Anne-Marie Boisvert: You came to Web art in 1997, after working in visual arts and video. What interested you in this new medium?
Richard Barbeau: Before then, I produced assemblages out of recycled metal, mounted on panels. When I turned to the Web, I left that production altogether. It's piled up somewhere and I never succeeded in getting it shown. It saddens me a little, because I had invested energy, time and money into it. When I began work with the computer, I found that it, too, was costly, but at the same time everything was so light! Actually, it's later on that I really became aware of the lightness of the digital medium: virtual tools, media, workshop, storage spaces. I lost contact with the materials, of course. That contact was very important to me, because my work had a strong tactile dimension. However, I discovered and appreciated the possibility of distributing my work and of controlling that distribution. People can now see my pieces throughout the world 24 hours a day. This has allowed me to join other artists in an exchange network. It is important for maintaining interest and stimulating production.
In saying that, I also realize that Web art is not merely a new form of artistic expression among others. It is a completely different universe, a new network that parallels the existing contemporary art network, and has its own mode of operation. That's what interests me in this new medium.
A.-M. B.: Your works often refer to art history (Olympia and Taches) and to literature (Perec and Énigme). Do you consider this playful yet critical, "post-modern" reappropriation as central to your work?
R. B.: More or less. I'm not really preoccupied with issues of reappropriation, citation, and so on. What interests me is the play of deconstruction and reconstruction, of inversions, and I like references that are relatively familiar: famous paintings, well-known texts, etc. I don't seek learned citations; I prefer working with common material.
A.-M. B.:And what makes the Web an appropriate tool for doing this?
R. B.: It is a flexible, fluid technology and the work doesn't demand expenses in the way of space and cash, only in time. Our medium is light, and live memory - a technology given to exploration, experimentation and accidental discovery. At the same time, one has great control over what one does. It's the method of working that I favour.
A.-M. B.: The mirror theme is very present in your works (it even gives one of them its title). Do you see this theme as a metaphor for the Web, or as a commentary on the viewing subject's relationship with the medium?
R. B.: I don't think I use the mirror metaphorically - a very loaded metaphor in art history. The mirror is rather part of the logic of inversion and symmetry prevalent in my productions. Symmetry appears to play an important role in nature and in the evolution of living things. Animals' bodies and their brains are symmetrical. Why? And the symmetry is never entirely consistent. Symmetry divides the human brain into two hemispheres having different functions; I find that really intriguing.
Finally, symmetry is one way among others of composing the surface; but the latter can also function from a spatial point of view. Works that represent inverted writing, like Énigme, suggest two symmetrical spaces: real space and virtual space, where the screen functions as an axis. The writing is read the right way according to the side on which one finds oneself, like writing applied to a glazed door. The symmetrical axis is here associated with a physical interface between two worlds. It is really a question then of a relationship between the viewer and cyberspace. Symmetry is a wellspring of profound meditation for me. I tend to think, for instance, that a reality is complete when it presents its symmetrical image.
A.-M. B.: Many of your works invite reflection, a return to oneself: I'm thinking of Énigme, of course, but also of Taches, which recalls the Rorschach inkblot tests; yet, this more serious and "philosophical" aspect is always offset by a playful side. Did you intend to produce such a balance?
R. B.: I like contrast, the coexistence of the trivial with a potentially philosophical thought. I think it is important that my works make people think, and I also like to confront people with something that appears to be simple, or not necessarily very rich in terms of experimentation; something that creates an enigmatic effect. It generates an uneasiness that puts the viewer at a distance, forces him to take hold of himself and reassess his position with respect to what he sees. That distance is very important to me. Taken literally, and considered from a cybernetics perspective, the enigmas are fascinating. In their interrogative form, they are the point of departure of an interactive and playful process. In Énigme, I allude in a relatively simple way to the Oedipus myth, which I think is particularly rich from this point of view. In its articulation, the enigma of the Sphinx is surprisingly linear: you have the ages of man (the child, the adult, and the old man), the series enumerating the legs of the being in question (4-2-3), and the times of the day (morning, noon, and evening). The narrative itself is a linear chain of events, often having no connection with each other, and of which Oedipus seems a prisoner. Taken from the protagonist's point of view, the situations sometimes evoke binary computer circuits: if I solve the enigma, I pass and the Sphinx dies, else I die and the enigma survives; if I kill my father, I marry my mother; if I discover the truth, I become blind; and so on. The narrative seems partly built as a series of algorithms that only make sense to the spectator of the tragedy who sees things globally and from a distance. One has the impression that, at a point in time, the Greeks had objectified linearity and used it as a narrative device.
That said, this interpretative work belongs to the spectator. I do it now a posteriori, as a spectator of my own work. All works of art are enigmas or Rorschach inkblots, because they stimulate reflection and the imagination. My Flash-based Énigme is a meta-enigma, a (serious) commentary on enigmas. But I don't know if, here, one has a balance between formal simplicity and the possible complexity of the content...
A.-M. B.: The balance between the serious and the playful, and the symmetry of your works, ordered alphabetically, and all of them presenting a play of appearance/disappearance, a mystery to discover, all this recalls Oulipo experimentations. Your homage to Perec would seem to suggest such an influence. Is the latter important for you?
R. B.: I have a pronounced interest in all things systematic (symmetry, for example). But I think that can bother many people. It seems simplistic. Personally, I don't like overly systematic artists. One has the impression of entering a world that is too organized, programmed. Yet, I am very systematic myself. I can't do otherwise, I can't help it. I like to program my own actions, and simultaneously tire of having to respect an alphabetical ordering. It doesn't really motivate me. One has to view this from the Oulipien angle of constraint. Constraint is my muse. Constraint and creativity are two entities that seem complementary (symmetrical?) to me. An art work is often the interface between a formal constraint and the imagination of the artist or spectator. The greater the constraint, the more explosive the aesthetic pleasure. I never read anything as imaginative as Georges Perec's La vie mode d'emploi, which is based on the strictest constraints. Truly, a rapture. His novel, La disparition, written without the letter e, delighted me enormously. I like approaches that are based on the examination and deconstruction of codes with a view to constructing an original meaning.
A.-M. B.: And what are the others?
R. B.:The code I examine is the alphabetical script. For a line of thinkers, the alphabetical writing system is crucial to human thought. Derrick de Kerckhove, for instance, demonstrated that the orientation of writing played a decisive role at the cognitive level, according to whether one reads from left to right or from right to left. All my work is fuelled by these ideas.
A.-M. B.: What role do the technical aspects of the Web - code writing, page layout, etc. - have in your work?
R. B.: My work isn't very sophisticated from a technical viewpoint. Learning the operation of applications and programming languages is laborious. I don't have much time and I try to keep things simple. I think one also has to leave space to the viewer, let him imagine all the beautiful things one can do. That said, I love programming, its strict and complex logic.
A.-M. B.: Are there computer tools, applications, or languages that you prefer?
R. B.:Flash, of course, and the PHP language. But I think there are still some very relevant things to do with simple HTML (another constraint?).
A.-M. B.: You have been teaching media arts at Collège de Sherbrooke since 1993. As a teacher, and as a critic, writer, and editor of Web art, can you make out tendencies and directions in the brief history of the latter?
R. B.: That is a difficult question to answer. One has to surf a lot to have such a vision! I would tend to think that, initially, art works had a very deconstructed aspect and artists liked to add lots of "noise" to these new information technologies. These conceptual approaches, sometimes extremely nihilistic, paradoxically contributed to quickly solidifying a cyberart community (weird things are often the most "engaging"). However, they also conveyed a kind of taboo concerning visual and playful appreciation (like "Hey, look! What an appealing thing, and I can make it work!"). That taboo is now coming down. While preserving a strong critical dimension, works can now be alluring without becoming dumb objects of consumption. It's very difficult to speak of tendencies. I also think this is specific to network art, which extends in all directions and to all possible experimentations. And there are now so many. Art on the Web is not centred on the identity of individuals, groups or movements. Nor does it proceed from a process of election and exclusion. It is very different from the current network of galleries and museums, which seems motivated by a centripetal force: everyone is looking toward the centre and struggling for that central territory. Art on the Web is moved by a centrifugal force: one drifts away toward unknown shores.
A.-M. B.: Do you think there is a Web art specific to Quebec?
R. B.: I don't think such questions of local identity will be kept up in the new network. Artists working Paris, New York, Montreal, or Kugluktuk have access to the same tools, to the same productions, to the same network. If there are going to be specific identities, it will doubtless be at the level of different linguistic communities, or of civilizations or continents. Is there an art that is specific to Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Oriental, or African cultures?
I don't really know. While the means may be universal, there are still great borderline zones in the network.
But if I look at my own community, I am struck by the minuscule number of artists visible on the Web compared to the great number of artists working in Montreal. Perhaps they still prefer to tug towards the centre?
A.-M. B.: Finally, given your promise at the start of your Alpha Bêta collection of eventually creating a work for each letter of the alphabet, may I ask what your plans are?
R. B.: Learning the software, completing my ABCs, it's the project of my life. The piece I am now working on is going to burst the screen.
N.B. About Richard Barbeau's Alpha Bêta, see the article by Pierre Robert published in Archée (10/1997).
