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Conversations: Daniel Jacoby, Juan Lesta, Pilar Cruz and Daniel Gasol

Hangar. Barcelona, November the 3rd, 2009

D.G.: I would like to begin this little discussion with a question referring to the work you both do, which may revolve around a common theme: the idea of digital or digitizable data. For instance, Juan, with your project Codeco with DSK (Juan Lesta & Belén Montero) you’re proposing a return to analogue or to de-digitize something to transform its meaning, so that we can see the difference between what is digital and what we know as being real. A good example of this is the idea of embroidering desktop wallpaper in cross-stitch or making a paper backup. You, Daniel, collect data and develop the idea of being able to generate other data from data you’ve previously collected, which has a linear discourse, such as the work in which you gathered together the front pages of several newspapers and developed a kind of conglomeration of colours, where we could see different information, like colours that are more predominant on certain days of the week. Your working methods don’t have that much in common, but I do see a link there in terms of collecting established data that is understood as such, and generating a new discourse so as to obtain other readings, very often linked to new technology, be it in theory or in practice. Juan, what can you say about Daniel’s work in this regard, where he uses technology as a way of generating another discourse? Do you think we should analyse technology from outside or from some other domain, or use it to give some other idea on the ways in which we react to it?

P.C.: Or technology as a form.

 J.L.: I don’t think it’s incompatible, because we do have some pieces where we use technology, even if it’s low-tech, but they’re not opposite directions, nor are they exclusive, that doesn’t come into it ... In our case, with the Codeco project, we want to reflect on technological elements on the market that are taken for granted, or that are absurd, such as "digital loudspeakers”. You come to a point where digital is perceived as being good, people assume certain things about technology that are not true, the whole metaphor surrounding computer interfaces ... it’s so absurd, but it paved the way for the development of technology at a given time. Maybe not so much now, but it’s obviously much easier to understand a folder on the computer screen than a path typed with a terminal, which is much more abstract, and although the former is more real, no less of a metaphor. I think that when it comes to this aspect we don’t avoid using technology, certainly not when we’re in the real world, in this world the digital doesn’t exist, it’s still an entelechy, bringing the analogical idea to a medium, that’s what we play around with.

D.J.: In fact you said path and terminal were more abstract, but they are also symbols.

J.L.: Yes of course, they’re also metaphors, the problem with technology is that the digital is incorporeal, intangible, so you have to use a metaphor, an interface, and clearly the interface is filled with absurdities and little games, so the resulting metaphors are always very nice. We seek a simile in the real world. There are some strange things, such as the protocols for sending an email. If you analyse them, there is always a gentleman bringing a message as it was done ten centuries ago, because it is very difficult when technologies are developed, to detach yourself from the real world to create something that is 100% abstract.

D.G.: You said something about "detaching yourself from the real world."

J.L.: I work with the digital world, where things are not tangible, but ideas or concepts, you don’t need to be tied to a three-dimensional world of certain limitations, such as a computer screen, with its height and width limitations, although it doesn’t have to have these, we could move around an infinite desktop, couldn’t we? What I’m getting at is that real-world constraints are often carried over into the digital world because we use real-world understandable references. Although I think this is changing a lot. Now there are digital concepts which are truly digital, that have been able to detach themselves.

D.J.: Which concepts?

J.L.: Like, for example, pressing a button and all the windows are placed a certain way, in this case there is no simile in reality, as we don’t open all the windows in the house. There are little things that crop up from time to time.

D.G.: Perhaps your work deals with this a little bit, what do you think Daniel? Heading in this direction, that which is not other information that’s not ...

D.J.: Actually, referring to what you said at the beginning, that in my work technology is not that important, it’s true that I use technology in some of my work, to help me do what I do, and I also touch on technology in other work, but it’s not technology itself that interests me. I’m more interested in procedures, concepts that are taken for granted, systems we use for moving, the ways we function, how we interact with our environment ... obviously many of these things are related to technological issues because technology is everywhere nowadays, but I could also do otherwise, I’ve done a lot of work that has nothing to do with technology.

P.C.: I think that, and correct me if I'm wrong, you do have one thing in common: working on what is constructed, you’ve both mentioned systems.

J.L.: Yes, it’s true there are some things that are very similar like provoking thought on something we use habitually and trying to deal with it from another point of view.

P.C.: And especially how this idea is put together, for example, you were talking about the idea of an infinite desktop, or the metaphorization of systems that we’re currently developing.

D.J.: I think there’s the issue of questioning things we take for granted and we don’t ask why, that’s just the way they are and how we’ve always seen them, and even more so nowadays, with the current generation, when we talk about technology. We never step back to examine it.

J.L.: There is also an obvious question of marketing. Technology is increasingly technical, nowadays people are born into a world with computers, but no one explains how technology works, and the younger generation have come up against a brick wall, because they lack very basic concepts of technology. I've noticed that when giving classes over the last few years.

P.C.: You did a workshop with young children, isn’t that right? What kind of experience was it in terms of children not being aware of these concepts?

J.L.: It was interesting. They were young children and we tried to find a way of explaining to them what digital data was. They have a minimum amount of contact, with their father's computer. But it was very surprising that the children ended up understanding, when they saw the zeros and ones, that this was digital data. It was actually very short, only three days, but I think these children will, in the future, understand better what data is. Of course, at the moment, technology is not constructed so that you have to be familiar with it or understand it, but there comes a point where you have to have some idea of what’s going on.

D.J.: What you were saying about being familiar with technology, it’s also important to be aware of how much of it is technology and what technology is. Because while the younger generations will interact more with technological systems and there are systems or concepts that are not even considered technology, when in reality they are. This gives us a good idea of where this is all going.

J.L.: Yes, a little technological culture never hurts.

P.C.: That has to do with the way things develop, don’t you think? Where things are going.

J.L.: I see it all as a social and commercial issue. It’s in some people’s interest that certain things are not known because there is a lot of money behind technological world.

P.C.: On the other hand I also see a humorous side to Juan and Belén’s work, I showed it to my partner who found it hilarious. On the one hand there’s a sense of humour and on the other hand, I don’t know if I dare to say, a spirit of dissent. What do you think about this in your own work?

D.J.: There is some humour, a certain amount of irony ... and I think this is increasingly evident in my work. Before I was very dedicated to trying to be objective in everything to see what happened, but at the end of the day I was looking for irony. It’s getting nastier, increasingly acidic. For example, the work I’m planning to carry out here in Hangar during December. It involves weighing a certain amount of Toblerone bars on a very precise laboratory weighing-scales until I find the weight that is actually stated on the packaging, because in reality none of them have that weight, there’s always a margin of error, due to the differing amount of almonds they contain. All of this to find something almost exact. Those that don’t have the exact weight will be given away at the opening and the one with the exact weight will be exhibited as a work of art, as if it was of great value.

D.G.: Is that what your last work on your website is about? You have to name something big and something small and send an email ...

D.J.: Yes, it tries to determine an absolute value for a relative concept, how big and small it is. Big and small don’t exist, there is always something bigger and something smaller. It actually involves asking people to name things they consider to be big and small, for example, a flea is small or a house is big, and from the results calculate numerical values, an average of the smallest and largest, to try to determine a set value. Big, for example, is three hundred and forty-odd kilometres and small is two point thirty-four mm. And now that I come to think of it, speaking about technology and language, technology advertising plays with these words, using adjectives and qualifying things in an absurd manner.

J.L.: Also the idea of technology, which is distorted by advertising. Try convincing a youngster that a wheelbarrow is technology and he will argue with you. In reality technology is used when we paint a picture of pixels in oils. The word and the idea have been distorted, like the word "free."  Advertising and marketing has stripped words of their meaning and something else is understand. When you think about technology, you only imagine computers and the Internet.

D.J.: Advertising erodes their meaning.

J.L.: They make the words mean what they want them to mean. I get a lot of text messages from Movistar telling me to "sign up for free to ring from such and such a time until such and such a time for just three euros," it was my understanding that free meant zero, but now free means three euros.
 
D.G.: Yes but, don’t you think that the word has changed? Or do you think the original one was the right one?

J.L.: The word contains something positive and it is this idea that they appropriate and direct you towards. The word "free" is attractive, the same can be said for "technology", which is equated with progress, advancement, modernity, so they use the word for their own interest. They’re not interested in selling carts and tricycles for children, they want to sell, let’s say, electric motorbikes. That's "technology", whereas the tricycle isn’t considered to be technology, when in reality it is. The market is interested in emphasising that.

D.G.: It reminds me a bit of the word manipulation. I don’t mean this in an anarchist sense, but it reminds me a bit of one of Daniel’s works where he used the front pages of some newspapers. You carried out a colour field study for each day of the week. I remember one thing you said, that every Friday there was a colour that stood out from the others, you could find a certain type of information. Was there some subliminal manipulation going on?

D.J.: But I wasn’t referring to anything subliminal, the patterns did exist, but they were very technical patterns. For example, what happened on Fridays was that they were in equal proportion because there was an ad that appeared every Friday. It’s as simple as that.

D.G.: Not even when referring to the colour of the news?

D.J.: Yes, there was something there, some newspapers used a lot of red, for example. Others used more of a colour than an image, and you could see that they used a range of colours that in someway could be related to the newspaper’s political line.

D.G.: That's what I meant with relating a colour to something more progressive. For example, the other day I was listening to a discussion that was joking about why the newspaper La Razón is blue, because the PP logo is blue. There is another kind of more visual manipulation which sends a message in a more indirect way.

J.L.: I think this is something more subliminal, it’s marketing, just to suck some money out of the PP. I don’t think it’s that important. If you go back a bit you’ll see the PP has gone through a whole range of colours, I think there's enough deceit and nonsense surrounding the whole thing. The PP’s logo was orange eight years ago and now it’s blue, which is nearly a complementary colour. For example, in the PSOE the colour is red which really is more representative of the left.

P.C.: Have you ever worked on anything that was more overtly political? Has any of your work focused on a more political sphere?

J.L.: I took part in a video project that was based on many short films. We participated with a video that was anti Fraga, to force political change in Galicia, although after the Prestige support for the PP had dwindled. In Galicia, we go through a hopeful period every 16 years, so you have to make the most of it ... (laughs).

P.C.: Juan, I was thinking about one of your titles Por la libertad del disco duro (For the freedom of the hard disk).

J.L.: Yes they’re screwed up ... (laughs). It's a bit like what we were saying before, take things with grace and good humour, though that’s also a personal thing. I find it increasingly annoying going to an art gallery and seeing things that would drive you to commit hara-kiri. I think you can have a very serious message, that is profound and takes a stand, without having to shoot yourself. I’m a very critical person, and behind those unbearable videos, which have a real sixties’ vibe, there’s a slight sense of gratuitous insolence: I do something that nobody can stand but I am an artist.

D.G.: But this is being used quite freely in Barcelona, going for the quick laugh.

J.L.: I think both forms are used, going for the quick laugh and something that nobody understands, the lack of direct communication, with no message of any kind, but it’s on public display and nobody gets the point. I’d almost prefer to laugh out loud.

P.C.: But there are people who play with this, with the concept of lack of communication.

J.L.: I know that but it’s ridiculous, art is made for communicating. If you don’t want to communicate anything, why are you exhibiting?

D.G.: I'd like Daniel to tell us what he thinks of going for the quick laugh.

D.J.: As I said before, maybe my older work was going for the quick laugh. The quick laugh is apparent on the surface but now I'm thinking of going a bit further. If you’re able to transmit something when being direct, then you can transmit more complicated ideas by being by a little more complex or critical.

D.G.: I think it’s all a vicious circle, it’s a personal matter, but I do sometimes look at something in a relaxed way, because it's funny, and is not really saying anything profound.

J.L.: I don’t think you can generalize, there are gratuitous ways of doing things and that’s it. And once you’ve established that, you can see it as being either gratuitously nice or gratuitously dramatic. But I think that one of the conclusions you can reach is that comedy, unfortunately, does lose value by the very fact of being just that.

P.C.: But this happens in Spain and all over the place.

J.L.: Of course, in Spain we should take into account that this is a country of comedy.

P.C.: And of farce.

J.L.: Take it a bit more into account, that being funny detracts from its worth. You’re paid more for something heavy because you have to concentrate hard, it’s highbrow. Some work can be charming but there’s real work there. It seems that we have to be serious understand a work. Personally, I also believe that there is a great fear that things will be understood and that behind that lack of communication there is sometimes little or nothing to recount.

P.C.: Fear of communicating directly.

D.J.: I don’t know if that happens much in art. Let's see now, yes, I agree with that. It bores me to watch a heavy, hour-long video where you can’t understand a thing, I leave after 30 seconds. But also, in connection with being too direct, I don’t know if I agree with that. It might be like that in advertising. Yesterday I was looking at a magazine showing ads that had won awards at a festival and they were much better than some works of art, they were very clever. They weren’t billboards, they were urban interventions, they were lively, it was amazing, very creative. Art has to take the lead in all this, it has to take the risk of not being understood if it wants to make progress, it has to take chances.

J.L.: You have to go through a stage of experimentation to fail, but I believe that at the bottom of it there is an attempt at communication, trying to communicate something, the problem is when the intention becomes too direct. I think it was well done in the sixties, but your medium, or your purpose, whether it be not to communicate with video ... it seems like a tribute to yourself.

D.J.: But you don’t have follow a particular path. It’s good that there are things that people don’t understand.

D.G.: But this also implies for whom some artists’ work is intended. People think that if they don’t understand something it’s because the artist is cleverer than they are, like in Juanjo Sáez’ drawing “Yo arte, tú tonto” (Me art, you stupid).

J.L.: I personally believe that art has been placed on a pedestal above the society and then it speaks. And it doesn’t care if people understand or not because it’s assumed that people aren’t prepared for it, so it doesn’t make any effort to attract them. There is a communication problem.

D.J.: I think the problem is more one of direction, towards whom is the art directed.

J.L.: Also, people generally greatly mistreat contemporary art. People see a classic abstract painting and say, "my daughter can do that”, well yes, but ... your daughter didn’t do it, this was done 50 years ago.

 P.C.: And she wouldn’t do it now.

J.L.: And she wouldn’t do it now either, exactly, but she’d be able to produce a pretty good copy. So the problem is that art has been placed on a pedestal and looks down its nose at society and so the latter rejects it, because there is an element here between artisanship and art, because it seems better if it is very complicated to do. Some people have said to me, for example, “But you didn’t build this piece yourself, did you?“ - “No, of course I didn’t, I'm not a carpenter!“

P.C.: Yes, like you wouldn’t tell an architect to build a house.

J.L.: There’s a problem of social communication, I don’t know if that happens only in Spain or if it also happens in other countries.

D.G.: I'm very interested in something that Daniel said: for whom is art intended? I also think there’s a problem with this, in that when we try to popularize something, it becomes populist so that it can be easily and simply interpreted, so maybe it shouldn’t be intended for everyone.

J.L.: A work which is intended for a mainstream public can be just as profound.

D.J.: I don’t think so. I always compare art with scientific research, maybe it’s just a personal thing, but if you you ask a physicist about his work you won’t understand anything, yet people respect it, his colleagues understand it, it’s something that will be of use in the long run, because it’s worth something.

J.L.: Yes, but science is science and art is art, you can’t apply the same criteria, it’s not the same thing.

D.J.: Why then should there be an artistic method and a scientific method?

J.L.: But there is no artistic method as strict as the scientific method.

P.C.: That's what distinguishes art from science.

J.L.: Exactly, in science if you write an article, you’ll be told if you’re right or not, and if you’re not, you’ll be knocked down.  Someone who is a great scientist today could have all his theories rejected tomorrow.

D.J.: And why would the scientific method be better than the artistic method? And why should we have or not have a method in art? In art it doesn’t work, and in science it does.

J.L.: I’m talking about why something works in science and can’t be applied to art. Then there is also the crude economic element, which hasn’t reached science because it’s not profitable, only in countries like the USA. Nuclear physics is financed by the private sphere, and it’s still the country that provides the most investment for research.

D.J.: But it has reached it, there are many interests behind  science.

P.C.: Are you talking about the social value of art?

D.G.: I think the conversation is heading towards how things are created, types of creation, where it’s directed, for example a person involved in graffiti will not go to see the latest exhibition in the Sunyol gallery.

J.L.: What I don’t understand is why art ... Let me see, what Jacoby says is true, you can have a discourse that only people from the art world will understand. That’s a fact. You can do that and that’s fine. But for example, cinema is art, and everyone understands 95% of the films that are made. But it’s also that among the people who understand the film there are people with audiovisual knowledge who are able to judge it better. My grandmother can watch a film and understand it, but she wouldn’t be able to interpret even 15% of what other people, such as a film critic, would be able to. But nobody can take that top layer away from the general public. Then again, they’re different media.

P.C.: Maybe it's because the content is simplified. I'm thinking of the television programme Redes. In this programme, they usually explain very complex scientific issues and yet, I understand them perfectly. It’s that 15% you mentioned, that’s enough for me, I don’t need to know anymore, but it also opens many doors for me. Which leads me to another question I want to ask you: What kind of public are you thinking about when you work?

J.L.: The general public, so that anyone can see it. For sure the joke will remain with some people and others will take something else from it. A computer desktop in cross stitching, my cousin sees it and she thinks it’s silly, but she thinks it looks nice and it doesn’t go any further than that. But then someone else might really think about the whole project, especially about what it entails. This is a personal decision, I could have chosen a much more elitist discourse. Nor does that mean that my decision is a bad one, the problem is when the discourse is so unclear that you have to produce a information leaflet so that people can understand it. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing, it’s just that sometimes even the best curator on the planet can’t understand if there’s no information leaflet.

D.J.: There are also works that incorporate the information leaflet, many of my works wouldn’t be understood if there wasn’t an information leaflet, and the text forms part of the work.

J.L.: And that's great, but we’re going into a state of paranoia so that people can understand things, to the point where I don’t bother putting up a information sheet. I remember we once had a work in an exhibition and our work revolved around picking up things. There was another exhibit on the second floor where you weren’t allowed to pick up anything and so from our work, where there were a pile of things that  people could take away, nobody took away anything.

D.J.: There are always these kind of conflicts, I don’t like the fact that you have to put up a sheet because if not, the piece doesn’t work, and I think the sheet is out of place. But there has to be some kind of solution. We have to find ways of doing what we want to do, if an information sheet doesn’t look right, for example, you can place the pieces on a table to make them look different from the others but are still integrated into the display ... it’s difficult, you always come up against those kinds of problems.

J.L.: That was just an example. I did audiovisual studies and when you made a short film that nobody could understand they failed you straightaway. In that regard I’m suffering from a certain amount of professional bias, although you don’t have to be extreme. I would find it problematic putting on an exhibition that nobody understood, it would be tragic.

D.J.: Then there are things that can be understood on different levels. There are things that you don’t understand but they are well-defined enough for you to be able to feel something. When you come out of the exhibition you think you’ve understood it in this way, but you could also understand it in another way. To not be sure about what you just understood, those doubts, that complexity is also interesting.

J.L.: That’s it, the important thing is to go in, enjoy it and then draw your own conclusions. Sometimes you exhibit something and want to express something and you find out that people are seeing it in completely different ways. That’s also fine. But there must be some communication at some level.

D.G.: When you are working do you wonder if people will understand your work?

J.L.: Obviously, I couldn’t do something that people wouldn’t understand. I set out wanting them to understand, and if they don’t understand, it’s a failure, even if also some things you do are one thing or another depending on from where they are seen. But I do try to have several layers of meaning, so that there is something there for everyone. But that’s only one way of doing things, it’s up to each individual.

P.C.: And you Daniel, what kind of public are you thinking of?

D.J.: I’m going through a process of change, a crisis, so I’m not wondering about those kind of things. Before I intended it to be for the general public, and like Juan, I hoped that everyone would understand it and that it would have layers, both for the general public, and for those with a more specialized knowledge. Whereas now, it’s not that I’m going to the other extreme but I want to get away from that a little, yes, there are things that are difficult to understand, not impossible, but you do have to have a bit of knowledge. Because the satisfaction you get from understanding something that is easy and the satisfaction you get from understanding something difficult ... you don’t feel as good as when you understand something that is more difficult. If you create something that’s a little difficult, and you take it to a place where people will have to make an effort to understand it, they react to the work differently. But if you're in a purely artistic context, you’re aware of what they’ll be looking for in the work.

J.L.: There’s something else that is important, when you’re working on a piece you should know what your main objective is. There is a difference between doing something for a gallery and something for a primary school. You have to define your objective according to who is going to see it. You have to communicate differently, knowing if it will be on show in the Prado museum or in a civic centre.

D.G.: That reminds me of something. The other day, for the first time, I went to an opening of the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Barcelona, a lot of ladies and gentlemen in suits looking at paintings by a 23 year-old bloke with an impressive c.v., but with exhibitions in very specific places. Perhaps the public is related to the space and the type of public being addressed.

J.L.: You have to think about the public, and you will create according to who this public is, what kind of support is on offer, what kind of space it is ... and this should condition you,  unless you're a very well known artist and you choose the public, the space, the support and they are adapted to your needs.

D.G.: Which leads me to another question, those of us involved in this depend a lot on calls for submissions. Is each project that you take on intended to be submitted to a particular competition or contest or do you embark on a project and if it fits in, well and good?

J.L.: Let me see, when it comes to calls for submissions you’re dealing with who goes about it best and how can I make a particular project fit into the terms for this or that contest. I think that’s the art of the call for submissions (laughs).

P.C.: Have you recently had any positive or negative experience that was important for you or for your work? Something that you could say was important for your development? A place, a project ...

D.J.: It's not that recent, but there was an exhibition in the Sala d'Art Jove called “Exposición num.2” with Luz Broto, Marcel Pié and Noemí Perez which was very important. That was a good while ago, but it generated a lot of debate, there was a lot of interaction, we got on very well and all of us involved changed the way we think.

J.L.: I don’t really know what to tell you there are things that don’t get much attention. But I do remember a video (Twinpower) that we made about the Twin Towers, it wasn’t that there was a before and an after, but at that time it did precede the whole Internet phenomenon, before YouTube existed. I have very fond memories of that, because I was ahead of something. Two years later YouTube was set up. People’s response to this work was brutal, it was like being in the thick of something. It was actually something very circumstantial, the whole thing with the twin towers, which had fallen just before that, the song was extraordinary, the clip was funny.

D.G.: The right time in the right place?

J.L.: It was a bit beforehand, if the Twin Towers had fallen when Youtube was already up and running, it wouldn’t have been the same. You have to take into account that people had to pass on the link by email, the video was small, people downloaded it ... there wasn’t a platform like there is now, nor that much technology in Internet video, there were a lot of visits.

D.G.: It's interesting what you say about being at the right time, or before or after.

J.L.: I think it's worse to be sooner rather than later, is actually a pain in the ass to be sooner.

D.J.: But maybe if it had been after it wouldn’t have been as unique, and perhaps you wouldn’t be talking about.

J.L.: The thing was putting it on the Internet, with 100,000 hits in a month, back then it was unbelievable.

P.C.: To finish off, why don’t you tell us about the expectations or challenges you have for your stay in Hangar?

J.L.: First of all it’s a space to work in, something that I don’t have in Barcelona. And then the facilities that are on offer to develop things with technology, along with advice on technical matters, I really appreciate that. Afterwards there’s the contact with people, all the extras that Hangar gives you. Hangar gives you more exposure than any other place.

D.J.: Yes, the exposure is important. I'll be here just for a month with the Toblerone project, and I will try to get the most out of this month, mixing with the people here. I don’t know how much I can do in a month, but I’ll do my best.

D.G.: Interesting things are created by just being around here for a while in the day  (laughs).

P.C.: All right then, thank you very much to both of you and we’ll stay in touch.

Visit DANIEL JACOBY's SITE

Visit  DSK (Juan Lesta & Belén Montero)' SITE and Codeco' SITE