By Alex Pasternack
Amy Franceschini is a new media artist and the founder of Futurefarmers, a collective of futuristic artists and designers. Her work—ranging from online exhibits to installations and printed materials—has been shown at all sorts of awesome physical loci, like Deitch Projects and at the Whitney Biennial, as well as online at futurefarmers.com. The website mainly plays host to a variety of other artists’ interactive work, including Josh On’s award-winning They Rule, which allows users to create maps of the relationships between the executives of large corporations (theyrule.net). Aside from facilitating online work, Futurefarmers does real life exhibits and print work for a wide range of publications and companies.
Amy is currently teaching New Media classes @ the San Francisco Art Institute and
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hi alex.
i think this was the longest interview ever.
i got really tired towards the end, so maybe the questions don't make any sense.
Ok. Here goes--perhaps you should read over all of them to get a sense
of the flow, and rearrange the order if necessary.
What does future farmers mean? Why and how did you start it, what's its
purpose now and in the future?
Futurefarmers means what ever you want it to mean. For me it is an autobiographical term which points towards my past and my future. Coming from a paradoxical background of organic farming mother and pesticide farming father, i grew up in a mix of conflicting ideologies. While both my parents were growing food in extremely different ways, their approaches equally had impact on my political and social views. When i started Futurefarmers in 1995, biotechnology was starting to boom and i was scared. I was deeply interested in food production at the time and i wanted to live and work on a Permaculture farm as soon as possible. so i named my company Futurefarmers in hopes that it would bring me closer to my dream. To this day, i am still interested in food production, distribution and consumption. I still do not live on a farm, but i believe that wherever i am must be that farm. It is a state of being rather than a physical place. It is a road to cultivating my consciousness and others.
I started "Futurefarmers" because i wanted to work with people and use this platform of collaboration to learn and foster relationships.
How do you define digital art?
I think a good way to answer this is first with the definition of analog: The principal feature of analog representations is that they are continuous. In contrast, digital representations consist of values measured at discrete intervals.
Digital watches are called digital because they go from one value to the next without displaying all intermediate values. Consequently, they can display only a finite number of times of the day. In contrast, watches with hands are analog, because the hands move continuously around the clock face. As the minute hand goes around, it not only touches the numbers 1 through 12, but also the infinite number of points in between.
and then secondly with a definition of digitial: Describes any system based on discontinuous data or events. Computers are digital machines because at their most basic level they can distinguish between just two values, 0 and 1, or off and on. There is no simple way to represent all the values in between, such as 0.25. All data that a computer processes must be encoded digitally, as a series of zeroes and ones.
A lot of digital art on your site emphasizes interaction and contingency--is this typical for interactive art? How much control do you think the spectator of the artwork ought to have?
I think this is completely dependant on the project or concept. I love the idea that the user has complete control over a piece or space, so much so that he/she becomes the author, and that the artist is more of a facilitator.
One aspect of "digital" art that i enjoy is the notion of dispersed authorship. Roy Ascott said, "Partners in systems of dispersed authorship do not have to be artists". Mail art was much the same.
And how does digital art change--how will it change--that level of interaction?
For instance, wireless networks and the internet connected to databases can facilitate immediate information distribution to a large number of people and this information can change rapidly. This can potentially be very powerful to activist groups, parents and any organization who needs to have a flexible information flow.
I think it is important to use technology to connect people. I think communiculture.org is a good example of a tool which allows people to interact and have impact on each other's opinion due to visualizing the patterns of opinion and giving users the ability to annotate their opinions. I
How do you see the connection between interactive digital art and identity formation? On community building? On political awareness?
i think i answered this question above, but i still thinking cooking a good meal with others is the highest form of interaction. The interface of food offers a low threshold for people to cross in order to become part of a community. I think part of a potluck is the best form of this analog happening which is a good model for online communities or any community.
Does the computer make art more accessible?
Maybe...I ask myself this question this quite often. But if think about how little people still have access to a computer, i would answer no. As technology gets cheaper and more accessible, yes i think the possibility of artists using this channel to reach a broader audience will be achieved.
I just saw the Whitney Biennale, where everything seemed either digitally conscious, digitally made, or digitally influenced?
I don't think you can really look at art these days without projecting "digitally conscious, digitally made, or digitally influenced" into it. These descriptions are part of our psyche and are embedded in our cultural looking glasses. If anything, i think a higher appreciation for craft has evolved out of the machine made precision objects that we interface with due to technological innovation.
I saw the whitney show as well and i felt the "craft" was what i came away with.
Are computers a complete blessing for future art? Is there any going back to the paintbrush, the canvas, the sculptor's hand, the photograph? What's the place of traditional art forms in your vision of the future? Following your shows/events like Playshop, what role do you envision future art playing in museums? Or: what role will the museum play in the future?
I think the museum will always serve a certain audience. I think many different types of "museums" will form. I think the type of artwork many digital artists are doing don't need a physical home, but they do need support. My utopian vision is that museums will start to collaborate and co-present works. I think the "museum" is at the top of the food chain. It is time it realizes that its artists actually spawn from non-profit, artist run spaces. The sweat and blood of these spaces is the foundation for large museums. I think an interface between these spaces needs to be created.
What other types of media/forms are being used/will be used besides the computer to make art and to look at and interact with art? (I notice a lot of the video game in your site for instance) Do you see other senses being appealed to in the future besides the visual and audio?
I think many artists and myself are using sensors and networked objects to reveal social patterns in public spaces and in networks.
How does print work fit into the future?
I still enjoy print work. I love the nature of the medium. I feel that printed matter is an essential bridge to artwork and its audience. I think the extended presence of a book on a shelf is invaluable.
Who are your favorite artists, digital and otherwise? Or: what's excited
you in the art/computer world recently?
Hans haacke, Simon Starling, Carston Holler, Jorgen Leth
What sort of projects are you guys working on now?
At the moment we are working on several projects among ourselves. Josh is working on They Rule V.2, I am working on the Fingerprint Maze Game and a wireless Workshop here in Gent Belgium as well as developing a curriculum for my classes next year at Stanford and
San Francisco Art Institute.
What is your current involvement in the site/projects/artworks? What else are you up to?
I am very interested at the moment in Physical Computing and learning some basic electronics. I have been spending a lot of time thinking about how we use technology and how we can use it to create community and connect people. I feel highly critical of its use at the moment. I am working on a project with David Lu at the moment which scans peoples fingerprints and turns them into a 3d environment/labyrinth/maze which they can wander through. It is sort of a personalized 3d environment.
I have also been working with a biologist, Jonathan Meuser from UC Davis to learn about Algae/Hydrogen production. Jonathan built a working model of the system at a show we recently had in
Are we living in the future now?
It is April 27,
So what excites you most about the future?
The possibility of alternative energy sources. The fact that our fossil fuel supply is diminshing more rapidly than we expected is both scary and exciting. I hope it will force us to be creative in finding new ways to harvest energy from wind and sun and ALGAE!!
-- Amy Franceschini, Founder
Futurefarmers: Cultivating Your Consciousness
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499 Alabama Street, #114 San Francisco CA 94110
http://www.futurefarmers.com/
http://www.antiwargame.org
http://www.atlasmagazine.com/
http://www.theyrule.net
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ph/ fx 415.552.2124
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