Transmission rambling: The King of Electronic Art (3rd Feb 2010)

By Xesko

Taconis Stolk presented himself as a conceptualist and a meta-modernist.

His presentation was merely a public demonstration of its curriculum. Graduate in Conceptual Media Arts and Intermediary Composition from the Royal Conservatoire and the Royal Academy of Arts in Hague…

… My work is about NNN (Nature, Nurture, Number), I have developed interactive musical performance for magnetic cards, an online composition … Bla, Bla, Bla, an endless raved of deeds, poetry done with computer codes scattered over and forgotten, sounds produced by chemical processes, a fabulous idea the BuBl, a small pocket device to block mobile phone signals, “but beware, I’m not sure but I think it is banned in Europe”, changing rows in stadium fields, to remake the rules, anyway… Limited to only copy that exists around him, and presenting it differently.

But eventually something bright appears, the rewriting of all nature applying the Planck time constant (tP = √¯hGc−5 or 5.39124∙10‐44 s), with this concept, apparently gets all the same, but there is indeed a slight prolongation in time, changing the entire universe, from colours to taste and sounds. Brilliant indeed.

But as ironic as it may seem, the most interesting part of the whole presentation was the first question asked by the audience that no one understood because it was made by a human beat-box.

Summarize it in one word. TecArt.

Want to read more? Writings from my Head

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Transmission review: Taconis Stolk creator of TecArt (February 3, 2010)

By Brook Davis

Taconis Stolk presented us with an impressive curriculum of his achievements, giving us to know is concept of art NNN.

All is work is based on this concept, explaining the connections between Nature, Nurture, Number.

At the end of the presentation we learned that the universe is in fact written about the concept of the time constant of Max Planck, and that everything in nature is related to digital, 0 and 1.

Stolk who introduced himself as a conceptualist and meta-modernist is in fact the creator of a brilliant new art form in which science and nature are interconnected through the intangible concept of beauty in the creation of what we can call TecArt.

Want to read more? Writings from my Head

Taco Stolk

Transmission

I am struggling to find a gap between theories, imagination and artwork. I can’t find, I can’t follow him in his impressive program. Plank time, numbers, elements of science leave me undisturbed. Words uttered like in a seminar for lost scientists make a loose connection in my wandering mind. I can’t get through these elements.

I wait the moment something will happen and take me beyond his explanation. Circles, red colour, geometric figures surround a map of New-York. I hardly listen to the explanation he gives. Plank time, Database, numbers. Einstein. The scientist’s words cover the artist’s imagination. How could we reinvent a system in harmony with the universe itself? New theory? Just words? No, Plank time!

Then come sounds on octaves, music theory, tic tac… Plank time, Plank length. Quantum frequencies in molecules. I loose track.

Images of South Holland, circles in which one can hear different sounds. Everything is related to Plank time and Plank length. Sound, sound approaching a harbour. I missed the first part of his presentation. My mind walks back and forth, to and fro. I quit, disconnected. I break loose…

Transmission 3rd February 2010 Col McCormack presents Taco Stolk

(b) Taco Stolk presented the main concepts of his meta-modernist work. He gave a multi-media display of sound and image. The technological capabilities of the showroom struggled at times with some of the subtleties of Stolk’s productions. While the ideas were interesting and clearly presented the audience seemed awe-struck by scientific facts and impressive technology and failed to ask critical or challenging questions. There could have been a really exciting discussion at the end, instead we got a human beat-box, a question about which font he’d used in his presentation and one slightly challenging question about poetry that wasn’t taken very far.

Transmission 3rd February 2010 Col McCormack presents Taco Stolk

(a) Taco from Amsterdam and Jaspar is still flogging those chapbooks. Excessive crunching (Hello W!) and shouting.. it’s a bit like the cabbage throwing section of the globe theatre.

A big delay, no sound and then feedback. It’s the large shabby looking fellow I saw earlier on in the studios.

Lots of prestigious teaching. Conceptualist, mete-modernist (we’ll come back to this later.). CRINGE. (How much did it cost to get him over and how long will he stay.) Someone behind me clearly fancies him, I see why, there is a pop star quality about him.

THE WORK! Musical projects, composer. Nature, nurture, number. Categories appeal to me. Deliberately create things (?). Found poetry. Growing database. Collection. Logic. Logistics. Texts. Codes. These are the lowest form of text. They have one purpose and then are thrown away. (perhaps monkey should come along and save them). T thinks they are poetic. Poetry is found in things having more than one meaning, things that conjure ideas of other things in your mind. How can we find poetry in these codes when they have such specific meanings? They are esoteric, but I’m not sure about poetic. Poetry for robots. That kind of knowledge is needed.

Taco is imaginative in that way that scientifically bright people sometimes are, they produce conspiracy theories. Another set of ideas are being presented. Fields-rules-pitch. Something has just clicked, It is interesting but the ideas are not what I need, I want to know how it happens. Where he started. (this is what I liked about Amanda Beech’s presentation). I can flick through a book or catalogue and find the ideas of other artists. What could he bring to us that can only be brought in person? His presence is required. I can’t find him in the work but neither is he in this presentation. Having all the answers makes him appear smug. The questions don’t challenge him.

How is he funded? Where does research begin and art work end? Or vice-versa?

Projects and research. Creation. Deed. Maths. Aesthetic. Stylish design. Generate. Digits. Automatic. Forms. Relate. Universe. Potential. Points. Relationships. Lines. Find out. Presented. Level. Enter. Small numerical values. Larger scale. Periodical table. Elements. Chemistry. Numbers. Electrons. Protons. Neutrons. Numbers. Element. Scale. Visible. Results. Melting point. Colour. Results. Result. Numbers. Similar. Numbers. Dots. Lines. End up. Aesthetic. Nerd-o-tronic. Rudimentary. (Not leafy not creatures). Divide. Geometric. Architectonic. Mathematical. Difference. Results. Number values. Programmes. (Research for the sake of it?). Dull and heartless. So the sound was generated by…? How? To make what? And..? So…? Please! ‘I get it!’

What makes a piece of art impressive? Is it the difficulty involved in making the thing? Or in the difficulty in understanding how it was made? This makes it esoteric and akin to sorcery. With this kind of work it is difficult to apply your own thoughts or explanations onto it. Has he told us too much?  Just because the idea is clever it doesn’t follow that the work made will be good. (Bryan brings Sol Lewitt in later to make this point). The prime number grid paper works, I can see beyond the image, I can project my own anecdote. Yes, there is a problem when artists talk too much- giving FACTS. Conceptual work seems to go out of date quite quickly. Ironic isn’t it.

This work needs so much explanation that the viewer just gives in to it. We are happy to accept it because the point is not to ask questions of it or challenge it. When was the last time an ordinary person challenged a scientific ‘fact’? We are impressed by the sheer force of it, regardless of it being correct, accurate, right or wrong. Patrick Stewart didn’t have a clue what he was talking about when he played captain Pickard in Star Trek, but I still believed in him.

Taco reminds me of someone like Willy Wonka. He has the space to explore like a scientist and an artist. (I prefer Wonka’s work). I can also see him as a character in a JG Ballard story. Stolk is a brilliant scientist who’s work takes him to the edge of his own reason. David McNab assists him because he thinks what he is doing is emmancipatory, it will liberate them and create a fresh start for what is left of humanity. Stolk doesn’t care about this, he has re-written time and space, invented new notes, flavours, colours, altered the universe. He stops sleeping, he can only count…each second gets a tiny bit longer and finally his mind breaks into a thousand fragments. McNab is left alone in a brave new world…