Shadowserver is an Internet art installation by Ken Goldberg and Bob Farzin at UC Berkeley. The title says it is a "server" -and not a site. And this is exactly what it is : a server is something which delivers you other things. If you perform the instructions, you will be delivered images of shadows of unidentifiable objects.
This work is remarkable in at least 3 aspects : its singularity among the art projects and sites on the web, its statement about the web and about telepresence and its aesthetic qualities.
Shadow Server stays at the opposite of the current trends in web design: no flashy images, no Java apples, no little animation's all over the pages. It is not a participatory work where the users are invited to input text, images, sound and profound inner thoughts, it has no links and you don't get lost in a rhizomatic hyperstructure. It is in black and white and there is basically not much to see and very little to do. However (or because ?) it is tremendously powerful and keeps you glued to your screen for hours.
This work strongly questions the motto of these past few years in electronic art which was "make visible the invisible". Shadow Server makes the normally visible invisible and gives you only its shadow The "thing" is hidden, the objects, the "real" are no longer available. Moreover, what is interesting and relevant are the shadows themselves, in other words a certain kind of information about the "thing". You have no way to get any information about the objects themselves, the shadows have become the "thing".
What do you get on the Web ? Or what do you think you get ? The "things" or only their "shadows" ? This work emphasizes the beliefs and trust in the fact that what is put online is the "truth". Is Shadow Server really working as it says, with real objects that you light in a different way according to the combination of the different buttons or is it just a data bank of images that are randomly provided to you ? How do you know you are really telepresent in the room of apparatus ? You don't. But, interestingly enough, it is not just a=20 matter of trust but the strong idea that faking a telepresence installation would require, more time, much more complicated work. In some cases, like here, it would make no difference because it has reached one of its goal which is to raise issues about trust and beliefs in what we see and what we get through those remote media of communication and information delivery systems.
But what keeps us connected again and again on the Shadow Server are its aesthetic qualities and relations to philosophy and art history. We cannot but think of Plato and the Cave. Ken Goldberg, in a kind of reverse situation, demonstrates here that the shadows are as important, if not more than the objects. This strengthens a connection with the 20th Century achievement of the disappearance of the objects in art. From an art history point of view, the images of the Shadow Server remind us of Moholy-Nagy photograms. They truly capture light in a delicate and subtle way and bring it to your screen. They reintroduce contemplation in a media where flow and movement are the common attitude. They not only freeze light but also time in a fragile balance. And after a short while you no longer wonder about the nature of the objects behind, or what would bring the "Sixth button", you just enjoy them, their complexity and simplicity, and you let you get lost in their depth. Your computer screen has become pure light, a shadow.
Annick Bureaud, E-mail: bureaud@altern.org
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