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Books by Marina Turco
A Critical History of Media Art in The Netherlands: Platforms, Policies, Technologies, 2019
This chapter analyses VJing as a kind of performance that develops between the fields of art, new... more This chapter analyses VJing as a kind of performance that develops between the fields of art, new media and club cultures. The author sketches a map of the changing relationship between art and VJing throughout three historical phases, from the early 1990s to now.
VJing, the practice of mixing video images live during a dance party, is a relatively new cultura... more VJing, the practice of mixing video images live during a dance party, is a relatively new cultural form, which shows affinities with other contemporary media forms - film, video, computer games, mediatised theatre and the media arts - but appears to have a distinctive identity. Dancing with images is an experience that has its own peculiar meaning and value; it requires specific knowledge to be understood and the right "mood" to be enjoyed. It is difficult for the outsider to locate this practice in a cultural context (it hovers in the no-man’s land between art and entertainment), and to catch the meaning of moving images that do not clearly represent or narrate something and are perceived in motion.
VJing does not fit completely with traditional categorisations in some of the most important fields of cultural analysis. Live visuals appear in very diverse forms that may fulfil different functions. They can be challenging for our structures of perception, trigger deep emotional reactions, or function as a superficial vortex of eye prickles; they can transmit ideological or political messages or just pimp the club with a cool look. Those forms are also differently related with the other elements that play a role in the production and reception of a VJ set: the subcultural context, which clearly influences the choice of the language and content of the visuals and their reception (there are mixing styles, techniques and contents that fit better in certain scenes or clubs than others), and the technological tools.
What is the general value of VJing as a cultural practice then? And how does the video performance transmit ideas and emotions, norms and values within its specific subcultural field? Those two questions appeared to be strictly related. In this study, the relationship between the general social and cultural processes that characterise clubbing and VJing and the semiotic processes within a single performance is analysed from a broad philosophical perspective.
Drawing on Kattenbelt and Habermas I designed a "triadic approach" to VJing that distinguishes between three different orientations and types of communication both at the general level of the cultural field and at the level of the single performance. There is a subjective perspective where the images function as aesthetic objects, addressing the cognitive and affective perceptions of the clubbers; a normative perspective where the mix is understood in the frame of the norms and values of the cultural context - a means to conform to or to change the visual styles of the scene; an objective perspective that highlights the logical aspects of the VJ set, its adaptation to the party structures and the music, and its argumentative grid when it is used to take part in the cultural discourses of the dance community and to express ideas and opinions. The three orientations are "moving principles" that activate and steer processes and arrangements (dispositifs), between the concrete elements - technologies, texts and participatory behaviours - that constitute the practice of VJing.
Papers by Marina Turco
International Journal of Communication, 2017
In this article, we focus on two urban players whose ultimate aim is to regain public space both ... more In this article, we focus on two urban players whose ultimate aim is to regain public space both in the digital and the urban context: the street artist Banksy and the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement. These two apparently very different players in fact present similar characteristics and operate in similar ways: They engage with the “glocal” playground of the city, where digital and physical space are tightly interconnected, using media in stratagematic (playful, shrewd, unorthodox, and improvised) ways to recreate public space, where conflicting views can be confronted, an essential element of democracy. The article complements current literature on urban activism by highlighting the relevance of the spatial dimension in the emergence of a new public that opposes dominant institutional and corporate actors.
In this article, we focus on two urban players whose ultimate aim is to regain public space both ... more In this article, we focus on two urban players whose ultimate aim is to regain public space both in the digital and the urban context: the street artist Banksy and the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement. These two apparently very different players in fact present similar characteristics and operate in similar ways: They engage with the “glocal” playground of the city, where digital and physical space are tightly interconnected, using media in stratagematic (playful, shrewd, unorthodox, and improvised) ways to recreate public space, where conflicting views can be confronted, an essential element of democracy. The article complements current literature on urban activism by highlighting the relevance of the spatial dimension in the emergence of a new public that opposes dominant institutional and corporate actors.
![Research paper thumbnail of Dancing data: Come riportare lo spazio e il tempo nell'universo digitale [Dancing Data: Bringing Time and Space Back into the Digital Universe].](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/37905995/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Flusser's philosophy of photography foresees how the introduction of digital apparatuses in all f... more Flusser's philosophy of photography foresees how the introduction of digital apparatuses in all fields of human life will lead towards complete automation, and the programs running this technology will be progressively integrated within a large meta-program, a “super-black-box,” working independently from human intention. This analysis echoes Evgeny Morozov’s (2013) writings against the idolization of “The Internet,” the magic machine that is believed to offer a solution for every human problem. As Flusser predicted, and Morozov showed with contemporary examples of digital mediation, this super-black-box works in fact only towards the implementation of its own mechanisms of control. Flusser’s apocalyptic prediction, however, is counterbalanced by the idea that forms of “play against the apparatus” will offer mankind the means to regain freedom of action. This paper looks at forms of control and emancipation in the relations between club culture members and digital media. Social media changed the way clubbers share and represent their experiences, undermining presence in a culture that was traditionally based on intense bodily experiences. Therefore, new forms of playful interaction, such as forms of dance or fights between clubbers and the digital apparatus might emerge; new forms of DJ-ing that might lead towards a new understanding of presence and participation.
This chapter proposes to consider media forms and mediators from a "stratagematic" perspective, a... more This chapter proposes to consider media forms and mediators from a "stratagematic" perspective, a perspective developed by Matthew Fuller and Andrew Goffey in their book Evil Media (2012). Instead of pointing to the growing integration of technologies, processes, and devices within the transparent walls of an all-encompassing socio-technical matrix, the stratagematic vantage point focuses on the discrepancies, the ambiguities that emerge within the contemporary media landscape, and on the opportunities for (stratagematic) action provided by those discrepancies. Fuller and Goffey's notion of "evil media" can be seen as a pragmatic counterpoint to Flusser's (2000 [1983]) idea of the electronic/digital medium as "black box", or to its redeemed version, the "transparent box" as pictured in David Brin's (1998) book The transparent society, two extreme visions of contemporary techno-culture that remain an important reference point when discussing social and ethical issues, and still bear a great rhetorical and symbolic power.
From a strategic vantage point, media are developed, used and interpreted as technical application of scientific principles, means to pursue well-defined cultural, social or political goals. Yet, because of the multiplicity of projects and players, conflicts emerge, and the materials and processes adjust to each other in a more improvisational way. It is at this point that stratagematic configurations are activated, operations that do not follow a pre-defined path but improvise a trajectory across many layers of the media environment. Stratagems are Machiavellian "operative constructs," that do "not describe or prescribe an action that is certain in its outcome." (Fuller and Goffey 2012, 21) The complex ecosystem of the media includes thus different, often conflicting, interests and different kinds of material infrastructures, as well as levels of abstraction where the idea of a socio-technical matrix (the "global macro-actor" in Fuller's and Goffey's words), as an overarching construction principle, plays a role in the operations too. Stratagematic constructs emerge in-between and through the layers of such an ecology, in the paths linking centre and periphery, micro and macro levels, onstage and backstage spots.
The stratagems described in Fuller and Goffey's book picture some of the most relevant examples of stratagematic action in contemporary culture; the ones I picture here refer more specifically to different ways of dealing with the (real or imaginary) action of "the other", the black-gone-transparent box, the socio-technical matrix. Let's assume that the Internet and all kinds of more or less "digitalized" mediators (communication and business strategies, educational models, relational databases, etc.) are developing within the frame of a centralized structure, a structure that is whether opaque and oriented toward closeness and control, or bearer of a comprehensive, however inherently discriminatory, transparency and accountability. How do actors relate to this matrix by means of stratagematic action? How do they bolster, oppose, or exploit (the myth of) the black/transparent box for the sake of their own particular interests? I will attempt to answer those questions by examining some randomly collected matrix-related stratagems operated by actors in different fields and with different goals.
Tags: activism, hacktivism, hackers, glitch art, whistle-blowing, transparency, surveillance, socio-technical matrix, Whatsapp, Facebook, emotion contagion experiment, Douglas Rushkoff, Banksy, Evgeny Morozov, Bellingcat, Flash Mobs
Mapping Intermediality in Performance. 2010. Sarah Bay-Chang et al. eds. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press., 2010
In 1991 Pauline Terreehorst described video art as something belonging to the past, a dead art fo... more In 1991 Pauline Terreehorst described video art as something belonging to the past, a dead art form, and-what was worse--dead before it even had been properly identified. She thought that the uncertainty about the definition and context of video art contributed to its premature fall.
Conference Presentations by Marina Turco
In the introduction of the book Intermediality in Theatre and Performance (Amsterdam, 2006) Freda... more In the introduction of the book Intermediality in Theatre and Performance (Amsterdam, 2006) Freda Chapple and Chiel Kattenbelt describe theatre "as a collective term for all live performing arts, which implies that the performer and the spectator are simultaneously physically present in the same space". This broad definition allows the researcher to include in the field of theatre new forms of 'mediatized' performance, as well as more traditional forms incorporating new (digital) media. All the authors of the book try to get beyond the theoretical opposition 'live' vs. 'mediatized', bridging the gap between theatre and media studies. In the last years many scholars have been exploring the new territories where theatre and media converge, but they did not come to a common understanding on how theatre works as a medium, nor on the relationship between 'performativity' and media.
"VJing is a technology-oriented art form. Its creative power and cultural status depend on its ca... more "VJing is a technology-oriented art form. Its creative power and cultural status depend on its capacity to absorb and transform the most advanced technological developments. Yet, a VJing set up is more than an assemblage of techno-gadgets and powerful machines. Self-made tools and mass-produced apparatuses, ‘high tech’ and ‘low tech’ devices, all kinds of old and new technologies can be exploited in VJing, often combined within hybrid experimental configurations. The VJ chooses the gears and projection set ups that suit the space, inspire his performance, and address the audience in the right way.
VJs’ approach to technology is, in Gombrich’s sense of the word, profoundly “modern”. According to Gombrich, the idea of modernity implies recognition that change and transformation are basic principles in art, culture and technology. In this perspective, modernity does not necessarily imply ‘progress’ intended as linear progression towards a certain goal.
My hypothesis is that there are two aspects of modernity – connected like two sides of a coin: the progressive aspect and the aspect of radical relativism. These two aspects have always coexisted in modern culture, even if the first one played the major role for a long time and the second one gradually took the lead, accompanying and probably begetting the end of modernity. I draw this idea from the book ”Per l’alto mare aperto”, by the Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari, who reconstructs the histories of modernity in the form of a novel, from its rise in the XVI century to its fall in the mid-XX century (after a slow agony lasting more than one century).
I translate the two aspects into two paradigms of modern culture, that influence all fields of cultural production: philosophy and literature – the two disciplines that are the focus of Scalfari’s text - but also the field of aesthetics and technology. I propose that VJing, like some of the avant-gardes, belong to the relativistic paradigm of modern culture."
A Critical History of Media Art in The Netherlands: Platforms, Policies, Technologies, 2019
This chapter analyses VJing as a kind of performance that develops between the fields of art, new... more This chapter analyses VJing as a kind of performance that develops between the fields of art, new media and club cultures. The author sketches a map of the changing relationship between art and VJing throughout three historical phases, from the early 1990s to now.
VJing, the practice of mixing video images live during a dance party, is a relatively new cultura... more VJing, the practice of mixing video images live during a dance party, is a relatively new cultural form, which shows affinities with other contemporary media forms - film, video, computer games, mediatised theatre and the media arts - but appears to have a distinctive identity. Dancing with images is an experience that has its own peculiar meaning and value; it requires specific knowledge to be understood and the right "mood" to be enjoyed. It is difficult for the outsider to locate this practice in a cultural context (it hovers in the no-man’s land between art and entertainment), and to catch the meaning of moving images that do not clearly represent or narrate something and are perceived in motion.
VJing does not fit completely with traditional categorisations in some of the most important fields of cultural analysis. Live visuals appear in very diverse forms that may fulfil different functions. They can be challenging for our structures of perception, trigger deep emotional reactions, or function as a superficial vortex of eye prickles; they can transmit ideological or political messages or just pimp the club with a cool look. Those forms are also differently related with the other elements that play a role in the production and reception of a VJ set: the subcultural context, which clearly influences the choice of the language and content of the visuals and their reception (there are mixing styles, techniques and contents that fit better in certain scenes or clubs than others), and the technological tools.
What is the general value of VJing as a cultural practice then? And how does the video performance transmit ideas and emotions, norms and values within its specific subcultural field? Those two questions appeared to be strictly related. In this study, the relationship between the general social and cultural processes that characterise clubbing and VJing and the semiotic processes within a single performance is analysed from a broad philosophical perspective.
Drawing on Kattenbelt and Habermas I designed a "triadic approach" to VJing that distinguishes between three different orientations and types of communication both at the general level of the cultural field and at the level of the single performance. There is a subjective perspective where the images function as aesthetic objects, addressing the cognitive and affective perceptions of the clubbers; a normative perspective where the mix is understood in the frame of the norms and values of the cultural context - a means to conform to or to change the visual styles of the scene; an objective perspective that highlights the logical aspects of the VJ set, its adaptation to the party structures and the music, and its argumentative grid when it is used to take part in the cultural discourses of the dance community and to express ideas and opinions. The three orientations are "moving principles" that activate and steer processes and arrangements (dispositifs), between the concrete elements - technologies, texts and participatory behaviours - that constitute the practice of VJing.
International Journal of Communication, 2017
In this article, we focus on two urban players whose ultimate aim is to regain public space both ... more In this article, we focus on two urban players whose ultimate aim is to regain public space both in the digital and the urban context: the street artist Banksy and the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement. These two apparently very different players in fact present similar characteristics and operate in similar ways: They engage with the “glocal” playground of the city, where digital and physical space are tightly interconnected, using media in stratagematic (playful, shrewd, unorthodox, and improvised) ways to recreate public space, where conflicting views can be confronted, an essential element of democracy. The article complements current literature on urban activism by highlighting the relevance of the spatial dimension in the emergence of a new public that opposes dominant institutional and corporate actors.
In this article, we focus on two urban players whose ultimate aim is to regain public space both ... more In this article, we focus on two urban players whose ultimate aim is to regain public space both in the digital and the urban context: the street artist Banksy and the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement. These two apparently very different players in fact present similar characteristics and operate in similar ways: They engage with the “glocal” playground of the city, where digital and physical space are tightly interconnected, using media in stratagematic (playful, shrewd, unorthodox, and improvised) ways to recreate public space, where conflicting views can be confronted, an essential element of democracy. The article complements current literature on urban activism by highlighting the relevance of the spatial dimension in the emergence of a new public that opposes dominant institutional and corporate actors.
Flusser's philosophy of photography foresees how the introduction of digital apparatuses in all f... more Flusser's philosophy of photography foresees how the introduction of digital apparatuses in all fields of human life will lead towards complete automation, and the programs running this technology will be progressively integrated within a large meta-program, a “super-black-box,” working independently from human intention. This analysis echoes Evgeny Morozov’s (2013) writings against the idolization of “The Internet,” the magic machine that is believed to offer a solution for every human problem. As Flusser predicted, and Morozov showed with contemporary examples of digital mediation, this super-black-box works in fact only towards the implementation of its own mechanisms of control. Flusser’s apocalyptic prediction, however, is counterbalanced by the idea that forms of “play against the apparatus” will offer mankind the means to regain freedom of action. This paper looks at forms of control and emancipation in the relations between club culture members and digital media. Social media changed the way clubbers share and represent their experiences, undermining presence in a culture that was traditionally based on intense bodily experiences. Therefore, new forms of playful interaction, such as forms of dance or fights between clubbers and the digital apparatus might emerge; new forms of DJ-ing that might lead towards a new understanding of presence and participation.
This chapter proposes to consider media forms and mediators from a "stratagematic" perspective, a... more This chapter proposes to consider media forms and mediators from a "stratagematic" perspective, a perspective developed by Matthew Fuller and Andrew Goffey in their book Evil Media (2012). Instead of pointing to the growing integration of technologies, processes, and devices within the transparent walls of an all-encompassing socio-technical matrix, the stratagematic vantage point focuses on the discrepancies, the ambiguities that emerge within the contemporary media landscape, and on the opportunities for (stratagematic) action provided by those discrepancies. Fuller and Goffey's notion of "evil media" can be seen as a pragmatic counterpoint to Flusser's (2000 [1983]) idea of the electronic/digital medium as "black box", or to its redeemed version, the "transparent box" as pictured in David Brin's (1998) book The transparent society, two extreme visions of contemporary techno-culture that remain an important reference point when discussing social and ethical issues, and still bear a great rhetorical and symbolic power.
From a strategic vantage point, media are developed, used and interpreted as technical application of scientific principles, means to pursue well-defined cultural, social or political goals. Yet, because of the multiplicity of projects and players, conflicts emerge, and the materials and processes adjust to each other in a more improvisational way. It is at this point that stratagematic configurations are activated, operations that do not follow a pre-defined path but improvise a trajectory across many layers of the media environment. Stratagems are Machiavellian "operative constructs," that do "not describe or prescribe an action that is certain in its outcome." (Fuller and Goffey 2012, 21) The complex ecosystem of the media includes thus different, often conflicting, interests and different kinds of material infrastructures, as well as levels of abstraction where the idea of a socio-technical matrix (the "global macro-actor" in Fuller's and Goffey's words), as an overarching construction principle, plays a role in the operations too. Stratagematic constructs emerge in-between and through the layers of such an ecology, in the paths linking centre and periphery, micro and macro levels, onstage and backstage spots.
The stratagems described in Fuller and Goffey's book picture some of the most relevant examples of stratagematic action in contemporary culture; the ones I picture here refer more specifically to different ways of dealing with the (real or imaginary) action of "the other", the black-gone-transparent box, the socio-technical matrix. Let's assume that the Internet and all kinds of more or less "digitalized" mediators (communication and business strategies, educational models, relational databases, etc.) are developing within the frame of a centralized structure, a structure that is whether opaque and oriented toward closeness and control, or bearer of a comprehensive, however inherently discriminatory, transparency and accountability. How do actors relate to this matrix by means of stratagematic action? How do they bolster, oppose, or exploit (the myth of) the black/transparent box for the sake of their own particular interests? I will attempt to answer those questions by examining some randomly collected matrix-related stratagems operated by actors in different fields and with different goals.
Tags: activism, hacktivism, hackers, glitch art, whistle-blowing, transparency, surveillance, socio-technical matrix, Whatsapp, Facebook, emotion contagion experiment, Douglas Rushkoff, Banksy, Evgeny Morozov, Bellingcat, Flash Mobs
Mapping Intermediality in Performance. 2010. Sarah Bay-Chang et al. eds. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press., 2010
In 1991 Pauline Terreehorst described video art as something belonging to the past, a dead art fo... more In 1991 Pauline Terreehorst described video art as something belonging to the past, a dead art form, and-what was worse--dead before it even had been properly identified. She thought that the uncertainty about the definition and context of video art contributed to its premature fall.
In the introduction of the book Intermediality in Theatre and Performance (Amsterdam, 2006) Freda... more In the introduction of the book Intermediality in Theatre and Performance (Amsterdam, 2006) Freda Chapple and Chiel Kattenbelt describe theatre "as a collective term for all live performing arts, which implies that the performer and the spectator are simultaneously physically present in the same space". This broad definition allows the researcher to include in the field of theatre new forms of 'mediatized' performance, as well as more traditional forms incorporating new (digital) media. All the authors of the book try to get beyond the theoretical opposition 'live' vs. 'mediatized', bridging the gap between theatre and media studies. In the last years many scholars have been exploring the new territories where theatre and media converge, but they did not come to a common understanding on how theatre works as a medium, nor on the relationship between 'performativity' and media.
"VJing is a technology-oriented art form. Its creative power and cultural status depend on its ca... more "VJing is a technology-oriented art form. Its creative power and cultural status depend on its capacity to absorb and transform the most advanced technological developments. Yet, a VJing set up is more than an assemblage of techno-gadgets and powerful machines. Self-made tools and mass-produced apparatuses, ‘high tech’ and ‘low tech’ devices, all kinds of old and new technologies can be exploited in VJing, often combined within hybrid experimental configurations. The VJ chooses the gears and projection set ups that suit the space, inspire his performance, and address the audience in the right way.
VJs’ approach to technology is, in Gombrich’s sense of the word, profoundly “modern”. According to Gombrich, the idea of modernity implies recognition that change and transformation are basic principles in art, culture and technology. In this perspective, modernity does not necessarily imply ‘progress’ intended as linear progression towards a certain goal.
My hypothesis is that there are two aspects of modernity – connected like two sides of a coin: the progressive aspect and the aspect of radical relativism. These two aspects have always coexisted in modern culture, even if the first one played the major role for a long time and the second one gradually took the lead, accompanying and probably begetting the end of modernity. I draw this idea from the book ”Per l’alto mare aperto”, by the Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari, who reconstructs the histories of modernity in the form of a novel, from its rise in the XVI century to its fall in the mid-XX century (after a slow agony lasting more than one century).
I translate the two aspects into two paradigms of modern culture, that influence all fields of cultural production: philosophy and literature – the two disciplines that are the focus of Scalfari’s text - but also the field of aesthetics and technology. I propose that VJing, like some of the avant-gardes, belong to the relativistic paradigm of modern culture."