Ellen Hsu

When Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable first came into the scene there was already discussion of new types of media and their global impact. At the time, TV was the new phenomena and Warhol managed to recreate its hypnotic aspects of neural image processing into the live performance. At one point, the article said this type of information processing was closer to human perception….yet it was later referred to as ‘perceptual retraining’ unclear of what new media could really do.

The article was also unclear as to whether new media created a unifying or uprooting experience. At first, historians believed TV and mass media would bring a utopian future, claiming it would bring everyone together to share the same experiences. As a viewer, one could feel as if his or her importance was elevated as they participated and interacted with a piece. New media seemed to develop along this linear progression, attacking different senses to stimulate thought. Warhol’s EPI took this idea to the extreme, fully immersing his viewers into an environment for the first time. Conrad gushed over Warhol, saying that he was pioneering into new territories of information processing.

Yet at the same time, the viewers themselves had a distinctly jaded reaction. By enclosing the individual in a montage of events outside of his control, Warhol actually victimized his viewers. And although it was possible to experience one environment, viewers sitting in different spaces could not relate to one another. Here, I think is where Warhol and others failed to predict the actual dystopian quality of mass media. The aftermath left viewers feeling self-conscious and lost. Its dehumanizing quality left viewers feeling like part of a meta-machine rather than as participants. Whether mass media has an uprooting and disorienting quality or produces progressiveness, depends on whether one lose his or her identity in the process or feels part of something greater.

Conrad tried to relieve these contradictions with the hope of progressive results. When he said, ‘new technology incites a mixture of reactions that are hard to control and hence politically dangerous to instituted powers’, I believe he was only considering institutions with oppressive natures. Today, the web has become the new ‘new media’ yet has not become a driving force for political or social change. New media has thus far, produced no such ‘enlightenment of the senses’ or reaction against the institution. It has actually produced an oversaturation of stimuli and effectual ‘numbing’ of the senses.

And now with the idea of the ‘global village’ in place, viewers are looking for a system in which they want to feel a part of rather than helpless in. It seems capitalism has found a way to satiate the need for both identity and interactivity. The exchange of capital superficially appeals to individuality and importance, in quantitative measures, while contributing to a large-scale system. Warhol’s attempts were unprecedented but unfortunately, I cannot think of a new media artist with his influences outside of the entertainment industry.