Robert Adrian X Turns 80 In any case, its all about the

telephone

Artist Robert Adrian X already began dealing with the phenomenon of computer users
linking up in networks over 30 years ago in The World in 24 Hours. Now, Ars
Electronica is showcasing this seminal 1982 work as a fitting way of congratulating the
artist, leading-edge thinker, media art pioneer, telecommunications artist, painter and
sculptor on the occasion of his 80th birthday on February 22. Manuela Naveau, a
curator and project manager at Ars Electronica, had an opportunity in late 2013 in
Vienna to sit down for a chat with the Canadian artist together with his partner Heidi
Grundmann, arguably the most prominent developer and promoter of radio art in
Austria.
On Simultaneity in Electronic Space
I wanted to know more about the time in which it couldnt yet be taken for granted that
everyone simply knew what the word networking [in the sense of connecting with
other people via computers] means. What do networking and the internet refer to
here? In any case, its all about the telephone, Robert Adrian X stated right at the
start of our chat. The development of the telephonewhereby, for the first time,
transmitter and receiver functioned simultaneouslywas the genesis of the internet.
And even in the 1970s and early 80s, there were still other terms to designate this
people referred to telecommunications and to electronic space. We were aware that
there existed something like the internet (see ARPANET 1969), even if we didnt have a
clear conception of how it worked or what an influence it would be exerting on our

culture in general. We knew that this was no longer a matter of communicating with a
single party like in a telephone conversation; that you could be in contact with several
people at the same time. But what did this simultaneity actually mean in an invisible
reality? Does it exert an influence on our worldview and, if so, how does it influence us
today?

Photo: Sepp Schaffler

When Linz Got Linked Up in a Network with Other Cities
Amidst fascination with such questions, Ars Electronica Linz commissioned Robert
Adrian X to conceive and produce The World in 24 Hours. From 12 Noon on
September 27, 1982 until 12 Noon the next day, 15 cities worldwide were
interconnected in conjunction with the Ars Electronica Festival. The point was to jointly
explore this new electronic space with the help of the telecommunications media
available at the time. The idea was to simultaneously utilize five telephone lines (three
of which ultimately proved to be functional as planned). During this 24-hour period,
participants could send artistic statements and also exchange coordination information
via telephone, FAX, slow-scan television (SSTV) and ARTBOX, the international
computer mailbox system (initiated by Robert Adrian X and subsequently dubbed
ARTEX The Artists Electronic Exchange Program), which was based on a conference
system developed by the I.P.Sharp (IPSA) company. The salient criteria were that the
respective technologies had to be more or less accessible, relatively affordable, simple
to use, and could be implemented in a way that was acceptable to Austrias Post and
Telegraph Administration.
ARTEX A Network for Artists

The World in 24 Hours wasnt the first live telecommunications project. It was, in
fact, based on experiences that artists such as Douglas Davis and Nam June Paik had
already gained in the 1970s in telematic projects via satellite. And there had already
been computer telecommunications projectsfor instance, Bill Bartletts Interplay in
Toronto in 1979, and The Artists Use of Telecommunications Conference in 1980 at
SFMOMA, which Robert Adrian X had been involved in. Indeed, the experiences gained
in these projects were precisely what inspired Robert Adrian X to collaborate with Bill
Bartlett in 1980 to develop ARTEX. The two artists, neither of whom was affiliated with
a university, had to line up access to the equipment and networks on their own, as well
as, often, privately raise no small amount of funding. Enthused by the idea of
communicating with other artists worldwide, Robert Adrian X collaborated with
Gottfried Bach, then an IPSA manager in Vienna, on an economical, user-friendly email program for artists. In 1980, this went down in history as one of the first online
platforms or, more precisely, a user group for artists.
Right for the outset, my principle was to set up a network that was
simultaneously a communications web and a medium for the exchange of
ideas.
In the 1990s, this would be referred to as a chat room; today, wed call it a social media
platform for artists. Nevertheless, in the 80s, a term hadnt emerged yet to designate
this new form of networking. 30 to 35 artists and researchers were listed on ARTEX.
And Robert Adrian X intuitively knew that as soon as access to the new electronic
space became available, this would also bring about changeswhich he wanted to
explore in The World in 24 Hours.

Photo: Sepp Schaffler

When you turn off the machine, the space disappears

Robert Adrian X: In the late 1970s, you suddenly felt that the whole power structure
had shifted into electronic systems, and thus into electronic space. I mean, as soon as
the machines are switched on, the FAX system functions, computer communication
works, these companies come into existence. The companies exist only in this virtual
space. Only if the machines are switched on, if the electronic system establishes
connections, then and only then does Volkswagen, for example, exist. Otherwise, if the
machines arent running, theyre just a bunch of smaller or larger factories.
But all the money, everything runs via invisible networks. And artists who work
with the network can make at least part of this network visible. After all, its
clear that art is a visual affair. If you enter a network and do art in it, you have to
display something there.
This was the concept of communications sculpture. This means that, for me
personally, The World in 24 Hours was a piece of sculpture. Youre not just creating
the space. No, this is a matter of a sculptural problem: space, spatial manipulation, the
depiction of space, etc. And in these systems, if two people exchange a work of art
with one another on the telephone, then this space constitutes a work of art, a
sculpture, as long as the machine is on. When you turn off the machine, the space
disappears, and then the work of art is gone too. Just like Volkswagen is gone.
An Experience for Everyone
But Robert Adrian X didnt want this initial experience of being linked up in a network to
be the exclusive purview of companies and institutions. Although he had no direct
access to universitiesto say nothing of the militaryhe wanted to open the
technology up to people and especially artists, who were to be given the opportunity
to gain experience and to discover a form of translation, of visualization of something
that had begun to emerge in the realm of the invisible. In answer to my question of the
extent to which this space is determined by the devices themselves or by the human
beings behind the apparatuses, Robert Adrian X gave an account of a very personal
experience:
I had this on my wall for a long time, this headline on the front page of
the Kronenzeitung [Austrias leading tabloid] a few years ago during the [soccer] World
Cup, I believe it was in Japan: Six Billion in Front of the Screen! And suddenly you had
this image in mind: 6,000,000,000 people watching the same telecast. Not just all of
them watching TV; theyre all seeing the same image at the same time. And this was
the moment when this space suddenly became clear to meeveryone sitting in
approximately the same position, watching the same picture. And then, all at once, you

had terms with which to grasp this media space.

Images of a Surveillance Camera in the Living Room
Robert Adrian X had already begun dealing with the significance of these new,
electronically implemented spaces at an early stage of his artistic careerfor instance,
a 1981 live intervention entitled Surveillance/berwachung in which he maneuvered
images captured by a surveillance camera installed in the Karlsplatz subway station in
downtown Vienna into Austrians living rooms, where they appeared live on June 16,
1981 during the 6-10 PM time slot among the ORF Austrian Broadcasting Companys
regularly scheduled programming. Asked about precisely where opening things up to
the general public in this way had been positioned on his agenda, Robert Adrian X said:
The most important thing was that artists had struggled to gain access to the
media. But the point wasnt reaching a mass audience; this was a matter of the
medium, a confrontation with the medium in and of itself. Thus, the essence
was media critique within the media.
Heidi Grundmann added her thoughts about The World in 24 Hours. And this type of
project didnt have anything to do with the audience either. The point was: you were
either a participant or you werent. After all, theres nothing to see. Theres no
performance, no communication. This process of mutual exchange engendered
something that cant be called a work, since its actually a matter of the dissolution of
both the work and of the author. And that alone dictates that there cant be an
audience either.

Photo: Sepp Schaffler

One of the Worlds First Collaborative Writing Projects

The World in 24 Hours has garnered a place in the historiography of media art as
one of the worlds first collaborative writing projects in the electronic sphere. Its also
likely to have been the first project in which the global network of amateur radio
operators was involved. Asked how he sees his contribution to media art history and
how the collaboration with ham radio operators proceeded, Robert Adrian X declined
comment and provided an account that concluded with a wink of the eye:
In my opinion, Roy Ascotts 1983 work La Plissure du Texte was the first
collaborative writing project. But since ARTEX already existed for The World in 24
Hours, you can regard it as a writing project because it constituted ongoing written
communication via ARTEXthus, a 24-hour-long chat, so to speak. And the thing
about amateur radio is that hams are basically prohibited from exchanging information.
Youre not even allowed to report how the weather is. And no ones allowed to listen in
to a transmission, not even the hams own wife. Generally speaking, the only devices
that are permitted to be hooked up are those that the telecommunications agency can
monitor. This means that when a device is authorized, the agency has to have one too.
So the authorization process can take a while. We ultimately received a license for
3rd Party Participation, a hookup in the public sphere in accordance with the
regulations governing amateur radio as a sort of immaterial, de minimis exception. So
then, we finally were provided with a definition of art: Art is negligible. Robert Adrian X
chuckled while lighting another cigarette.

Photo: Sepp Schaffler

A Technology Developed for Institutions and Firms

In retrospect, the artist pointed out that the project had been beset by a few additional
problems: 1) only industrialized, capitalist countries could take part, 2) the high costs
of the telephone transmission, 3) the necessity that the network of artists be
reconstituted for each project, and 4) the trend towards institutionalization of access
by artists to telematic systems. Robert Adrian X wrote in 1989, and thus seven years
after the project had been produced, that the assumptions upon which The World in
24 Hours had been based proved to be nave. (Adrian X, Robert, Elektronischer
Raum, in: Kunstforum International. Im Netz der Systeme, Bd. 103, 1989) He noted that
the costs incurred for the purpose of data transmission did not drop as had been
assumed. Although the equipment to produce the data developed rapidly and the
quantity of data got bigger and bigger, the costs of telephone transmission
nevertheless rose. In 1989, he also wrote about a sort of powerlessness that overcame
him and his fellow artists and that had to do with the closed nature of the systems.
One quickly realized that the technologywith the exception of electronic
games and the entertainment sectorwas developed for the corporate user
that is, for institutions and firms.
Robert Adrian X went on: Individual users are excluded from the development of new
technologies because they have no precisely definable needs, so its simply assumed
that their interests are served by firms that, in turn, are interested in marketing spinoffs
of complex technologies, and prefer to satisfy existing needs than to play a role in the
development of potential alternative directions in electronic technologies. If theres any
chance at all to develop new technologies by means of which private users can make
sensible use of electronic systems in order to exercise their right to genuinely
participate in the development of this electronic world, then we have to take advantage
of this opportunity at a very early stage. Now, its probably already too late to change
the direction of the planning and development, but we can at least attempt to discover
ways in which we can enable human content to flow into the commercial-military world
floating amidst this electronic space.
Over the course of this interview with the artist, it emerged that Robert Adrian X still
maintains his very critical attitude towards seemingly open systems, and calls into
question the internet as we know it today. In the early 90s, it was by no means certain
that the Post [Austrias state telephone service provider] would ever relinquish its
monopoly and the internet would even be permitted. After all, the internet already
existed then, but it was accessible only by the military and universities. It eventually
was opened up beginning in 1994, but it functioned totally differently than we had
hoped. After all, in 1994-95, we had the feeling that we had a system that was open to
the world, but we were quickly disabused of that notion over the next five years. What
came of it was a totally commercialized, and thus closed, system.

Nobody knows what its all about

In response to my final question concerning how well be dealing with our more or less
newly networked reality in the years to come, the artist stated:
Nobody knows what its all about. You cant analyze the past and extrapolate
the trajectory into the future. Hegel has nothing to say about this, since you
cant trust people whove never used a telephone. This simultaneity we have
now, this is totally new. And the devices are getting increasingly invisible, just
like the internet itself is invisible. And its simply difficult for us to theoretically
deal with this situation.
We still think like we did in the Industrial Age, like in an industrial society, in a
mechanical world in which things intermesh like gears. Back then, it was a matter of
speed, but thats not the point anymore. Speed is a conception from another day and
age, since theres no longer anything that moves in these systems. There are no
sequences any more. Cause and effect, these clear terms we havethey dont
function exactly the same way they used to. We have to reconceptualize this today.
The beauty of this is also whats problematic about it: it all looks the same; but inside,
everything has changed.