A biannual magazine exploring light in all its forms
Daniel Canogar (Madrid, 1964) is a visual artist working with photography, video, and installation art. His work questions our relationship with technology, from information overload to obsolescence. Screens (both rigids and flexibles), projected images, led strips, are populating his vibrant and immersive universe.
THE LIGHT OBSERVER : How do you see and understand the impact of media technologies on our society? You question this relationship in many of your works. It’s an open question, but I believe it’s an important one to start with to get a sense of your position in this digital world, as an artist.
DANIEL CANOGAR : Clearly, digital media has profoundly impacted our world in the last couple of decades. As an artist, I feel compelled to try to understand this new electronic reality. By exploring it, I attempt to get my bearings in this rapidly changing media ecosystem. I think we all feel quite overwhelmed trying to learn, and constantly update, the digital devices that we need to get through our day. I thankfully have art, a tool that helps me get grounded on the slippery slopes of our digital reality.
How do the growing data streams and connected information interfere with our personal memory? How does that interest you — as well as the transfers between individual and collective memory?
Excess of information has been an issue for humans since the invention of the printed press. But the viral explosion of information brought about by cloud-based technologies is unprecedented. Big data has created massive streams of information that only highly developed algorithms can interpret, and turn into useful knowledge. This has brought about huge challenges to our times. We are who we are because of what we remember. Either we figure out how to process all this information, or we are destined to become amnesiac zombies.
Speaking of memory, light tells us a lot about our universe’s history. Light has also very practical applications, such as lasers used for optical fibre or CD and DVD technology. How do you use light in your work? What meaning does it reveal for you?
I am particularly interested in the notion of “artificial darkness”, a concept that is associated with a technological society that creates luminous experiences in shadowed spaces. I am obviously referencing the darkened halls of the movie theatre, but also museums, galleries and art spaces where we find an increasing amount of projection-based artwork. I feel most comfortable as an artist working in the artificial darkness of these new contemporary spaces.
Light exists both in a natural and artificial way. You work with screens, LED lights, and projectors. What qualities do you find in artificial light?
Since its emergence in the late 19th century, artificial light has greatly impacted our lives. The growth of cities, for example, was made possible with the invention of the light bulb. When I work with artificial light, I am inevitably referencing technology. Its glowing presence seems to best capture the energy and pulse of our technological society.
What role does research occupy in your work? Would you say your research is directly linked to the world we live in and its future issues?
Making art for me is a form of research. Art is applied thought, a materialized process, manifested knowledge. Art as research is what allows me to use creativity to better understand the world we live in. Art helps me digest the very complex and sometimes confusing world we live in.
Your installations use a lot of advanced technology. What relationship do you have with technology and electronics?
I shift between technophilia and technophobia. I love technology, while simultaneously I often hate the hold it has over me. It’s an on-going struggle that provides fuel for my artistic process. In many ways, my work is an attempt to reconcile these very polarized emotions.
What are the challenges in digital art today?
The main challenge for digital art is to avoid the seduction and hype of commercial uses of electronic technology. A more critical, and conceptual use of digital technology is what will make it valuable to the larger realm of contemporary art.
Latencies is composed of a series of electronic devices resting on a screen/shelf. What is the interaction between those devices — evidence of out-dated technology — and the screen (blank plane where you project moving images)?
Latencies uses obsolete, broken or crushed technologies found in e-waste treatment centres. As dead technologies, I try to bring them back to life by placing them on screens. The screens stand in as shelves, luminous surfaces that the sculptural elements rest on. The found technologies become reactivated by the animations and light that emerge from the screens, revealing the spirit these devices once had when they were fully operational.
The life of objects is becoming shorter and shorter, especially for consumer electronics. The objects you show in Latencies, as an archaeologist, are obsolete, yet feel part of a futuristic vision (aesthetic, material, sophistication of the industrial product). How do you play with that imaginary (both old and new simultaneously)?
The Latencies series is trying to bridge the gap between analogue and digital technologies, and better understand the transition from material-based media to intangible, cloud-based media. These works follow the evolutions that I have witnessed in my own life, from analogue technologies to reinventing myself in the digital world. The play of “old and new” feels profoundly biographical: the story of myself as an artist who evolves, who learns, who is curious about the present and what is to come, but also uses the experience of the past as a foundation to build on.
The screen, as well as our interaction with it, is maybe the ultimate and most iconic figure of technology. You managed to twist and fold it (Waterfall, Billow, Surge, Echo...), which somehow echoes an old dream of a flexible and fluid technology. Where do you see the future of technology in our societies and how do your artworks question/answer that?
It’s hard to avoid dystopian images of the future of technology. We are presently seeing how social media, for example, is becoming the favoured tool of autocratic overreach, a platform that is eroding cherished values of our democratic system. This trend emerges in opposition to the dream of fluid technologies that provide an incessant flow of knowledge. The algorithmic reality we are witnessing could be in its infancy, and generations from now, through years of corrective legislation, we could potentially see technology emerge as a powerful tool of personal and collective empowerment. I am aware of the potentially destructive nature of technology, but through art, I am trying to take on a more neutral perspective and see what else there is, discovering the inner pulse of a system that seems to have taken on a life of its own. Art strives to explore the issues of the times; and if there is any issue that deserves attention from the art world right now, it is the enormous impact that technology is having in our society.
What are you looking for in terms of experience in your installations? How do you want the public to react?
I attempt to grab the attention of the public via visually impactful experiential installations. Once captivated by the artwork, I hope a second tier of thoughtfulness will emerge, a more reflective state that invites the public to think more deeply about what is being experienced. I fundamentally strive to create a state of focused attentiveness that dissolves our perpetual state of distractedness. Art invites us to pay attention, to look more deeply, to enjoy the pleasure of being in the moment.
Are there some technological developments and/or avant-garde artists challenging digital art that you are especially interested in at the moment?
I pay a lot of attention to artists that rummage through the ruins of our technological past, and try to assemble something new with the broken parts. I also look out for digital artists that explore the materiality of the electronic realm. These are two areas that are central to my work, and I am always curious how others take on similar concepts. Inspiration often comes from very unexpected places: lately I have been moved by the post-war existential dilemmas of abstract expressionists, big data in life sciences explored by computational biologists and pre-Columbian textiles from the Andes. These interests have filtered into my work, despite never imagining that such areas could provide such valuable references for my creativity. That’s one of the most remarkable aspects of making art: the journey it has taken me on never ceases to surprise me.
