Interview with Pip Laurenson (part 2/2)

Packed: In one of your writings² on ’Between Cinema and a Hard Place’, the work by Gary Hill, you wrote that you had contact with the manufacturers about the spare parts. I was wondering what they told you and what kind of collaboration you think is possible with them?

Pip Laurenson: Actually it was pretty good for that work. Most manufacturers have been really helpful. Although at that point I was also interested in things like mean-time-between-failure-rates, and here manufacturers turned out to be less helpful. They’ll provide you with the data, but they won’t provide the background to that data. If you’re trying to work out what the failure time is, they’ll tell you the final failure rates, as they’ve done all the testing, but they won’t tell you how they tested it. To be honest, the experience we’ve built up here as a team from running equipment for long hours is probably more valuable than any theoretical data. This is why we are careful about our documentation so we keep that data. Anyway, I did talk to manufacturers quite a lot for the Gary Hill piece. What was most helpful was that they put me in touch with a group of people that were responsible for servicing the broadcast monitors for the BBC. One of the issues with Gary Hill’s work is that you have to calibrate the monitors to match the colour, contrast and brightness each time it is displayed. I was trying different tools to do that and I was having a really hard time. I got all the particular CRT readings to match on a colorimeter for CRT’s but the picture still looked different. So I went to speak to this team, as the BBC uses similar monitors to those in the Gary Hill work to find out what I was doing wrong. They said, "yeah, we do that and then we tweak it until it looks right”! It turns out you can’t replace a good eye. Also, Sony did a sponsorship-in-kind deal with us early on which gave us access to expertise. Quite often what happens is that through building special relationships we can get access not to the consumer level distributors but to people who distribute to the sales people. We then have access to a more knowledgeable group of sales people. We can have technical discussions and they can provide us with service manuals, etc. We can also get spare parts from them directly, until they don’t have any spare parts left. Manufacturers have been pretty good, I think, given that we are a very small concern for them. Of course at the end of the day they want to sell large numbers of their products and we are a minuscule - although interesting - part of their market.


Gary Hill, Between Cinema and a Hard Place. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1993. (Foto: Mark B. McLoughlin, Courtesy of the artist and Donald Young Gallery, Chicago)

Packed: About the management of the equipment during the exhibition, how do you take into account the lifetime of the equipment? Do you consider for very rare equipment that there could be a display schedule, for example that the projected work should run just once an hour?

Pip Laurenson: Tina has just come up with that idea.

Tina Weidner: We are only just starting to face this problem but we are keen to manage the way in which works with rare equipment are displayed rather than just packing them away. With the opening of Tate Modern coming up, we would love to explore whether there is an option to have a special display at some point dedicated to works of art that use very rare equipment to prompt more discussion on these issues.

Pip Laurenson: And would you show some of the works that use very rare equipment just for a limited time during the day?

Tina Weidner: I think it should be either just for some kind of study or for a once a week event; otherwise it might be very difficult to do. It is good to have these works being dealt with and on display rather than being tucked away from our immediate radar.

Pip Laurenson: You mean to be viewable, rather than to be in storage?

Tina Weidner: Yes.

Pip Laurenson: We’ve got some lovely Technicolor 8 mm projectors that came with Dan Graham’s³ work ‘Two Correlated Rotations’.⁴ I always thought that we might do a little performance with the original equipment, but the reality is that it would never have worked very well. These projectors wouldn’t have synced up. The projectors in this work are supposed to sync up, and Dan Graham said at the time that he thought it should be shown on 16 mm anyway. Tina has been working on this with Robert Miniacci and we now have a system to synchronise 16 mm projectors that’s been happily on display for quite a long time. I think there’ll be a time with some pieces when people will want to come and look at the original equipment alongside what is being currently used. I think there might be an interest in seeing equipment such as Tony Oursler's⁵ projectors, for example, that make a big difference to the look of a work. But whether we’d actually get a gallery display I am not sure... it is important that we don’t undermine the artwork by displaying them in this context. Certainly for Tinguely's⁶ kinetic works⁷ we limit the amount of time they are active. I think they’re on for five minutes every hour, and there’s a little note on the board explaining when they'll be switched on.


Packed: Is it possible that documentation of the work might replace the work when it’s not running?

Tina Weidner: I honestly think that kind of idea has been too overworked. How much more time do you want to spend behind a desk just doing things to replace the work? I think that what is more important is to fight for the works to be accessible, and then you can address the conservation needs to keep them displayable. But I wouldn’t feel comfortable just putting paperwork up in the gallery.

Pip Laurenson: But for some works you could have a documentary video for example which might help people to understand in the future what the work looked like.


Packed: To save the lifespan of the original equipment…

Tina Weidner: I honestly think as long as the equipment is still there, it is better to keep it going. It seems that everybody wants to show the documentation instead of the actual work in such cases, but I haven’t seen a case where you would say "very nicely delivered, it really gave me feel of the work…” I think that if you want to do it, you need to do it on a sort of wider scope and not just with paperwork.

Pip Laurenson: We have a nice example that I think is interesting. We have an artist, Ceal Floyer,⁸ who in her work ‘Carousel’ uses a record player and a vinyl record, and when we can no longer keep the record player going, she doesn’t want us to play a trick and play the sound as a file. The record contains the sound of a carousel slide projector. Instead of cheating, she wants to create the documentation herself which marks the next phase in the life of the work. Here the artwork includes the documentation of its own history - which is a bit different. But I think that’s quite nice.

Tina Weidner: At the end of the day the artwork is what is important. It becomes problematic if you take the main focus away from the work of art towards something educational simply to justify why the work doesn’t work anymore - making that the sort of highlight... Everybody seems to be heading down that road at the moment.

Pip Laurenson: I think our answer is probably that we haven’t got any works where, apart from the Ceal Floyer, the artist or the curator would prefer us to provide documentation of the original work as it was first delivered to us rather than having it migrated through different technologies. This is either because where the look of the original equipment is significant we can still show that installation with the correct display equipment because of the conservation work we have done and the spares we have gathered etc. or the identity of the work is flexible enough to allow new technologies to be used without loss. So we haven’t fully hit this problem yet; I’m sure we will. It came up because we have been thinking about Nam June Paik⁹ recently and for many of those works the value and importance of the CRT monitors is obviously very high.


A work in a process of restoration using a CRT monitor. (Photo: PACKED vzw)

Packed: When the original equipment fails, breaks down, or is not available and you can’t find the same as the original one, what are the main criteria for replacement?

Pip Laurenson: It really depends on the work. I guess the first thing we think about is the importance of the equipment to the artwork. If it was purely functional, then we just need to make sure the function is still available. If it’s visible, if it’s part of what you see, obviously there are going to be different criteria.

I guess the three principle criteria are: the function and the quality of what it produces; if it’s visible, the way it looks and whether that is important; then also any relationship to how the work was made or any cultural references that the equipment may have that are relevant to the piece. And I think the questions that are in the paper that I wrote on display equipment¹⁰ are probably still pretty current. They're the questions we ask. We always involve the artist, and discuss the relationship between the technology used and its significance with them.

Sometimes these conversations take us by surprise. For example with Tony Oursler we had a really interesting conversation because we were looking for a replacement for the CPJ-100s.¹¹ They’re these lovely round-shaped projectors that sat on the floor. They were visible. They produce quite a distinct picture. I think they had a halogen lamp in them, which produces quite a yellow image. And that kind of projector went quite nicely with the manikins¹² in the piece. We showed him the different options for possible replacement projectors, and it turned out that we were much more concerned with the aesthetic of the image than he was. We wanted to keep the same sort of yellow tint, and for this we used neutral density filters and different tints to recreate and basically match the tone of the original projector. The newer projectors were very bright and whiter, and a bit garish in comparison. He could see that we were interested in that, but actually we were more interested in the aesthetic than he was in that case. But it was a good conversation, and he appreciated our care and concern and was happy with this option. We work closely with artists, or their technicians, when we have to change equipment.


Packed: When do you think about getting the artist involved?

Pip Laurenson: Before we acquire the work. A part of our process in thinking about the work being considered for acquisition is to understand what the relationship is to the technology in the work, so that we can then decide what it is we’re trying to preserve.


Packed: Are there sometimes problems with artist’s wishes that might come into conflict with what you, as a conservator, has or wants to do.

Pip Laurenson: Not so far. One of the things I think that I have become really quite conscious of is that, wherever possible, you have to involve the current stakeholders; the current curators, and artists, etc., but we don’t know what people are going to be interested in the future. There will be future curators who may be a lot more interested in the original equipment or a lot less... But we as conservators for a collection need to plan for future curators and whatever they might be interested in. If a decision is made to use a particular technology, this might have a major impact on how the work looks. We need to have good documentation about how the work has been presented at different phases of its life for those curators and conservators in the future who are going to be interested in how a work has been displayed. Maybe there will be curators who will be interested in performances with the original equipment for example, and we need to be able to serve their needs as much as the curator who isn’t interested in that. That’s why we hang on to old equipment.

One of the things I find is that when we have a chance to show a group of curators, art historians or artists the impact of different projection technologies and how an image looks, they’re shocked and amazed by what a huge impact it can have. We have a big flexible space where we can show the same source with different projector technologies, and it’s something they have never seen before because how could they?

On the whole the conversations we have with artists are fruitful. If they made a piece during the mid-nineties, and you say "you know what, it would probably look really horrible if you put it on the latest super bright DLP projector¹³", they understand that. But we will also show it to them so they can see for themselves what it will look like.

I think one of the skills that conservators for contemporary art generally need is the ability to know how to enter into these dialogues with artists without things getting totally out of control and the situation becoming full of doubt. Conservators need to know how to manage that process. It’s definitely a skill; it’s a diplomatic skill that’s really quite an important part of what conservators do. But I also understand how difficult it can be when an artist has a different opinion than the conservator. One of the things I find useful is to remind artists that their work has art historical importance. We need to remind them that if they upgrade everything to a point where it all looks as if it was made yesterday, there'd be no sense left for the visitor in the museum about the progression of the work and how their work might have changed.


Packed: How do you manage the budget and the cost of equipment?

Pip Laurenson: It's wonderfully complicated. The acquisition budget pays for buying any additional equipment needed for the display of newly acquired collection works.

Tate is made up of four museums; Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. If they show a collection work, we ask them to pay for consumables like projector lamps. If there’s any specific external servicing cost, we’d budget that. All the costs go into a form which basically outlines all the costs for the display. This gets agreed by the budget holder before the beginning of the display. And then we give them updates such as "we’ve bought six bulbs, and we’ve got three to go" in order to inform them about the budget over the period of the display.

We also have a budget that pays for any major upgrade or display because we don't ask the sites to pay for that. If a piece of equipment totally fails, we use a specific conservation budget to pay for its repair or buy a replacement. We don’t ask the sites to pay major costs for repairs or to buy a replacement. That budget also pays for spares . It’s quite complicated but it is valuable complexity as it spreads the cost across lots of different budgets which makes it all possible.


Packed: Does it have any influence on the strategy about a work?

Pip Laurenson: It did with LCD projectors. They were becoming incredibly expensive to run and incredibly difficult to get properly maintained, because of the effect of the operating hours on the LCD panels and the speed at which they deteriorate. The last time we seriously used a set of LCD projectors was for ‘Mapping the studio’,¹⁴ the Bruce Nauman work. That was partly because at the time single chip DLP projectors couldn’t manage colour very well and they hadn’t bought out the inorganic LCD or the hybrid technology projectors yet. The organic LCDs discolour very quickly and also dust gets trapped in the optics. If you look on our website, Time-Based Media Conservation,¹⁵ you will see a project describing this work by Nauman and discussing its conservation and display. There’s actually, buried in there, a whole discussion about projector maintenance. Huge amounts of work. We bought a number of replacement panels. We worked with a specialist company and it was really difficult to get them to do a good job, to get the right balance, to get the colours to look good. It was just an enormous amount of work. The management of colour for other types of projector technology has improved. When we show that work again, we won’t use LCD projectors because technology will have developed in ways which mean we won’t have to. It was just really hard to get the projectors not to look really horrible very quickly, because of the discoloration of the panels and the dust. A lot of our works from the nineties used a single panel organic LCD. It’s really interesting to look at those images and compare them to what we’re using now. They’re very different, quite painterly.


Packed: What are your expectations for the future of these works?

Pip Laurenson: I think that the 4:3 aspect ratio is a big issue, and slide technology is going to be a bigger problem than film in the next few years because it will become obsolete sooner. Slide-based works are one of our biggest priorities. But in general I think being optimistic is good. I remember being told in 2001 by a museum director (not from Tate) that it was no longer possible to show film in galleries. Of course it’s possible; we still do it. It’s hard work, but if you’re committed to it you can make these things possible.

I think that people are leaping a bit too quickly to a situation where they are giving up on old technologies too fast. There’s no point making a big song and dance about keeping an original technology if it doesn’t actually hold any significance for that artwork. But I think some people have made the mistake in thinking all technologies are insignificant for all time-based media artworks. In some cases the display equipment is really significant, whereas for another case it’s really not.

I think you need to make a judgment about the value of that technology for the work. And once you’ve made that judgment, then you’re basically saying that if you can’t maintain the relationship of the technology for the work, you’re going to lose something important. Then you have to decide how hard you’re going to work to stop that loss. It's the same as people working really hard with their collections of paintings to prevent the loss of bits of paint or to minimize the fading of a watercolour. It is important to know where to put your energies, what the important things are to try to maintain. That comes with experience but you should not give up too quickly. We know we’re going to have major problems with CRTs, so we will work pretty hard to collect spares, to find people who recondition tubes, to find that expertise, etc.

One gallerist said what we need is a sort of time capsule. In a worst case scenario when we all have to accept we have reached the end of the line because it's really become unsustainable and we can’t afford to show the works in the way we would like to, then we have this time capsule which we just open for plan B. But don’t leap to the plan B first. Bill Viola made the comparison to a predella that might be the last remains of an altar piece. In some cases we will lose very important aspects of our artworks when we lose their connection to a particular technology.

We should acknowledge that we have lost something important if the technology was important, and maybe we’ll have alternatives and other ways to show a work. But for some artists this will be very problematic. Tacita Dean¹⁶ is adamant that she never wants her films shown in digital form. We’ll have to find a way of still having light passing through the transparent material creating an image on the wall. These are the conversations that we’re having with artists now about how important the technology is to them and their work. And they will all have to determine their position in relation to that. It is very important that curators also fully engage in these difficult decisions. We’ve come a long way in how we manage film and other older technologies, however, the longer I’m in this business, the more challenging it becomes.

Click here to read part one of the interview.


Notes

¹ Tate is a family of four art galleries housing the UK's collection of British art from 1500, and of international modern and contemporary art: Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. Tate Modern holds a collection of international modern and contemporary art from 1900 to the present day, and is housed in the former Bankside Power Station in North Southwark, London.
²Pip Laurenson, The Management of Display Equipment in Time-based Media Installations, 2005, http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/tatepapers/05spring/laurenson.htm
³Dan Graham (° 1942, Urbana, Illinois) is a conceptual artist working in New York City. He is an influential figure in the field of contemporary art, both a practitioner of conceptual art and an art critic and theorist. His film and video works address the questions of time and space.
⁴See: http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=5561&searchid=17599&roomid=5256&tabview=text
⁵Tony Oursler (° 1957, New York City) is an American multimedia and installation artist. He animates non-living objects with the use of projectors. Classified, along with Bill Viola, Bruce Nauman, Gary Hill and other such artists, among the most outstanding video creators, he has employed this technique in a totally different manner. In his works, a motion picture filmed with a video-camera is projected with a projector functioning on a laterna-magica basis as in 19th-century theatre. The viewer does not stare at a rectangular screen, rather, s/he can see before him or her enlivened flowers, giant eye-balls, or puppets - talking, swearing at one another, quarrelling, and using coarse expressions. The contrast between the immovable, 'dead' bodies of the dolls and the aggressive, vulgar language not spared by their 'talking heads' create an unexpected dramatic power. Source: http://csw.art.pl/new/99/ousler_e.html. See also: http://www.tonyoursler.com/
⁶Jean Tinguely (1925, Fribourg - 1991, Bern) was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art. See: http://www.tinguely.ch/
⁷The word kinetic means relating to motion. Kinetic art is art that depends on motion for its effects. Since the early twentieth century artists have been incorporating movement into art. This has been partly to explore the possibilities of movement, partly to introduce the element of time, partly to reflect the importance of the machine and technology in the modern world, partly to explore the nature of vision. Movement has been produced either mechanically by motors or by exploiting the natural movement of air in a space. Source: http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=148
⁸Ceal Floyer (°1968, Karachi) is a British multimedia artist working in video, sound and light projection, works on paper, and sculpture. Her work examines the dialectical tension between the literal and the mundane, and the imaginative construction of meaning. The deceptive simplicity of her work is informed by her particular sense of humour and awareness of the absurd; her use of double-takes and shifting points of view forces the viewer to renegotiate his perception of the world.
⁹Nam June Paik (1932, Seoul –2006, Miami) was a Korean-born American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered as one of the most important video artists. His works often comprises sculptures and installations with TV sets and modified CRTs. In 1969, he created the Paik/Abe synthesizer with the artist/engineer Shuya Abe. See: http://www.paikstudios.com/
¹⁰See: http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/tatepapers/04spring/time_based_media.htm
¹¹ The CPJ-100 is a LCD projector that was produced by Sony until 1997. Its design is very unusual, with almost all of the electronics and projector components built inside a cylindrical housing. It was attached on one side to a stand, that allows it to rotate through 90 degrees and project an image for example on a ceiling. The projector can handle both PAL and NTSC formatted signals, from composite or S-Video sources.
¹²The artist Tony Oursler is known for using manikins in his works, on which videos are often projected.
¹³Digital Light Processing (DLP) is a trademark owned by Texas Instruments, representing technology used in some TVs and video projectors. DLP is used in DLP front projectors (small standalone projection units) and DLP rear projection television. DLP is also one of the leading technologies used in digital cinema projection.
¹⁴Bruce Nauman made ‘Mapping the Studio II with colour shift, flip, flop, & flip/flop (Fat Chance John Cage)’ in 2001. It is a seven projection installation where he takes his own studio as a subject. See: http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=78181&tabview=text
¹⁵See: http://www.tate.org.uk/conservation/time/about.htm and http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/majorprojects/nauman/home_1.htm
¹⁶ Tacita Dean (° 1965) is an English visual artist, living in Berlin. She is trained as a painter and now works in a variety of media, including drawing, photography and sound but is best known for her compelling 16mm films. Static camera positions and long takes are characteristic of her films, creating a sense of stillness in their moving images. She has also made works about the mechanics of production, which reveal the artifice of cinema. Source: http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/tacitadean/