Text

Copyright 2014
GAME OF FORTUNE
Application Software / Design: Minas N Miliaras
Organization - Coordination: Anneta Papadatou
supported by Dell
Application Copyrights: Natassa Poulantza

The Art Application that is entitled Game of Fortune and was presented during the exhibition by the title "It Is All Lies" at the State Museum of Contemporary Art, makes reference to a game of chance that is known as “Slot Machine”.
The Art Application images 'run' in columns and feature edited artworks by well-known artists in the first column and portraits of well-known thinkers of the 19th and 20th century in the second one. The player-user of the Art Application, pushes the start button and the images begin to 'roll' until they stop randomly, revealing a combination merged and presented in the third column of the screenplay. Whenever and if the player-user is satisfied by the outcome of the random combination, proceeds in printing a unique work of art, on an archival A4 size paper, signed by the artist. The Game of Fortune Provisores 5880 unique image combinations from which 1500 signed works of Art were given gratis during the exhibition.

Golfo Maggini
University of Ioannina-Department of Philosophy
(Ioannina, April 2014)
(Translated by Irene Maragos)

Natassa Poulantzas, “It's all lies- Game of Fortune”:
A study on the work of art and its technical reproduction
“The work of art is a composition: A power station” Walter Benjamin, One Way Street (1928)

The works of Natassa Poulantzas It is all lies - Game of Fortune are essentially a study on a subject matter that lies at the core of late modern reflection regarding the work of art. It looks at the technological transformation of a work of art and the multiple ways in which it mediates, first, the relationship both with its creator and its recipient and, secondly, the ontological, cognitive and evaluative categories through which we are encouraged to understand it. The relationship between art and technique is undoubtedly a constant concern of modern philosophy and art theory. At the critical juncture represented by Interwar thinking the issue regarding the technical reproduction of a work of art gains a new importance, as the emergence of new forms of art, and especially cinematography, portrays current events in a unique style even for our time. What is, nevertheless unique for our time is that, for the first time, the relationship between art and technique is threatened with an actual reversal due to the conversion from a quantitative turn around to a qualitative one. In other words, because of the exaggerated use of technical means in artistic creation, technological change threatens to lead to the “technicization” of the artwork, or to the latter’s conversion into something other than the unique and exclusive product of artistic creation. For Walter Benjamin, this threat is summarized in an observation on the work of art’s loss of worth due to the decline of its “here and now” in addition to the loss of the “aura” for which there can be no exact technical replica. Hence, because of its technical reproduction the loss of the artwork’s “aura” leads to a “process of de-enchantment” when it’s being transformed into to a simple object or thing, as its unique and genuine existence is substituted with a mass perceived and potentially inauthentic existence. However, a number of Benjamin’s other observations give rise to a more welcoming approach, such as establishing a new stance that is inaccessible to the “authentic” artwork’s perceptual conditions or thanks to this artistic reproduction, new relationships between the art work and its recipients are established. This complex issue is summed up in Poulantzas’ visual works, whereas the relationship between art and technique is posed in new, less divisive, terms. While, for Benjamin, as for most modern art theorists, the technical reproduction of artwork leads to the abandonment of tradition and the introduction of a compulsory mass dissemination of art, for Poulantzas, successive layers of tradition shape a unique kind of work of art that integrate a modern consciousness of science, intellect and art. This unique kind of work of art is defined as a palimpsest of meanings and compositions that are evidenced in its equally volatile relationship with its creator and its recipient. To an extent the recipient of the artwork becomes a shareholder in its creation in the capacity of user of digital means. This duality leads us to reconsider both the existing understanding of artistic creation, defined in terms of artistic, genius and its exhibition value conceived in contrast to its use value. In reality, new digital technologies do not simply function here as a means to technically reproduce art work, as they intervene in the whole spectrum of relations, that is the work of art’s relationship with its author and its recipients. These relationships lean toward a new and unique kind, one that goes beyond the dualisms of original/copy, unique/replica, authentic/technically reproduced. At the same time, Poulantzas shows that new digital means with their unique functions lead to a radical transformation of a work of art’s property status which in turn inevitably questions its authenticity. In this sense, the visual works of Poulantzas constitute significant evidence for the need to reconcile artistic experience with contemporary technological life world, highlighting in a radically new sense the wide range of art’s horizon of meaningfulness.

GAME OF FORTUNE  

The Art Application that is entitled Game of Fortune and was presented during the exhibition by the title "It Is All Lies" at the State Museum of Contemporary Art, makes reference to a game of chance that is known as “Slot Machine”. The Art Application images 'run' in columns and feature edited artworks by well-known artists in the first column and portraits of well-known thinkers of the 19th and 20th century in the second one. The player-user of the Art Application, pushes the start button and the images begin to 'roll' until they stop randomly, revealing a combination merged and presented in the third column of the screenplay. Whenever and if the player-user is satisfied by the outcome of the random combination, proceeds in printing a unique work of art, on an archival A4 size paper, signed by the artist. The Game of Fortune Provisores 5880 unique image combinations from which 1500 signed works of Art were given gratis during the exhibition.
Copyright 2014

KIEFER-BRETON 

Image from the Art Application "Game of Fortune"

KIEFER-BRETON...missing piece... 

Image from the Art Application "Game of Fortune" A4 sized unique digital print