\"Low-tech, between exoticism and political practice\"

"Low-tech, between exoticism and political practice" ​ by Filippo Lorenzin

Speech held at Saatchi Gallery on occasion of #LowTechLabLondon2016, a project developed by artist Raúl Marroquín and coordinated by Daniela Medina Poch for the Educational Program of the Saatchi Gallery that did take place on January 15th, 16th and 17th of 2016 It is interesting to understand what is meant by "low" tech because if there is a “low” there is also a ”high tech”. “High tech” does refer to all the most recent products and devices built with the most advanced and performing technology. At first, this separation could seem to be based on the amount of data that the product or device can process, record or reproduce, but this separation actually stems from specific historical and cultural facts. Quoting “The Low-tech Manifesto” written by James Wallbank in 1999, “low-tech” does mean cheap and free technology: “cheap” because it’s produced in such a large number of copies that becomes underrated, something that THEY (quoting Tiqqun’s writing style) suggest us to forget; “free” because thanks to this carelessness it can be reused without exposing any evident tie with the company which originally built it. For example, walkmans are “low-tech”: companies don’t produce them anymore and it’s really difficult to buy a new one, even using Amazon and Ebay. Otherwise, you can find one old walkmen in almost every house, used in the past by older relatives. In this case, the device is “cheap” because you can find many low cost copies in second hand markets and it’s “free” because the very same companies which originally built it have lost interest in its existence, determining its obsolescence. In recent times, we have seen some manifestations of this fascination for obsolete technology: Kodak announced a few days ago that this autumn will sell a new Super 8 camera and this Christmas the best seller among the home audio products has been the turntables. Sometimes, low-tech is comforting. “Cheap”, “free” and “obsolete” are words you should keep in mind when you talk about low-tech. In general, we can say the use of low-tech implies a bottom-up approach. This means that a product built by companies is being used by the public in a different way from that for which it was originally designed. As we have seen before, this could mean two kinds of disruptive uses: the use of a device when it has been branded as obsolete by THEM and the “wrong” use of it, with different aims from the ones designed by the company. The obsolescence of a device or a material is often planned by the same company that produces them, determining their life spans and the moment when they must be abandoned. In recent years there has been much discussion about the problems that such a system generates within global economy, perception of technology by the public and waste disposal. Low-tech devices are usually outdated and often evoke an imaginary tied to recycling, to strong creative inventiveness and great vitality. Another factor that makes the recycling of industrial products attractive to us is their mass production which makes them all indistinguishable from each other: customizing them, you reuse depersonalized objects in ways that weren’t expected by their manufacturers. This has been accepted over the past decade by companies which often make devices that look impenetrable, eternal, promoting the idea that they are not customizable objects. The user is free to modify only some features of the device, without ever really affecting in an important way its structure and subtle logic. An example of this is the iPhone or the most of smartphones built in recent years: they’re all designed in order to not suggest modifications. Their presences dominate the user's visual environment with their unchanging monolith-like forms. Users can install applications from the app store, change the wallpaper and protect the device with a cover that can "represent their personality". There are many other products that are designed to be customized with the help and participation of the user but here lies the difference with the ones built before the last decade: they were built so that can be modified, fixed and explored by the users themselves. An example of the fascination we have for modification of technology is the frequency with which reports about communities that live near large dumps of obsolete or broken technological devices are published by photographers and journalists around the world. These communities are often located

far from Western countries, mostly in Africa or China, and intrigue us because we are curious to see how our trash can be reused and infused by new life. In a way, it's even a reassuring experience: there is life after death for what we owned, there is a process of decomposition that breaks down and that prolongs its life span - although in unusual or unexpected forms for our standards. In this case there is a strong exotic feeling, or something quite usual for us that is although slightly different from our daily knowledge. Now, why artists would be interested in such a thing? The artists who study low-tech are almost always interested in the recovery of obsolete products and also and especially in the effects of this operation. This is a practice that goes against the rules dictated by THEY. It is hacking, using the term in its original sense: “to hack” is a term born at MIT in the fifties, when and where the first students started experimenting with computers. “Hacking” meant “to go against the rules given by original makers in order to create something better”. In this case the artist who deals with these questions tend to address a particular form of relation between people and products given by the System. The use by artists of low-tech in their works often but not always means a political act of revolt. As practice, low-tech is very close to glitch art: in both cases you use a product in a different way from that for which it was built. Artist Beniamin Gaulòn said that “glitching a document is a great way to expose its inner workings” and the same goes with technological devices. When you hack and modify a low-tech device you’re going to expose the logic with which it was built. An example of this could be “ScareMail” by artist Ben Grosser: he created a free plugin for web browsers that adds an algoritmically generated text to every e-mail you send. This text contains terms which are indexed by the National Security Agency as potentially dangerous, such as “execution”, “explode” and “beheaded” in order to disrupt their attempts to monitor all the messages sent by individuals around the world. E-mails and plugins for web browsers are systems available for free to anyone and in this project they are the tools for a private disruptive activity. It’s a low-tech project precisely because it offers to the public an opportunity to become active towards a problem by using systems and platforms provided by companies and governments, mockingly turning against them their same logics. Another project that express this political approach is “The Pirate Cinema” by Nicolas Maigret: The French artist makes visible the hidden activity and geography of Peer-to-Peer file sharing. The project consists of three screens showing Peer-to-Peer transfers happening in real time on networks using the BitTorrent protocol. Maigret uses technologies available to everyone: BitTorrent is one of the most used peer-to-peer protocols in recent years and the installation can potentially be recreated by anyone. The video materials that are seen passing on the screens are the ones that people are actually downloading on their computers, and the apparently disconnected scenes are linked by the fact that they all belong to movies that have been stolen, exchanged and shared by a public that is leaving the path opened by production and distribution companies for alternative ways. Low-tech means two things that are very often but not necessarily far apart each other: on the one hand the exotic aesthetic of recycling and using cheap or free technology, on the other the result of an alternative approach to industrial products and logics. A project that deals with these issues must take a position in relation to this question. Low-tech means first of all vital and active resistance to the logic impressed on the device by the company. This approach is often crucial not just for the actual results of projects of this kind, but because they suggest to public alternative ways to the ones suggested by THEM. Low-tech often means life, creativity, where there should be abandonment and junk. Low-tech is a horizon of hope in a world accustomed to not take care of the sediments that leaves behind it.