaning of all those bits and bytes coming together to present a kind of portrait that may or may not reflect reality.
The earliest and certainly one of the most important projects included in Database Imaginary is Visitors’ Profile by Hans Haacke. Created during the summer of 1971, it consists of questionnaires that were distributed and completed by visitors to the Milwaukee Art Centre. In a period of less than two months, 33,315 people visited the centre and 3,842 questionnaires were filled out. They answered such questions as "Do you sympathize with Women’s Lib?" and "Should the use of Marijuana be legalized, lightly or severely punished?"
Haacke then took the results and compiled them using a computer to create a statistical report to reflect the views of the respondents. Never has a questionnaire and its processed information been so fascinating. Not only does the way language is used in the questionnaire inform us about the time, but so too do the answers and the huge number of people that refused to participate.
Haacke is one of those artists who, by exploring the infancy of technology, has become a kind of historian. More than 30 years later, databases play an instrumental role in our society. As time goes by, Haacke’s art will take on even more importance in describing the historical underpinnings of the digital age.
Another substantial project is The File Room from the artist Antonio Muntadas, first exhibited in 1994 at the Randolph Street Gallery in Chicago. This version of the work is on a smaller scale than the one introduced 10 years ago, but is no less relevant.
The walls of the small room (within the gallery) are lined with 60 file cabinets. On a table is a monitor and keyboard which visitors can use to sift through thousands of incidents of reported censorship that have been collected on a database now hosted on the National Coalition Against Censorship server in New York City. It’s a powerful illustration of how the database can be used for good.
This is the kind of exhibition that should be mandatory viewing for anyone that cares about how information collected on databases is used and what it says about us. As the digital age continues, these artists will be the ones that showed us where it started and, perhaps, where it’s going. |
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