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Papers by Gianni Wise

A critique of Richard Mosse’s recent installation, The Enclave (2012). I question whether Mosse’s... more A critique of Richard Mosse’s recent installation, The Enclave (2012). I question whether Mosse’s installation encourages a deeper reflection on the assumed ‘truthfulness’ of photographic representations of violence and conflict. In particular, does Mosses’s installation encourage reflection on the nature of an artist as cinematographer, the lens, and what is portrayed?

The catalogue essay for Feedback at 55SydnehamRd. It included the work of Sydney artists Scott B... more The catalogue essay for Feedback at 55SydnehamRd. It included the work of Sydney artists Scott Barnes, Biljana Jancic, Gianni Wise and James who have created artworks that subtly reflect on the conventions and performativity that underscores the experience of art. In so doing they all question
what it is to be present in the gallery space, both for the encountering subject and art objects themselves. What does it mean to present? What does it mean to behold?

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conflict between two nations but rather stays suspended in a permanent possibility of becoming. T... more conflict between two nations but rather stays suspended in a permanent possibility of becoming. The threat of 'terrorism' and the concomitant manipulation of fear have penetrated every segment of society. What is peculiar to this 'war' is the indefinability of the enemy. Despite its supposed ideological profile the enemy remains abstract, yet its threat is, we are told omnipresent. As in a Hollywood science fiction movie, the whole of humanity seems to be 'confronted by powerful destructive forces that threaten our everyday existence'. Frank Furedi, Culture of Fear, 2005. abstract Scenario House, a gallery based installation, is comprised of a room constructed as a 'family room' within a domestic space, a television with a looped video work and a sound componant played through a 5.1 sound system. The paper is intended to give my work context in relation to the processes leading up to its completion. This is achieved through clarification of the basis for the installation including previous socio-political discourses within my art practice. It then focuses on ways that the installation Scenario House is based on gun practice facilities such as the Valhalla Shooting Club. Further it gives an explanation of the actual production, in context with other art practices. It was found that distinctions between 'war as a game' and the actual event are being lost within 'simulation revenge scenarios' where the borders distinguishing gaming violence, television violence and revenge scenarios are increasingly indefinable. War can then be viewed a spectacle where the actual event is lost in a simplified simulation. Scenario House as installation allows audience immersion through sound spatialisation and physical devices. Sound is achieved by design of a 5.1 system played through a domestic home theatre system. The physical design incorporates the dual aspect of a gun shooting club and a lounge room. Further a film loop is shown on the television monitor as part of the domestic space -it is non-narrative and semi-documentary in style. The film loop represents the mediation of the representation of fear where there is an exclusion of 'the other' from the social body. When considering this installation it is important to note that politics and art need not be considered as representing two separate and permanent realities. Conversely there is a need to distance politicised art production from any direct political campaign work in so far as the notion of a campaign constitutes a fixed and inflexible space for intellectual and cultural production. Finally this paper expresses the need to maintain a critical openness to media cultures that dominate political discourse. Art practices such as those of Martha Rosler, Haacke and Paul McCarthy are presented as effective strategies for this form of production.

Thesis Chapters by Gianni Wise

Paranoid Fixations has shown how contemporary screen and digital cultures have played a significa... more Paranoid Fixations has shown how contemporary screen and digital cultures have played a significant role in the construction of paranoia in the public consciousness since the events of September 11, 2001. The rise of digital cultures following 9/11 has resulted in the accelerated repetition of the digital image of the attack on the World Trade Centre through a variety of media forms and networks. The resulting fixation with the repetitious potential of disaster has contributed to discourses of irrational fear within the public consciousness, and Paranoid Fixations has investigated how contemporary art and related theorists have responded to these discourses. As well as this, these discourses are reflected in the direction of my art practice and in the central question of this thesis. Paranoid Fixations reveals the role that art has played in exploring and responding to this paranoia, identified as a fixation with the repetitious potential of disaster in society today, and in doing so aims to give voice to a number of diverse artistic strategies that have been adopted. The investigation has revealed that if art practice is to find a way to break through those cycles that perpetuate irrational fear, then it needs to do so through strategies of dissensus and estrangement. Drawing upon the critical theories of both Jean Baudrillard and Jacques Rancière has revealed the divergence in their approaches to the nature of politics and aesthetics, and the role of the image within digital media. Yet despite the difficulties of engaging with both Baudrillard and Rancière, this has opened possibilities for a more expanded interpretation on the central questions in this thesis. Paranoia has been interpreted specifically in relation to Baudrillard's critical text Simulacra and Simulation, written following 9/11. Baudrillard saw those images of terror as corresponding to a fixation with the repetitious potential of disaster.

This chapter explores how the rapid transformation of the nation-state into a networked society h... more This chapter explores how the rapid transformation of the nation-state into a networked society has revealed a deepening anxiety towards the growth of the global network. There is now a realisation that this network is not simply a means of information exchange but one where increasing threats of dataveillance have resulted in a generalised condition of paranoia. Correspondingly, the exhaustion induced from simply witnessing world image-events within the network has escalated these fears. In examining the rapid transition to networked global geographies, this chapter reveals that the nature of this transformation is defined by a shift from the fixed borders of the nation-state to the networked world of a control society.

Imagined geographies, shifting borders This chapter argues that the 9/11 terrorist attacks have c... more Imagined geographies, shifting borders
This chapter argues that the 9/11 terrorist attacks have challenged the US’s belief that it was invulnerable to threats from those external to its geopolitical borders. The resultant escalating ambience of irrational fear has created the conditions for Giorgio Agamben’s state of exception to emerge both within and externally to US sovereign borders.

In the context of this proposition this chapter examines the relationship between border and the nation-state, giving specific attention to Michel Foucault’s model of the discipline society. In his seminal text Discipline and Punish (1975) Foucault asserts that the prison has become the central form of discipline in modern society through the regulation of the behaviour of individuals in the social body. This has been done through the regulation of space and the borders that contain it. This chapter also explores a number of art practices that respond to Agamben’s notion of the state of exception. Briefly, Agamben’s state of exception empowers one state with the authority over others beyond the normal limits of traditional law. A state of exception may also occur within the borders of an existing sovereign state.
In this investigation of the relationship of border to the nation-state, special attention is given to the transformations in society commencing from the mid-twentieth century that sees the borders of nation-states increasingly redefined and extended. It does so by applying Stephen Graham’s reading of Agamben’s states of exception. Graham proposes that these transformations mean that zones or ‘prisons’ are created that ignore the universal human rights of those seen as symbolically Other.
These investigations support and illuminate the overall argument of this thesis. Elizabeth Anker observes that the events of 9/11 provided the opportunity for these states of exception to emerge external to US sovereignty. Anker proposes that the very idea of sovereignty was altered permanently following 9/11.

Ambient fear – an aesthetic response Nikos Papastergiadis proposed the term ambient fear to expla... more Ambient fear – an aesthetic response
Nikos Papastergiadis proposed the term ambient fear to explain broader changes in our political culture, particularly in the aftermath of 9/11. In the weeks following the event world leaders began to adopt the now familiar apocalyptic term War on Terror. Even though this thesis is grounded in the events surrounding 9/11, it now also extends to include the symbolic terror induced by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). For the Bush administration, at the time of 9/11, the War on Terror symbolised “civilization’s war against barbarism”, and thus acted as the symbolic marker of “a new and as yet unknown and unnamed world.” This new world order was defined by Bush’s clear ultimatum: “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” This ambience of fear stems from the knowledge that we live amongst the unknown enemy, where we are surrounded by multiple risks but remain uncertain as to the actual origin and true causes of this threat. Today these specific threats have become increasingly diffused and dispersed, and irrational fear has merged with a generalised condition of anxiety. As a result the ‘intimate enemy’ creates and sustains a state of perpetual anxiety—one where symbolic terror no longer takes the form of a clear target.

For the US, the period following the events of 9/11 has been one of deep suspicion and terror of ... more For the US, the period following the events of 9/11 has been one of deep suspicion and terror of its own history. However, as this chapter proposes, Hollywood has offered a way to rescue and construct another narrative—one that is more palatable—offering ‘a way out’ of contemplating actual events too difficult to face. These re-narrations take the form of revisiting events such as 9/11, thus re-enacting the “farcical spectacle of the impotency of American power.” Specific attention is given to how these re-narrations take the form of the construction of the Arab Other through a discussion of television and video installation forms. The example of Showtime’s Homeland television series reveals the prevalence of dominant narratives and media constructions of paranoia. Consideration is then given to video and installation artworks that suggest counter narratives to dominant narratives of paranoia: the art of montage in the drama-documentary forms of Adam Curtis; the discursive approach of Harun Farocki; and the adoption of un-fittedness as an act of dissensus in my own art practice. These models are explained through the image and motion theories of Sergei Eisenstein, who brought to the screen the technical, aesthetic, and ideological potentials of montage, after which other more recent models of montage are examined.

Global terrorism has presaged the emergence of new security states accompanied by heightened leve... more Global terrorism has presaged the emergence of new security states accompanied by heightened levels of social anxiety and irrational fear. This thesis investigates how contemporary screen and digital cultures have fuelled a collective sensibility of paranoia since the September 11 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre towers—a catalyst from which spectacles of irrational fear have emerged through global media networks. I contend that the escalating culture of paranoia, animated by the screen and digital media circuits of post 9/11, has resulted in a fixation with the repetitious potential of disaster as media events, which in turn becomes part of public consciousness. The thesis considers recent work by artists alert to this dynamic such as Gregor Schneider, Harun Farocki, Hito Steyerl, and Jane and Louise Wilson, all of whom are increasingly conscious of the power of contemporary screen and visual cultures in escalating societal fears.

This chapter draws attention to the meanings and application of the construction of paranoia, as ... more This chapter draws attention to the meanings and application of the construction of paranoia, as discussed in the introduction to this thesis. As such it gives specific attention how the two key theorists, Jean Baudrillard and Jacques Rancière, interpret the construction of paranoia. Arguments are developed in relation to two artists in particular: Stephen Birch and Sophie Ristelhueber. It reveals how these artists work in complex ways to respond to discourses of horror and paranoia through simulation and dissensus.

Beginning with a discussion on a study of constructing paranoia through the idée fixe, or fixed idea—a central component of this thesis—this argument is then further developed using the theories of Baudrillard and Rancière in an analysis of the artworks of Stephen Birch and Sophie Ristelhueber. The chapter closes with a discussion on the possibility of Baudrillard and Rancière finding a consensus for art practice.

Drafts by Gianni Wise

Energy, Data Abstraction and Cognitive Capitalism (EDACC) is an exhibition of six artists who liv... more Energy, Data Abstraction and Cognitive Capitalism (EDACC) is an exhibition of six artists who live and/or work in Blue Mountains: WeiZen Ho, Ian Milliss, Naomi Oliver, Rebecca Waterstone, Gianni Wise and Jacquelene Drinkall. This catalogue constitutes an overview of the process that these artists engaged during the residency. Connections between the artists were pre-existing, largely though selection via my thematic filter and through relationships to the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, Australia, and these connections have grown, strengthened and been challenged through the residency exchange process.

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