2011Social Media Art
BDR-tst
Social platform where user votes determined artistic output and physical reward. 2011.
A web platform built by Leroy Brothers in 2010. Registered users uploaded photographs and short texts, voted on each other's submissions, and determined through collective ranking which contributions became the basis for physical artworks. The top-ranked users were flown to exhibitions, accommodated, and credited as co-authors. The artists set the system parameters and withdrew from editorial control.
The platform ran the question the collective had been building toward since the MySpace portraits: can an artwork be produced without the intervention of the artist? BDR-tst was not a rhetorical question. It was a functioning test.
Exhibited: Art Beijing, 2011.
Critical Writing
The following text was written by Sári Stenczer, art historian, curator, and critic, on the occasion of the BDR-tst exhibition.
The platform launched in 2010; the Art Beijing exhibition took place in 2011.
The art collective Leroy Brothers has been in operation since 1997 and is more similar to a 21st century family business than a visual art group. They surf the technological and economic waves of the postmodern world and enthusiastically advocate the democratization of contemporary visual art on the 2.0 waters of the web. These Belgian brothers (...) think that today creativity is far from sufficient in becoming a successful artist; organization, a businesslike approach, and participation in social life are just as important. "You have to be present everywhere," they say. And since they are three, this is relatively easy to achieve for the Leroy Brothers.
Their artworks are perhaps best regarded as farces, which pillory the characteristic features of the art world, and which make use of the novel possibilities offered by globalization – such as the flow of information, easy travel and transport, cheap remote labour, online communication – both in terms of concept and the details of implementation. To them, art is the aestheticization of conceptualism, and is interesting more in its functionality. Thus, they reflect on – and seek to further develop – existing things, systems and technologies. (...)
For Leroy Brothers, changes in the present system of visual arts are unavoidable. In order to demonstrate the undeniable role of the internet in these changes, the brothers draw an interesting parallel with the world of music. "We are speaking of cardinal questions in both cases, as, from the time that music could be downloaded from the internet, music publishers have had no choice but to fully rethink their operations, with special regard to the issue of how they react to changes in distribution habits. Those who have failed to abide by these changes now have diminished sales or have gone bankrupt. In parallel with this, today's art world, and especially galleries, should also find new solutions in order to keep pace with the new ways of distribution. In all cases, the gallery system acts as the mediator. As we know, one of the golden rules of business is to eliminate the intermediaries as quickly as possible. Thus, what we have at the moment is a rather risky and interesting situation, whereby, in our opinion, galleries need to redefine their positions within the system."
BDR-tist (be the artist), the Leroy Brothers' ongoing internet project that started in 2010, was created in an effort to poke and prod at the above-mentioned problematic and to undermine the cult of artwork creation. It, in essence, utilises the representational and community features of the internet, but with results in physical space, as embodied in the art object. The Leroy Brothers worked many long hours to produce a web platform where, after registration, anyone can upload photos and short messages, or can like or dislike the work of others. Their objective is to offer anyone the possibility not only to participate in their project with their own name and picture, but to also weigh in on the content of their artistic activities and exhibitions.
In their words: "We have built a system which helps us explore whether artworks can be created without intervention on part of the artist. Registered users are provided with a platform; they are our sources, they are the ones to determine our creativity." (...)
"We reuse everything over and over again – just as we do in everyday life. The questions of the internet and contemporary art are of significance for us. For instance, if a submission becomes part of our system, then to whom does it belong?"
Make no mistake: the finished artworks clearly indicate the names of those who authored the images and texts that were used. The question of appropriation, nevertheless, remains problematic, as the exhibitions open under the name of the brothers. In other words, once again, we are faced with ever present issue of copyrights. And from there, we are instantly directed to the questions of information flow and free usage, as well as the closed nature of an elitist system of art. Someone has thrown sand in the gears again. Complete strangers become conversation partners and a single work of art is made from a number of unique images and thoughts – which, on top of that, will become part of represented contemporary art.
All this stands on the important pillars of collective intelligence (as it is often referred to by the brothers), a democratic voting system, and the software program that turns the results into finalised images. The thematic at work here, which engages questions associated with the digitalization of culture (and which has also been discussed in detail by Lev Manovich), is an excellent study on, firstly, the possible directions in which the new cultural logic of working in this computerised world can be continued, and, secondly, the ways in which the new compositional and aesthetic systems provided by computers can be applied in the fields of new media.
Their artworks are perhaps best regarded as farces, which pillory the characteristic features of the art world, and which make use of the novel possibilities offered by globalization – such as the flow of information, easy travel and transport, cheap remote labour, online communication – both in terms of concept and the details of implementation. To them, art is the aestheticization of conceptualism, and is interesting more in its functionality. Thus, they reflect on – and seek to further develop – existing things, systems and technologies. (...)
For Leroy Brothers, changes in the present system of visual arts are unavoidable. In order to demonstrate the undeniable role of the internet in these changes, the brothers draw an interesting parallel with the world of music. "We are speaking of cardinal questions in both cases, as, from the time that music could be downloaded from the internet, music publishers have had no choice but to fully rethink their operations, with special regard to the issue of how they react to changes in distribution habits. Those who have failed to abide by these changes now have diminished sales or have gone bankrupt. In parallel with this, today's art world, and especially galleries, should also find new solutions in order to keep pace with the new ways of distribution. In all cases, the gallery system acts as the mediator. As we know, one of the golden rules of business is to eliminate the intermediaries as quickly as possible. Thus, what we have at the moment is a rather risky and interesting situation, whereby, in our opinion, galleries need to redefine their positions within the system."
BDR-tist (be the artist), the Leroy Brothers' ongoing internet project that started in 2010, was created in an effort to poke and prod at the above-mentioned problematic and to undermine the cult of artwork creation. It, in essence, utilises the representational and community features of the internet, but with results in physical space, as embodied in the art object. The Leroy Brothers worked many long hours to produce a web platform where, after registration, anyone can upload photos and short messages, or can like or dislike the work of others. Their objective is to offer anyone the possibility not only to participate in their project with their own name and picture, but to also weigh in on the content of their artistic activities and exhibitions.
In their words: "We have built a system which helps us explore whether artworks can be created without intervention on part of the artist. Registered users are provided with a platform; they are our sources, they are the ones to determine our creativity." (...)
"We reuse everything over and over again – just as we do in everyday life. The questions of the internet and contemporary art are of significance for us. For instance, if a submission becomes part of our system, then to whom does it belong?"
Make no mistake: the finished artworks clearly indicate the names of those who authored the images and texts that were used. The question of appropriation, nevertheless, remains problematic, as the exhibitions open under the name of the brothers. In other words, once again, we are faced with ever present issue of copyrights. And from there, we are instantly directed to the questions of information flow and free usage, as well as the closed nature of an elitist system of art. Someone has thrown sand in the gears again. Complete strangers become conversation partners and a single work of art is made from a number of unique images and thoughts – which, on top of that, will become part of represented contemporary art.
All this stands on the important pillars of collective intelligence (as it is often referred to by the brothers), a democratic voting system, and the software program that turns the results into finalised images. The thematic at work here, which engages questions associated with the digitalization of culture (and which has also been discussed in detail by Lev Manovich), is an excellent study on, firstly, the possible directions in which the new cultural logic of working in this computerised world can be continued, and, secondly, the ways in which the new compositional and aesthetic systems provided by computers can be applied in the fields of new media.