VADIM GUSHCHIN - ALEXEI ISAEV FASHION FOR VIRTUAL COLLECTIONS

There's no doubt that provider is one of the key figures forming characteristics of the new data space. That is quite clear since there're a technological ground and a body which shares a room with collective mind. Virtual expression and image are formed by provider, to a certain degree. To soften it's influence on human faith we publish here interview with Vadim Gushchin who, in a way, is that very demonic personality. As to me, I fancied his qualities of an expert as well as theoretical efficiency of his position which he frankly stated during our discourse.

A.I. According to Mikhail Donskoi, the Internet ground conception didn't contain the idea of racing html-pages, but of video and audio-files of great capacity and weight. Further he offers the theory of an anti-browser campaign - if your browser wrongly shows Internet options including the real-video, etc. you have to buy a new one. In the long run this is nothing but making you spend your money. And the Microsoft browser at the outset was not designed for operating with image and sound, it was made for exchange of textual data html-files.
V.G. The Internet is not necessarily the best example of marketing technology but quite an ordinary one. Buying a computer for home or office people do not purchase a computer which meets their needs. But all the same is with a bicycle, too. Nevertheless the statement that the Internet wasn't initially invented for various types of media seems to be rather doubtful from technological point of view. Not long ago we celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Unix operating system. The Internet had been developing for long according to Unix laws since this system was dominating and stays dominant for the Net. It didn't deal with content and media-type problems because this is not the point of the Net but the point of application. We've generated new media-types, but what's it got to do with the Net?
A.I. And Net administrators' preferences were always given to the Unix if compared with the Windows NT.
V.G. That's right. If an administrator is professional he chooses a more professional system. The NT was created to give opportunity to administrate a non-professional this being it's great advantage though a defect as well.
A.I. Our discourse on technologies is based on your work as a provider, isn't it? So, what is a provider today, on provider's account?
V.G. As it follows from the name, a provider has to offer a number of services. And the sort of services depends on time. Once a carriage factory always reforms into a car business concern. Though sometimes it happens vice versa. Say, people were producing a medicine and it turned out to be not a medicine at all but cosmetics or even chemical weapon. This happens. Today we can see an obvious opposition of commercial providers that offer a banal access to telecommunication.
A.I. Could you make a delimitation between a commercial and non-commercial provider?
V.G. We haven't yet surfed to this. In Estonia, for instance, the Internet is practically free. And there's a tendency that this service could be free.
A.I. Do you mean initially free? As a parallel, the cable TV occurs to me. Initially it was free and in some time it was standardized - search of sponsors, PR, etc. To put it rudely, they used enthusiasm for initial activity of information and entertainment channel, and then they step by step started to commercialize.
V.G. No, they initially were oriented on commerce, and now they have serious problems because they can't offer a quality content which costs much, demands much money their technology can't afford. This sector became tighter though it has perspectives connected with the Internet 2 technology 622 Mgb channels. Then using interactivity and delivery of ordered information they will have opportunity to revive. But now they suffer from recession caused by objective reasons. I'd compare the Net with the transport system of a megapolice. We can divide this system amongst transport companies, we can become shareholders, say, of the Moscow metro and make money on it. We can even raise transport fees. And this is one decision. Though there's another opinion. If we take money from the city budget to maintain the metro we'll get a positive effect in a shorter time. Mobility gives people more chances to find work.
A.I. You created the only one independent server presenting in particular marginal culture and art. What was your purpose?
V.G. I was just interested. In a sense, I collect projects. Though I noticed I didn't like to collect. In school times I used to collect records and had a good phonoteque but later I understood I didn't need it, for me it's enough to read, listen to or look through a thing once or twice. Afterwards I just don't need the stuff as it is. Though where's the way which I choose while reading one book after another, listening to records or visiting art galleries? The way itself might present even an art conception. Don't I realize this conception loading something on the server. As any publisher I realize my own tastes and do not make it a secret. Take the 'Ad Marginem' publishing house, in a way, they could also be called collectioners.
A.I. So, can you consider yourself part of intellectual collectioning culture typical for the 90s?
V.G. Only to a certain extend. In this part of my life I'm directed towards the process, not the result.
A.I. Let's pass to your concrete practice of a collectioner. There're many examples concerning art collectioning. There're about ten famous collectioners of Soviet and post-Soviet time (Nutovich, Talochkin, Costaki, Gleizer and others). These are large collections that were collected by geniuses of communication, not collectioning. It was a pure Soviet situation when no-one thought of sale. When the market appeared and the contemporary art became salable part of these collections was sold by the owners though they continue to collect and present their collections. There're no any analogies nevertheless such an activity meets understanding in contemporary art medium. It's a very delicate point, to collect contemporary art and contemporary culture. And it's quite clear that it is the taste that determines the content.
Marat Guelman is a rather schooled person, and that is easily observed from his Internet projects. He is a collectioner of new generation, collectioning is his business. Initially he successfully mastered the tactics. Anyway, up-to-date technology of existence imposes terminology, on the other hand, supposing a particular form of communication.
V.G. I believe, we can agree on terms. If we take providers offering access to the Internet with content-providers I'd compare the former with a ticket seller (parody to access) and the latter with a gallery curator. These two may communicate in absolutely different ways. We can imagine a place not containing an essential content though they try to get entrance fee from you. Or we can imagine worthy content which is provided free. We can also imagine crowds of users to a provider which is located in the central street and is free, and the system can economically survive due to advertisement screens on the walls or perhaps to sponsorship. This is quite possible in our modern world, even without a touch of politics, since technologies become cheaper. So why did I give you an example with the metro? It proved to be nothing wrong with the countries that have free Internet access. You can show the people into your gallery free, and they will spend money for refreshments and booklets. Or you can arrange it in a Swedish table manner. Both variants will work. And what's more, there's a tendency to increase the role on the content provider, in fact, to a team which curates a gallery, presents the conception and an event or a simulacrum.
A.I. Quite an extraordinary term for a provider. It doesn't belong to vocabulary of a professional provider or professional gallerist. It is related to art practice. Why do you use it?
V.G. It's looming somewhere in front.
A.I. In this case the term says, perhaps, much more than our theories and confessions. To articulate 'simulacrum' is to…
V.G. …to confess certain intentions. I'm ready to confess certain intentions that might even be seen pretentious. For example, next year I won't celebrate anniversary of the lenin.ru server on the 22nd of April (V.Lenin's birthday), I'll celebrate '40 days' (Russian tradition is to mark the 40th day of one's death). And that is a simulacrum. The day will be announced so the people will be coming in not knowing the right reason. As soon as data technologies reach average people the reality will change. For the moment we've already got the problem of data noise.
A.I. Data noise or data trash is the starting point of our festival and edition. The theory was constructed in the West, and the topic became a platitude there as it was shown in Guert Lovink's not quite politically correct comment in which he hinted that the West had settled the problem long ago. Regarding this topic, I'd like to ask you a 'politically incorrect' question, hoping that I'd hardly astonish you as my company welcoming any sort of discussion. So, if I go to information channels you model as a provider and collect as a collectioner, will I be able to satisfy my personal aesthetic needs? Or, do you generate large-scale gates admitting various data including random trash? As a user interested in your conception, could I find there topics that we've touched upon today? What's your content-provider's conception?
V.G. At first, I'd like to specify that I do not necessarily like everything what is on the site. The site must correspond more or less to the conception and my comprehension of degree of talent. My taste is not the main criterion. I might not like some things, and in this case I have to judge as an art expert and culturologist. And I try to make this framework broader for me. And the user comes across a new opinion in this medium. Why remu.ru? Because in the Prague linguistic school there's a term 'actual articulation'. The theme and the 'rema' are the 'data and new' within the framework of an expression, so we can divide any expression into data and new.
A.I. Another or new? What term do you prefer to use?
V.G. New as a term, not as a routine notion. That what becomes 'not new' for today is simply archived and becomes a basic issue for something else. Since the time gap is not big at all we still don't need to archive much. The principle is rather easy, that is to keep on at the front.
A.I. In European countries there're laboratories that have personal servers hosting various art projects on different levels. These could be both, art-projects, literary resources, multitopical projects. They have an expert council or a working group that determine conception and select projects. What's your strategy?
V.G. I'm on my own, and my friends, Net colleagues or academic scientists give their recommendations from time to time. And it seems to me that the archive direction is the most actual for the moment as it helps to serve everything, not to lose off-line original models.
A.I. I believe it's too early to talk of archivation of contemporary art on the Internet. It's necessary to create interest and precedent of contemporary art as such. And we still don't have it. We must not forget of the copyright problem, as well.
V.G. What is now meant as copyright doesn't work. The scheme hasn't been worked out, so the situation will change. It's obvious that the data-trash discussion in the West if not exhausted and they didn't solve the problem and will not solve it in the nearest future. The issue we're approaching is very actual. At the moment, when we can generate cheap publications available to everyone, the user is ready to pay rather for data silence than for data noise. To be more precise, he is ready to pay for useful signals. A classical example is a wireless set which receives in the manner of the 70s, the 'Freedom' and 'Mayak' on the same frequency. Value of such an information stream is equal to zero though the data is doubled. I wouldn't be surprised, I'd even assist those published on my server that would be within paid access, say in the Integrum.ru. When the number of writers becomes commensurable to that of readers I can imagine the situation when the writer pays for his own publication. Probably, data metabolism (data consumption is naturally followed by its processing) will be regarded a particular profitable activity. Copyright laws will accordingly be changed.
A.I. You've got your conception as an author, you're eager to give place to marginal and alternative art in your provider world not depending on the taste. This is your personal position. Could you tell how to choose a provider today (when there're proposals) for an art institution not engaged in politics and business?
V.G. Providers are aware of the situation and understand that it's necessary to generate the content. If there's somewhere a ready quality content the providers are not always interested to go into details, they look at it from a different point of view - whether the content has a target group. If providing a particular data is followed by forming of a target group in a place, such a group might be useful as buyer or ad consumer which you could later exchange for another consumer at the neighbour provider's. That's not expensive so the provider takes it all because his system disc is bigger, he has three system administrators, so let me have it, he decides thinking of his prestige, and later on we'll see how to cope with it. A wise decision since more and more people get access to the Internet, and the quantity of good resources evidently lags behind.
A.I. Could you give an advice to artists making on-line projects - what provider to choose taking into account not merely the practice problem but also ideological priorities of this or that server? Isn't it important to live in intellectual concord with the chosen provider? What do you think of it?
V.G. I think that depends on concrete persons running a provider company. Further the situation will change.
A.I. In Europe, they have structures uniting all functions (both, pragmatic level - space on the server; theoretical - research, new language formation; and artistic - practice and real events), here we have it all odd. In the West, they actively discuss new technology art, mass media, actual art media, actual culture media. On par with traditional culture, new technology appears which gives new opportunity for cultural representation, and sometimes the culture comes into confrontation with the technology. The artist may write manifests, go out naked, bark, bite the crowd, and on the other hand, he may do this showing out himself on TV, where he might virtually rape the public. In Russia, we've got this absolute intolerance and confrontation between traditional and media art. It's clear that in the West the culture has already assimilated to the new media space and uses it for (self)representation and (self)determination. But let us see what pluses and minuses are used for it's representation, and whether it is worth taking part in another show, another business we can't make money on. In the West, we've been watching the tendency of mutual interest of culture and new media. We don't have this it Russia.
V.G. And it's clear. Edward B. Taylor (1832-1917), a historian, gives definitions of archaic and barbarian culture. In the West, the culture is integrated into mode of life. We regard the culture as something external since our country is barbarian. Though barbarity is a natural mode for a human being (I borrowed this idea from the most boring book, 'Connan the Barbarian'). Here, the culture stands a bit separately that's why we can clearly observe the opposition between the art and the culture. While in the West they will surely use somehow an artist, here this scheme never works. According to our scheme, everything is separated - the mode of life, the culture and the art. In Russia, this triangle is locked from the other side - art and barbarity can peacefully get on together. Take Brener's creation as an example.
A.I. I know Alexander Brener for a long time, and as a curator I asked him to take part in the 'Video screen play' exhibition at the First Media Festival in Moscow (Petlura squat in Petrovsky boulevard). He quite sincerely and revolutionary gave himself up, and his revolutionarism was absolutely authentically addressed for the time. As an artist he takes the situation indivisibly - to shit in the Pushkin Museum or TV program where we came out during the festival, that makes no difference.
V.G. This happens because he excludes the third component - the culture, and comprehends it in the archaic sense.
A.I. And more than that, later he didn't start any of his actions before the TV men hadn't come. Both, Kulik and Brener attained much as media active artists. They very well understood that even the most 'untwisted' gallery with the arty people couldn't be taken in place of the mass media audience. Media performs as the third power. Moreover that the power in contemporary art was one of the components of internal struggle of individual and external medium, the power started to be identified with the mass media. So all their radical fuse was spent on performing and over-performing the screen play offered by the media. And it's all right. An artist is a reflecting link. The mass media is the consumer philosophy. The artist starts to perform struggling with this very philosophy, in situation with the Internet in particular. The projects presented at our festival were directly linked with this problem.
We can't regard the mass media and the Internet from the point of view of providers, portals, information. The mass media is the most adequate and absolute form for serving the consumer philosophy. What can we do especially for you, Mr.Consumer!!!
Thus, a new Philistine is being formed, that is the consumer of mass multimedia.