WITH THE NAKED EYE-Interview with Rob Myers

1.The highly developed products of software, net. or web art require a tran=
sparent (free) infrastructure and free access to source (code). Your work i=
s connected with Creative Commons, Free Software, Free Culture.

Yes. I was using other people's work in my own from when I first started se=
riously making art. When I was at college I asked other people If I could p=
hotograph their work to scan in to the computer, and I took photographs at =
galleries (when you were still allowed to do that in London!). And when I d=
id programming later we were given lots of code and we all looked at each o=
thers code.

Free Software/Free Culture is a way of reclaiming that way of working, of p=
rotecting and extending it.

How do you feel as an Individual, (after your experience in the collective =
project SoDa),

SoDA was a group of people who'd been at college together taking what we'd =
learnt out into the worlds of business and art. In 1996 at the height of th=
e Internet boom those worlds seemed like they were very close, or that they=
could be.

I didn't like working on catalogues or websites with other people, with a c=
lient and a deadline.

about working in groups, institutions? Differences? Advantages? Difficultie=
s?

Possibly I'm just antisocial but I like the way that the Internet and 'copy=
left' licenses allow you to build on other people's work without having to =
have more than one ego in the room. I like being able to use what other peo=
ple have made, culture is my nature. I'd hate to work on a project like Art=
& Language's early Indices, they had such bad internal politics. I'd rathe=
r share and participate in a public culture than get caught up in the probl=
ems of a private project.

But perhaps that just comes from feeling such an outsider and feeling so sh=
y and awkward as a child.

"Net" art supposed the presence of many (virtual) people. You said that you=
r work's connected with other people's work. But you don't like "more than =
one ego in the room". What is the artist's ego in the epoch of new technolo=
gies?

I suppose the danger of the artist's ego now is what programmers call "not =
invented here syndrome", resisting 'standing on the shoulders of giants'. F=
or example people always want to write their own free/open license for thei=
r work, even though that's a bad idea. And people always want to write thei=
r programs from scratch, even though they could use other people's code. It=
's the same for making images.

The potential of the artist's ego is that individuals' sense of self will d=
rive them to distribute and seek out work globally, which with free licensi=
ng and peer to peer technology means more people can build on each other's =
work than ever before. Imagine a global chain of Picassos and Braques.

Less body, more idea?

In films and television the expression of someone's self is usually through=
their body, how it looks, how they move and the actions they take, rather =
than their words or ideas. This is romanticism. But it is not the case that=
removing the limits of the body removes the negative expression of the ani=
mal self. Without physical limits animal minds tend to engage in flamewars =
on mailing lists…

Could you explain what "ego" represents to you?

I suppose it's arrogance and self-interest, self-defeatingly so. The negati=
ve of the social self, the bit that gets in the way of art being made by tr=
ying to make art. Possibly I mean "id" rather than "ego", but I don't know =
that there's such a clean split, and common usage of "ego" is generally neg=
ative; egomaniac, egotism.

2. Once you mentioned "Photoshop fascism". Could you explain that?

I did??? was probably referring to the use of image processing software (su=
ch as PhotoShop) to make people look more like an impossible, Romantic idea=
l:


like this.

Fascism loves "perfect" bodies. Beautiful bodies are seductive, they can hi=
de ugly ideology. Technology allows most bodies to be made to look "perfect=
", ideal. It is anti-individualistic, it is certainly not democratic. The v=
isual trappings of fascism imposed through technology. Are the ideological =
trappings hiding behind the pretty visuals?

If we use new technology as a weapons (to rebuild ourselves and the whole w=
orld) does that mean that our (supposed) ethic changes the weapon-nature of=
new technology into something good-natured?

It depends how strong the technology and the user are. Or maybe how strong =
their aesthetics are? In Surgical Strike I think I assumed that the technol=
ogy, and the ideology it presupposed, was more powerful. I wouldn't be so d=
efeatist now. As William Gibson said, "the street finds its own uses for th=
ings".

If it does we have a paradox: weapons questionable by the definition…?

Certainly the weapons can be used to attack themselves. And perhaps with ge=
neral purpose machines (computers), the definition of what they are is what=
they are.

3. The aesthetic is kind of your "obsession".

Yes. It's an obsession because I feel I understand it so little but that it=
*must* be what art is about. I don't believe that a truly ugly art can be =
made, an art that is un-aesthetic but still conceptually interesting. All a=
rt "looks good" to someone if it is art.

I don't even know what 'aesthetic' means other than 'looks good'. But why d=
oes something look good? And what does that mean?

What about a "trash aesthetic" It looks like a rhetorical question, but cou=
ld "ugly" things become a branch of aesthetics that you could accept?

My work has always had low cultural or non-artistic inspiration. And I like=
uncool popular music, and films, and television. Including MTV. And I am a=
big fan of Jeff Koons.

I went to London last week, and I saw a work by the graffiti artist "Banksy=
" in a new gallery near Denmark Street. I've never liked pictures of Banksy=
's work, but the real thing was very fresh and funny. It's not that I'm a s=
nob, quite the opposite: I don't like the idea of bourgeois artists making =
authentic low culture inauthentic by appropriating it and doing it on canva=
s like 'proper' art.

I don't know about really embracing a "trash aesthetic". I'll need to think=
about that. I'd be worried about producing an "urban pastoral" (Julian Sta=
llabrass). I'd rather not use low culture as a ventriloquist's dummy for my=
morality or my aesthetic. But maybe it could be liberating.

Aesthetic, ideology and technology in your work?

Every person has an aesthetic, every company or politician or religion does=
. I suppose that 'aesthetic' here means 'style', but 'style' that links to =
ideology. And I also feel there's a deeper sense of 'aesthetic', one that t=
ells us how all these little aesthetics work. Like Chomsky Grammars. Aesthe=
tics is to art as linguistics is to language. Maybe.

Ideologies are aesthetic, they are choices are about how things should look=
. Philosophy is actually a branch of aesthetics, and ideologies are degenra=
te philosophies. ;-)

And technologies are the products of ideologies. In a way they are physical=
ideologies, they are rules about what you can and cannot do. And technolog=
y is aesthetic, very aesthetic, it has to be made to 'look good' to the peo=
ple who use it, not just visually but in its effects, what it does.

The best example of this connection is Surgical Strike, that was about, how=
the history of a technology (computing) that has come from a particular id=
eology (American militarism) may affect attempts to make an aesthetic (comp=
uter art). But 1968 and 1969 are about that as well, and Psychetecture was =
about how architecture serves capital by affecting your perceptions.

4. "Remixing"?

Not all of my work is literally remixing. That's more an early theme I've r=
ecently returned to. It's a theme I'm very glad to return to.

The series that are most obviously remix based are my early Mixes and sampl=
ing based work, Surgical Strike, 1968 and 1969, and Canto.

But my work always uses the ideas and imagery of others. Psychetecture was =
based on the calligrams of Ahmed Mustafah, Titled uses colour diagrams from=
famous twentieth century artists and I've mentioned the designers that inf=
luenced me. The only work I've made that wasn't directly influenced by anyo=
ne else is San Jose, which I regard as my weakest work.

But your works are formally ("they look like") Neo-Modern, Post- Hard-Edge.=
Does that style have a quality of expression that is lacking in more recen=
t work?

When I got to art school there was a Macintosh there for the design student=
s to use. But none of the artists were using it, so I had to look to design=
ers to see how it could be used. The look of much of my work therefore come=
s from British graphic design in the early 1990s, especially design by the =
design groups 'Designers Republic' and 'Me Company'. The look of their work=
was in many ways a result of the availability of the Macintosh and program=
s like Illustrator or Freehand. The Macintosh was the lithographic stone of=
the 1980s/1990s. Think of Toulouse-Lautrec a hundred years earlier.

I have no problem with the idea that my art has been so heavily influenced,=
even determined, by technology. There's more to Lautrec than lithography a=
nd toothbrushes, there's more to the Impressionists than paint in tubes and=
state-sponsored colour theory, there was more to the Renaissance than plas=
ter, perspective and archeology. There's always technology, and there's alw=
ays more than technology.

I believe that much of the traditional role of art has passed into graphic =
design anyway. But some of its content remains left behind. Certainly its m=
ost important content. And that content is not caught by conceptual art, pe=
rformances, or other attempts at making an "expanded image". Not in the way=
I personally wish to catch it. So I have to make images rather than any ne=
wer form of expression.I feel very awkward doing so.

5. Art & Language are your favorite artists. Your latest works are inspired=
by Matisse. Could you explain that?

It was an accident. :-)

Art & Language are interested in the canonical works of Modernism, which me=
ans they have based paintings on work by Picasso, Pollock, Rothko and other=
s. They use these works to analyse their social content through their form.=
So I'd love to be able to say that I read up on Matisse's work then decide=
d to make work that uses the social content of his work to make a serious p=
oint.

What really happened is that I found an image on the Remix Reading website,=
I liked some of the shapes in it, and I wanted to make work that was a rem=
ix. So I used those shapes, without thinking very much about what they mean=
t, just enjoying working hard on the compositions. I think my subconscious =
remembered the Matisse prints that I sit next to in McDonalds with my child=
ren when we go for hamburgers sometimes(!), and that is what guided me.

But I am open to accident and humour (and embarrassment) in my work, so onc=
e I realised that the first work (Canto For Evie) looked like Mattise, I de=
cided to make more work from the same source material. And I had to re-eval=
uate Mattisse, who I didn't like before. I'm now doing some paper cut-outs.

There is a quality my work often has where I don't know if I am being very,=
very serious or very, very silly. I think that quality is present in my be=
st work, and I think it means that the work is doing something that can't b=
e fully described in words. Which is one reason Art & Language give for mak=
ing art rather than doing anything else; if it says something that you can'=
t describe any other way.

6. Connection between theory and praxis? In computer generated art the arti=
st must know so many thing. Isn't that a paradox in a time of narrow specia=
lization?

But art is made for the ruling classes, and the ruling classes are now mana=
gers. Even the politicians are managers. Managers are not specialists, they=
have only general, conceptual skills. And so these are the skills we see a=
rtists using to make art now, to reflect the ego of the manager.

Therefore for an artist to learn a practical skill, like programming, well =
enough to practice it themself is the real paradox. Even although they do s=
o alongside learning about many other things, such as aesthetics, or drawin=
g, or art history. Specific ability in any area, rather than just general, =
conceptual, managerial ability is the paradox.

The Modernist artist was not a modern subject: even when they tried to be b=
oring or ordinary they made this interesting and it took a heroic effort on=
their part to do so.

Your last comment invokes an essential, romantic vision of the artist. Trag=
ic and impractical for contemporary aims. But your activity seems to us lik=
e something quite far from that. How do you live with this opposition?

Hacking is technological Romanticism. I am an art hacker (in the sense of a=
good programmer rather than a computer criminal).

My work is Romantic; emotion projected onto the environment. It's also trag=
ic, it's melancholic and it's dispossessed. But it is a romanticism that fi=
nds its excesses funny, like the best Goths do.

A perky Romanticism. My Smileys are the art Munch would have made if he'd h=
ad access to a Macintosh and a presciption for Prozac. :-)