Interview Natalie Bookchin

Natalie Bookchin is a new media artist based in Los Angeles California. In her works she has used the internet as a site and medium for art making, producing video games, compilations of online videos and other works strongly related to new media. Her works mainly consist of video installations and web projects which she has published both online and exhibited in several institutions. She often aims to question or discuss the far-reaching consequences of the internet and digital technologies. In addition to that she emphasizes the relationship between participatory culture and the public sphere. Her work metapet of 2002 addresses the social implications of genetic research. Metapet is a video game in which Bookchin depicts an era in which genetic interventions are no longer reserved for cows and soy beans but are increasingly applied to human beings. What interested me personally in Bookchin's work is the way in which she addresses social issues without placing any clear judgement, in my interpretation she seemed to leave this open to the viewer to decide. I asked her about this, and other things, in a short interview;

Bookchin's Metapet Character
(2012)

Q: Your works seems to take on thought provoking political and social
themes, such as would be the case with metapet, in which you discuss
the social implications of genetic research. However, your works
almost never seem to take on a very obvious stance on the matter under
discussion, is this a conscious decision? Do you feel that the viewer
should remain free to form their own opinion?

A: Yes. I hope to open up a conversation in my work, rather than shutting
it down. I think that posing provocative questions or positoningviewers in conflictual environments or situations can  open up
a space for reflection and dialogue.

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Q: In your works you have not only used the internet as a medium but you
have also used it as a platform to exhibit what you created. What made
you decide to shift from the internet as an exhibition space to
displaying your work in museums and galleries as well?

A: I  took my work offline in order to better control the environment in
which the work was seen. The scale, sonic space, and architecturalenvironment in which the work would unfold began to matter more, and  Iwanted the works to be seen in a less distracting more contemplative
space.---

Q: Would you say that the viewer experience is altered, or perhaps even
compromised by the physical exhibition space as opposed to the virtual
world?

A: I think for the video installations I’ve done since 2009, it is the
online space that compromises the experience. Seeing them live is a
more fully embodied experience. Viewers become viscerally and
psychically a part of the installations, as the narratives, sounds,and images unfold around them. The faces in videos act asmirrors to the viewer, and viewers can feel  as if they are in a
crowded room filled with the virtual presence of my video subjects. Of
course most people see my work online, and I don’t want to discount
that experience –  in fact I encourage it by putting my work online –
but experiencing the installations in physical space is really
something different. Now he’s out in public and everyone can see from
2012 unfortunately can’t really be viewed online – it is a difficult
piece to translate – and must be seen live in physical space where 18
channels of video surround and interpellate viewers .

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Q: Your work often emphasizes the amount of information we store online,
and leave accessible to others. This very much links to your theory of
the narrative form of the loop, which you have introduced in ‘Databank
of everyday’. Is this something that you personally fear? Or is it
rather something that you would encourage?

A: I would put it differently – I am interested in ways of “performing”
data archives we are making, of finding ways of bringing them to life,or into the spotlight, of animating them in order to reflect onthis new condition we are making for ourselves.---

Q: A final question, your new project ‘Long story short’ has a very
strong social message, and takes on the huge topic of poverty in the
United States. How do you find the balance between working on such an
emotional subject on the one hand, and remaining a strong artistic
judgement on the other hand? Is it difficult to decide to cut out
parts of people’s personal story in order to uphold the artistic
quality of the final work?



A: In Long Story Short, I edit to sharpen and clarify, rather than to
diffuse the stories. My editing is a way to link the many individual
narrations  together, in order to make visible the relationship of the
individual to the collective. In the case of American poverty, wherepoverty is often misunderstood as a result of personal choices and individual
failings,  this is a political as well as an aesthetic decision. I also
hope that the aesthetic of the project –its poetry,musicality, and its  rhythm – becomes a way to draw viewers in, to
lure them into engage with a very difficult and raw, but also very
urgent subject.


Natalie Bookchin's website: http://bookchin.net/
Long Story Short: http://longstory.us/
Metapet: http://metapet.net/
Dutch wikipedia page created by me: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Bookchin