Flippo Minelli “Flickr” (2007); Phnom Penh, CambodiaIt’s beyond arguing, for most of us, that technologies now exert an unprecedented control over our lives. Google Maps tells us where we are, Record Future where we will be and Facebook who our friends are.
In recent years the Italian artist Filippo Minelli has produced land art that consists of writing the names of social networks and corporations on the walls of slums in developing countries. Minelli has stated that the aim of the project (which is called “Contradictions”) is “to point out the gap between the reality we still live in and the ephemeral world of technologies.” But there seems to be more at stake philosophically, given the different political and linguistic meanings these words acquire in their new contexts.
Flippo Minelli “MySpace” (2007); Phnom Penh, CambodiaMinelli’s works are presented as photo essays beyond the borders of the West that suggest not only interpretation but intervention. They are, in effect, calls to overcome the status quo, the state of political and social disengagement and apathy that these technological networks have created. (Minelli says that he works in collaboration with residents of a location if the places are not abandoned, or has people who know the area and take him to a location.)
“The lack of emergency,” as Heidegger explained in the late ’30s, “is the greatest where self-certainty has become unsurpassable, where everything is held to be calculable and, above all, where it is decided, without a preceding question, who we are and what we are to do.”
Minelli, by traveling to the slums of Cambodia and painting “Second Life” on its walls, is indicating the contradiction between these two worlds (advanced technological capitalism and its social detritus) — and it is also disclosing the limits imposed by these social networks. These networks, and the Internet in general, are the culmination of Being’s (human existence) replacement with beings (objects) — with the global technological organization of the world.
Flippo Minelli “Second Life” (2007); Phnom Penh, CambodiaExistence is now not only defined topologically, but it is also predictable: the future can even be forecast through online data mining. In this condition, where knowledge and existence are framed beforehand by dominant social networks or programs, there is little space for human freedom.
Minelli’s photographs overcome these limits by creating a sort of cognitive disruption: seeing “YouTube” painted on the walls of a slum in Cambodia rather than in our own screens. But how does Minelli manage to involve us in this linguistic and political contradiction?
Flippo Minelli “YouTube” (2007); Phnom Penh, CambodiaAs most readers of Jacques Derrida know, when he altered the French word (différence) by substituting an a for the e—“différance”— he was producing a graphic modification (“it is read, or it is written, but it cannot be heard”) in order to overcome the traditional metaphysical precedence of truth and presence over writing and difference. Minelli’s dissemination of these social networks is very similar to Derrida’s disordering of metaphysical truth because it forces us to encounter these words in a different context.
The Italian artist’s photographs are not points of arrival for our aesthetic contemplation but rather points of departure to change the world. The fact that Minelli has now extended his project to different words (“Control-Alt-Delete” and “Democracy”) on dangerous borders (Qualandyia Checkpoint) and in unstable nations (Mauritania) is an indication that his work is driven by hope of emancipation, that is, salvation.
Flippo Minelli “Facebook” (2008); Bamako, Mali
Paul ShindlerNew Hampshire
It's hard to see which person is more pretentious here, the artist or the writer of this piece. Both seem to put way more importance into this art than Is apparent to the casual observer. Travel the world painting crude renditions of social media logos in slum areas as an agent of social change? I think "colossal ego trip" might be a better title for both individuals here.
April 17, 2013 at 8:09 a.m.RECOMMENDED29
RichWashington, DC
Ironic advertising for corporations is still advertising for corporations. I hope, in the case of writing on somebody's building, that they were at least compensated for donating billboards. He and the corporations get their own benefits by being promoted in his art - on location and in his photographs. I imagine both are happy with that, probably unspoken, arrangement. To me, this art is lame, sort of exploitative, and, on top of that, clutters up the environment with advertising (ironic or not) for people who probably don't need or want it. When you travel in the developing world, or anywhere I guess, why not leave it better than you found it?
April 17, 2013 at 9:46 a.m.RECOMMENDED20
Henry BergsonNew York
We all know that 50% of the world population does not have
access to a telephone. To visit these places and tag their walls
with products they do not have access to is insulting and
insensitive. What is the point? To show them what they are
missing? Or to show us what they are missing?
Incredibly simplistic work and frankly stupid, unworthy of this
essay.
April 17, 2013 at 2:21 a.m.RECOMMENDED17
inframanpacific nw
I don't know which I found more fatuous, the intrusive photos or the obtuse essay. What is this meant to be, an ode to the final collapse of western culture? The whole exercise is a huge embarrassment.
April 17, 2013 at 1:27 a.m.RECOMMENDED16
SusanAbuja, Nigeria
I kind of like the photos, partly because of the element of surprise, and also because it references the reality I see in Nigeria and other low-income countries, of walls, rocks, telephone poles, sheet-metal fences being used to advertise all kinds of businesses.
But I think the analysis of the images and their import is a bit over-thought and over-wrought. Are the slums of Cambodia ever properly described as "the social detritus" of advanced technology & capitalism? It doesn't seem like a very respectful view of these neighborhoods, or a very deep view of the way technology/capitalism shape are world.
April 17, 2013 at 4:23 a.m.RECOMMENDED13
EpicdermisCentral Valley, CA
Ummmm....Can you spray paint "gimmick" on this article to emphasize the contrast between what is actually profound -- and what is labeled so by westerners desperate to occupy some kind of illusive moral high ground? The writer's charitable response is much deeper than the art in question, which strikes me as nothing more than tagging that has found a few over-intellectualized apologists.
April 17, 2013 at 11:21 a.m.RECOMMENDED12
Max CorniseNew york
If I were to describe the essence of this article in an illustration, I would draw male figures with their heads detached, in the shape of eggs, floating quite a distance away from their bodies. This was an entirely useless, elitist exercise, and the objectivism of Minelli's mission is annulled by its utterly impotent pseudo-ascetic parameters.
April 17, 2013 at 4:22 a.m.RECOMMENDED8
me not frugalCalifornia
This is too contrived to be art. I see it as insulting to the local residents, as well.
April 17, 2013 at 12:45 p.m.RECOMMENDED6
Olden AtwoodyWinehouse's Gap, UK
Art?
No, this is blatant exploitation of poverty-stricken peoples from the Third World in order to become "famous". Maybe, just MAYBE, he paid some unknowing local $5 to deface their homes and neighborhoods (particularly a natural rock formation in Mali???) and he'll have his giclée prints available in galleries for thou$and$.
This is neither creative nor notable as art.
Disgusting.
April 17, 2013 at 12:45 p.m.RECOMMENDED6
FipperLES, NYC
Does the Minelli take/clean off his "art" once the photos have been taken and posted? That would be really rude and rather presumptuous if he doesn't...
April 17, 2013 at 11:21 a.m.RECOMMENDED6
JLCNew York, NY
Minelli's project is reductive: instead of asking questions, it simply labels the viewers of his work as "haves" and the subjects "have-nots." Simply identifying an inequality without prompting any discussion of its solutions or if "solving" it would even be an improvement does not constitute "a departure point to change the world." Minelli comes across as missionary of the internet aspiring to 'enlighten the savages' by imposing first-world values on them. Either that or another pseudo-social-justice Postcolonial artist capitalizing on white guilt.
April 17, 2013 at 8:09 a.m.RECOMMENDED6
AndyVan Nuys, CANYT Pick
A few days ago, the NYT wrote about the first Earth Day in 1970 and how groups of individuals were motivated at the grass roots level to stand up for environmental awareness.
It then compared it to today, when merely clicking LIKE on a Facebook is considered social activism. "Like" if you are against global warming, toxic chemicals, oil drilling.
I think these photos help show the disconnect between the real human suffering of modern times and the artificial worlds which have come to overtake us in suffocating banality.
There is something in these photographs, but I think the obtuse language of this article works against what should be simple and evident: we are insensitive.
April 17, 2013 at 2:51 p.m.RECOMMENDED5
KenNew York
I saw graffiti painted on a wall next to the High Line awhile back. I could think up some social commentary to paste on to it, but at the end of the day, it was just graffiti.
April 17, 2013 at 11:21 a.m.RECOMMENDED5
Jimmianne, the spotted owlSilk Hope, NC
What I saw were words that describe where I spend a great deal of my time - presented in a context where they are all but meaningless.
and then I wondered - who are the poor? the people in those photos - or me?
In reply to Danny PApril 17, 2013 at 8:09 a.m.RECOMMENDED5
KevinChicago, IL
Yeah, this is awful stuff. The graffiti, the photos, the essay, the placement in the Times, the pretentious language. So incredibly condescending to the people who live where this stuff was done.
April 17, 2013 at 2:52 p.m.RECOMMENDED4
rnnew yorkNYT Pick
Professor Zabala's analysis is a little outdated. What was prescient and perhaps poignant in 2007 when Minelli took these photos has a different meaning today. The number of facebook users in Cambodia almost doubled in the past year, to 750,000. Bangkok, Thailand now boasts 8.6 million facebook users. And, though the U.S. is still facebook's most active country, projections are that India will become facebook's biggest market within a few years.
April 17, 2013 at 11:21 a.m.RECOMMENDED4
harvey osterhoudtpalenville, nyNYT Pick
for reasons unclear this article and the comments reminded me of something that was recently pointed out to me: the "third world" was not given it's name by the people that live there.
April 17, 2013 at 2:51 p.m.RECOMMENDED4
OlgaNY
What you write reads like a counterargument for your own position:
"Even in 2007 - nobody was on MySpace anymore - the artist betrays his own ignorance"
- myspace has 25 million users today (facebook 1.6 billion active users, flickr 87 million users - 8 billion photos - , secondlife 1 million, youtube 1 billion users).
-of course the point is precisely that despite the large numbers, most of the world - the marginalized world- does not exist within these virtual communities, even as they are directly affected by their existence, use, industry that supports it.
Nobody with a brain and free will is defined by the social networks that they belong to - but the artist makes us play the voyeur and laugh at everyone else who actually is defined by it - cheap and predictable effort - belongs in a second rate correspondence art college.
- yet you yourself reinforce the use of this standard by simply negating it and using it to put down the ones supposedly chained at the bottom of the cave by social network
- your opinion, which presumably reflects part of your identity and reveals some of your cultural practices, is being expressed on a blog in a newspaper with a national and international readership
- the author's interpretation never speaks of free will, or brains
Your Heidegger does not contradict the author's point. If anything, it is better. Of course, quotes never speak for themselves if used in an argument; interpretation is required.
Cheers.
In reply to SteveRRApril 17, 2013 at 9:12 a.m.RECOMMENDED4
HenryBoston
So if some poor communities collaborate with a social media artist to create non-violent ways to tell the world they are in pain, and succeed by being featured in the NYT, perhaps we should help, not criticize the art critic.
April 17, 2013 at 11:21 a.m.RECOMMENDED4
paznyc
The art and essay were both great. And judging by the comments, sorely needed. But apparently neither the artist's nor the professor's message was grossly obvious enough for a modern audience in the U.S. to appreciate.
So here in poem form,
Virtual words from a virtual world of bold bright bubble letters
really painted on real jagged faced rocks corrugated tin or walls crumbling
a dim light in a dim world dazes laborers dazzled stuck and blind in their fetters
readers miss the sharper criticisms, misplace their grumbling.
the artist points not alone to what of luxury they miss far from corporate centers
but what we miss, floating here far from their bare subsistence,
we alone who know how what ctl-alt-del gets him who enters.
at us the artist aims his medium: meaning exits deprived existence
there is no floating but only sinking above,
thinking dies when stripped of...
for the ground of life is-
love.
Thanks to the author for the continental thoughts.
April 17, 2013 at 8:15 a.m.RECOMMENDED4
JPSeattle, WA
I would advise not doing this in Singapore... Apart from this suggestion...I have no reaction at all to this work.
April 17, 2013 at 8:09 a.m.RECOMMENDED4
RichardCamarillo, California
You don't get it because there's nothing to get. And you're not the one who needs help. It is the quintessential exercise, perfected by the French but evidently with new acolytes in Spain, of pseudo-intellectual posturing masquerading as deep thought. Do you want genuine confrontation with the most important questions about meaning and reality? Read a physics paper.
In reply to Danny PApril 17, 2013 at 8:09 a.m.RECOMMENDED4
Kenneth OlsonHouston, Texas
I did not find the language of the column obtuse; I found it perfectly understandable. Perhaps there is a problem with a general audience and the lack of education in aesthetic analysis, criticism, art history, etc.
In reply to AndyApril 17, 2013 at 4:34 p.m.RECOMMENDED3
Kenneth OlsonHouston, Texas
But the people who live where this stuff was done apparently wanted it done and cooperated in it being done. Who is being condescending to whom?
In reply to KevinApril 17, 2013 at 4:34 p.m.RECOMMENDED3
DanielBrooklyn
Lots of frustrated "artists" here are missing the simple but far reaching point. We have work here that offers something to the people in the pictures and to the viewer of the photos, different audiences with different needs. This art is not instantly commodified and kidnapped by our ruling class. Painters that mean well, but really just hope for an overpriced sale of their work and a gallery opening are part of the problem. Your complaints are sad and predictable.
April 17, 2013 at 8:44 a.m.RECOMMENDED3
Paul ShindlerNew Hampshire
Kindly forgive us "dummies" for not grasping the deep truth which is so obvious to the lucky you. Let me attempt to communicate poetically back to you -
I spent tens of thousands
traveling the world
leaving color on surfaces
to help the poor
In reply to pazApril 17, 2013 at 1:51 p.m.RECOMMENDED3
SteveRRCA
Even in 2007 - nobody was on MySpace anymore - the artist betrays his own ignorance.
Nobody with a brain and free will is defined by the social networks that they belong to - but the artist makes us play the voyeur and laugh at everyone else who actually is defined by it - cheap and predictable effort - belongs in a second rate correspondence art college.
The essay author needs to read a little bit more Heidegger and a little less postmodern slush...
"Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it. But we are delivered over to it in the worst possible way when we regard it as something neutral; for this conception of it, to which today we particularly like to do homage, makes us utterly blind to the essence of technology. " Heidegger
April 17, 2013 at 8:35 a.m.RECOMMENDED3
Daniel12Wash. D.C.
The truth of the matter concerning technology over human history is that at first it betters human life (take the concept of "house" or "car" or "modern medicine"). But gradually it comes to be seen that a person is increasingly hemmed in on all sides and has his existence decided for him more and more...For all freedom by technology and modern democracy a child growing up has clear routes laid out for him which are difficult to deviate from unless he possesses superior intelligence, talent and ability.
Take a person of modest talent today. Such a person lacks the ability to create a job and instead must look for a position. If no position, no real other freedom...With the increase of technology people have a base freedom of food, entertainment, etc. and nothing more. Only the gifted of mind can get above technology--technology is free for them...
What this of course means is a catastrophe, psychologically, for not only third world societies but most first world people. Third world societies are perpetually in position of merely receiving if experiencing anything and few even in first world societies are in position of creating, really being free.
Quite simply technology as it becomes more complex demands increasingly complex humans or one is in a system which sums one up instantly as "mediocre" and shunts one into this position or that. There is no ethical way to disrupt the system--only a search for an ethical way to perpetually create humans "above" technology.
April 17, 2013 at 9:18 p.m.RECOMMENDED2
Kenneth OlsonHouston, Texas
Whether you read the words facebook or myspace or flickr on a computer screen or on the wall of a building that is falling apart, the words sound the same. However, they accrue different meanings because of their context. Putting them on the buildings, etc. is analogous to Derrida changing the letter 'e' to 'a' in order to (change, tweak etc.) the meaning of the word and bring thought to a different zone. Then, you are brought (paradoxically) to examine not just the surface, but its conditions of being.
It is easy to consider facebook and other social media to have one existence, one meaning, one function (whether singular or grouped, i.e. people could describe different uses for different people, but essentially see them as fulfilling the same type of social and cultural function), but clearly it is still important to ask: what are these social media? It can be said that the project examines these issues in a metaphysical context because it asks; what is there? and what is it like?
Perhaps one starts asking: does the meaning come from the context, or are there some facets of meaning essential to the examined concept that adhere despite context? Perhaps, if there are facets of meaning essential to the examined concept, those facets are surprising; they are not the ones that were expected.
In reply to Danny PApril 17, 2013 at 4:51 p.m.RECOMMENDED2
Kenneth OlsonHouston, Texas
Why do you assume the buildings, etc. are defaced? It is quite possible to return them to their original appearance.
Why do you assume the people have been exploited. Perhaps the artist's sentiments reflect their own.
In reply to Olden AtwoodyApril 17, 2013 at 4:34 p.m.RECOMMENDED2
DanielBrooklynNYT Pick
The most art can offer is an aesthetic experience, a bit of reconsideration, and maybe a new idea of possession. This work meets all of these criteria. It is limited? Sure, but maybe the locals, with this new information, or perhaps you mr. Shindler can make better art in the future. I'll bet on the locals.
In reply to DanielApril 17, 2013 at 2:52 p.m.RECOMMENDED2
RMarcAlbany NY
This is a colossal joke, right?
April 17, 2013 at 2:52 p.m.RECOMMENDED2
DiegoLos Angeles, CA
It's an interesting project. Attempting to be - and succeeding at being - confrontational. You could also paint "Gucci" on the walls and achieve a similar effect, though I know that's not specifically what Minelli is going for.
April 17, 2013 at 12:45 p.m.RECOMMENDED2
RobNYC
What, no Tumblr?
April 17, 2013 at 11:21 a.m.RECOMMENDED2
Hans Nepomuk in Los Angeles, CaLos Angeles, CA
A lesson in how to shakes things up with a camera? Not so many years ago an Italian with a camera made history with a camera by making a film called "Battle of Algieres". Is the camera mightier than the sword. Rilke wrote: "Du muss deinonychus Leben andern". You must change your life. What Senor Zabala seems to be saying is this is what truly successful artists and philosophers do. I heartily agree.
April 17, 2013 at 12:45 p.m.RECOMMENDED2
GBNY
Perhaps the analysis is overthought and obtuse, but the photos had a meaningful impact for me. There is definitely a new and growing rift between the haves and have-nots, and it is, as discussed profusely everywhere -- the access to technology. I have experienced this divide myself within my own family. Those without access not only do without modern conveniences but are also psychologically marginalized like anyone excluded from the clubs and hallways of power and privilege. It is a stark contrast well illuminated by these photos. Perhaps more of a photo essay than an art project, but they carry a message and agenda with genuine significance.
April 17, 2013 at 7:28 a.m.RECOMMENDED2
SusanAbuja, Nigeria
I kind of like the photos, partly because of the element of surprise, and also because it references the reality I see in Nigeria and other low-income countries, of walls, rocks, telephone poles, sheet-metal fences being used to advertise all kinds of businesses.
But I think the analysis of the images and their import is a bit over-thought and over-wrought. Are the slums of Cambodia ever properly described as "the social detritus" of advanced technology & capitalism? It doesn't seem like a very respectful view of these neighborhoods, or a very deep view of the way technology/capitalism shape are world.
April 17, 2013 at 4:22 a.m.RECOMMENDED2
SusanAbuja, Nigeria
I kind of like the photos, partly because of the element of surprise, and also because it references the reality I see in Nigeria and other low-income countries, of walls, rocks, telephone poles, sheet-metal fences being used to advertise all kinds of businesses.
But I think the analysis of the images and their import is a bit over-thought and over-wrought. Are the slums of Cambodia ever properly described as "the social detritus" of advanced technology & capitalism? It doesn't seem like a very respectful view of these neighborhoods, or a very deep view of the way technology/capitalism shape are world.
April
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