Intermedial Being

In more than fifty years of intermedia, artists and academics have been pointing fingers at mixed media crossings in an attempt to define its theory and genre. They have been looking for objects in dialectical interstices, attempting to describe the essence of the artwork and avoiding the role of the experiencer in the artistic event. The traditional objectification of art becomes blurred in experiential events, as intermedia defines the art form off context and alive in the imaging of the subject. I believe that an unfolding intermedium challenges the experiencer in the artistic environment. This theory should look closely at the process of conscious perception in experiential space.

Experiential is typically defined as the experience of existence; it is usually very rich in content and derived from observation, somewhat like our first-time experiences, which seem so vivid and generally leave a lasting mark. There is an intrinsic difference between the experience of existence and an ordinary or normal experience. When one experiences existence, a qualitative nuance is perceived and this awakens the observer’s mind to a larger reality. On the other hand, normal experiences are more about reacting to habit and learning. In the experience of existence, the experiencer has a more active role in the outcome of an event, whereas in ordinary experiences one reacts to fixed causal imprinting, unaware of automatic behavior. What interests me along this spectrum is the more active participation of the experiencer in the artistic event and the knowledge that is derived from these perceptions.

Perception makes one consciously aware of any experience, as it provides a sneak peek and a snapshot of reality. It is a sneak peek because there are an infinite number of realities overlapping until somebody looks and perception takes place. A snapshot of that reality shows up as frozen slices of what happened. This phenomenon has been described as the observer effect. At that juncture, objects actualize in space. The sneak peek gives the observer the impression of continuous reality. Neuroscience corroborates this impression of reality as knit together in a sūtra of sequential snapshots, some of which are made up of filler frames of our own doing.

I will refer to these snapshots, which appear and disappear at these junctions, as bings of consciousness. At this juncture the entangled object-subject relationships provide the experiencer with an observation that measures reality. However, the observer is unaware that he is really a set of eyes on the giant pancake of proto-consciousness looking at itself in a closed loop. In this sense, I think that sensory perception may actually mirror consciousness. Intermedial spaces are useful in the study of cognizance because they open paradoxical temporal windows into consciousness through the portal eye of experience.

In intermedia, time is essential as it allows the experiential process to unfold in the viewer’s mind. The relational narrative takes place as the viewer’s participation defines the intermedial space. The object takes a second row seat, and experience becomes very personal and time-bound, unlike traditional art where the object defines the artistic substance and more like conceptual art, which formulates the dematerialization of art and the removal of objects altogether. This preoccupation was already challenged by artists like Allan Kaprow who saw viewers not simply as “spectators of art,” but more as active participants in the artistic environment. He demonstrated this preoccupation in his formative piece 18 Happenings in 6 Parts (1959), where audience participation had an active part in the outcome of the piece. In intermedia, the interrelationships become the work of art, and the viewer in this intermedial process participates involuntarily in critical transformations, as any experience that challenges the viewer leads to growth. Similar to altered states of awareness, the transformative nature of the experiential unclogs the senses and one begins to change. The effect of this process reminds me of catharsis, deep meditation, and hypnotic trances. In his essay “Horizons: The Poetics and Theory of Intermedia” (1984), the Fluxus artist Dick Higgins was already aware of the cathartic potential of intermedia when he argued that “holistic mental experiences” can change and enrich ordinary experience.

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