 Dota
Takada
Bronx Journal Staff Reporter
Peter d'Agostino has finally made his way back to his Bronx roots, albeit via
cyberspace and an exhibit at Lehman.
This past spring, as a part of the "Bronx Celebrates" series, the Lehman College Art Gallery presented an exhibition of the provocative artist's installations entitled
"Interactivity and Intervention 1978-1999." On display was d'Agostino's work which uses high tech media such as video displays and Internet sites. Unlike other conventional art forms, such as painting or sculpture, d'Agostino's art relies on computers and other high-tech devices, some of which make for a very complex interweaving of technologies.
The presentation offered not only a chance to look back at the artist's cutting-edge work in video, but also a peek at intimate reflections on his cultural identity. The significance of d'Agostino's works to both the community and students is immeasurable.
"As an Italian-American, I think his works recount the history of the large Italian immigrant population in the Bronx in the language of art," says one student who attended the exhibit.
"There is a lot of information in my work. I hope students are influenced by it and find something for their creating art," says d'Agostino.
D'Agostino is currently a professor of Communications and a director of the NewTechLab at Temple University in Philadelphia. He was born in the Bronx in July 30, 1945 and received a B.F.A. at the School of Visual Arts in New York and M.A. from San Francisco State University. From there,
d'Agostino's career took a different path. He stopped painting and drawing when he was 23 years old, and started looking for new ways to express himself. At first, he tried to work with slide projectors or 8mm motion picture cameras before finally settling on video. It was an unusual choice; video photography wasn't considered art at the time, and
d'Agostino was suddenly cast as something of a pioneer.
He forged on, and in 1978 came upon the concept for the "Interactivity," portion of his show. Those years of constant experimentation helped him master the combination of video and multimedia installations in his exhibits.
"In a broad sense (the work that appeared at Lehman this year) signifies the relationship between human beings and new technology which is now known as hyper-media like computers, web sights, and touch screens," d'Agostino says. One example is his work
"TransmissionS" in which participants can control what they want to watch by using touch-screen. The main presentation of the exhibition was a work entitled
"@Vesu.Vius." The piece, named after Italy's Mount Vesuvius and its environs, reflects on the area of Italy near Naples where d'Agostino's parents were born.
"@Vesu.Vius" is shown through a video installation and web site. In the video installation, one screen shows pictures of Mount Vesuvius, the famous volcano which lies just between Pompeii and Herculaneum in Italy. Meanwhile, another screen projects pictures of the Italian-American community in Bronx. It's a haunting experience for the audience; in a matter of minutes, the onlooker sees how these two different locations in two different countries meld into a united image. At the same time, the web site gives viewers a window onto the Internet's virtual community, presenting a range of commentaries of Neapolitan philosophers, such as Bruno, Vico and
Croce.
Other retrospective works in the exhibition include "Proposal for Qube" (1978),
""Transmissions: In the Well" (1985-90), "Traces" (1991-95), and
"VR/RV: a Recreational Vehicle in Virtual Reality" (1993-95).
The first, "Qube" is a video which discusses the first emergence of an interactive TV, and it is the oldest work of d'Agostino's to use video installations.
"In the Well" is an interactive videodisk and, as d'Agostino explains, it is
"a body of work forming a metaphorical history of the electronic age." The work can only be viewed through a small peephole and is strongly influenced by Marcel Duchamp's
"Etants Donnes" (1946-66), which was exhibited in Philadelphia Museum. "Traces" blends video, print, and a web site to tell the story of the first atomic weapons by presenting a series of images documenting the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The year 1945 is an important one for d'Agostino.
"I was born in July 30, 1945 between the day of the first experiment of the atomic bomb in New Mexico and on the day of dropping a bomb in Hiroshima, so I feel I have set down some important roots that year." Finally,
"VR/RV" is a video projection which deals with interactive virtual reality. VR stands for a virtual reality, and RV for a recreational vehicle. In
"VR/RV", a recreational vehicle drives the audience to various places like Kuwait City and Hiroshima, two cities that have been victims of war. Computerized images give us a feeling of watching video games, but d'Agostino is questioning what high-technology has brought us and whether it has made our life better or
miserable. The exhibition of d'Agostino's works was organized by a guest curator, Robert Atkins, an art critic and former columnist for the Village Voice. Atkins, has not only published several books on art, he has also organized more than 20 exhibitions and is a good friend of d'Agostino's.
GETTING AROUND
D'Agostino's works have been exhibited worldwide in countries such as, Japan, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, and Yugoslavia and have won several awards and fellowships nationally and internationally. The list includes a Fullbright fellowship in Brazil, a fellowship sponsored by the Japan Foundation, Honorary Awards of Prix Ars Electronica in Austria, and one from the Rockefeller Foundation.
"He [d'Agostino] is not famous, but that's because he hasn't yet had enough recognition," says Mary Ann Siano, 56, who is currently working in Lehman College Art Gallery as Associate Director. Siano says that's probably because d'Agostino works in new media are far different from conventional art forms. D'Agostino's 18 year-old daughter, Brita, has her own view.
"His art is not sometimes accepted as art, but in my opinion, anything can be art. It all depends on how the audience perceives it," she
says.
If there's a downside to being a pioneer in a new art form, it's that technologies like those d'Agostino uses can become obsolete in a hurry.
"The danger of claiming a position as an inventor or a for runner in new technology is that once the technology in question becomes commonplace, artists who claim to be vanguard are simply cast aside as being too dated," says David Gillison, an art professor at Lehman College. However, Nadeige Choplet, 27, who is teaching ceramics classes at Lehman College recognizes high-tech art as simply art. She says,
"Media-art like using video installations is a very different type of art, but it gives you more images, and then your imagination goes free. It clearly has something to do with concepts."
For his part, d'Agostino was thrilled about his cyber-homecoming and glad to make a statement in his hometown.
"I have a very good feeling of having my show here in the Bronx. I just feel like I'm coming home. The Bronx is stereotyped and has negative images which the media have created, but this is where
multiculturism is and where real issues are. Perhaps, more importantly, I have a root here in the Bronx."
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