ALL SYMBIOSES ARE TEMPORARY RESONANCES 1

Process and (Tele)communication in the Work of Marisa González

Claudia Giannetti

"Constructing, reconstructing, rebuilding, substituting, recycling, deconstructing"
This was the motto of the action workshop "Fax Station" directed by Marisa González, which at the same time indicated the types of interventions planned by the artist for this event held in the Sala Rekalde in Bilbao as part of the exhibition BilboGraph ´95. In broad terms the project consisted of fax station with receiving/sending capabilities set up in the exhibition hall that received and sent the work of internal and external collaborators over a period of three days.
After an international call went out for contributions the external guests began to send their contributions which were worked on by the local working group. The result was then resent to the participant/sender and it was then included as part of the installation created starting with the images produced in the workshop. In this way the station served as a laboratory used to "infect" or "contaminate" the proposed works received and that way establish a dialogue between the sender and the receiver through the exchange of works. The pieces of work received from remote points, sent by participants from more than ten different countries, was transformed into raw material suitable to be worked on and recycled.
Through this process the corpus of works for the project was created which also served as a metaphor suggested by the title of the work: "Individual Body, Social Body. Infected Bodies, Contaminated Bodies". The process used to work with sent by an agent and carried out by the working group, allowed for the move from the idea of individual creation, unique, towards the concept of collective work, social. It was clear that at no time could you refer to "original works"; the very method of teletransmission in itself implied the loss of the original.
In this project Marisa manages to articulate three elements which are essential and recurring in her work. The first, one of the principal characteristics of her work, consists of developing different practices that imply the idea of process as a means of work: variation, serialization, intervention, movement, etc. The artist uses machines or technology to achieve the process of evolution and re-creation of the image through the metamorphosis of the sequence, and from which point on "the images generate new images and end up turning into something totally unrecognizable; new images are born for their own genesis, these new images are generated again and lead to a new metamorphosis and a new image until the cycle is completed"2. In the sense the work is always a work-in-progress or in the words of Fernando Pessoa, a copy without an original.
Her early and continued interest in processes is noted in an appreciable way in the Fax Art project. Definitely, the aim was not the producing of a final work but rather the work consisted of the process of development in itself. Closely linked to this process are the ideas of variation (time/movement) and of randomness, two more concepts essential to Marisa´s method of work. Her lengthy trajectory in experimenting with new means (starting in 1975 her early exhibitions displayed work done with different types of technologies) especially in the field of Electrography culminates in the introduction in Spain of Generative Systems developed by Sonia Sheridan at the Chicago Art Institute,of whom she was a student and a collaborator. From their creation in 1970 the Generative Systems are used to investigate the integration of analogic and digital tools and their use in generating images through their development in real time. This process leads to a "sequential movement, in which an image is the compilation of the whole series, the first needs the second, and this one the following one, and so on until the whole of each sequence is completed"3.
Another of Marisa´s generative series, "The Discharge" (1976) was based on photo portraits of female faces in black and white, which were photocopied and manipulated with a thermofax machine made it possible to control the light and achieve differing intensities. Experimentation with new techniques, time and rhythm related to the work process (the longitudinal sequence of more or less 30 meters of this work underscores this idea), and the unpredictability inherent in working with a device only partially controllable or in images captured in the act, these three factors -experiment, time/process, and chance- become the nucleus of the Marisa González´s creative activity.
In both the electrographic portraits of the 70´s and in the series of digital portraits done using the Lumena system -a system of capturing a videographic image involving the use of a digital graphic palette- used by Marisa starting in 19864, becomes a form of proceeding spontaneously which joins the capture of the gesture to the associative power of ideas. Marisa manages to transform what could be a simple "lateral effect" into the source of creation itself.
In the sequences of work done with the Lumena system -like that dedicated to Pedro Garhel, in which the artist carries out a micro-performance- Marisa is successful in detaining the temporality of movement. The dynamism of the action is joined to the dynamism of the capturing and manipulating of the digital image. This type of procedure is a result of her previous investigations into electrographic processes. "Looks in Time", the title of a series of electrographs from1993, is a good example of the way in which the artist incorporates the factors of time and movement into the work process through the use of the photocopier. In some cases the image appear to slide through space and create a visible path for the viewer.
From this point of view, the incorporation of telecommunication technology into her investigations can be considered as a logical step. Since 1990 Marisa González has participated in various international Fax Art events such as Art Reseaux, organized by a group of artists from the University of Paris in various locations from 1990 to 1992; People to People, a Fax Art event held in Prague (1990); and The Longing of the Electronic Media for Nature, held in Cologne (1992) among others. In 1993, Marisa organized the workshop-exhibition "Fax Station" held at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. The event consisted of the creation of a platform for the reception and transmission of proposals via fax, and of an exhibition of the work created during the time that the Fax Station operated. The fax machine hung 15 meters in the air continually spewed out the works received from all parts of the worlds, thereby underlining the idea of dynamism inherent in the action itself.
Despite the fact that Electrography -or as it is more commonly called Copy Art- and Telecopy Art or Fax Art (in the context of Telecommunication Art) make use of different machines, they share the same basic principle and can be considered analogous to the idea of network and to processing as a work method. In reality both technologies have a common origin and it is interesting to note that investigation involving long distance communication included from the beginning a concern for the making and sending of "Acopies". The first experiments with the telegraph in the middle of the 19th century (Samuel Morse) allowed for the sending of codified messages (Morse code, among others), but also of manuscripts or drawings made by hand. In 1843 Alexander Bain invented the scanner system called Automatic Copying Telegraph to send images, and which can be considered the first prototype of what would become the telefax of fascimile machine. In 1851 at the World Fair in London, the joining of a telecopier and the telegraph allowed Frederick Collier Bakewell to demonstrate to an amazed public that it was possible to send a manuscript long distance and receive it printed out exactly the same. P.I. Bakmatjew in 1885 developed telephotography joining for the first time two new techniques which revolutionized the system of human representation and communication: photography and telecommunication.
On one hand the frozen images of photography represent a suspension in time and the possibility of capturing and reproducing the moment, and on the other hand bodiless messages represent a suspension of physical space and a going beyond of the real body. As a result, the mechanical reproduction of images of reality and their long distance transmission is reflected in the creation of a new understanding of communication and appearance as immaterialized phenomena separate from our physical reality and therefore virtual or potential.
Copy Art and Fax Art explore these concepts which are inherently part of the appliance that they use. Both incorporate chance as an element essential to the act creation in that neither the photocopier nor the fax offer the artist complete control since there is an external factor (the machine or the transmission signal) in the process of creation or of transmission which could become a source of noise or interference. The original image disappears in the process of transformation either through the photocopier or through the transmission. In the specific case of Fax Art, a work only exists from the moment the transmission and reception process begins.
At the international level the first projects or artistic experiments carried out starting in the 50´s focused on the use of radio, television, and satellites as the means of investigation and expression of the new strategies for moving beyond the conventional limits of art. In Spain one of the first experiences in this sense was Cadaqués Canal Local (Cadaqués´ Local Channel) a project by Antoni Muntadas that used a regional television station to transmit a series of programs -interview and features- produced by the artist and his team of collaborators in the town of Cadaqués. It was 1974 and Spain had only one official television station. Thus, this community television project defied not only the artistic and telecommunicative world but also affected the social and political context. In presenting "his" programming in the town´s bars or in the Casino where the television set usually served as a socializing element, showed the artist´s interest -a concern typical of his generation- in establishing intercommunication between the viewer and the piece of art.
The interest in achieving a bidirectional, global, and long distance communication between the public, the artist, and his work is evidenced by various artistic projects developed principally beginning around the middle of the 70´s and in the 80´s. One of the better known was The World in 24 Hours created by Robert Adrian for the Festival Ars Electronica´82 in Linz. The objective of the project was to investigate the "electronic space" created by using low-tech means of telecommunication such as the fax, the telephone, or slow-scan-television, to send artistic materials from all parts of the world5. In this same line of investigation, the artists Michael Bildner, Mary Misner, Lisa Sellyeh, and Peter Sepp organized in June 1984, the action-exhibition pARTiciFAX which brought together contributions from Africa, America, Asia, Australia and various European countries. At the end of the 80´s a proliferation of Fax Art projects was experienced which in many cases were mixed in with the new electronic version of Mail Art that had begun to use telecommunications as a means of transmission.
In Spain, one of the first Fax Art projects was carried out by Rubén Tortosa. The exhibition Variaciones en Gris (Variations about Gris) presented in 1992 at the Centro Cultural de la Villa in Madrid included a Fax Art action-exhibition created by Tortosa whose theme focused on the work of Juan Gris. Tortosa invited eleven artists located in different continents (America, Japan, Europe) to send via fax an interpretation or variation of a painting by Gris. The works which were all sent at a given time were received by eleven fax machines hanging from the ceiling of the exhibition hall. The public was thus able to observe the reception/production in real time of the proposal from the different artists which feel in sheets from the machines
.Marisa González took part in this exhibit with a series of electrographic works in large format dedicated to Juan Gris. To produce them Marisa used a Canon A1 color ink jet photocopier whose system had just been launched on the market and from which comes the denomination Bubble Jet Art. In this series of works it is evident that the artist does not use a machine, be it a printer, be it a photocopier, only as a tool of reproduction, but that she also uses it as an instrument to create and produce a specific aesthetic that examines the potential of the system. In fact, the capacity to explore the technical resources of machines for the purpose of transcending the limits of the mere utilitarian function of the mechanical processes involved can be considered as another of the most influential characteristics of Marisa González´s work. This capacity is linked in both her electrographic or digital works and her telecommunication works to the systematic investigation of two forms of communication: communication between humans and machines (author-tool), and open communication system sender-receiver-tool (author/s-tool).
From the point of view of aesthetic reflection in Media Art, the posing of these two levels of communication can be viewed in effect as a primary element of inquiry. The understanding of communication as an artificial process based on models, tools, and instruments that manipulate symbols used as codes, implies that human communication is not a natural objective phenomenon, as is usually assumed from the point of view of the informational theory, but rather an intersubjective and reactive process. Communication understood as interaction implies a type of bidirectional transmission of information between living beings (or between humans and machines) in a specific context. This means that individuals cannot be contemplated independently of the means in which they interact.
Projects such as the Fax Stations in Madrid or Bilbao touch upon precisely this area of reflection. Marisa González is well aware of both the process of interaction that allows for communication, and the decorporalizaiton, the temporalization, the simultaneousness, and the virutalization, that telecommunication and digital technical resources imply. When the artist speaks to us through her works of "deconstructed bodies", "recycled bodies", "artificial construction", "reconstructing the territory", etc. she emphasizes the idea that devices or machines lead to the transformation of the notions of space, time, object and subject. Working in this new context and redefining these notions are constant concerns in her production.
Marisa has been able to recognize the need to reach, through the development of human-machine communication, a symbiosis or balanced association between art practices and technical resources by investigating not only their contact points but also those points which produce friction between them. That is why, although she is known above all for her contributions to Electrography, Marisa González´s work escapes definitions limited to technology. She has and continues to delve into -see her video productions or her latest CD-ROM production- all the possibilities that the new technologies offer, but always employing her unmistakable strategy to make fun of the "literal"use of these devices.
Her special contribution to contemporary art and particularly to electronic art, lies not only in her pioneering adventures in exploring certain technologies but above all in the fact that she has achieved a mutual resonance -understood as a synchronizing effect- between concept, process, and technology. In this complex meshing of gears, the communication between author and tool stands out as a "lubicrating" element; communication understood as the willingness to enter into each technology´s own language and extract unexpected dialogues and results. "Reinvent your ideas"6, states Marisa; create symbioses as temporary or process resonances, is what we suggest. This is the culminating point that provides unity to her extensive work. In this sense Marisa´s work is not very far from the comprehension of the life dynamics of nature according to Friedrich Cramer´s theory which states that "the resonance of its own cycles is the mechanism through which nature maintains its unity, its totality"7.

1. According to Friedrich Cramer´s theory. See by the author Der Zeitbaum Frankfurt am Main/Leipzig, Insel Verlag. 1996
2. Marisa González, "Generative Systems: electrography. The photocopier, creative instrument", in the catalogue, Electrographic Paintings. Madrid, Galería Aele, 1989, pp. 8-9
3. Marisa González, text from the catalogue of the exhibition Generative Systems, paintings,(mixed technique), montages,and video, Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes, Santander, May 1983, p. 6.
4. The system of Lumena video-computer with a digital palette was invented by John Dunn for visual artists whose goal was to join interactively and with versatility, painting, video, photography, and design. Marisa collaborated actively with Sonia Sheridan in the early presentations of this system in Europe which took place in the now historic exhibition "Electra" in the Modern Art Museum of Paris in 1984, and in the inauguration of Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid during the exhibition "Processes" in 1986 where Marisa presented her first work of art created using this digital system. The device, along with the inventor´s original software with series number 001, was given to Marisa in 1993 by Sonia Sheridan and John Dunn in recognition of her work and her continued support and diffusion of the Generative Systems.
5. At this time the technologies which the artists had at their disposal were especially limited. Although the first telematic network, ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) which linked four American universities was created in 1974, communication via computers was not very widespread. It was only beginning in 1989, with the creation of the Web system based on HTTP (Hypertext Transport Protocol), an Internet standard, that the use of Internet began to proliferate globally and publically.
6. Marisa González, "Identity Territories", in the catalogue Journey to Onil. Madrid, Galería Aele, Evelyn Botella, 1996, p. 7.
7. F. Cramer, op. cit., p. 238

Giannetti, Claudia: Specialist in Media Art, curator, writer, and theorist. Director of the Contemporary Culture Association L´Angelot, Barcelona, of the MECAD\Media Centre of Art and Design, of the university degree program "Electronic Art and Digital Design" at the School of Design ESDI, Sabadell, Barcelona.

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