It could be argued that authenticity is about being genuine and original. Paradoxically, we live in a world in which the concept of authenticity is routinely reproduced, packaged, sold, and bought.
We live in a society that is also permeated with mass-produced images. The idea that only a one-of-a-kind image can be authentic holds little currency in our world. (Sturken and Cartwright 124)
This quote from Practices of Looking got me thinking about the concept of a “one-of-a-kind image” and what that might look like. Certainly the idea of the unique image as original—original photo, original painting, etc.—is difficult to imagine in our “digital” world (but this was always difficult to imagine).
However, where does flash art fit into this definition? Read this short article on Josh Davis in Wired Magazine. (You can check out some of his artwork at praystation—see esp. “synthetic sinewy . pr.Ay.BC” and any of the “grounding the background” links on the left-hand panel). Davis writes code in programs like Adobe (née Macromedia) Flash to create “generative art,” which, in using randomizing elements, can be always unique (within the boundaries of the program).
My questions: What is the art in this situation? The software? The code? The final “product”? In the Wired article, Davis comments that creating single prints of his work changes it from being “ever changing” by “eternalizing” it, and he wonders if this goes against what he is trying to do (he uses more colorful language). While it seems that Davis is fine with his works being “sold and bought” as Sturken and Cartwright note above, it is not easy for me to see how this kind of work fits into the mold of the mass-produced copy. Undoubtably it is mass-produced; a new “version” is created each time someone visits the websites listed here. However, there is no real “visual” original that is being copied: only code. Who is the artist in this situation? And, semi-finally (I hope you all have something to add), does this “one-of-a-kind” work—where there can be no real “copies”—count as truly “authentic”?
More links: once upon a forest and Gallery of Computation.
re authenticity
I guess I was curious about the quote on authenticity. I agree that it is a lot like a band like Phish, but even in their similarity, I think these Flash images have taken that sort of performative art to its technological extreme. (Maybe it would be like going to Phish's website and getting a personal, unique concert anytime you want? Which, because of the huge amount of recorded material Phish must have, and like the Short Cuts remix you mentioned, is probably possible in some limited way.)
But anyway, do these images count as authentic in Sturken and Cartwright’s definition above? It seems to me that you could make the argument that each image of this kind of artwork is authentic. Though you can still buy and sell these images—the Gallery of Computation sells prints—each is potentially unique. Where the challenge comes, I think, is that there is no real “genuine” image. These difficulties make me wonder if the definition is still a good one.
re: the authentic
Perhaps I am being overly dense, but I do not see Davis's work as categorically different than other kinds of performative art such as jam bands other than he has programmed part of it. The art is the mechanization; he has mechanized art to produce something beautiful, as you say, "within the boundaries of the program." It's not as random as putting up a picture frame looking out to the sky to see clouds move within the frame.
I can imagine writing a program that could randomize a film like Robert Altman's SHORT CUTS, which is a collection of stories with characters who sometimes have meaningful connections across stories and at other times meet by chance.
Likewise, I don't see the artist disappearing either even though the viewer has a more significant role. Phish and their successors would not exist without the audience, but the audience in turn validates Phish et al.