Geospaces

c-print on aluminium, Hubert Blanz, 2002

The view of reality

Margit Zuckriegl

Whether from weather satellites or exploration probes, we image consumers are accustomed to viewing our Earth and its surface from the “outside”. We believe we can accurately recognise the geographical situation depicted: a coastline, an urban agglomeration, an ocean, a mountain range. We equate images from unfamiliar perspectives with something we think we know: images we have stored in our minds from glimpses taken from aeroplanes, views of valley landscapes when looking down from the top of a mountain – and that is why we trust global images of the Earth's surface from the internet, of war zones in the media, of disaster scenarios after floods or hurricanes. Although the viewer can never have taken this position themselves, they rely on reality being depicted when images approximate familiar patterns of vision. Photo and media artist Hubert Blanz makes use of this strategy, which lies between cognition and sensation: on the one hand, he addresses the connotation of knowledge and seeing, and on the other, he demonstrates the basic building blocks of modern knowledge storage and image generation. In Geospaces, the artist imitates images that could be taken of the Earth's surface by satellites. To produce these virtual map visualisations, he uses the smallest components found in computer hardware: semiconductor boards, circuits, chips – these are used to construct city and coastal situations in actual arrangements, which present a seemingly familiar but in reality merely virtual image of a staged cartography. Blanz constructs an image of the world that lies at the intersection of recognition and association; when looking at Blanz's vedute, the viewer immediately searches his or her mental image bank for similar, familiar, nameable geopolitical situations in which he or she can recognise his or her visual knowledge. And yet his ‘spaces’ are not views of reality, but rather unsettling commentaries on viewing habits and advanced image-reading strategies in the digital age.

Margit Zuckriegl, exhibition and catalogue Schaufenster zur Sammlung V. Kartografie des Bildes

[Showcase for the Collection V. Cartography of the Image], Museum der Moderne Salzburg, 2013

Translated with DeepL.com

Geographical Shapes in Space

Wolfgang Fiel

Like his previous work entitled Digital Surroundings and the series called Digital City, Blanz begins his recent investigation of ‘geographical shapes in space’ with a choice of source material. In this particular case it is a range of printed circuit boards, i.e. mounting boards with an array of integrated circuits, ready to be equipped with electronic components.

Blanz embarks on an ambiguous strategy. Contrary to what would be expected, he is not solely working along compositional or metaphorical lines to produce general impression, but rather according to the principle of singularity in seeking out intrinsic and unique qualities of the raw material. Rejecting the fundamental linguistic duality of signifier and signified, i.e. the meaning behind the objectively visible surface of an observed entity from which the latter must be distinguished, Blanz initially focuses exclusively on qualities immediately accessible through the act of ‘pure’ perception. In the course of adding one circuit board to another, characteristic properties such as materiality, specific colour, layer buildup, perforations, thickness of the elements and the corresponding shadows produced under controlled light conditions, tactility and texture convey the impression of a ‘grown’ spatial structure.

On another level, Blanz uses the raw material to evoke associative relations among its inherent structural and spatial qualities and forms of representation, commonly known from aerial photographs of urban and rural landscapes taken from large distances by special orbiting satellites. In order to identify the single image, this analogy is taken still further by indications of the scale of depiction and the title of the series itself. In conjunction with the continued act of joining the circuit boards, which – according to Blanz – aim at aerial and spatial continuity in texture and shape, producing a sense of physical and psychological involvement, this observation may be seen in the light of similarities between his approach to that of a town planner. Town planning is not solely based on ‘formal’ considerations such as choice of building prototypes, traffic- and circulation systems, etc., but strives (or rather should strive) for a balanced relationship between functional and perceptual criteria of individual and collective urban appropriation, whereby – whether consciously or not – subjective ‘worldviews’ inevitably slip into the picture. Geospaces emits a pleasant balance of the above mentioned planning criteria, putting this work neither too close to actual conditions of reality and its forms of representation nor making the rawness of his material immediately apparent. Hence the work brokers a state of standstill and indifference, further exemplified by the fact that in correlation with the scale of depiction, the image format chosen neither limits the content nor does it lack coherent self-reference, making it difficult to fully access its meaning. The beholder is right where Blanz began: the thread of the texture has to be taken up in order to push the process forward.

Wolfgang Fiel, Geographical Shapes in Space in Hubert Blanz Slideshow, SpringerWienNewYork, 2009, p. 152.

(english original version of Wolfgang Fiel)

The visible in the invisible

Margit Zuckriegl

Global communication and networked image systems are the themes of media artist Hubert Blanz. His focus is on specific individual phenomena that he extracts from the ubiquitous digital cosmos.

With the fictitious satellite image of Istanbul from the Geospaces series, the artist moves in the reference area of image construction and visual memory: the city on the Bosporus stands for a symbolic connection between East and West, Orient and Occident, past and future – the configuration of the urban fabric using superimposed computer components and circuit boards reveals the specific nature of the cityscape on the one hand, while on the other hand prompting commentary on an immaterial culture of innovation and communication.

The artist continues this approach in his Public Tracks works: the intensity of message exchanges in a randomly selected Facebook profile is represented as a linear network diagram: invisible behind the text surfaces, strands and streams of images and information run, made visible in front of the infinity of an unfathomable image space in the form of Lettrist bands.

Hubert Blanz also used this strategy to visualise the city map of the Macedonian capital Skopje. Not only does the visibility of all the street names in the municipality result in a radiant star pattern, but also the accumulation of history stored within it: political systems and their transience can be traced in the naming of squares and streets, and urban conditions are subject to the representation of changing rulers.

Blanz constructs an image of the world that lies at the intersection of perception and association; he renders the invisible visible in pictorial formats: viewing means participating, and reception here also means following the clues laid out and examining their relevance to one's own destiny.

Margit Zuckriegl on the exhibition Where Are We Now?,

curated by Roland Schöny, exhibition space Franz Josefs Kai 3, Vienna, 2016

Translated with DeepL.com

Exploring the communicative space

Margit Zuckriegl

Global communication and networked image systems are the themes explored by media artist Hubert Blanz. His focus is on specific individual phenomena that he extracts from the digital cosmos.

With the fictitious satellite image of Istanbul from the Geospaces M 1:195,000 series, the artist moves within the reference area of image construction and visual memory: the city on the Bosporus stands for a symbolic connection between East and West, Orient and Occident, past and future – the configuration of the urban fabric, created by means of superimposed computer components and circuit boards, reveals the specific characteristics of the cityscape on the one hand, while on the other hand prompting commentary on an immaterial culture of innovation and communication. Although the city's structure exhibits some recognisable features of urban ‘physiognomy’ in its contours, such as the dividing line of the Bosporus, the coastline of the Asian mainland or the course of the Golden Horn, the internal structure of the city plan refers to the invisible mechanisms of communication media and global networking. The place of information exchange has shifted to the ether and the cable system: what used to be encounters in the bazaar, at street crossings, in squares and in passages (many of which exist in Istanbul and testify to the built interlocking of communication and economy in earlier eras) is now handled by communication surrogates on the internet. Istanbul has always been a place of ‘molecular capitalism and a network of peoples’ 1), a city of trade and diverse migration. With more than 100 ethnic groups counted in the city today, this has always referred to ‘classic’ migrants, i.e. newcomers from the provinces and neighbouring countries, traders, pilgrims, soldiers, but also (since historical times) refugees. Since the Iraq War, an Afghan population group has formed, and since the Russian invasion of Crimea, a Ukrainian one; unlike the current refugee flows, these movements largely found their destination and end point in the Turkish metropolis and merged into the mass of people living in precarious conditions and illegality. In view of centuries of immigration, the ‘housing projects’ are based on three clandestine stages of legalisation: the ancient right to declare a dwelling built overnight as legal, followed by the rapid and uncontrolled construction of poorly built apartment blocks, and thirdly, a corrupt construction industry that exploits its monopoly through its proximity to the government and favourable treatment. Here, as in the neglected spaces of physical communication, lies one of the problems at the interface not only of times but also of continents: the refusal to remember. The historical stratigraphy of a city is erased, intellectual and cultural diversity is levelled. This corresponds to the ‘building material’ Hubert Blanz uses as the basis for his mosaic-like image of Istanbul: prefabricated computer components and circuit boards as symbols of stereotypical communication and ubiquitous presence. In his other series of works, Hubert Blanz also refers to social processes of superimposition and global communication strategies. In Public Tracks and Vergina Sun, textual information, personal codifications and historically connoted place names become a visual information network that reveals the multiformity and disparity, contingency and diversity of communication. The social fabric of today's society is formed from this overlapping and allowing, from the recognition of its own stratigraphy:

‘The question of social contingency is that of a society's fluctuating ability to integrate at a given moment what it had previously excluded’ 2).

Margit Zuckriegl, catalogue text for the exhibition Where Are We Now?,

curated by Roland Schöny, exhibition space Franz Josefs Kai 3, Vienna, 2016

Translated with DeepL.com