hyponeiria

I found the chance to make a short interview with the owner of “fake is the new real” website. Neil Freeman is quite friendly and humble, however, the most important point is he has some brilliant ideas on mapping. I recommend everyone to check his works and join the discussion. I hope you like the interview, enjoy!

Newyork City in 1 Year by fakeisthenewreal.

mahir: What is the meaning of “fake is the new real”? Why did you choose this title for publishing your work? What does it mean to you? Would you please explain this a little bit?

neil: I honestly don’t remember when I came up with the phrase. It was just something that was bouncing around in my head at the same time I was deciding to set up a site. The name is, of course, a play on the form ‘* is the new black,’ which has a life of its own. I’m sure that I liked the phrase because it’s shorthand for ideas about the spectacle and simulacra, although at the time I made it up, I’m not sure if I had actually read any Baudrillard or Debord.

I’m amused whenever I google the phrase and find it used in magazine articles or wherever. It made it onto the cover of Blender, which was hilarious. (Blender is a silly music/pop culture magazine). At this point, it’s just a name, I hardly think of it, except when I have to tell someone the name of my website; I often get quizzical looks.

mahir: OK. Do you think there is a connection between the title and the works that you are publishing under this title? Is the internet a kind of the new real fake of our reality?

neil: Good question. This is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night. It’s hard to deny that the internet is its own reality at this point, but it is also an extension or supplement of a reality that was already a media-saturated simulation. We Americans didn’t need the internet to elect a movie star as president, for instance.

I’m not sure if my works directly connect to the phrase. I usually think of my work as being a little glib, and the phrase “fake is the new real” is nothing if not glib. Much of my work is about maps and mappings, and I would hope that my site’s name would reinforce the sense of maps as an alternate reality. To come back to the internet as new real fake: I don’t really think of the internet as being much more fake than ‘real life’. I don’t think that virtual social interactions can approach the depth of physical ones, but that’s not a primary concern of my work. I think most people are finding the internet useful to supplement their ‘real lives’. I’m more worried about simulation infiltrating reality. I blame TV for that more than the net.

Nuclear Capable nations by fakeisthenewreal

mahir: You say your works are about maps and mappings. Do you think that the word ‘map’ or the meaning of mapping is currently changing because of computers/internet (technology) or postmodernism (philosophy) or both?

neil: The meaning isn’t changing for me! Computers are surely having a big influence on the methods of mapping and mapmaking, but I’m not sure yet if they are changing the meaning of the activity. If (or when) GPS is deployed in everyone’s mobile, then I’ll have to re-evaluate that. This is already happening in Japan, but I’m not really aware of what the effects have been. All of my projects would have been possible without the internet. Most of the subway maps were created by tracing physical maps. I could easily have decided to make the tracings into drawings or prints; I scanned them because it was cheaper and easier. I don’t have the expertise to speak to changes in philosophy.

What with Google Earth and spy satellites, maps are now an expression of the panopticon, but I think there will always remain a space to make critical maps. I think that maps are a convenient label to put on disparate projects. When I approach an artwork, what I really want is a set of rules that I can carry out. I’m influenced by mathematics in this way. In math, you define objects and spaces intuitively and then hopefully end up with something interesting (like geometry or group theory).

For me, making rules for abstracting the world is a safe approach to making art - it can help to remove concerns about composition and aesthetics. Those things make me nervous, for some reason. I’m not confident of my ability to intuitively interpret the world, so I use more abstract methods. On another level, I’m pretty attuned to spatial relationships, so I just find maps entertaining and fun.

mahir: OK, therefore we assume the pieces that you publish are artworks. There are also lots of explanation for that kind of map/mapping projects such as information/data visualization, information aesthetics and even information design. How do you consider these terms, do you think they fit to describe your works? Or, what is the difference?

neil: We can back off from assuming that there is any art anywhere near me. It’s just a handy term. Let’s say instead that there are lots of parallel tracks for making visual work. But, I would apply your terms to works that present complex data in a way that allows for meaningful interpretation. There’s no reason that art can’t present complex data in a way that allows for meaningful interpretation. But I don’t think that looking at public schools in order tells you anything useful about the state of education in New York City.

As to the difference - I don’t think if you can draw a strict one. It would come down to dividing ‘design’ from ‘art,’ and that’s not a fight I want to pick. Is it a cop-out to say that there is a spectrum?

Well, artists benefit from the ‘cult of the genius’. Designers don’t get that, as much. Maybe if Leonardo da Vinci had done some design work, things would be different

mahir: Well, I may consider his works as design pieces on one hand but this is a quite deep topic I guess.

neil: Oh yes, you’re right. The Vitruvian man is a beautiful piece of design.

mahir: OK, I guess this question may fit at this point. Would you prefer to be an artist or a designer, or in an intelligent position between the two? Or, how do you call yourself?

neil: At the urging of a few close friends, I’ve begun using the term ‘artist’. I would not describe myself as a designer because I think of designers as having a specialized set of skills and knowledge dealing with type, colour, printing, etc. Whereas to be an artist (or at least call yourself one), you need no special skills or knowledge whatsoever.

mahir: What kind of things or artworks influence your works? Where do you get the inspiration? In other words, how do you decide to make a project of ‘New York City Public Schools Connected in Numerical Order’?

Public schools in order by fakeisthenewreal

neil: That is a tough one - I have very many influences. I find that much of my inspiration comes while riding my bicycle. So, I get it from my bike.

This is how the public schools project emerged: I was curious if there was any pattern to the numbering pattern of the public schools. I was a little disappointed that it turned out not to be a discernible one. When i made it, I wasn’t thinking about showing it alt all, I was just curious.

I was probably on my bike when I was thinking about this. I was also very lucky that the NYC Department of Education had a very nice list of school numbers and locations on their website, and that bulk geocoders had just become available online. So thanks to the NYC Department of Ed!

mahir: What kind of artists do you like or find quite impressive in relation to your works?

neil: This is a difficult question. I have trouble spitting out lists of names. I like 19th century photography very much. Contemporary photography, especially the Bechers and their former students, is another big influence on me. The Surrealists and Dada I love, of course. I wouldn’t want to make a list without mentioning architects: Louis Sullivan and the Chicago School, Mies, Le Corbusier. I love the architecture of New York and Chicago in total, really. American landscape painters (Bierstadt and other Luminists, and the Hudson River School) I find very interesting, although I’m never sure if I approve of them. So many other contemporary artists, too: video and performance artists, conceptualists, post-minimalists…

I once started laughing out loud when I walked into a Yayoi Kusama piece, and so I love her very much. I am a big fan of Arte Povera, too. And Felix Gonzalez-Torres is one of my favourites. Also Eva Hesse, Hannah Hoch, Rachel Whiteread, Charles Demuth, etc. My favourite room in the Art Institute as a kid was the Armour Room.

mahir: I would also like to talk on some of your projects. For example, I would really like to know the idea behind “Comparative Timeline: Elvis Presley’s Life vs. US Involvement in South-East Asia“. What is the connection between Elvis and US politics in South-East Asia? Or, is there any? Or, do we need a connection?

neil: I noticed one day that Elvis’ death date was close to the end of the Vietnam war - both were just a few years before I was born, so I suppose that’s the connection. People have told me that they have found a connection, after looking at it. I don’t have a comment on that, though. I will say that the ability to discover connections or patterns among disparate objects or events is one of the hallmarks of intelligence.

mahir: Are you planning to make new versions of this comparative timeline?

neil: I don’t have any ideas for new timelines right now, but I wouldn’t rule it out.

mahir: Regarding your projects (most of them), I noticed that there are two important contextual data type you use, the first one is time and the second one is geographical data. What do you think about them? What is their importance and would be the other data types?

neil: You’re very perceptive. Time and Space are pretty big categories, though. What could I think of that doesn’t fall into those two sets?

mahir: Your projects are mostly about urban spaces and cities. Why do you think that urban spaces are important for us? (Or, do you think so?) What is the importance of urban for you?

neil: I’m very aware that the majority of the planet now live in cities. So now, urban life is the default form of life. I think that we should come to terms urbanity. I’m not sure if urban space is important to ‘us.’ True urban space, public space, is a rare thing, at least in the United States. Most Americans live in non-urban cities: car cities. To me it seems self-evident that the urban is important; that you can have a multitude of experiences and interact with your fellow citizens without enclosing yourself in a polluting metal box.

mahir: What would be the developments for mapping projects in the future? New mediums? New tools? New visualization methods?

neil: I’m currently improving my skills with GIS, and with the graphing language R. I have several ideas for interactive projects, which is not an area I’ve explored. I may have to do work in Flash, which I have successfully avoided so far.

mahir: The last question is about one of your new projects, ‘Skyscrapers in Order’. Would you briefly explain the project? It has a similar visual result like ‘Public Schools in Order’. How do you decide about the visualization method in your projects?

neil: The new project connects the skyscrapers in each of a few different cities in order of height. It’s funny, I don’t remember making any decisions about visualization methods, except for making the lines one pixel wide. Both those projects grow out of a naive curiosity about the possibility of patterns. I suppose that the graphic methods grow out of me wanting, impatiently, to see the quickest, simplest results.

Skyscrapers in Order by fakeisthenewreal