"Explanation is a Well-Dressed Error"
Julio Cortazar
"I think there is no need for a title.
Things are so complex that whenever possible
we should meet them without a title. Every
title leads in a specific direction and
almost always prevents us from altering
course. But that does not mean we shall
reject concepts, for we may resist as
much as we will, but our insights, our
perception remain conceptually bound."
Cogito
by
Rene Descartes originated modern rationalism.
And yet Descartes' rationalism in particular
is characterised by metaphysics. It was
not until the French philosophers of the
Enlightenment that the Cartesian programme
was turned against its originator in a
new study of Locke and Newton. Where Descartes
still sow 'fables of the world', the Encyclopaedists
sought their salvation in the most conceivably
complete description of the world, thus
creating the so-called sciences. The God
of Newton is not the God of Descartes,
the res extensa also includes the res
cogitans and Cartesian dualism resolves
into nothing. But all thought contrary
to Descartes still continues to refer
to him. In his novel 'Rayuela', Julio
Cortazar puts the following words into
the mouth of his character Oliviera: ,,So
you can see how today the Cogito, that
piece of human endeavour par excellence,
is situated in a somewhat vague region,
between electro-magnetism and chemistry,
and probably it differs less than we once
thought from the northern lights or a
photo with infra-red rays. Thai's is where
your Cogito is vanishing to, part of the
dizzying flow of force and its stages
- known, inter alias in the year 1950,
05 electro impulses, molecules, atoms,
neutrons, protons, potirons, micro buttons,
radioactive isotopes, minute particles
of stuff, cosmic rays: Words, words, words,
Hamlet, Act Two, I believe." And
the works by Costantino Ciervo ore a response
to this way of thinking. They are also
a form of archaeological process. Many
different voices, forms and gestures appear
in this process, both literally and metaphorically.
The picture of reality can no longer be
captured in a coherent image, but in many,
partly incoherent pictorial elements forming
a medium. It is necessary to refer to
a medium, because each individual work
by Costantino Ciervo is composed of elements
which appear contradictory. In this sense:
..Archaeology: a comparative analysis,
which is not destined to reduce the differences
in discourse and to outline the unity
they amount to, but to divide their variability
into different forms. The effect of the
archaeological comparison is not unifying,
but multiplying. " (Michel Foucault:
The Archaeology of Knowledge).
Ergo
Costantino
Ciervo ,,Cogito ergo sunt", 1997
Photo-installation: a photo, six photographic
roll tapes with shots of the hands and
the navel of a child, seven large seven
segment indicators, a monitor, woo-den
letters, a video-player, a video cassette
with shots of architecture and a text
about politics and science written by
the artist, a computer with relay drive,
a power pack, plexiglass. Technical
realisation is one thing, but this technical
realisation has been preceded by a particular
way of thinking. This is not only true
of the work by Costantino Ciervo itself,
but also of what it depicts. By making
associations between text, picture and
photo, the artist mediates between these
individual elements. Six photo tapes cut
through the elegant architecture of the
accomodation at 205 FriedrichstraBe, built
by Oswald Matthias Lingers. The passing
topes depict the hands and the stomach
of a child. These are a recollection of
the cherubs of the late Renaissance, whilst
the building by 0. M. Lingers points to
villas by Andrea Palladio. Both references
are reproductions. However, the architecture
..appears more favourably horn the car,
photographed, filmed, in the prototype:
as long as it is not reality surrounding,
but facing us - strange, picture-like,
present only aesthetically and statistically.
The inhabitants and the users are even
less present, only in the abstract, in
,,new building" as well: the main
idea of which, that forms emerge from
functions, is only possible to fulfil
on the level of abstraction." These
are the words of Helmut Färber in
his book 'Building Art and Film - from
the History of Seeing' (1977). The degree
of abstraction has increased, in quality
and in quantity. This increase is and
will continue to be virulent in Berlin,
and it is potentiated even more by computer
generated design. Costantino Ciervo destroys
this abstraction by intervening in the
image. The image becomes a metaphor and
this metaphor is Berlin; the interface
of two spheres, of neoliberalism in the
west and classical neocapitalism in the
east. Architecture offers a reflection
of this, because it is essentially the
architecture of the coming capitals and
of the present capital.
Sunt
"They
are. Different voices fashion the text.
There is no longer an authorial narrator,
just as there is no subject. The subject
is a fiction, reality is multi-layered."The
duality of the Cartesian system, visible
in the difference mode between body and
spirit, has been retained in the duality
of the digital age. Two states, 0 and
1, form the basis of this system. In his
work 'Cogito ergo sunt', Costantino Ciervo
refers to this by translating a text into
the digital code. Each individual letter
from the line of text at the bottom of
the work is represented by a chain of
digits in the upper section. In "The
Twelve Commandments of Cyberspace",
Thomas Mandel and Gerard van der Leun
wrote: "ln April 1969, Steve Cracker
from the University of California, Los
Angeles (UCLAj sent an announcement to
the other members of his Network Working
Group (NWGj. This group played a key role
in the development of the Net. Cracker's
document {which is now referred to as
RFC No. 3) sketches basic rules for the
exchange of information and ideas concerning
this network, from which, 'the Net' then
developed in less than three decades."
RFC may be translated as ..request for
comment". Works of art - particularly
those by Costantino Ciervo - are also
requests for comment. They are a statement
as a specific reaction to a situation
and they demand a reaction from the viewer;
with unlimited access and the greatest
possible freedom of thought and speech,
as RFC No. 3 had already formulated. Three
hundred years after Rene Descartes' attempt
to assure himself of his own existence,
the Vienna philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein,
shortly before the end of his life, made
a second attempt to achieve certainly.
The following comment may be found in
number 204 of his notes, which were published
under the title "0n Certainty":
"But the argumentation, the justification
of the evidence comes to an end: but it
is not that end which makes certain sentences
immediately appear true to us, that is,
a form of seeing on our part, but it is
our actions which form the basis to the
linguistic game."
"Cogito ergo sunt", 1997
Materiali: Foto, Fotos auf Rollbändern,
Videorecorder, Videotape, Monitor, TTL-7-Segmenl-Anzeigen,
Computer, Holz, Plexiglas, Bewegungsmelder.
Dimensioni dell'Opera: 220 x 253 x 40
cm
