Update on creative livestreaming: a possible connection to the school of "protocolar art."
I recently read an article in the August issue of The Atlantic called What AI Will Do to Art and was exposed to a new term: "protocolar art," which arose in the context of Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst's latest exhibit for the Venice Biennal. If you didn't know, their work famously involves deliberate employment of Gen-AI. When interviewed, the duo described how the way in which they use AI is part of an artistic imperative, one that seeks to question the role of authorship in art by emphasizing the "creator" as the "protocol" that makes it, rather than what is manifested through its aesthetic result. To wit, "protocolar art" is generated based on a particular rule-based set of conditions that are expressed by the intent of the artist, which is where artists like Herndon and Dryhurst are drawn into the discussion.
As I was fixating somewhat on this term, I began forming a connection to an episodic livestreaming project I've been running for over a year now called fotoplayer, which I posted about in another thread here in r/mediastudies with the title, "How I've been exploring livestreaming as an artistic medium (as a musician)." After pondering "protocolar art" to a greater extent, digging through more articles such as this one, I found myself fascinated by the prospect of using it as a provisional lens over my livestreams. However, it is unclear how much, if at all, fotoplayer falls into this camp.
The way they fall hand-in-hand prima facie is based on the rawly-defined tenets of protocolar art, which posit that a generative system or framework is more "the art" than the product itself. The more I thought about it, the more it sounded like it fit as a description of the livestreams.
A lot of that assessment boils down to the custom way I have the whole thing set up, with automatic OBS macros controlling the camera angles, looping software and MIDI control-surface scripts working to automate repeating musical patterns, down to the room itself being fashioned with a green screen, placement of instruments, and a film projector. In other words, there is a vast invisible architecture that, almost all on its own, runs the show. This technical layout—its multitude of micro and macro configurations, templates, conditions, and rules—and the ways in which they interact in a self-governing system, are what I've come to recognize as the protocol of my vision. While the stream is live, therein lies the space for individual expression, room for the artist to enact the protocol (in this case, musical improvisation, interaction with an audience, podcast-style monologues, visual cues, etc.). The final result (here, the VOD) is the incidental generated product of the protocol, with the most important distinction being: the VOD being “generated” is not the art, but rather the protocolar system which enabled it into existence, i.e. the holistic framework of my streaming environment.
Of course, this isn't a strict defintion, per say, but it does suggest a notable boundary between the concept of protocolar art and livestreaming as an art form. From a theoretical angle, framing my work in this way has provided insight into the understudied or under-examined nature of livestreaming as a modern artistic medium. From the perspective of an artist, this framing has yet to be integrated in any sort of practical re-orientation of the ongoing fotoplayer project.