Author Archives: Ellef Prestsæter

Situationist Pinball

This device allows for the automatic generation of a Gaussian curve (position of the balls at the bottom. The artistic problems of the dérive occur at the same level as the relatively unpredictable path of each ball. Illustration and caption from Asger Jorn, “The Situationists and Automation”, Internationale Situationniste #1 (June 1958).

SICV in Barcelona

Tras poner en marcha mi Instituto Escandinavo de Vandalismo Comparado, muchos se preguntan por qué le puse un nombre tan peculiar, sin llegar a tener del todo claro si tomárselo en serio o no. “Giving the Finger (Back) to the Digital: The Art and Politics of Archival Practice”. Presentation at the MACBA symposium La condició de […]

Mere storage appears somewhat dysfunctional

“As we know, everyone is now talking about the virtual, i.e., computerized museum, and that must be the reason why a media historian has been invited to Barcelona.” Friedrich Kittler on the museum of art and digital archiving.

Face synch

Duchenne was based at the Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, where he researched muscular electrophysiology—the perceived electrical dysfunction underlying neurological conditions, ranging from strokes and epilepsy through to the more questionable areas of hysteria and insanity. […] The afflictions of the inmates of the Salpêtrière made them perfect candidates for Duchenne’s research and documentation: muscular paralysis […]

Operationalizing Aby Warburg’s Atlas of images

Franco Moretti presents collaborative project (with Leonardo Impett) on computational approaches to Aby Warburg’s image atlas. Formulating pathos, faces are irrelevant. Clarity is not option, it’s a constraint. A strange encounter of qualitative and quantitative …

Situological

Very interested in the situological and situographical development of topology. It will be necessary to stay rapidly informed of all the scientific conclusions about this — and to adapt or détourn them. The primary force of our position is to intervene therein as an artistic activity (with a game of gestures raised to the dignity of […]

Sehen wie ein Scanner

Culture has not only created epistemology, but indeed also signal-processing machines, which are then by definition detached from culture: they do not ‘count’ semantic aspects; they do not view images as icons; they do not perceive sound as music; and they read texts with the aesthetics of a scanner, by Optical Character Recognition. Wolfgang Ernst: […]

Scandinavia is a joke

Ellef Prestsæter: Did you feel that you were collecting evidence for a specific archaeological argument? Jacqueline de Jong: Yes, sure! It was the argument that there had been people, like the Visigoths, travelling all over the globe. Jorn wanted to show that the images are the same in Italy, Spain, Portugal, wherever you go.

Agatha Christie smoking Asger Jorn’s cigar

Ellef Prestsæter: Readers of Concreta, beware! … Engaging with you, Asger, in the context of this special issue on Vandalism and Iconoclasm calls for a strict demarcation between vandalism on the one hand and iconoclasm on the other. While the Scandinavian Institute of Comparative Vandalism (SICV) connects you intimately with the concept of vandalism you […]