The Absurdity of Art Speak, Art

Worlds, and what we can learn from

Big Data
By Annet Dekker - 23/04/2014

Jonas Lund's artistic practice revolves around the mechanisms that constitute contemporary art
production, its market and the established 'art worlds'. Using a wide variety of media, combining
software-based works with performance, installation, video, photography and sculptures, he produces
works that have an underlying foundation in writing code. By approaching art world systems from a
programmatic point of view, the work engages through a criticality largely informed by algorithms and
'big data'.
It's been just over a year since Lund began his projects that attempt to redefine the commercial art
world, because according to him, 'the art market is, compared to other markets, largely unregulated, the
sales are at the whim of collectors and the price points follows an odd combination of demand, supply
and peer inspired hype'. Starting with The Paintshop.biz (2012) that showed the effects of collaborative
efforts and ranking algorithms, the projects moved closer and closer to reveal the mechanisms that
constitute contemporary art production, its market and the creation of an established 'art world'. Its
current peak was the solo exhibition The Fear Of Missing Out, presented at MAMA in Rotterdam.
Annet Dekker: The Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) proposes that it is possible to be one step ahead of
the art world by using well-crafted algorithms and computational logic. Can you explain how this
works?
Jonas Lund The underlying motivation for the work is treating art worlds as networked based systems.
The exhibition The Fear Of Missing Out spawned from my previous work The Top 100 Highest
Ranked Curators In The World, for which I assembled a comprehensive database on the bigger parts of
the art world using sources such as Artfacts, Mutaul Art, Artsy and e-flux. The database consists of
artists, curators, exhibitions, galleries, institutions, art works and auction results. At the moment it has
over four million rows of information. With this amount of information 'big data' the database has
the potential to reveal the hidden and unfamiliar behaviour of the art world by exploring the art world
as any other network of connected nodes, as a systemic solution to problematics of abstraction.

Steve Ballmer, by Jonas Lund. Made with a fridge and six crates of beer. Exhibition
'The Fear Of Missing Out'. 2013. Photographed by Lotte Stekelenburg.

Cheerfully

Hats

Sander Selfish - Coconut soap 7 min 50 sec video

By Jonas Lund. Exhibition 'The Fear Of Missing Out'. 2013.

loop.

In The Top 100 Highest Ranked Curators In The World, first exhibited at Tent in Rotterdam, I wrote a
curatorial ranking algorithm and used the database, to examine the underlying stratified network of
artists and curators within art institutions and exhibition making: the algorithm determined who were
among the most important and influential players in the art world. Presented as a photographic series of
portraits, the work functions both as a summary of the increasingly important role of the curator in
exhibition making, as an introduction to the larger art world database and as a guide for young up and
coming artists for who to look out for at the openings.

Central to the art world network of different players lies arts production, this is where FOMO comes is.
In FOMO, I used the same database as the basis for an algorithm that generated instructions for
producing the most optimal artworks for the size of the Showroom MAMA exhibition space in
Rotterdam while taking into account the allotted production budget. Prints, sculptures, installations and
photographs were all produced at the whim of the given instructions. The algorithm used meta- data
from over one hundred thousand art works and ranked them based on complexity. A subset of these art
works were then used, based on the premise that a successful work of art has a high price, high
aesthetic value but low production cost and complexity, to create instructions deciding title, material,
dimensions, price, colour palette and position within the exhibition space.

The Top 100 Highest Ranked Curators In The World. By Jonas Lund. Installation at Tent, Rotterdam.
Similar to how we're becoming puppets to the big data social media companies, so I became a slave of
the instructions and executed them without hesitation. FOMO proposes that it is possible to be one step
ahead of the art world by using well-crafted algorithms and computational logic and questions notions
of authenticity and authorship.
AD: To briefly go into one of the works, in an interview you mention Shield Whitechapel Isn't Scoop
a rope stretched vertically from ceiling to floor and printed with red and yellow ink as a 'really great
piece', can you elaborate a little bit? Why is this to you a great piece, which, according to your
statement in the same interview, you would not have made if it weren't the outcome of your analysis?

JL: Coming from a 'net art' background, most of the previous works I have made can be simplified and
summarised in a couple of sentences in how they work and operate. Obviously this doesn't exclude
further conversation or discourse, but I feel that there is a specificity of working and making with code
that is pretty far from let's say, abstract paintings. Since the execution of each piece is based on the
instructions generated by the algorithm the results can be very surprising.
The rope piece to me was striking because as soon as I saw it in finished form, I was attracted to it, but
I couldn't directly explain why. Rather than just being a cold-hearted production assistant performing
the instructions, the rope piece offered a surprise aha moment, where once it was finished I could see
an array of possibilities and interpretations for the piece. Was the aha moment because of its aesthetic
value or rather for the symbolism of climbing the rope higher, as a sort of contemporary art response to
'We Started From The Bottom Now We're Here'. My surprise and affection for the piece functions as a
counterweight to the notion of objective cold big data. Sometimes you just have to trust the
instructionally inspired artistic instinct and roll with it, so I guess in that way maybe now it is not that
different from let's say, abstract painting.

Shield

Whitechapel

Isnt

Scoop Acrylic and Silkscreen Ink on Custom Rope.

By Jonas Lund. Exhibition, The Fear Of Missing Out, 2013.

AD: I can imagine quite a few people would be interested in using this type of predictive computation.

But since you're basing yourself on existing data in what way does it predict the future, is it not more a
confirmation of the present?
JL: One of the only ways we have in order to make predictions is by looking at the past. Through
detecting certain patterns and movements it is possible to glean what will happen next. Very simplified,
say that artist A was part of exhibition A at institution A working with curator A in 2012 and then in
2014 part of exhibition B at institution B working with curator A. Then say that artist B participates in
exhibition B in 2013 working with curator A at institution A, based on this simplified pattern analysis,
artist B would participate in exhibition C at institution B working with curator A. Simple right?

AD: In the press release it states that you worked closely with Showroom MAMA's curator Gerben
Willers. How did that relation give shape or influenced the outcome? And in what way has he, as a
curator, influenced the project?
JL: We first started having a conversation about doing a show in the Summer of 2012, and for the
following year we met up a couple of times and discussed what would be an interesting and fitting
show for MAMA. In the beginning of 2013 I started working with art world databases, Gerben and I
were making our own top lists and speculative exhibitions for the future. Indirectly, the conversations
led to the FOMO exhibition. During the two production phases, Gerben and his team were immensely
helpful in executing the instructions.
AD: Notion of authorship and originality have been contested over the years, and within digital and
networked especially open source practices they underwent a real transformation in which it has
been argued that authorship and originality still exist but are differently defined. How do see authorship
and originality in relation to your work, i.e. where do they reside; is it the writing of the code, the
translation of the results, the making and exhibiting of the works, or the documentation of them?
JL: I think it depends on what work we are discussing, but in relation to FOMO I see the whole piece,

from start to finish as the residing place of the work. It is not the first time someone makes works based
on instructions, for example Sol LeWitt, nor the first time someone uses optimisation ideas or 'most
clich' art works as a subject. However, this might be first time someone has done it in the way I did
with FOMO, so the whole package becomes the piece. The database, the algorithm, the instructions,
the execution, the production and the documentation and the presentation of the ideas. That is not to
say I claim any type of ownership or copyright of these ideas or approaches, but maybe I should.
AD: Perhaps I can also rephrase my earlier question regarding the role of the curator: in what way do
you think the 'physical' curator or artist influences the kind of artworks that come out? In other words,
earlier instructions based artworks, like indeed Sol LeWitt's artworks, were very calculated, there was
little left to the imagination of the next 'executor'. Looking into the future, what would be a remake of
FOMO: would someone execute again the algorithms or try to remake the objects that you created
(from the algorithm)?
JL: In the case with FOMO the instructions are not specific but rather points out materials, and how to
roughly put it together by position and dimensions, so most of the work is left up to the executor of
said instructions. It would not make any sense to re-use these instructions as they were specifically
tailored towards me exhibiting at Showroom MAMA in September/October 2013, so in contrast to
LeWitt's instructions, what is left and can travel on, besides the executions, is the way the instructions
were constructed by the algorithm.
AD: Your project could easily be discarded as confirming instead of critiquing the established art
world this is reinforced since you recently attached yourself to a commercial gallery. In what way is a
political statement important to you, or not? And how is that (or not) manifested most prominently?
JL: I don't think the critique of the art world is necessarily coming from me. It seems like that is how
what I'm doing is naturally interpreted. I'm showing correlations between materials and people, I've
never made any statement about why those correlations exist or judging the fact that those correlations
exist at all. I recently tweeted, 'There are three types of lies: lies, damned lies and Big Data',
anachronistically paraphrasing Mark Twain's distrust for the establishment and the reliance on numbers
for making informed decisions (my addition to his quote). Big data, algorithms, quantification,
optimisation... It is one way of looking at things and people; right now it seems to be the dominant way
people want to look at the world. When you see that something deemed so mysterious as the art world
or art in general has some type of structural logic or pattern behind it, any critical person would wonder
about the causality of that structure, I guess that is why it is naturally interpreted as an institutional
critique. So, by exploring the art world, the market and art production through the lens of algorithms
and big data I aim to question the way we operate within these systems and what effects and affects
this has on art, and perhaps even propose a better system.
AD: How did people react to the project? What (if any) reactions did you receive from the traditional
artworld on the project?
JL: Most interesting reactions usually take place on the comment sections of a couple of websites that
published the piece, in particular Huffington Post's article 'Controversial New Project Uses Algorithm
To Predict Art'. Some of my favourite responses are:
'i guess my tax dollars are going to pay this persons living wages?'
'Pure B.S. ........when everything is art then there is no art'
'As an artist - I have no words for this.'
'Sounds like a great way to sacrifice your integrity.'
'Wanna bet this genius is under 30 and has never heard of algorithmic composition or
applying stochastic techniques to art production?'
'Or, for a fun change of pace, you could try doing something because you have a real talent for
it, on your own.'
AD: Even though the project is very computational driven, as you explain the human aspects is just as
important. A relation to performance art seems obvious, something that is also present in some of your
other works most notably Selfsurfing (2012) where people over a 24 hour period could watch you
browsing the World Wide Web, and Public Access Me (2013), an extension of Selfsurfing where

people when logged in could see all your online 'traffic'. A project that recalls earlier projects like Eva
& Franco Mattes' Life Sharing (2000). In what way does your project add to this and/or other examples
from the past?

Selfsurfing, by Jonas Lund 2012.

Public Access Me, by Jonas Lund 2012.

JL: Web technology changes rapidly and what is possible today wasn't possible last year and while
most art forms are rather static and change slowly, net art in particular has a context that's changing on
a weekly basis, whether there is a new service popping up changing how we communicate with each
other or a revaluation that the NSA or GCHQ has been listening in on even more facets of our personal
lives. As the web changes, we change how we relate to it and operate within it. Public Access Me and
Selfsufing are looking at a very specific place within our browsing behaviour and breaks out of the
predefined format that has been made up for us.
There are many works within this category of privacy sharing, from Kyle McDonalds' live tweeter, to
Johannes P Osterhoff's iPhone Live and Eva & Franco Mattes' earlier work as you mentioned. While I
cannot speak for the others, I interpret it as an exploration of a similar idea where you open up a private
part of your daily routine to re-evaluate what is private, what privacy means, how we are effected by
surrendering it and maybe even simultaneously trying to retain or maintain some sense of intimacy.
Post-Snowden, I think this is something we will see a lot more of in various forms.
AD: Is your new piece Disassociated Press, following the 1970s algorithm that generated text based on
existing texts, a next step in this process? Why is this specific algorithm of the 70s important now?

JL: Central to the art world lies e-flux, the hugely popular art newsletter where a post can cost up to
one thousand dollars. While spending your institution's money you better sound really smart and using
a highly complicated language helps. Through the course of thousands of press releases, exhibition
descriptions, artist proposals and curatorial statements a typical art language has emerged. This
language functions as a way to keep outsiders out, but also as a justification for everything that is art.
Disassociated Press is partly using the Dissociated Press algorithm developed in 1972, first associated
with the Emacs implementation. By choosing a n-gram of predefined length and consequently looking
for occurrences of these words within the n-gram in a body of text, new text is generated that at first
sight seems to belong together but doesn't really convey a message beyond its own creation. It is a
summary of the current situation of press releases in the international English art language perhaps, as
a press release in its purest form. So, Disassociated Press creates new press releases to highlight the
absurdity in how we talk and write about art. If a scrambled press release sounds just like normal art
talk then clearly something is wrong, right?