It is an intimate affair, a task that requires sensitivity; and last but not least, an expert who knows how to Macintosh Powerbook 3G from the nineties to work again.
It has been 22 years since the artist, painter and digital pioneer Michel Majerus died in a plane crash. Since then, his work has been intensively researched and archived, and has also been intensively shown on the 20th anniversary of his death. But Michel Majeru’s laptop, his most important work tool, his digital studio, has been untouched since his death.
When the American artist Cory Arcangel, a Majerus fan, learned during a visit to the Majerus Estate in Berlin that the laptop still existed, the idea was born to repair and reactivate the severely damaged device. He brought data restoration expert Dragan Espenschied from the New York NGO Rhizome on board as an expert. Espenschied booted up the device in a so-called emulation. A highly complex process. And a milestone in legacy research. Dealing with digital legacies will become standard in the future.
Andy Warhol’s floppy disks
Arcangel has the very best references for this responsible task. In 2014, with the support of the Carnegie Mellon University Computer Club, he accessed Andy Warhol’s floppy disks that were over 30 years old and was able to show how the pop art pioneer experimented with the Commodore Amiga 2000.
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So how do you approach a strange computer? How to get an overview of folder structures, files, software, videos and image archives? Arcangel said at his exhibition preview at Majerus Estate that the first thing he did in his studio in Stavanger, Norway, was click away on Majerus’ laptop every morning for weeks. He rummaged through the files on the desktop, tried to get an overview, made mind maps.
You can follow the whole process in several episodes on YouTube. Arcangel filmed himself working on Majerus’ laptop, just as gamers do when they comment on their own games using screencasts. In the videos, Arcangel explains how he did it, what digital painting is, and how Majerus used the Powerbook. Arcangel says he is fascinated by gamers’ “Let’s Player” format, but there are hardly any corresponding video formats in the field of fine art. So new territory, perhaps the start of a trend?
Cory Arcangel has also designed a very beautiful exhibition at the Majerus Estate in Berlin, in which he combines his own work with a selection of Majerus’ works. Both artists have in common that they are interested in the aesthetics of video games, computer worlds, advertising and pop culture and combine them with art history. Both navigate casually between analog and digital worlds. For Arcangel, born in 1978, this is more of a given. For Majerus, who started it ten years earlier, it is pioneering work. In the late 1990s, Photoshop and other image and video editing programs were only used by design professionals.
Arcangel works in a variety of media such as video, print, fashion, performance and composition, he also deals extensively with archives and time-bound technologies. In Berlin he shows the record collection of a trance DJ, which he acquired and had archived according to scientific standards. Among other things, Majerus’ installation “Lettin’ off as much as you can” from 1997 can be seen. It consists of a cool Fila sneaker, an abstract painting and a CD. Art history, media technology and fashion – the entire Majerus universe in one work.