Chris Ashley – Look, See.

Every day since 2002, Chris Ashley has created an abstract coloured drawing in hand-coded HTML tables and posted it to his weblog Look, See. The structured format of a weblog frames these small but often complex works perfectly.

Weblogs are an informal medium, and personal weblogs often have the quality of a diary or consisting of a confessional nature. This is a deflating context for art that, in Chris’s case, allows some of the aesthetic content of high and late modernism to be rehabilitated without bathos. What was once meant to be universal is made personal, not with the knowingness of Neo Geo but with a remixer’s virtuosity and enthusiasm.

Weblogs are also a highly referential medium; some weblogs consist almost entirely of commentaries on news or links to other blogs. The visually referential nature of Chris’s HTML drawings shares this quality. Despite being grid-based geometric abstracts, they evoke the heroic universal grids of high modernism, 8-bit computer graphics, or the colours and forms of scenes of nature or technology. This is quite apart from their titles, which often refer to concrete entities. Again, the informality of the weblog’s context prevents the problem of how something concrete can be expressed or represented in abstraction from becoming a problem.

These are very successful works, and paradoxically, the limitations of their chosen medium help make them so. Grids, especially HTML table grids, are a restrictive format. But this formal limitation can free other qualities such as colour and composition. And formal constraints have often been used as a spur to creativity by Dada or the Oulipo.

Looking at the watercolour works that Chris has also posted is instructive. Like the HTML table drawings, they are formal but playful exercises in colour and composition. There is a strong hint of Sol LeWitt’s geometric abstracts in some of the forms, and like LeWitt, Chris’s work can be seen as an ironic continuation of high modernism after it died in the 1960s. Where LeWitt’s ironisation was in the form, with the platonism of pure abstraction recast as rigid geometric specifications, Chris’s is in the subject, with visual referentiality replacing hermetic platonism.

Chris recently added another classic web design staple to his HTML, single-pixel animated GIFs. The result is not limited to animation but very successful moving images. Duration and movement of colour become formal properties alongside hue, saturation and transparency. Falling strips of colour evoke rain, and flashing panels of contrasting brightness become lightning or city lights. This is more distillation than abstraction. It is a peak shift evocation of visual experience.

The way that Chris’s HTML table drawings hold and animate the aesthetic references gives them the internal complexity required to have a critical voice. Like a political weblog they draw in, interrogate and comment on issues from a larger world, although the world of aesthetics rather than politics. And it is this that gives them their lasting value as art.

Look, See – http://www.chrisashley.net/weblog/
Earlier HTML Drawings – http://chrisashley.net/htmldrawings/
Watercolours – http://www.chrisashley.net/weblog/archives/cat_on_paper.html
Moving Images – http://www.chrisashley.net/weblog/archives/2006_03.html

The infomera cyber-wrestling challenge – arcangel vs. subculture – London, April 1st ’06

Luca Barbeni from TeKnemedia.net talks with Antonio Mendoza from Los Angeles (aka subculture) and Arcangel Costantini from Mexico about their forthcoming encounter in the cyber-wrestling ring in the Area10 Project Space in Peckham, South London on April 1st ’06 as part of the SUM (1,4,6) event of the NODE.London March ’06 season.

introduction by atty, SUM(1,4,6) event organiser

Its a great pleasure to be able to host the latest Infomera challenge particularly when the contestants are to be Arcangel, the creator and guardian of the tradition of cyber-wrestling against one of its greatest adepts, subculture aka Antonio Mendoza, we are also lucky to have the assistance of Lele Luchetti of Valencia acting as referee and announcer for this match.

As Arcangel explains in his interview, was started by him in 2001, first of all as an invitation to the net-art and wider net community as a whole to collectively hack and rehack the content of a specific URL on Infomera.net for a month. The challenge has since been honed and mutated to its present incarnation where the contest is a ‘mano o mano’ duel and it is held with the contestants physically together facing each other across a ring while the actual action remains in cyberspace. For our SUM (1,4,6) event at Area10 (3D view) we have the benefit of a very big, very amazing and atmospheric space to place the Infomera ring, maybe more a street, even back street fight setting for this show down compared to the more familar media lab and art museum venues. Can we expect the resulting ‘moves’ be the deepest, dirtiest most dastardly scripts, images and sounds seen yet on Infomera? All the action will be projected on a set of three huge screens displaying the site of the fight and the desktops of the contestants as they put together their next moves.

After checking the interviews from the two champions below you can also visit their pre-match URLs at http://www.unosunosyunosceros.com/prematch/ and http://www.subculture.com/netcampeones/ and then visit our open_digi association website at http://club.net-art.ws to register who you support for the big match. If you can get to SUM (1,4,6) registered supporters will receive handsome fan support items from their champion.

interview with Antonio Mendoza

LB: This is your second cyber-wrestling match, what is it like to participate in this kind of competition?
AM: This is actually my third cyber-wrestling match. My first one was strictly online. I fought Area3 who were in Barcelona from my house in Los Angeles. Unfortunately the time zones are so different that it was hard to get a good flow. My second match was in Mexico City. That was the first time live in a wrestling ring. I dueled muserna for like four hours. The battle was great until the tequila (a sponsor of the event) took over.

LB: Can you tell us something about your strategy, do you attack, defend or integrate?
AM: The best way to prepare for this kind of event is to achieve the perfect combination of ninja-like focus, drug-induced madness and steroid-enhanced endurance. Once I hit this cyber-wrestling nirvana, I like to pirate all sounds, images and javascripts from my opponent’s web site and use them against him (or her).

I also try eat a sensible meal with lots of carbohydrates and water before the match.

LB: what’s your mood now? do you feel fit and ready for April 1st?
AM: my mood? I feel pretty. I feel fit. I feel pity for arcangel. I feel like the Russian Revolution before it went wrong. I feel like jihad. I feel like psychoanalysis. I feel like the chance meeting of a sewing machine and tomahawk missile on a dissecting table.

LB: net-art would like to be stable whereas the reality is that is is transient and also implicitly participatory. It can easily be more like a temporary performance. What do you think about this?
AM: reality is just an excuse for those who can’t handle net-art.

LB: what do you want to say to arcangel, your opponent for April 1st in London?
AM: Arcangel, I’m looking into your eyes… I want you to know how it feels to have your beating heart squashed like a plum. I want you to know that I wipe my behind with your code. I want you to know that according to the latest CNN-Gallup poll, I’ve already won by a margin of five to one.

interview with Arcangel Costantini

LB: this cyber-wrestling match on the 1st of april is part of the infomera project, can you describe infomera for us? And what is the relation between the name infomera and the word ephemera?
AC: The idea was to have implicit in the domain the concept of “informacion efimera”. There is no entropy in digital data, the main goal of the project is to generate a metaphor of the transformation of information on the web, as two artists have access to a server and the possibilities and goal to transform the content of this server for the audience there is a proximity to an ephemeral process, what is important for this audience is to be present in the moment of transformation and at the end the collective work will disappear.

LB: net-art would like to be stable whereas the reality is that is is transient and also implicitly participatory. It can easily be more like a temporary performance. What do you think about this?
AC: Yes, it is a temporary performance, an action occurring in real time, like its counterpart in wrestling “Lucha Libre” (mexican style wrestling), it is a combative action but more important than this is that it is in fact also a collaborative action. Itís the process that makes it special.

LB: For infomera first there was free for all, then virtual duels, how did this work and who was involved? Then, how did you decided to do the duel non-virtual, live + online?
AC: the first infomera was “todos contra todos”, on an open server where everybody could participate, this was a one month duration performance whose end objective was to show net art in a public space. The resulting public show was in fact a memoria of the site interventions and was held at Galeria Metropolitana in Barcelona in 2001 (Vicente Matallana of La Agencia was promoter of this show) as well as in the open in Barcelonaís Placa Sol in the Gracia district. A composite Flash documentation of the Place Sol show can be found at http://rnd.net-art.ws/infomera/

During this first infomera process I realized that the outcome constituted essentially four duels between the most active participants on the server during the month. This gave me the idea to do explicitly one vs. one. As a result we did an exhibition series at the cyberlounge of Museo Tamayo in Mexico City called, Champions of the WWW, where during 48 hours two contestants would combat collaboratively on the infomera site. This was a totally virtual performance where the matches where by very famous old school net artists such as superbad vs redsmoke, oculart vs dream7 etc. Player cards created by these combatants can be found at http://www.museotamayo.org/inmerso/infomera/playercards/album.htm

The first online and real/non-virtual ‘mano o mano’ match was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina where I did combat with Brian Mackern, he used ërudoí technics and beat me. Next I changed to ërudoí style and with the opening of the Mexico City’s El Centro de diseno y television, we set up an almost real wrestling ring and the match was between subculture and muserna.

Net artists are used to working and communicating from an unspecified and isolated physical location, sharing their content through the global web. In the infomera non-virtual match the wrestlers are facing each other BUT still working through cyberspace, the only physical touch in the match is the one of the eyes, also brainwaves are closer,
and it’s nice to meet friends.

LB: muserna in his essay http://www.petitemort.org/issue03/24_code-warriors/ says you told him before his match with you of Sept 11th 2002 to “prepare all your moves”. Can you describe what you mean by a “move” in this context of cyber-wrestling between ‘net-artists’. Does it imply the destruction of
the other artist’s work, and if so in what manner? to what end?
AC: Probably I try to convey in my bad english the concept of ‘movimiento’, our expression for a transformative move which creates dynamic flow. In mexican wrestling the participants are acrobats who collaborate to create and share a beautiful and exciting performance, they share and exchange their moves as a competition, but the important part of the process, the key factor, as in cyber-wrestling, is dynamism vs. stillness. In the infomera contest works start to blend and transform in a dynamic manner building the creators’ aura.

LB: Did you ever think of inviting Netochka Nezvanova http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2002/03/01/netochka/index.html?pn=1 to an infomera challenge?
AC: There would be a big queue to fight against her.
LB: what do you want to say to subculture, your opponent for April 1st in London?
AC: Querido subculture I will make chicken tamales of you scripts, your bitmaps will be washed out and frozed to oblivion
/////////////////////

Links
infomera http://www.infomera.net
net-campeones at node.l http://www.nodel.org/projects.php?ID=162
SUM(1,4,6) http://www.nodel.org/events.php?ID=1
open_digi http://club.net-art.ws
Area10 Project Space http://www.area10.info
Mano a Mano, review from Mexico City Aug 2004 by Eduardo Navas
CODE WARRIORS essay by Muserna
the ephemeral angel feature
http://www.TeKnemedia.net/magazine

One of the most interesting and recent shifts in respect of perspective that has occurred during the Internet’s short history Is the movement away from the World Wide Web being an anonymous space to one where location has begun to matter. A range of services such as Google Maps, Google Earth and upmystreet.com are changing how we perceive and interact with the localities and spaces in which we all live. The growing availability of public mapping data and the combination of technologies that provide an easy method of producing cartography means that map creation is beginning to evolve from the bottom up. Communities can now utilise these technological maps, establishing communication between people in highlighting areas of interest or contextual issues (chicagocrime.org is an example) that conventional maps have always overlooked.

This fusion of physical and data space has inspired artists to explore different methods of engaging audiences with notions of space and time. GPS devices, in particular, have served a useful purpose for exploring how we might begin to think about maps based on human experience rather than physical features. Vice versa, the physical landscape can be experienced in a multi-dimensional form. Landscapes can be recorded and indexed according to their location data and then transferred into virtual space, offering new experiences and contexts and facilitating an exploration of human relationships between place, time and space.

The Danube Panorama Project by Michael Aschauer is one such project exploring these interlinked and complex concepts. This ambitious piece of work uses Europe’s second-largest river as its subject. The goal is to produce a full panorama of the Danube’s coastline using slit-scan photography, the result of which will be, according to Aschauer, a “unique cross-section of contemporary Europe”. In the digital realm, slit-scanning involves taking a series of images and concatenating them together to create one whole image. Aschauer’s technique uses GPS data to control the speed at which the video camera records material, resulting in a series of images indexed according to longitude and latitude. The geographical precision of the images provides a unique method to contrast the area of the Danube.

The success of Aschauer’s project lies in what these images bring to the surface. As the viewer floats downstream, west to east; from Vienna to Budapest, and onto Bratislava, the transformation of architecture and landscape highlights how different each culture is.

It is the Danube’s accumulated history over time, littered with disagreements and suspicion between the countries whose borders are formed by its waters, which becomes immediately visible and engaging. The political significance and the effects of war run deep the further East one travels along its current. The effects of the bloody conflict during Europe’s last war, on the site of Serbia and Croatia, began on one side of the Danube and ended on the other. Relics of the battles, including broken bridges and unexploded ordinance, line the Danube’s riverbed along this stretch of river. The Panoramas merely skim the surface of such ‘very real’ histories. However, it is the skimming of these images that adds a sense of curiosity for one to explore even deeper. In diving into the subject, the viewer will feel compelled to ask what it all means. When witnessing this process of time and space being folded into a visual context through the Internet’s glancing eye. Stories that are steeped in human-scale history are re-wakened, declaring past happenings of significance reflecting these people’s lives that now intersect.

Michael Aschauer: http://m.ash.to
The Danube Panorama Project: https://danubepanorama.art/
Google maps: http://maps.google.co.uk
Google Earth: http://earth.google.com
UpMyStreet: http://www.upmystreet.com

The term “glitch”, coined in 1962 by former U.S. astronaut John Glenn, originally referred to a spike or change in voltage in an electrical current. The meaning of the word glitch has since expanded to refer to any unmistakable yet unexplainable hiccup in what would otherwise be a smoothly functioning system. When referring to computer glitches, they range from the merely annoying to the panic-inducing symptom of a full-scale systems breakdown (e.g., the “blue screen of death”). On the other hand, glitches can also be about serendipity, a full-on happy accident, embracing a mistake and running with it, or functioning as a veritable readymade. In the case of artists Dimtre Lima and Iman Morandi’s Glitchbrowser, a fascination with glitch-as-metaphor serves as a conceptual basis for a work of Internet art.

Generally speaking, Glitchbrowser is not the first of its kind in that it is preceded by other alternative browsers, or what some have referred to as “browser art”. Some of these predecessors include the work of Jodi, I/O/D’s Web Stalker, Mark Napier’s Shredder, and Maciej Wisniewski’s Netomat. Like its predecessors, Glitchbrowser shunts aside notions of how the web (or even computer interfaces in general) is “supposed” to look or “supposed” to work. Therefore, in order to discuss Glitchbrowser, I feel it would be helpful to construct a brief art historical context, as well as a brief description of the aforementioned examples.

What was the initial impetus to create alternative browsers? By the years 1997-1998, a handful of net artists and theorists had already begun voicing concern about how information was being presented and organized on the web, particularly in regards to how it was quickly being codified according to standards dictated by 2D print media (e.g., magazines, catalogs, newspapers, books) as if web pages were paper. They also began critically examining how data space is presented on the web and how this presentation directly shapes the user’s experience. Furthermore, they also endeavored to call attention to how users’ expectations of web browsers’ functions were already becoming shackled by commercialization. Popular discourse about the web reinforced, rather than questioned, notions of Internet use based on information gathering, information hierarchies, and information organization. In an effort to openly challenge what was quickly becoming the status quo, some net artists wanted to explore what they considered the Internet’s connective, tactical and dynamic potential.

The artist duo jodi (Dirk Paesmans and Joan Heemskirk; 1995-present) created what could unarguably be considered the first example of browser art (http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org/), if not an alternative web browser per se. What was particularly groundbreaking was their use of HTML scripts to turn the browser into art, as opposed to using the browser to display works of art.

Mark Napier, an Internet artist strongly influenced by the work of jodi, was intrigued by their use of the web as a medium. One of his early works, Shredder, is an example of browser art that plays with the web-as-print-media metaphor. With Shredder, he created a browser that would “tear up” web pages via a cgi script that would retrieve and alter the HTML before displaying the page on the screen, resulting in a collaged mixture of code fragments and disassembled images. Shredder succeeds in turning a number of web conventions on their head: what is normally hidden is displayed, text becomes image, organization becomes abstraction.

The members of I/O/D (Matthew Fuller, Simon Pope, Colin Green), creators of Web Stalker (1997), one of the first publicly available standalone alternative browsers, are explicit in their political and critical intent, dubbing Web Stalker an “anti-browser”. Once up and running, it disassembles web pages into discrete parts as opposed to displaying data as a seamless whole. Averse to what one of it’s creators (Matthew Fuller) deemed “eye candy” – the preponderance of visual imagery on the web – Web Stalker portrays a stripped down, minimalist rendition of an Internet browser; earlier versions did not read or display images, although later versions were able to read GIF files. In a 1998 interview with Tilman Baumgaertel, the members of I/O/D explain they were inspired to create Web Stalker from observing how people do not necessarily use the Web the way it is “supposed” to be used, such as turning off images or blocking cookies. Adhering to a DIY ethos, they wanted to create an application that allows the user to create a web suited to her or his preferences, rather than settling for a commercial browser that dictatedthe nature of one’s Internet use.

The first incarnation of Netomat (1999), originally created by Maciej Wisniewski, was a “meta-browser” which treated the Internet as an open source, free-form application that permitted the user to create their own browser interface using what is referred to as netomatic markup language. An alternative to point-and-click navigation, structured and hierarchical information distribution and passive browsing of authored information, it was meant to foster an exchange between the user and the Internet. It functions by permitting the user to type in a question or keywords, who then receives independent bits of data in the form of images, text fragments, and audio files which can be recombined and recontextualized according to the user’s wishes.

Fast forward to 2006, the year Glitchbrowser is released. This work is evidence that the ethos fueling the creation of alternative browsers and the like is still very much alive and kicking. Functionally, visually, and metaphorically, the work has a bit more in common with Napier’s Shredder than it does with the other works mentioned. Like Shredder, it functions relatively straightforwardly: the user is taken to a minimalist first screen containing a text field for a URL to be entered by the user, along with a button to press to trigger a “glitch”. Above the text field are the words “Quick links”, “BBC News”, “Webshots”, “Flickr last 7 days”, and “Statement”. When the user enters the URL and hits the return key, the web page appears in altered form. The glitch does not impact the text on the page, nor does it affect the page layout; it is the imagery that is altered. As a result, my experiences with viewing more text-heavy pages such as BBC News were different from those with image-heavy pages such as those on Flickr. The BBC page, with its small thumbnail photo images meant to elicit not much more than a glance, looked as if it was pockmarked with little photographs that had been washed over with multicolored strips of varying transparencies. Looking over the page, my eyes felt like they were hiccupping, or like a break in my stride when my feet twist slightly over a large crack or chunk of asphalt in the sidewalk.

Viewing Flickr pages via Glitchbrowser gave me more of an opportunity to ponder the aesthetics of glitches. Many of the photographs on Flickr are beautiful in their own right, of course; Glitchbrowser transforms them into small, digital versions of abstract paintings created with bands of rich, saturated colors. The degree to which the images are “glitched” varies. Sometimes the original image is still recognizable – it looks as if someone had superimposed variably sized strips of multicolored acetate onto the image’s surface and haphazardly rearranged a smattering of small pieces that had been cut out from the surface as well. At other times, especially when the page is refreshed repeatedly, the recognizability of each image disintegrates into angular, pixilated swatches of color, almost resembling a collection of miniaturized electronic renditions of Diebenkorn paintings.

While the creators of Glitchbrowser appear to be motivated by a desire to jolt the user’s expectations of the function of Internet browsers, just as its predecessors, the aesthetics of Shredder tend toward the raucous and blunt in its metaphorical intent in comparison to Glitchbrowser. Although the glitched images are themselves playful and spontaneous in appearance, I perceive the aesthetics of Glitchbrowser to be ultimately more restrained because the layout of the glitched page is preserved and the dimensions and placement of the glitched images remain unaltered. Based on this, one might be tempted to argue that this restraint undermines a clear intention of presenting an alternative to commercial browsers. However, I would point out that glitches do not necessarily refer to what is large, grandiose, or overwhelming; at times they allude to the small, a subtle jerk, a wrinkle.

We humans are very adept at processing relevant data from irrelevant noise. In a sea of white noise, we often believe that we hear our own names being uttered. In a crowd of people, we can recognize familiar faces even though we have only a few points of reference to go on. Our brains are great filters. So, it only follows that, of course, our machines too would be designed to be great “noise” filtering devices.

And when we’re connected to the Internet, we have another wash of white noise flooding over our consciousness. We have to sample and dismiss what is irrelevant to us. And we have a host of tools for this. RSS feeds, blog reading instead of the usual news channel, whose impartiality we have begun to doubt the validity of. Even our lists of favorites are a form of filtering.

META[CC] attempts to take this flood of data and rework it into a political commentary. Asking us to reconsider the information we have found ways to channel through such media streaming tools as RSS feeds.

To be a part of the META[CC] process/project the user selects key words and submits RSS feeds to its database. Using the keywords, it parses through the feeds and then creates sentences for its closed caption video channeling system. The video feeds are from live broadcasts of current news events. When the captions are overlaid on these, they take on a new meaning. META[CC]re-appropriates the news broadcast and reveals its meaning in relation to the news data it is a part of.

By combining strategies employed in web-based discussion forums, blogs, tele-text subtitling, on-demand video streaming, and search engines, the open captioning format employed by META[CC] will allow users to gain multiple perspectives and resources engaging current events.

By taking the feeds from blogs, META[CC] uses the discussions that are taking place in the blogosphere, and channels them alongside the “official” news coverage. By playing the traditional news sources against the very real and strengthening opinions of blog pundits, we begin to see the play off between the two. What’s being said on screen isn’t always what is appearing in the closed caption below it. There begins to be a play between the two and in very real ways, we begin to understand that some of what we have always believed to be the truth, as told by news broadcasts, is no more than media co-opted truth.

Of course, this isn’t to say that the blogosphere is alive with truthful and accurate reportage and impartial opinion makers. But one of the options that [url:http://meta-cc.net/]META[CC][/url] gives the user is to decide on what feeds go into the database and what the keywords for searching them are going to be. So it represents not just the opinions of the blogger but, the choices of the person who is making selections.

The Meta(cc) engine successfully debuted in response to the final 2004 presidential debate, Wednesday, Oct. 13th, at the Rodan a/v lounge in Chicago, IL, for the opening of Lumpen’s Select Media 3 Festival.

What it does could be described as a form of Situationist Internationale detournement, a reappropriating of content from its original context into a new meaning. Quoting from a Situationist Text of 1969,

The two fundamental laws of detournement are the loss of importance of each detourned autonomous element “which may go so far as to completely lose its original sense” and at the same time the organization of another meaningful ensemble that confers on each element its new scope and effect.

META[CC] takes the original texts and creates a new meaning for them. Positioning them as it does within the larger context of keywords, images and blogs within the database. But is it fair to describe the project within the context of a SI reading? Certainly the theoretical grounding of the SI is both political and social. As even a brief reading of the referenced text above would attest, the focus of detournement is artistic works. But the SI hoped to reinstate artistic practice as a means of giving back to the (dare I use the term) proletariat the use of art to free it from the tyranny of the Society of the Spectacle. META[CC] performs a similar slight of hand and manages to return opinion making and formulation of the information to people.

Of course, I’m summarizing much of the concepts of the SI within this brief essay. There’s so much more that can be written about this project, and that’s one of the clever things about META[CC]. Technologically, it is complex. For the user and viewer, it is straightforward. Making a difference to it is easy once you’ve registered. But once you follow the path of reasoning that it can open up, there’s a lot more to be explored.

Reference: http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/315

DVblog Quicktime Platform

When I first visited the DVblog on June 27th, earlier this year (2005). There were only about 5 entries, but if you go back now it is a completely different story. It is a thriving, busy platform with an abundance of work submitted from all over the world with new material added daily. It features many different types of short movies, uploaded by emerging talents and established movie-makers.

“DVblog.org is a Vlog and platform for artists and scholars for presenting or publishing stand-alone quicktime works.” The deal is simple, if you are currently creating work in Quicktime, upload them and let everyone see it. As well as the central column of recently uploaded works for all to view, on the left side of the blog sits a list of archived works, tagged with various genre titles such as Trailer Cinema & Ephemera. It also has other categories such as: realtime, net art, personal, quicktime tech, quicktime VR and many more…

The site is run by artists, Doron Golan, Tim Whidden, Lew Baldwin and Yoshi Sodeoka.

Doron Golan is living and working in New York, and works in dv, computer animation and media, primarily with Quicktime streaming and codec. You can also find some of his personal works here at the9th.com. He is also the founder of Computer Fine Arts a net art collection and archive.

Tim Whidden is also pretty well known in the net art world, usually for his works with Mark Rivers, as part of the dynamic duo called MTAA (M.River & T.Whid Art Associates) who are based in Brooklyn, New York, a conceptual and net art collaboration founded in 1996. You can catch some of their current online artwork at this address www.mteww.com/mtaaRR/on-line_art.

Lew Baldwin is an artist and musician currently working in New York. His work has been shown internationally and his piece milkmilklemonade.net, which was part of the Whitney Bistreams show, which was the first net-based installation to implement a live chat wall in a public space.

Yoshi Sodeoka who is also New York based artist, designer and musician, especially known by the net art world for recreating video works originally featuring works by musicians such as The Who, Motley Crue, Beck and a few others, recycling their music video footages and turning them into alphanumerics imagery, moving-ASCII films.

Net-based movies have been appearing on the Internet alongside Net Art for a few years now. With the rapid increase of broadband the limitations that we all once experienced when first exploring the Net is now a mere memory. The difference between Net Art and movies-online is that, unlike movies- Net Art is primarily, and more usually created for the Internet from the Internet. The movie as a format, is more accepted by fine art insitutions and of course, movies are respected by the creative industries and avdertising companies, due to it being an immediate and tele-visual medium.

In a recent report in The Wall Street Journal by Becky Bright it was mentioned that “The rapid spread of broadband connections is creating a growing audience for video and animation clips of roughly five minutes or less” and “Television broadcasters are among the leading providers of streaming video on the Internet, offering both news clips and excerpts from their other shows”. The implication here is that many more companies are going to be interested in investing in such a format, tapping into it as a money making resource. Already, Warner Brothers is preparing a major new Internet service that will allow its fans to watch full episodes from more than 100 old television series. The service is called In2TV and it will be free, supported by advertising, and will start early next year. More than 4,800 episodes will be made available online in the first year.

“The Surrealist liberation of desire, for all its aesthetic accomplishments, remains no more than a subset of production–hence the wholesaling of Surrealism to the Communist Party & its Work-ist ideology (not to mention attendant misogyny & homophobia). Modern leisure, in turn, is simply a subset of Work (hence its commodification)–so it is no accident that when Surrealism closed up shop, the only customers at the garage sale were ad execs.” Hakim Bey.*

DVblog currently still displays a strong independence from commercial mannerisms and promises to provide a crucial and valuable archive of Quicktime- based artworks of all forms and intentions, creatively. It will be interesting to see how it fares in the coming tidal wave of “entertainment”.

There are some excellent works to view on DVblog and here a just a few of them: Chris Oakley has communicated skilfully in his well crafted ‘video to Quicktime’ work The Catalogue. The equally sinister Beauty Kit by Pleix, is definately worth watching, and you can’t go far wrong with Pavu’s PINE-LING-PAN, and as usual Alan Sondheim’s movie work always offers something in between philosophical grunge, steeped in feralness. Don’t take my word for it, visit the DVblog yourself and enjoy…

*Hakim Bey RINGING DENUNCIATION OF SURREALISM Naropa, July 9, 1988.
http://www.t0.or.at/hakimbey/taz/taz2e.htm

Although it was not until 1957 that mathematician John W. Tukey coined the term “software,” its history can be traced back to Antiquity, according to Florian Cramer [1]. One of the main advocates of Software Art and long-time researcher on the relations between literature and computing, Cramer has written the book Words Made Flesh. Code, Culture, Imagination[2] during a fellowship in the Media Design Research program at the Piet Zwart Institute [3] in Rotterdam. In this 140-page essay, he develops a historical overview of the philosophical, mystical, literary and artistic currents that lead to the present concept of software as a cultural practice.

First and foremost, the main orientation of this research towards establishing deep historical and cultural roots for the practice of software seems to be a response to what the author perceives as an underestimation of programming on the part of current media theories. In 2002, in his text Concept, Notations, Software, Art [4], Cramer stated that “the history of the digital and computer-aided arts could be told as a history of ignorance against programming and programmers”. These words echo in the conclusion of his latest book (or booklet, as he describes it), in which we read: “Software history can thus be told as intellectual history, as opposed to media theories which consider cultural imagination a secondary product of material technolog”. Software Art as a genre has a short history: in 2001, the digital art festival Transmediale was the first to give it recognition by dedicating an award solely to software art works. A member of the jury, Florian Cramer denounced in several texts that the concept of “[new] media art” focuses on the visual, acoustic or tactile product, overlooking the process that supports it: the programming code. Digital art is produced using computers and thus software, which is indispensable, yet it is the final product that is considered, the code being hidden from the user. This had led to considering software as a simple tool and completely ignoring to what extent the code is defining the artwork. In order to overcome this situation, Cramer extracts software from the context of computers, establishing parallelisms with instructions and permutations in art and literature, and relating it to the wider concept of culture (see, for example, Software Art and Writing [5], drafted with Ulrike Gabriel in 2001).

In the last line of “Concept, Notations, Software, Art”, the author left the discussion open, with the following words: “histories of instruction codes in art and investigations into the relationship of software, text and language still remain to be written”. Three years later, he has taken up the task himself by writing this well documented, yet at times a bit digressive, non-linear history of computation as a cultural practice that serves as an authorized argumentation on what had already been sketched in previous approaches.

A definition of software
In 2003, the Wikipedia’s definition of software was rather deceiving: “Software art is a term for the graphic design of visual elements contained in software, eg. GUI (Graphic User Interface), Icons etc.” (quoted from Florian Cramer’s Ten Theses about Software Art [6]). The actual definition [7] (as of november 2005) provided by the open source encyclopaedia is now much closer to Cramer’s, yet it still shows the influence of Jack Burnham’s view of software as concept art. Looking for an all-encompassing definition, Florian Cramer has extended the concept of software to a form of culture that includes programming code as well as its execution and the cultural appropriation of users (as, for instance, when we use the verb “to Google” for performing a search on the Internet). This being the final objective of the whole book, we can now trace the themes that are contained in it by examining in detail the definition of software with which the author concludes his essay:

“Software, it follows, is a cultural practice made up of (a) algorithms, (b) possibly, but not necessarily in conjunction with imaginary or actual machines, (c) human interaction in a broad sense of any cultural appropriation and use, and (d) speculative imagination. ” (p.125)

(a)algorithms: from the Sefer Yetzirah’s mystical permutations of the names of God to proteic poetry in the 16th century and Burroughs and Gysin’s experimentations in 1960, algorithms are present not only as calculations but also as a material for artistic creativity. Either as a method for developing almost infinite possibilities, introducing chance (as in Tristan Tzara’s cut ups of 1923), or creating constrains that must be creatively overcome (as in Oulipo’s experiments in 1949), algorithms become a tool that go well beyond the context of computers.

(b)possibly, but not necessarily in conjunction with imaginary or actual machines: another important point in Cramer’s discourse is specifying that software does not depend on hardware, and that hardware is not always physical. The “machines” conceived by Ramon Llull, Georg Philipp Harsdörffer or the Turing Machine itself are imaginary, their operations being a product of intellectual speculation and not of the action of mechanical or electronic systems. On the other hand, software does not need a computer to “run”, as shown by the actions based on instructions performed by the Fluxus group, among others. Furthermore, the idea of software can extend into political or social action, as demonstrated by Richard Stallman’s Free Software Movement.

(c)human interaction in a broad sense of any cultural appropriation and use: in 1968, in his book Algol, Noël Arnaud made a first attempt at using a programming language as material for poetic compositions. Later on, the hacker slang “leet”, Alan Sondheim’s Codework and Marie Anne Breeze’s Mezangelle all apply code as a material than can be recomposed to create a particular form of written language that is recognised as “computer talk”, imitating command lines but readable as some sort of English. In the same way as James Joyce experienced with language in Finnegan’s Wake, these new forms of writing create their own semantics and a meta-language with social and cultural implications. On the other hand, the work of George Pérec, Jodi, the I/O/D group, Netochka Nezvanova or Adrian Ward’s Auto-Illustrator introduce what Cramer defines as “software dystopia”, the reflection on software not as a subservient, domesticated assistant but as a fearful, obscure and incomprehensible golem that may revolt against us at any time or take its own decisions. Under this light, software becomes much more than just a tool, it is part of a broader concept of culture.

(d) speculative imagination: Ramón Llull’s combinatory system for developing all the possible attributes of God was a profound influence in a large series of philosophers and thinkers, that range from 17th century encyclopaedists to software for computer-aided poetry and Artificial Intelligence research. As a figure of thought, computation offers the possibility of imagining the infinite, of encompassing all possible knowledge, as is described in Jorge Luis Borges’ short story The Library of Babel. Speculative imagination has long went after the seductive possibility that all creation could be computable and on the other hand has made this an arcane form of knowledge, haunted both by its demiurgic implications and the “ghost in the machine”.

Software culture
In the final lines of Concept, Notations, Software, Art, Florian Cramer described two opposite approaches to Software Art, that of “Software Culturalism” (represented by Matthew Fuller, Graham Harwood and the groups I/O/D and Mongrel) which regards software as a cultural and political phenomenon, and “Software Formalism” (represented by Adrian Ward, Alex McLean, Geoff Cox and the eu-gene mailing list, among others) which focuses on the aesthetics of software. Both positions leading to reductive visions of the subject, in this essay Cramer seems to finally cover all possible approaches to the practice of computation, although his view is balanced more to the side of Fuller’s group. Armed with this historical and conceptual background, software is thus extracted from the context of computing and the consideration of a mere tool to establish itself both as practice and culture.

[1] http://floriancramer.nl/
[2] https://monoskop.org/log/?p=99
[3] https://www.pzwart.nl/
[4] https://monoskop.org/File:Cramer_Florian_2002_Concepts_Notations_Software_Art.pdf
[5] Cramer, Florian, and Ulrike Gabriel. “Software Art and Writing.” American Book Review 22, no. 6 (2001): 8.
[6] https://monoskop.org/File:Cramer_Florian_2003_Ten_Theses_about_Software_Art.pdf
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_art

_Pull of The[ory] Narrative + P[H]ush of The Context_

[or:click.on.a.deer.icon]

[This article uses a threading system. Thread 1 comments + critiques the notion of narrative. The 2nd Thread lyrically describes The Endless Forest project. Intertwine at your (peri)leisure].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_Narrative [in the sense described in_link] houses engagement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context] Context (ditto) manifests as the “incomprehensible other”. Inverse-narrative manifests certain under-realities that connect + engage interaction [latent, intuitive, reactive potentialities that can subtly guide/govern cultural or nodal shifts].

[the.ebony.screen.is.plained.around.a.tiny.curled.roan.curve.
on.closer.inspection, it.has.an.antler.set.
it.is.a.deer.
ur.symbolic.game_ic[on].avatar.token.]

Narrative is reliant on biological projections [survival, chronology, echo of reproductive possibility thru “boy-meets-girl/boy-loses-girl/boy-gets-girl” looping], hero rites-of-passage action_realities + physical constraint adherents [ie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces Campbell esque structuring. A Narrative pull is pervasively strong, sinking into entertainment/artistic/cultural good-vs-evil polarisations/portrayals + etched over a “willing-suspension-of-disbelief” audience skin. Narrative stretches pervasively through institutionalised vehicles of the [b(lue)]red-state-veined USA political hegemonic climate + its 1st-world hierarchical trickle_down fx [ie utilised as a life-style governance tool emptied and soiled by cardboard rhetorics + masked_villain vs hero polarisations]. Pulling threads through a gruelling history of morality/chapter playing + ethics spewed into easily recognisable meaning form, narrative operates along codified, sanctioned strategies in order to justify acceptable, status-quo comprehension [and life-forming] trajectories.

[c.licking.the.token – deer.standing.action.
left-click – starting.a.sensory.engine.
forest.audio.bleeds.into.constructed.game.graphics.
other.multi.play(d)e(e)rs.iconically.spot.the screen.
we.enter.[url:http://www.tale-of-tales.com/TheEndlessForest/]the.Endless.Forest.[/url]]

Flipping the emphasis coin towards interpretation through Context creates instances of stripped, personalised, introspective encounters replacing the conventions, ease + predictability of narrative structuring. Contextual analysis allows for immediacy of experience as opposed to hollow structure of once-removed-fictionalised narrative parameters.

Narrowband approach to information production + reification: email lists such as fibreculture, nettime and empyre – closely align themselves with this linear information/discussion trajectory. This closed communication approach is the opposite of the notion and execution of communication holism. Contextual orientations may be offensive to those immune to more open-ended approaches to meaning construction. Narrative dependents/advocates need to locate their traditionalist-tilted perspectives inside established frameworks. Those advocates of narrative [rational adhesive] stick to theory/chronology/linear/rational/Socratic method/reason, allowing no discourse reactions beyond these channels. They expressly will not relate to the possibilities of context [contextualisation is viewed as pointless, limitless, chaotic, disordered, risky/experimental]. This indicates the antithesis of nodal [free-form branched context-feeding], which often seemingly digresses from [rather than towards] an associated train of thought.

[3rd.person.perspective.click.shift.
4-legged.cgi-roaming.thru.a.boundaried.looping.space.
running.thru.birdsong+flower.fields+(ename).ruins
holler/bellow>tree.rub>sniff.a.deer>delicately.sit.via collapsing.folding.chair_like.legs]

Narrative is equated with substance + the meat and marrow of acceptable storytelling. Context lies between the known + unknown, between comprehensible platforms of information + exposure to rawness of possible comprehension + potential alienation. Context allows for b-grade identifications + theoretically unattractive actualities of poesis. In fictionscapes driven primarily via narrative, meaning is derived via a mimicking mechanism that apes interconnectedness via a truncation of experiential echos. The distilling aspect of this process makes Context a poor, invalid comprehension cousin by Narrative standards.

Narrative is like a bland, dry version of a true empathetic connection/perception. It is used easily as an entertainment-engine + Canon-prop; as social patterning glue; as a ratified/institutionalised construct embedder which acts to rigidly strap meaning into dictated/expectation protocols. Context allows/encourages ethereal meaning construction; for curiosity-use/plucking/selection; for taking comprehension elements + creating specific versions guided by concepts of otherness via anti-or-non-polarised storylines.

[interaction.stri(ations)ctures.produce.variations.
no.beginnings.or.humanoid.tainted/dictated endings.here.
animal.code.shifts.thru.body.language.postures.
intent.morphs.2.action|action.translated.via.Context.

float + morph.]

When I was young, my grandfather would tell me stories about a nonsensical language he created with the enthusiastic participation of a few of his college buddies. The purpose for creating this language was not to devise a means to communicate with a small, select group of people; in actuality, they created this language in order to play pranks on any unsuspecting person who had the misfortune of sharing an elevator with them. Apparently he and his friends entertained themselves by getting into a nearly full elevator, talking loudly to each other using their makeshift language (“Landsdomeron sinkledork d’flobbin hobbin.” “Beschtinken woolsey itchsplick?” “Zamophlon! Dishtina gwork bibbled’schnibble!”) and later guffawing over their elevatormates’ reactions.

Putting aside my grandfather’s slightly snarky tale, there is a certain pleasure and sense of accomplishment in developing one’s own language, whether it be to describe feelings, sensations or ideas that cannot be described using an established language, or to create a means of communication between a select few meant to remain undecipherable to outsiders. It is, of course, impossible to know how many artificial/constructed languages exist (examples that are more well-known and have a certain number of adherents include Esperanto, Klingon, Elvish and Quenya), as creating one’s own personal language is often a private and solitary endeavor. Enter OnlyOneNativeSpeaker (OONS), an online collaboration facilitated by socialfiction.org that invites conlangers (a term coined by constructed language enthusiasts), shy, secretive, and otherwise, to share and disseminate their linguistic creations.

Visually, OnlyOneNativeSpeaker is simple and straightforward while the contents alternate between playful, dense, poetic and esoteric. The home page, with a white background, teal serif text and large red headers, is roughly divided vertically in half. The left half contains a chatty yet informative description of OnlyOneNativeSpeaker’s purpose, along with an exhortation for participation, while the right half contains several lists of links grouped under the headings of “Infrastructure,” “Languages,” and “Categories.” “Languages” is divided into several subcategories: “Local,” “Submitted,” and “Of interest.” “Infrastructure” contains links to the OONS wiki, the OONS del.icio.us page, and an OONS yahoogroups mailinglist, along with an email link to socialfiction.org for language submissions. “Local” contains links that take the viewer to pieces presumably written by the creator(s) of OONS, including an overview of the psychogeographic Landscape-Expression (or L-Expression) language, an L-Expression editor, and essays on parsing the language of crowds, computer language as literature, and capturing the ephemeral taxonomy of constructed languages. Below this is a relatively short list of submitted languages, including mez’ (aka Mary-Anne Breeze) mezangelle, a wiki entry on organic poetry, and sasxsek (unfortunately, clicking on a handful of some of the other submitted links resulted in a 404 not found error page). Along the right edge of the page is a substantial list of fantastic language categories, ranging from unspeakable, turriphiliac, glowinthedark and angelic languages to ultrasonic, hydsfbsjg, epram and cloud languages, to name just a few.

In regards to using the web for collaboration, OONS does not necessarily break new ground, but I don’t believe this is the point of the work. On one level, the work is educational, particularly for those who know little to nothing about linguistics, who are not versed in any other language beside their mother tongue, and whose impressions of language invention have been informed by portrayals of those who engage in it as insane, pathological or irrational (such as the female schizophrenic protagonist of the novel I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Nimrod from Dante’s Inferno, or the frenzied glossolalia of congregationalists in the throes of religious ecstasy). For instance, one might surmise that creating an artificial language consists solely of assigning invented words to already existing words within an established natural language, and therefore may assume a conlang web site would, say, resemble an English to Spanish dictionary. However, a visit to the sasxsek site, for example, demonstrates on a small scale the complexity of language creation and classification, complete with a lexicon and grammatical structure.

On another level OONS also frames language creation as a form of creative expression, comparative to model-making or role playing. Language Expression (e.g., L-Expression), for instance, while derivative of logical languages and at first glance appears to be not much more than computer code, utilizes the rules of mathematical logic along with the visual structure and visual elements of code to build a scaffold for describing both the tangible and the intangible experiences associated with wandering through a landscape. The artist uses the metaphor of “linguistic exoskeleton” to describe L-Expression, a language which “encapsulates self-defined segments of perception: angle, mood, shape, history, movement, sense of perception and what have you…” One obviously does not create descriptions with L-Expression for the purpose of plugging the code into a compiler and running the results – it seems the function of this language is to suggest the feasibility of applying the strictures of machine logic toward to the ends of capturing the ineffable and evanescent.

Another interesting aspect of OONS, in my view, is its mere presence on the web. As mentioned earlier, constructing one’s own language can be an intensely private undertaking, and it is rare to find a conlanger who, unlike auxlangers (e.g., creators of auxiliary languages), harbors a desire for a wide body of listeners or users. With the development of net lists such as CONLANG, for instance, conlangers are now able to share with a wider audience what was once generally kept to one’s self – Tolkien has referred to the “shame” associated with the practice of inventing languages, and some conlangers have even compared conlanging to being gay and closeted and admitting to others their conlanging practices to coming out. With OONS, there is not even the slightest hint of such shame or secrecy, no provoking the sense that one has stumbled upon a diary, say, and why would there be? The web has evolved to permit human beings sophisticated and extremely public methods of self-documentation, along with worldwide dissemination; as a result, certain parameters regarding privacy have been shunted aside by the use of technological artifacts such as webcams and blogs. Based on such notions involving privacy and secrecy, I would not hesitate to describe OONS as a vehicle that allows people to invest their private words (and the private worlds that accompany them) with public meaning.

Black Holes and Networked Lives

One of the questions that faces those of us who wish to frame and seek answers to the question of what is Net.Art, (or at least, what it could be) is the consideration of what part of the project is Net dependant? Has the artist used the internet merely as the carrier for the art work, and therefore used it as a free and worldwide form of art gallery, or is the work intrinsically borne on the web and unable to exist in any other form? Is the artwork using the networked environment in such a way that its content is in part formed by the medium?

Net Arts and Media Arts are still relatively new and fresh. Even though we may consider the “history” of the Internet and have historical reference points to compare and contrast with, we are still exploring how artists can explore this art form and still deciding what might be considered “good” Art or otherwise. As well as these questions, it might be important to ask: how does this work address the question of what it means to live in a networked world?

Black Holes is one such work that tries to encompass this question as part of its exploration of networked literacy. Written by Lewis LaCook from one location, across the Internet to his home computer, the texts that made up his on-line presence have been remoulded into a poetic landscape of content that slowly unravels itself as the reader moves the cursor into the text itself, allowing the words to grow and move about the screen.

The music that accompanies the poem is generated randomly as well. Created using sound files and as LaCook says in his artists’ statement “Sure, there are motifs used throughout.” But they are triggered by as random a trigger as is possible using the software. The soundtrack is at once amusing and thoughtful without trying to tie the listener/viewer down too much into following a prescribed narrative of sounds. Whilst the music reflects the format of seemingly random text well, it would exist nicely as an independent piece.

Of course, Black Holes is also a record of Lewis LaCook’s life at the time of writing stage. Names of his partner and friends appear through the text: “There is no smell like hers,” appears in one opening sequence. Such a soft and important statement about what it is like to be alive and in love, and one that fixes this piece within the life and emotive thoughts of the author. Where some of the text reads like a Brion Gysin and William Burroughs cut-up, breaking through original meaning to become something else, a statement like this slices through any reviewer rhetoric and asks us all to remember that digital art is also human art: as much about the human condition as it is about the technology.

And what of the images within the piece? Fed in from external sources, they suggest a fragility and delicacy that reinforces some textual references, not merely within the subject of the images but in the way they are fed in from external sources, to the readers’ web page. LaCook allows the work to depend a little on the randomness of the Internet. If a server that houses an image he references goes down, or the owner decides to remove the image, it is lost from Black Holes. What you see today might not be seen on a second viewing tomorrow. Or you might see the same image repeatedly, causing it to be burnt into the mind so that you come away with vague recollections of some but definite knowledge of others.

Some text is like this as well. Especially when the speed of it scrolling across the screen increases. Often, it isn’t so much what you read of Black Holes, as what it chooses you to read of it. But the Internet is like that sometimes. You read some things slowly or you flick through others without more than a glance. Modern life is like that and LaCook asks that we read Black Holes in that way too and to consider that our lives might be alike. Even given the vast sphere of Internet and real world space that the readers of black Holes might occupy.

If the title is in some way a reference to the idea of the web being a large vacuous space that everything disappears into, then LaCook alters our perception of that and points out that humanity is in there too.

This is the last chance to see the Low-fi exhibition of net art commissions, which opened during the Edinburgh Festival. This is the third in a series of exhibitions, in recognised UK galleries which introduce some aspects of networked media art to a more established art audience.

The Stills Gallery in Edinburgh is an excellent choice of venue. As a centre for “research, production and exhibition of contemporary art inspired by existing and emerging technologies”, they sustain a community of students, volunteers and interns with an evident commitment to the excellence of their programme. In the afternoon that we spent there, it was heartening to observe how at ease visitors appeared, popping into the space, viewing and interacting with the exhibits and chatting with the welcoming gallery team.

Big Five Digital Zoo by Radarboy comprises five small LCDs hung in a row, just inside the window as a lure to the passing audience catching the wandering eye of anyone with an enthusiasm for playful uses of digital technologies and gadgetry.

According to South African media arts group Radarboy, “Big Five Digital Zoo explores our emotional relationship with technology, alongside how we relate to and treat wild animals within a zoo”. Gallery visitors are requested to look after a virtual lion, leopard, buffalo, elephant and rhino using their mobile phones to send text messages such as ‘love,’ ‘health’ and ‘snack’ within a game-like environment. The animals (chosen to represent popular targets for the old colonial hunters, now mostly reduced to tourist icons) each exist within their panels as animated images. Like Tamagotchis (remember your mid-90s virtual pet?), their survival depends on their human owners’ nurture. Without it, they grow weak and expire. In the Digital Zoo, the gallery audience is collectively responsible for the well-being of the virtual creatures.

So it was disappointing to observe, during our visit, that all the LCDs displayed a red cross, signifying that the animals had perished from neglect. We were informed by a droll gallery attendant that they had all died due to a lack of mucking out. Visitors just weren’t prepared to scoop their poop.

A quick Google search reveals 5 species of rhinos left in the world, with 11 subspecies. All are threatened with extinction, and there are only 5,860 left. Somehow, the absence of this kind of bigger-picture information, combined with the amused micro-interactions of inadequately informed visitors, only serves to replicate in digital form the passive spectacle associated with trips to the zoo.

It is becoming impossible to escape the notion that nature is being murdered by “anti-nature” by abstraction, signs and images, discourse, and labour and its products. Along with God, nature is dying. Humanity is killing both of them and perhaps committing suicide in the bargain.
– Henri Lefebvre- The Production of Space 1974

Was the virtual mass extinction we witnessed during our gallery visit part of the artists’ intention? To point to the troubles faced by contemporary global society, coordinating collective human action for the mutual benefit of all? The actual, rather chilling impression given was that the artists are more interested in finding light-hearted applications for convergent technologies than in delving into any contextual reflections on the theme of their work – our responsibility for the guardianship of the wild animal species of the planet.

Straight through the gallery and down the stairs, the UK Museum of Ordure’s (UKMO), Audio Library is the only other work in the exhibition shaped and changed by audience interaction. All participants become content producers for the artwork.

In the hallway in the basement, word pairings, chosen by UKMO, are updated daily in white chalk on a blackboard by gallery staff in the following arrangement- ‘….. with respect to …..’.

Fixed to the wall next to it, a newspaper rack accompanied by simple instructions:
Please select passages from the newspapers which have a bearing on the subject- passages might consist of one word, a sentence, or a paragraph.
The process is simplicity itself.

The main part of the physical installation is a sound-recording studio painted black with a speaker in each corner. A microphone listens for audio activity (using a Mac Cocoa patch), and a sign lights up red when a recording is made. The vocal contributions of previous visitors are played back in a loop, all mixed up and radically decayed. The subject archives each day’s recordings, accessible through the project website.

The day’s theme when we visited was ‘Truth with respect to News’. So a short piece in The Scotsman about the dissembling of the London Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Ian Blair, seemed broadly to fit the bill.

With newspaper in hand, we made our recordings and then listened, waiting a few minutes before recognising our tones amongst a jumble of other voices, including some shouting kids- all intermeshed into a decomposing soundscape. UKMO are to be congratulated for devising these simple and effective rules of visitor engagement. The whole process of having one’s thoughts collected for immediate disposal- of being induced to contribute even more to the world of shit than we do already, daily, of our own helpless accord, was fun and thought-provoking.

Apparently, “Ordure!” was the warning cry given by mediaeval city dwellers before the days of civic sewage systems as they threw their night soil from their bedroom windows into the filthy gutters. We find this amusing for some reason- and perhaps it’s a British thing. The work is full of humour, and we enjoyed the UKMO’s commitment to anti-triumphal, anti-positivist professional cultural-waste disposal in the digital age. This project (perhaps unknowingly) is part of an honourable net art tradition of collecting, reprocessing and archiving the cultural debris of digital civilisation, including works such as Mark Napier’s spam reprocesser, Landfill and the random ascii of Trashconnection.

A mechanical device sits whirring in the main window of the gallery, passing a paper scroll under a tiny webcam, controlled via a web interface at a computer sited some 20 feet away. It appears to be a prototype for some prematurely lopped branch of Victorian scientific experimentation. Cavan Convery’s Vertical Scroll is a whimsical artefact. Visitors can use a slightly clunky and lagged digital interface to navigate and scrutinize, inch by inch, a series of modern-day hieroglyphs that suggest a kind of comic-strip blog; documentary images, drawing on both personal and public imagery, including contemporary news iconography of the day. We recognise the face of Osama Bin Laden on protesters’ banners.

This work has a light touch that evokes and chuckles at the objectifying interest in human relations of an imagined turn-of-the-century anthropologist. The last images on the scroll depict an Eve figure kicking an Adam figure in the balls- a reference to the spaceship Pioneer 10, which only recently left our galaxy, carrying messages inscribed on an external plaque to intergalactic aliens. This is a depiction of our species with a muscle-bound, superior man (with small genitals) waving and a woman who appears to stand behind him, submissively looking on.

This is a most unusual networked artwork in that it studiedly refuses the transitory, deliberately making searching and information retrieval impossible. It conjures up the obsessional life’s work of a difficult, unknown 19th-century amateur archaeologist.

Mauricio Arango’s Vanishing Point opens with the following quote.

“History is made less by those who make it than by those who tell it.” FC

This database driven map of the world “reveals how international news media is creating new cartography”. The huge scale of the human and political dramas surrounding the recent landfall of hurricanes Katrina and then Rita have driven a new level of intensity in the hunt for up-to-the-moment news via the Internet, television screens, and newspapers.

With the mass adoption of blogging (writing personal on-line chronicles), those that make history and those who tell it are starting to converge. Bloggers, declaring their own take on situations as they occur around the world, can challenge to a degree, the information pouring from large corporate media, but still the dominant voices tend to reflect the interests of the powerful. The mediation and retelling of current events (our histories whether political, social or theoretical) within digital space, offers an endless field for exploration by the contemporary artist. All representation is re-interpretation, thus we are caught up in the messy and confusing noise of intentions and questions about who it is that is informing us of what and why.

Mauricio Arango addresses these perplexing issues with an elegant intelligence. Vanishing Point uses Flash 7 for its interface, PHP and MySQL for its dynamic database and takes the content for its news search from RSS feeds (automatically syndicated news) from selected on-line newspapers of the G7 countries (that’s the G8 minus Russia). From the Internet this net artwork is projected onto the wall, throwing an image measuring about 6 x 8 feet. A mouse allows you to interact with the work and other people in the gallery can watch your journey around the map.

If there is a criticism of this intensely thoughtful and beautifully executed work, it is the apparent redundancy of the additional physical installation of the work. Against the wall facing the projection is a reading desk and two piles of daily UK newspapers, The Guardian and the Times, presumably offering a resource for the audience to explore a more local perspective on the world news for the duration of the exhibition. This feels like an attempt to justify its installation in physical space. But while the web work can be viewed just as easily through your browser at home, the scale of the projected work and the social interaction fully justifies its presence in a gallery space.

This navigable world map, interrogates one’s own, socially constructed, sense of global perspective to re-evaluate previous assumptions, and to acknowledge statistical inaccuracies that lead to the partiality of our info-landscape. It challenges the homogenization of ideas around global info-access and the objectivity of the 4th estate. It successfully presents the clearest demonstration of the first world-view as persistently blind in one eye.

James Coupe appears to be the friend of machines- an advocate for the emancipation of computers from human and art-world concerns. Drawing a wobbly line from the difference engine, a super calculator invented by Charles Babbage in 1822, to HAL, the psychopathic on-board computer of Arthur C Clark’s novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey, he believes in the emergence of artificial machine emotion.

“Issues of understanding, desire and uniqueness play an important role in establishing difference and the contradictions inherent in the relationship between technology, meaning and difference are the focus of this artwork.”- James Coupe.

Each of the four autonomous nodes of The Difference Engine consists of a computer in a cube, each with its own audio-visual display, connected to the Internet and assigned its own “personal” email account, primed to receive spam.

We watch the nodes explore the Internet “in search of metaphysical meaning”. At head height, head-size, with a face-sized screen, “singing” and “evangelizing” from speakers set at ear-position about their discoveries, each with a distinctive tone and timbre. The anthropomorphism implied by their arrangement has the gallery guides referring to the resulting, endless, atonal madrigal as a chorus and the machines as the choir.

The accompanying blurb proposes that each node is on its autonomous specialist voyage of discovery, developing difference- that machine identities evolve, driven by machine desire. This suggests a rich field for imaginative reflection, stretching Metaphysics away from any relationship with the human body to examining the relationship between emotion and the complex generative functions of networked immaterial data.

However, this work is pretty opaque to a human audience without the explanatory text. And this raises the question of who or what is this artwork for?

Indeed, after tolerating the intensely boring, scrolling overview of the machines’ web search- page after page of bland sameness, gridded and branded web pages arranged for the generality of human information retrieval and the dissonant audio, we conclude that no human should be faced with this mirror of human interests- this is machine art for machines- which might suggest a future project for audience development for the machine community.

Still, we are unsure whether this is a work of genius or whether we might at any moment pull back the red curtain on an advanced nob-twiddler creating media-art smoke and mirrors, technical tricks and illusions intended solely to intimidate and overawe a living, breathing human audience.

Kate Rich has a different take on exhibiting networked media artwork in a space. Visitors savour a cup of coffee, made with beans imported personally by the artist and distributed along social networks. Her work, The FERAL TRADE COURIER is initially experienced by drinking the coffee against an information backdrop of documentary photographs of manhandled cardboard boxes in transit and an online goods tracking database accessible from a computer.

“… life is much more interesting than art”, said Alan Kaprow, whose main mission since the 1950s was to revivify art practice that he regarded as smothered by a stuffy art establishment, stultified by an attachment to art historical canons that separated artists from their creative impulses. Instead, he explored ways of engaging within the realms of the every day for the stuff and context of his art practice.

If you are part of the fluid social network involved in getting Feral Trade goods shifted, you use the database to track the physical journey of your order from the source (in this case, excellent coffee direct from a farm in El Salvador) via public buses and trains, corporate airlines and private cars; then along social networks from distribution hubs such as Limehouse Town Hall in London to your door, (or the boot of your car- if it’s more convenient). As a ‘customer’, you are encouraged to upload written and photographic evidence of your transactions to the database. The documentation then serves as both a tool and a model for other would-be DIY importers and outputs information-rich ‘live’ packaging specific to each consignment.

Kate Rich has created a work that reflects a contemporary consciousness concerning its imaginative engagement with networked systems, and in so doing, she blurs the distinction between art and life. This also connects with ideas of Relational Art that introduce an expanded notion of art performance that engages and involves the public in creating the form and meaning of the work itself. It is also interested in the aesthetics of dynamic human interactions, motivated by various social, political and personal interests.

The Feral Trade web site declares that ‘feral’ denotes a wilfully wild process (as in pigeon) as opposed to romantically or nature-wild (wolf).” As Mauricio Arango’s map of the world reveals how international news media is creating new cartography, this work forges new, wild trade routes across hybrid networks of business, trade and social interaction. Feral Trade rhetoric is shot through with statements that clarify its intention to subvert and intervene in the existing mechanisms of global capitalism.

In common with other contemporary, dynamic, networked art, this project’s complexity throws long, dark shadows at its intersections with the less humane aspects of global economic and technical systems. For example, by supporting the artist’s entrepreneurship, each “consumer” contributes immaterial labour to the institution of the ‘Feral Trade’ brand. Some take a legalistic, instrumental view of this kind of work, and presenting tools as art seems to encourage this. They point out that there are no safeguards against the future misappropriation by the artist of our energies in her brand building. Beyond the project’s informal status as a non-profit making venture, there are no terms and conditions or constitution to prevent it from playing the market and adopting dirty tricks to make a quick profit. And yet we know from experience that even legal contracts provide limited protection for small-scale humanistic endeavour in the face of the big “players”. Feral Trade looks set to retain its artistic and humanistic intentions through its conscious incorporation of subjectivity and pragmatic issues of scale rather than through unassailable technical systems.

This exhibition is ambitious in its breadth of concept, content and range of networked technologies, and while Low-fi accommodates some experimental concepts- stretching in a couple of the artworks, the show is astutely curated. By not relying on the usual protocols of established media art history to justify its existence, it communicates to new audiences without interfering with the artwork’s meanings. The supporting information is clear and unpretentious, introducing the work in a way that demystifies the technology and places its use well in the context of the artists’ intentions.

In addition, on the day that we visited, everything was working- and with media art, you still can’t always rely on this being the case, even in some of the most established International media art institutions. This exhibition should give heart to other small venues considering staging media art projects but concerned that the technology always fails or that they might alienate their regular audiences.

The Low-fi exhibition is comprised of six diverse, distinct and generally accessible works, and no one should underestimate the shear graft involved in the creation of each of these works, all of which display high levels of technical expertise and reinventions of the interface between the always-on-line artwork and a global audience; also the tricky negotiations of the politics of digital information and its distribution networks and expanded dynamic concepts of aesthetics that these give rise to. This exhibition reminds us of the mind-boggling range of this particularly challenging area of emerging contemporary art practice, now called networked media art.

Low-fi is showing at Stills Gallery till 2nd October ’05

Low-fi net art locator
Stills Gallery

Also featured on MAzine

Title : bram.org “mise a nu”

http://www.bram.org/bramtv

Possibilities and constraints of the Internet have always inspired artists to create new ways of experimenting. Annie Abrahams has decided to create an alternative way of surfing through the raw material that bram.org offers.

“Sometimes I might be a bit slow, but keep cool, I am a leisure device.”

Annie Abrahams’s latest work focuses on collection, collage and URL redistribution, with an intention of maintaining art, in a state of objective absence, Bramtv takes us on a trip to “data dandyism”.

Tactic of “differed revelation”

Bramtv works as a perception generator using Javascript and PHP written by Clement Charmet, which constantly gives us snapshots of all the works bram.org has to offer. So just sit back and observe, the “mix.php” file takes care of the rest.

Visitors can now experience bram.org “live” with no interference from any gallery or curator, as random works are picked and mixed, presented for you within your browser. Hypertext navigation is still possible and a new non linear work emerges with it’s own breakpoint, along with its new and various entries offering several ways out. Each approach is not necessarily the same for all visitors and every time a visitor experiments on this ‘collection-able’ work, it can offer multiple existences, according to the continuity of the user’s clicks.

Whilst surfing through Annie Abrahams’s website and using Bramtv you are confronted with various contributions left by other visitors who have been before or who have just been passing by. Most of these people are avatars and do not seem to be real. In fact, the user, visitor or participant can make them up or generate their responses. Out of this interaction the contributions by visitors become the meaning of the art work, declaring that behaviour here is part of the aesthetic essence of the work. Bramtv, also makes up a new fiction and narrative of bram.org and redistributes it to be collected on other web servers.

Contagion of fiction in reality / cut and paste

The many works built by Bramtv have different existences that emerge according to the decisions that the users make during their visits. The Internet here is used as a multi-mass universe, of simulations and proposals, where a person can rebuild and re-invent one’s self or selves, without having to deal with the usual risk of come back or the niggling drudge of reality. Bramtv’s snapshot of the website are accessible via the collection button, but the collection pages change each time and when somebody prints a page of the collection it is a 99% bet of certainty that they will have a ‘”single portrait” of bram.org.

In Bramtv as in most of Annie Abraham’s works, both the URL and hosting sever is very much an integral part of the content in the ongoing projects. For example ‘I am an artwork’ is hosted on the frac languedoc roussillon’s website, an official art institute, that has a large contemporary art collection, ‘I am not’ ‘served by’ a splash page for Rhizome, Annie seems to always use every glimpse of information that there is to gather to put up new ways of displaying/retreating information, name dropping?

“I am (not) an artwork”, led to a text written by Bertrand Gauguet, which is constantly rebuilt and the original text ended by these words :

BECAUSE my bookmarks reveal other outlines of my identity,
BECAUSE on the net, I is an other person (inaccessible),
BECAUSE on the net, I is everyone (accessible-no-no),
BECAUSE I is also a random snapshot of the collective identity,
BECAUSE I is ANONYMOUS POETRY !

In the end there will only be a white page, that will not be a snapshot of random collective identity but just a hidden text.

Want more?

/FPSs
[Cartesianscape Lusting]

/Summary:
#Acronym Unpack: First Person Shooters
#Primarily 1(st)P(erson)P(erspective) Gameplay
#F(ull)M(otion)V(ideo) Inserts
#C(orporeality)E(mulation)L(oading): High

1st person shoot-em-ups are pc/console-based games that evoke individualised player adrenaline spiking through a type of hierarchical reward-or-punish [kill-or-be-killed] system. Their design promotes pre-set directional interaction that provokes biological reactions based on fight-or-flight signallings. Most FPS gameplay begins with cardboard [pre-formulated] characterisation/narrative induction [via FMV inserts or limited avatar construction]. Character construction seem more about reflecting the competition edge induced via the gameplay template [ie Quake, Doom, HalfLife] than offering a a way of [albeit subtly] modifying the game trajectory as do many Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games or Real Time Strategy games.

The majority of FPS game-engineers present as being mired in a “more realism” desire loop – that is, that they deliberately construct games that closely as possible mimic a 3D Cartesianscape. The lure of the geophysical has lead hard-core FPS gamers to don Virtual Reality equipment such as Headsets or attempt a CAVE immersion; more contemporary conceptions centre around hardware shifts that make the game engines [and engineers] focused on accelerating game performance through software + hardware interplays. One FPS game component that illustrates this shift is High Dynamic Range or High Dynamic Range Rendering. The currently employed Dynamic Range is a ratio-based format that fails to account for uber-range values that effect the overall sense of realistic [ie 3D] game rendering. HDR tech attempts to mimic a 3Dimension reality perspective that accounts for light variants [ie when you move from an outside environment into an inside one and experience the phenomenon of light blindness]. This is just one instance where game engineers are displaying traces of _HyperDeveloper Mode: ON_ rather than striving to emphasise a radicalisation of time/space that doesn’t necessarily adhere to these strict 3D emulation strategies, such as playing and pushing through/exploding to [and potentially beyond] an n-dimensional perspective.

/Example:
F.E.A.R is a game heavily drenched in de rigueur 1st person shooter elements, displaying blatant military/operational rhetoric in terms of game narrative, characterisation, pacing + direction. These elements act to personalise the “narrative engine” through the display of trauma expectation reactions/indicators as the gameplay unfolds, such as rapid + shallow breathing, repeated swearing, deformation of timescapes through the adoption of the slo-mo matrix-popularised perspective shifting/Japanese_horror stylistic riffing/adrenaline simulated timelapsings. Ironically, this too is a type of hyper-realistic mimicking – the architectural gameplay responses that interlace disruptive narrative components [eg game story blips such as static displaying on character’s headset] act to enhance the interactive “playthrough” aspects [gamer responses designed to move the game forward].

/MMORPGs
Connecting…
downloading patch online_ gaming_101
please wait

/Summary:
#Acronym Unpack: M(assive)_or_M(assively)M(ultiplayer)O(nline) Games
#Primary Character Construction based on Avatar_Creation
#3(rd)P(erson)P(erspective) Gameplay with Potential to Toggle 1PP]
#C(orporeality)E(mulation)L(oading): Moderate [Projected]

Massive (or massively) multiplayer online role-playing games such as Ultima Online and Everquest echo Dungeon + Dragon game-templates. They are a specific version of Massive Multiplayer Online games such as The Matrix Online or World of Warcraft. Most MMORPGs traditionally follow a self-moderated or group[“clan”]-based goal oriented structure [“levelling”] with character construction, role-playing agendas and online character actions heavily influencing the narrative game components. The use of pre-set fantasy or sci-fi characterisations assists player synergism via collusive goal-setting through puzzles or quests embedded into the story-framework.

MMORPGs primarily adhere to a hierarchical game direction. These designated game-pathways [players may perceive them as manifest realities] are defined according to predicated structures, or via the intentions of the actual players [or self-generating gamer communities] as the game is let out of the pre-set corporate parameter-bag. Game trajectories can be altered or influenced via modifications of elements designed to enhance/further extend gameplay. Several of these can be used as techniques to truncate accepted game conventions, and hence, offer a non-intended gamepath that reflects a more curious/responsive player orientation. A game[r] response that illustrates how the trajectory of intentional game-play alteration can manifest is in Everquest:

/Example:
Everquest gamers have previously used/abused certain game factors constructed to enhance in-game aspects via a beneficial manipulation of levelling [ie progress rapidly in the goal-orientated/hierarchical structure of the game itself]. One spell in particular was initially co-opted to redefine the game pattern from its hero-mandated quest-seeking directive towards a hyper-acceleration of this levelling objective. The spell was titled Clarity [or “crack” in game slang] and its demand resulted in those in the 1st Everquest loop, and those advocates of competing MMORPGs, christening the game EverCrack.

This example of players realigning pre-set MMORPG constraints/constructs in line with their own objectives, irrespective of intentional gameplay contingencies, illustrates a type of morphing beyond the constructed game reality. This, as well as the injection of synthetic MMORG economies into the geophysical sphere + “easter egging” shows levels of enhanced game contact [with]in “rl” [real life]. This too, like the hyperaccelerated push for 3D mimicking in FPS, displays a concrete pull towards physical reality as the ultimate reality layer, irrespective of the underlying game push-potentials.

/ARGs
[Active Narrative Gathering, anyone?]

/Summary:
#Acronym Unpack: Alternative Reality Games
#Game architecture based on Active Narrative Gathering:
# + Data Search Capabilities
# + Information/Puzzle Solving
# + Players ability to Media Trawl
#Primarily I(nformation)G(athering)P(erspective) gameplay
#C(orporeality)E(mulation)L(oading): Low

Alternate Reality Gaming involves players responding/reacting to story cues projected through media not regularly associated with game construction, such as movies, websites, physical engagements and chat technologies [eg I Love Bees]. ARGs are constructed via interconnected narrative threads/cues beyond exclusive parent forms or individualised game parameters. ARGs make players step outside the restrictions of mono-genre game boundaries and narrative-seek through the use of webtrawling, email, phone/sms contact, real-time interactions and extensive online engagement to glean cues + puzzle pieces. These games work within a collusive reaction principle; that arousal, curiosity and search-behaviour will result if info-schooled gamers are offered teasing data as narrative tip offs, similar to the concept of viral marketing. [eg One of the 1st ARGS was designed as an advertising adjunct to the 2003 movie “AI“]. This anomalous or quirky game information embedded in alternative media [such as movie credits, faux online newspapers or animation shorts/spin offs] will lead to exploration that adds to the narrative unfolding of the game itself, a radically different tilt in terms game-reality-mimicking. This utilisation of game/story cross-genre threading in ARGs is what I term ANG [Active Narrative Gathering]:

/Example:
“The Animatrix” is comprised of 9 short animated movies which extend and reveal plot nuances of the second movie in the Matrix trilogy, Matrix Reloaded. 1 of the shorts [Kids Story] plugs a narrative hole evident in the movie structure – the gaping question of the origins/story point of the Neo-fawning-boy-child is essentially answered. This type of story cross-genre threading is an example of ANG that echos the type of search_+_blend jigsaw plot gathering used in ARGs. To attain a complete narrative unfolding [ie join-the-story-dots-campbellesqueness-hero-journey-style] you must connect with satellite media that enhance + complete the story jigsaw, such as playing the Enter the Matrix/The Matrix Online video games + viewing The Animatrix.
This type of ANG assembly could act to catapult the audience beyond their internalised story-parsing abilities and draw on other avenues of jig-sawing narrative production [ARGs, MUDs, or mobile-like txt plotlines that unravel + develop as a text or vlog-volley progresses, similar to PhotoShop Tennis].

/ART
[Question + (Construct Your Own) Answer]

/Summary:
#Acronym Unpack: Augmented Reality Tranposing
#Layered ART Architecture based on:
# + The projected Exploding of Campbellesque Narrative Neatness
# + A Reconceptualizing of the Constructs that Define Artistic Output
# + Reverse-Engineered Rethink of Contemporary Relevance of
# Digital/Networked Art in the Light of Contemporary Game-Popularity
# + Active Removal of the Monomedia Barriers that Load Artistic
Endeavours along an Individualised Canonist Line
#Primarily I(nformation)I(ntegration) + E(xpression) gameplay
#C(orporeality)E(mulation)L(oading): Unnecessary

/Does game + entertainment construction that utilises ANG portend a cultural tipping point of sorts for art itself [an antidote to commercial games acting increasingly as “reality” emulators]?

/Is the phenomenon of keeping games so completely embedded in consumer-strata via required/constant soft/hardware updates creating a gamer underclass? Upgrade envy is a gritty example of a dirty capitalism-induced curve where a user displays tendencies of needing [or desiring] constant upgrades in order to perpetuate the next gamer consumerist wave. This upgrade push is not exclusively restricted to game-heads – in terms of the latest networked art genres, are graphically-beefed projects enough to justify the constant software/plug-in consumer push + sensory/3D replication pandering? Do 3D sensory triggers [cf multimedia as opposed to text or code] dictate exclusive experiential fullness as opposed to those that utilize stripped-back contextual cues or simple search behaviours?

/Should art creation be shuttling towards the construction/discovery/investigation of information/media/data existing via [sociocultural or expressive] augmented builds that both enhance + project forms in ways that are unexpected + [hopefully] startlingly innovative?

/Should artists learn from ARGs ability to push genre-dimensionalities beyond the emptiness of forced sterile institutionalised [sanctioned] interactivity? Do many examples of electronic/digital/networked art encourage or epitomize such accessible seeking/searching behaviour or curiosity/blending-beyond-genre-boundaries? Does this [in part] also explain why art as a homogenised concept seems less potent [in our contemporary “globalised” mercurial/mismashed/colonised/hegemonic society] as a potential cultural modifier/constructor? The source point of interactivity is the imagination – is this growing trend of micro-economic assessment of our most basic cultural construction elements [ie imagination] reducing our ability to create artistic output that has corresponding contemporary relevancy equal to those products [ie games] that push a consumerist agenda? Does this in part explain why art seems so marginalised/undervalued in our contemporary setting and anything considered a consumerist artifact [ie games] isn’t? Could ARGs be illuminative here in terms of treading that line between art-reification + established information/data/genre enmeshment?

At Turbulence.org [2005]

When I first encountered Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippett’s Grafik Dynamo after reading a brief description on the Turbulence website, it made me think of the concept referred to as the “Internet Hive Mind.” While I don’t subscribe to this concept as such, my initial thought when viewing Grafik Dynamo was, “is this an example of what collective consciousness looks like?”

Unlike the “Hive Mind,” described in generally futuristic terms by some proponents as a self-organizing group or team that comes together according to an organizing principle, resulting in an almost-mythical “super-being” fueled by collective brainpower, Grafik Dynamo can (on one level) be described as a literary conduit of sorts for current, collective online activity. In my opinion, this is what makes the work much more intriguing, in addition to more relevant, than ostentatious techno theories. In addition, its function as e-literature, as well as the visual and technical parameters the artists have set for harvesting and displaying images from the Web, distinguish it from other forms of collective online activity, such as virtual sit-ins.

Grafik Dynamo consists of one web page containing three rectangular frames or panels of equal size, arranged across the page in a horizontal line, similar to a comic strip. These panels are superimposed on a larger rectangular shape decorated with a blue and white pattern highly reminiscent of Roy Lichtenstein’s Ben-Day dots. This shape, in turn, is superimposed on a black background. Navigation is extremely simple; the links across the top of the page read “Launch,” “About,” “Kate Armstrong,” and “Michael Tippett.”

Each panel contains a different image (usually a photograph) of varying size, quality, and content – although most of them seem to be personal snapshots – which is continuously replaced by another image. Instead of being coordinated, the refresh rate for each panel is out of sync with the other two, and the images appear to be refreshed between roughly one and five seconds. The images themselves come from blogs and Web news sources, and are funneled into Grafik Dynamo through an RSS feed from LiveJournal. (For readers unfamiliar with RSS technology and/or terminology, RSS stands for RDF Site Summary, Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. It is an XML format for web syndication, allowing for the sharing of content between sites. Syndicated content can include, but is not limited to, news feeds, events listings, news stories, headlines, project updates, and discussion forum updates. As a result, RSS provides web users with the opportunity to not only tailor and customize the flow of new information on the internet, but to monitor how often sites generate new information).

These images are not resized to fit entirely the panels’ borders, nor are they necessarily centered within the panels. Images larger than the panels are only partially shown, the size of the image determining how much is truncated. This heightens the visual interest considerably, forcing the viewer engage in the exercise of mentally reconstructing the remainder of the image. If these pictures were resized in their entirety, or chosen according to stricter size parameters, the result would be much more uniform (like a slide show), and would place fewer cognitive demands on someone engaged with the work.

Along the top of each panel is a speech or thought balloons, also refreshed at an asynchronous rate, containing a short question, statement, or exclamation in large capital letters. However, rather than statements along the line of the commonplace POW! ZAP! BANG! variety found in many comic books of the superhero genre, the utterances in these bubbles are considerably more cryptic: “GENTLEMEN, HATS OFF!” “HAD YOU SEEN HIM BEFORE?” “WE”VE LOST CONTROL OF THE MOLE AGAIN, VILLANOVA!” “THERE IT IS, THE SLEEPING MONASTERY.” “HMM! I LIKE THE SEASIDE!” “I DON”T WANT NO GOVERNMENT CHEESE!” “THE MAN IS NOTHING BUT A FOOD CHEMIST!” “RETURN TO ME THAT FIERCE GOD AT ONCE!” “ACK.” Every so often, a panel will refresh without a balloon, or two panels will contain identical speech or thought balloons.

Placed at the bottom of each of the three panels is a white, rectangular overlay containing a short sentence or sentence fragment refreshed according to the same technique as the thought balloons and images. In a manner similar to serious soap-opera continuity strips, as opposed to “gag-a-day” comic strips, these fragments connote a particular action, plot twist, a character’s state of mind, a scrap of conversation, or element of suspense (although the quality of these fragments are much more reminiscent of graphic novels than, say, Mary Worth or Brenda Starr). For example, some of these snippets include, “…THE ROYAL COMMISSION HAD MENTIONED NOTHING…” “…BUT THE BISHOP WILL NEVER COME…” “IT WAS A DECK OF CARDS FOR AMATEUR DIVINATION!” “THE MYSTERIOUS HAND WAS DEFT AND AGILE.” “THE COCKTAIL PARTY WENT ON, OBLIVIOUS TO THE MONUMENTAL ATMOSPHERIC CHANGE.” “…THE TABLE WAS COVERED IN GLASS!” “THE CROWD SPOKE ELEGANTLY OF THE HORRORS THEY HAD FACED IN THE STADIUM.”

Despite the fact that Grafik Dynamo does not afford the viewer opportunities to navigate the work by pointing and clicking, the viewer’s engagement with the work can hardly be described as passive; one does not “watch” Grafik Dynamo as one would “watch” TV. As each panel cycled through the text and images, I was constantly attempting to forge a coherent link between the text and the image within each panel, between the thought balloons and sentence fragments within each panel, and between all three panels. I was also trying to see if I could possibly construct a plot of some sort, not as a method of trying to decipher what the artists’ larger intentions were in terms of telling a story, but as a sense-making exercise in which I was expected to kluge together a story on my own from narratives and an irreverent, heterogeneous smorgasbord of visual fragments generated by people whose only apparent connection was their simultaneous use of a particular communication technology. It felt almost like I had begun watching a movie which was already halfway done, or a daytime TV drama, in that I was trying to figure out the backstory, along with who the characters were and their relationship to one another.

Cognitively speaking, this is not at all unusual, as humans are hardwired to make meaning from experience. However, I can’t help but feel that if the images were less compelling, or treated in a less compelling manner, and if the text was less evocative, I would have quickly lost interest or gotten frustrated (or both). In other words, I am left to wonder if the work would have the same impact had the artists perhaps chosen to harvest images from a much larger range of RSS feeds, or if the artists had not thoughtfully and deliberately composed the text fragments themselves and opted instead to collect text fragments from a broad spectrum of sources. This is why I am reluctant, as some have done, to describe any of the components of this work as “random.” On one level, I agree that there is an element of randomness in the sense that there is no particular order in which the text and images are displayed, and that such an order would be meant to convey a clear plot and solid character development. However, if the images and text were generated and arranged completely randomly, I feel that the work would amount to nothing more than a programming exercise, and would no longer be art.

Folklorists, such as Amanda Banks and Elizabeth Wein (1998), have described comic strips and comic books as a contemporary manifestation of folk tales and myths, and that comic book authors often draw upon folk narratives, motifs, references, and archetypes in their work. One could thus argue that comic books function in a manner similar to folk tales in that they are reflections of a collective cultural consciousness, manifested through storytelling and personal narrative. Would it be such a stretch, then, to suggest that perhaps personal blogs have succeeded comic books as the most recent version of contemporary folklore, the newest devices for storytelling and a communal source of meaning? If so, interpreting Grafik Dynamo as a work which relies on the formal and literary conventions of the comic strip to frame a segment of the blogosphere (in this case, LiveJournal) as an example of how blogs have come to play a popular cultural role not unlike one played by comic strips and its predecessors would not be way off base.

While Fran Ilich’s girls got bored to death waiting for their television to be repaired, Harrison & Ford (James Ford) and Spencer Harisson were surely watching a divx of Spiderman.

Whilst discussing about boredom with each other in the upstairs hallway, and fed up with everything, wanting something different, fresh and alive. They both realised that they had both reached a crossroads regarding the context of their creativity, an important era was born and out of this meeting they busted their first moves. The Brace was conceived and perfected that one afternoon and several experimental versions of moves followed. A descriptive language was invented as a parody of yoga’s terms: words such as “busted” and “amped” entered the house vocabulary as part of everyday speech. The naming of each of the new moves became as important as the move itself. A website was designed and then what we now know as House Gymnastics was born.

The House Gymnastics website is like a parody, a cross between a corporate website and an artistic platform. Once you are in there, though, you begin to experience an obsessiveness as they explore their fascinations whilst being engulfed in a world of irresponsible childishness and enjoyable behaviour, that is shared with its dedicated visitors and membership. Harrison & Ford have invented various physical moves and positions to do on furniture and anything else that is available, such as tables, bannisters, sofas, walls and ceilings.

All their moves are documented on the web site, added with step by step advice and instructions for the curious, and newcomers who wish to also try out a few of them. There is also a regular features section, such as ‘moves of the month’ where you can see other people’s submissions. There are even exchange visits set up, organised between mutually obsessed, house gymnasts. A forum is available for all to use and group shows are performed as art events and in art galleries. A viral contamination is installed within the members section where you can ‘bust’ a H&F move or invent a new one. You hold it for 3 seconds, take a picture and send it off to be published on the site.

These new kind of spider men do not need any special super powers and have found a brilliant way to confront themselves, and each other mixing their physical, gymnast abilities with an art sensibility. You can catch them on a stairway named as “arena” and when an exchange occurs, a clash of two or more, you are experiencing what they term as a “quake arena”. With a healthy Mix of yoga, break dancing, and climbing in a domestic setting, House Gymnastics can be practised by anyone who is not scared of finding themselves upside down and venturing behind or above the darker side one’s fridge. Moves can be practised within a safe vicinity, indoors, and then once various moves are mastered they can be exhibited outdoors or in site specific gallery spaces. House Gymnastics is a great website proving that having fun is still possible, and being a kid still is available to anyone within an art context.

Don’t forget to visit the injuries page before busting your first move, and in case you got addicted: take up some normal hobby like knitting or stamp collecting like everyone else. If you want to get more involved or wish for info offline, you can buy the House Gymnastics book, or other merchandise such as the House Gymnastics T-shirt, or the House Gymnastics DVD, (“The 25th Element”, documentation of the first ever 25th Element attempt by Harrison&Ford), it’s all on the website.

How often (normally after a software or hardware failure) have you screamed at your computer and wished it could hear your anger? Amy Alexander’s Scream is a piece of software art whose key strength is in its simplicity. A relatively small application (2 MB, PC only) rewards the user with a small icon on the taskbar that is the only sign of the software waiting for sound input. When it detects a scream, all active windows become suddenly agitated: flickering or shivering in fear, running away and hiding. The effect is startling – not just individual windows, but compound windows (such as the joined windows often found in music applications) break apart, giving an incredibly satisfying visual response to the user’s wails and shrieks.

The software responds to any sound, so screaming is only one method of activation: like Alexei Shulgin and Victor Laskin’s WIMP it can also be used as a music visualizer, with the choice of visuals as wide as whatever you can open in a window. Videos, animations, or simply a few blank browser windows – all are cheerfully shaken and disassembled. A video on the Scream site shows how effective this can be, using Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee as the sound input. The agitation of windows follows the rhythm and volume of music, as if you had taken your operating system to the club and given it some dodgy pills. The effect feels like importing a personality into your computer, breathing life (a la Dr. Frankenstein) into the formal and often restrictive windows user interface.

Scream reminds us of the illusionary properties of our software systems. Windows strives to be seen as solid, stable, all-knowing and invisible; as Amy suggests,

“People tend to think of software and art projects as things that float on top of the computer and forget about the operating system’s influence over things. Or they think of the layers underneath – Windows for example – as magical, powerful, and imperturbable. But I think it’s more productive to regard the operating system as the Wizard of Oz: there’s actually just a little guy back there yelling “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…”

Although the act of software demystification may not excite those who are familiar with the work of artists such as JODI, Scream is a particularly interesting example of this technique. Firstly, as most people have experience of Windows, Scream can be quickly understood and appreciated by the vast majority of computer users. Secondly, the interface (or lack of one) means no fussing around with explanations, links, buttons, sliders or switches – just plug in a microphone and shout: instant gratification. This is always refreshing in the often theoretically-overburdened world of digital art.

The piece began as a demo to show ways that students could “mess with the operating system”, yet Scream is not merely a practical exercise or ingenious tomfoolery. There is a definite political aspect to the piece, achieved primarily by linking the act of screaming to the 1976 film Network, where the fictitious TV newscaster Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) lambastes his viewers to “go to the window and shout as loud as you can: “‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!'” In 1976 the idea of a TV network that will do almost anything for ratings was still semi-satirical, but the film is also noteworthy for further popularising the notion that our initial response to media distortion and manipulation should be to make some noise – an idea that has perhaps always been at the core of activist groups, particularly those who (must?) use the media as much as they may claim to despise it.

This post-millennial and self-aware activist ‘meme’, employs a range of techniques to spread the word. Besides the website and software itself, Amy invites photos of the ‘Screaming Meme in action’, ‘Scream Themes’, a ‘screamat’ del.icio.us tag, and offers scream-branded merchandise through CafePress.com (the ever-popular ‘tell a friend’ or ‘e-postcard’ are strangely absent). The lightness of touch and humour found in the website (and arguably in the piece itself, though this may be something of a Rorschach test) prevent the multiple meme-ing options from becoming cynical artsploitation and instead keeps it at the level of playful satire: “Invite Scream to your next political rally, rock concert or fluxus event. Gather one or a thousand friends and organize a Scream-In. Bring along a mobile phone and you’ve got yourself a call-in Scream-A-Thon!”

Like all the best memes, it can be difficult to tell what is ‘real’ and what is spoof here – Scream is both social reality and satire. Is screaming – “getting mad” – the first step to practical social action, a defiant gesture to authority? Certainly, there is always room for more types of localised action, and Screaming may appeal to those who are put off by more well known avenues and groups:

“A lot of people are uncomfortable with the more familiar forms of activism. They see people protesting wearing strange clothes and hairstyles or whatever, and they don’t identify with that subculture. They may therefore find activism alienating, even though they may share the same political position as the activists… People tend to act with people they identify with, and unfortunately a lot of activism has this “counterculture activist” label – so people find it hard to find a way in. Same with street memes. The Howard Beale “Mad as Hell” scene in Network was far-fetched and also very cold-war America… but it was also this 1970’s “everyman activism” idea. Of course it came out of Hollywood and so maybe it never really got much farther than the coffee mugs. On the other hand, the 70’s didn’t have bloggers, so maybe we can do these sorts of things without Howard.”

Following a theme found in several of Amy Alexander’s previous works, Scream blurs the traditional distinctions between work and play. The effects of computers on our leisure time – and vice versa – is an important and still relatively underexplored area in the analysis of our current social and political realities, despite the fact that “it’s hard to tell work from play anymore. We seem always to be working – even when we’re playing. The tools of work have become the tools of leisure – and so leisure has become virtually indiscernible from work.” The development from her previous piece CyberSpaceLand is to place the power to explode the work/play division so quickly and effectively in the hands/voices of the end user. This is not just playful move, but a political one: “When people are constantly working, they can’t cause trouble. They don’t have time or energy for anything else. When people stop causing trouble, that’s trouble.”

Why Rock? At Turbulence.org

As part of the guest curator’s season at Turbulence.org, Annie Abrahams and Clement Charmet have brought together various digital artists, perhaps more well-known for their visual arts than musical explorations. Under the banner of Why Rock? The pieces presented offer an intriguing exploration of digital music’s potential. One that is more aligned with ideas of DIY punk than what we imagine the current music scene to be.
“Is it because we believe 21st-century rock stars will emerge from the net ?”.

Is it?

Perhaps they will. Or perhaps it is merely that those who engage with “net art” (whatever it is we may be attempting to encompass with that phrase) and attempt to explore the questions that art often addresses through the digital are the sorts of people who will explore and create with whatever tools might be available to them, and are more willing to take chances?

Or perhaps the openness and self-publishing modality of the web allows artistic endeavour to exist beyond the business-model culture of the gallery/curator/art council-funded scheme of things, whereby a certain aspect of the public’s perception of work is that of “here is a painter”, “here is a writer”, “here is a musician”? Perhaps, therefore, it is within the digital that the full scope of artistic endeavour can be explored by creative types.

As Robert Frank said in an interview with Jack Sargeant “[…] I was always the kid who was making stuff […]”. And all artists are like that. Shelley Jackson may be most well-known as a writer, but she admits her creative output has many forms. So, perhaps it is just that the web allows these dualities to be public. Why can’t we be musicians and artists?

And so we turn to the subject of the review: Why rock? Hosted by Turbulence. In thinking about these tracks, do we contextualise them within the whole of the artist’s work or within a genre of music? It doesn’t really matter. What counts is that we listen and enjoy the sounds and occasional images. The list of artists here reads like a who’s who of contemporary digital arts practice:

a l e x e i s h u l g i n
p a v u
r i c h a r d s t a l l m a n
i g o r s t r o m a j e r
v . n . a . t . r . c .
t a l a n m e m m o t t
c o r y a r c a n g e l
c l é m e n t c h a r m e t
d r a g a n e s p e n s c h i e d
a n n i e a b r a h a m s
c l e m e n t t h o m a s
a l a n s o n d h e i m
m a r c g a r r e t t

Alexei Shulgin’s piece opens the catalogue to noise “rock” sounds that are both playful and thought-provoking. Enter Sandman, the track originally penned and played by Metallica, is channelled through a cheap-sounding filter of keyboards and low-fi wares. You want to listen and rock out, but you also want to laugh. When the vocals kick in, you finally see Stephen Hawkings as he would be if he had studied his rock history a little more and Unified Theories of Everything just a little less.

Igor Stromajer’s piece Oppera Teorettikka Internettikka stutters and flickers into life. What sounds like a troublesome fluctuation soon becomes the snickering and muttering of some distant voice, which – for this listener – evoked the soundtrack to one of David Lynch’s early student films (probably The Grandmother). It then dives into silence and emerges with a blast of sound. As the name suggests, this operatic piece, weighing in at 38 minutes and 14 seconds, is a journey of prog-rock proportions. Technically, more about the mixing desk and composition than other pieces, this blends in voice-overs explaining the process of nuclear fission and a distant voice speaking in what may be Latin. Then a dance beat breaks in fades. And on it goes, voices mixing in and being manipulated along with the crackle and fizz of electronica.

Annie Abrahams doesn’t want to be a nice girl. And she may not be, but her music makes you want to get to know her more. I Don’t Want To Be a Nice Girl , cuts a groove with a repetition of the title phrase over the top while guitar-style feedback runs through the whole song. You could dance to this piece, but not at your parents’ wedding anniversary party.

If there’s a unifying theme to this net. Exhibition, it’s the playfulness of the music. The composers/rock stars haven’t attempted to create deep, meaningful works. Instead, they would seem to have turned their backs on the deep knowledge of the technologies they have shown they have mastery of with their other fields of practice and decided to explore a simple version of what music can be. If you’ve been reared on a diet of Throbbing Gristle and Coil as I was as a teenager, then this music will be at once familiar and exciting. If your diet consisted of Robbie Williams and Ah-ha, you’ve probably been reading the wrong review anyway.

“Is it just a need to make an adolescent dream come true?”.

Who cares? Let’s rock!!

Spotlighted by Turbulence, Voicemosaic has a lot to do with the development of works such as Mark Napier’s and Andy Deck’s Graphic Jam (which is now down) or Olivier Auber’s Poietic Generator (still up and running.)
Btw, next appointment is from Friday the 10th of June until Saturday the 12th) and other interactive works. These works during the past few years have set what we can now quite basically call “web interfaces for interaction, used in an art context”.

Sounds of a chat room
Bringing together voice and image to build a visual mosaic of users chosen colours, Voicemosaic allows us to hear the voices of people dropping by and saying a few words (mostly in Portuguese, and English) to be part of the project. Surfing on Voicemosaic feels a bit like listening to an answering machine (“the truth is out there”, “o laaaa”, “don’t let your dreams be dreams” or people giggling and fooling around are the kind of things users can hear when clicking through the application). This kind of sound experiment could easily be associated to works created by artists such as Scanner, which were illegally recorded, cell phone conversations a few years ago.

Choose a color to give me call
The principle is quite simple, all you have to do is make a phone call (in US: (800) 289.5570 or (407) 386-2174), from any telephone device – mobile or not, then dial the PIN number 9991421055 when requested, drop a word or two, giggle or laugh. Then you go to the web site and listen to what you said by localising your message (by area or phone number), or simply listen to other people’s messages.

The application was developed in April 2004. It seemed quite slow and was not reacting as expected, this could have been a bad server day, who can tell? So, I can only inform you what I experienced at the time, and you might have better luck when visiting this piece yourselves. Most of the coloured squares did not seem to function at the time, when clicking on them often nothing actually happened. Although, they inked, connected to one another with 2 or 3 colored lines representing what seems to be the graphical, extensions of the participants’ voices belonging to the same geographical area. Expect the mosaic to change as time goes on, as people drop messages adding their coloured squares that they want to be represented by.

There are two interpretations we can make of this experiment. One of them would be that it causes time and space to collapse, it questions convergence and hybridisation between the telephone and the web, interaction, dualities and even biometrical data storage, as said in the presentation page of the work Voicemosaic. The other would be that sometimes interaction itself can be hard work.

On the one hand, one always feels like one is in a chat room experimenting these works, users always look at all the profiles to see if there is a neighbour posing nude in some outrageous underwear, search for my phone number, I’ll tell you who you are, locate me and I’ll lose you. Extend me on your website or I’ll no longer exist.

Voicemosaic shows a screen that maps participation as it arrives from several different geographical areas, in different languages and different times, and from this something is meant to be produced. Yet something is not working as well as it could, for it does not go all the way through the ‘time-space collapse’ sequence as announced. Instant messengers already function adequately in collapsing time/space. Media convergence and hybridisation between the telephone and the web, is something that needs to be and will be experienced on a more regular basis soon, but an answering machine relayed over the Internet does not seem to communicate work this way. On the whole, this is work has a lot of potential and it would be interesting to see the next steps after this. One could assume and enjoy this work as a beta-experiment and enjoy its context not because of what it is now but because of what it could be…

A Perfect Match…

I’d been travelling for ten months when I arrived at a small-town airport near the coast. I collected my bag, boarded the airport bus, put on my sunglasses and leaned back to take in the countryside. It was strangely familiar:gentle green hills, autumnal trees under a blue blue sky, water on one side and farmland on the other. If it wasn’t for people around me speaking Norwegian, I could have let myself pretend I was returning to my hometown of Dunedin, New Zealand.

But no, I was about as far from there as I could get. And Trondheim, although a similar size to Dunedin and also a university town, is nestled along a fjord not around a harbour and has been around for several centuries longer than Dunedin. Still, I had a distinctly warm feeling about the place, and this was to be reinforced by my excellent hostess Eva and Trondheim Matchmaking, the reason I’d come here.

The annual Trondheim Matchmaking (TMM) festival is “an arena for presentations of innovative ideas and artistic projects, a place where competence and resources are maintained and developed”. Organised by TEKS Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre, the festival is in its third year and brings artists from Scandinavia, Europe and the wider world together to meet and exchange ideas in “an attempt to bind together resources and competence within the field”. It’s good to have an event that gives meetings between artists the same or higher priority than showcasing work.

TMM 2004 ran from 13 to 17 October and featured 44 artists and groups in presentations, an exhibition and several performances. Boys making noise were a dominant feature in the performances, but overall the programme was very diverse and included theoretical presentations about the state of new media art as well as discussion time and artist talks.

On the opening night, we were treated to “Konsert for Grønland” by Verdensteatret, a performance installation inspired by the landscape and environment of Greenland. Simultaneously eerie and enchanting, the work was created from found objects, video, and digitally manipulated vocals. For me, the most beautiful and magical part was the least technical: driftwood, flotsam and jetsam that came to life as ships, people and other creatures in silhouettes.

Over the next couple of nights our ears were treated to an extraordinary range of sonic art-numerous digital manipulations, an orchestra wrangled from defunct electronic toys, a musician joining his band from Australia via the internet – and one group shocked us all by bringing on a live drummer. Lithuanian Gintas K’s performance was obviously on the same sonic wavelength as the candle on my table – its flame performed a mesmerising dance in response to the pulses and modulations of sound and air (and no, I wasn’t on drugs at the time). By the final night, we were so open to any noise being audio art that it took us quite a long time to realise that an ear-piercing siren was in fact the fire alarm, and not the beginning of another performance.

Our days were spent listening to each other talk and drinking quantities of coffee. Most of the artists who were performing at the festival spoke about their work, and many other artists, theorists and producers also spoke. One fascinating project was “Nomen Nominandum”, an interactive creature that lives in a high school’s LAN, created by Even Westvang from Oslo. The students, who have all been issued with laptops this year, will gradually discover the creature as it appears in their screensaver, and can work out how to influence its development. Other presentations included Anna Hill’s Space Synapse Systems, Natalie Jeremijenko human-animal interaction projects and John Hopkins’ delightful performance about human connection via the internet.

In between the presentations, some took the opportunity to stretch their legs on Susanne Rasmussen’s “Move”, an interactive video installation where a runner on a treadmill generates a mix of live and prerecorded video on the screen in front of the treadmill; definitely a way to attract more artists into the gym!

Just before my presentation was due to start, Espen realised a mistake in the times in the programme, giving a whole hour more for the presenters scheduled on Saturday afternoon. This meant that myself, Natalie and Kerstin Wagner (Ã…kerby Skulpturpark) had plenty of time to ramble on, and we did. The wireless network allowed audience members with laptops to log on to UpStage during my presentation and play around, while I explained the software. My colleagues Karla Ptacek and Vicki Smith were demonstrating from London and New Zealand and entertained everyone with online antics, while I fielded questions from the floor.

The exhibition opened on the final day of the festival in a space was dominated by Laura Beloff’s “Spinne” – giant spiders vibrating in response to the activity of the internet and offering a visual representation of the web. On one wall, three screens seemed at first bland pools of colour, but the patient viewer soon observed faces subtly appearing and disappearing; this work was by one of the TMM organisers, Trine Eidsmo. Leaving the exhibition, we spent some time outside amusing ourselves with a dragon sitting on the roof of an opposite shop and breathing fire down on us: the work of Lars Brunström (Malmö).

With the festival over, Kerstin and I did a spot of sightseeing: after coffee in a quaint old cobbled street, we visited the historic Trondheim Cathedral and peered at the marks left by thousands of pilgrims over the centuries; in another church we encountered a fundraising event for homeless people (yes, even in Norway there are homeless people). As the clear air began to chill we stopped in a pub for a drink, where we were greeted by others who had been at some of the festival events. It really did feel like I was at home. And that night, Eva and I visited Coby and Jaap of Teatret Fusentast, contacts through the Magdalena Project network, another branch of my international family.

Before leaving Trondheim, I met with Letizia Jaccheri at the university; she teaches an interdisciplinary course with a mixture of arts and computer science students, and will offer UpStage to them as a project. The university’s solid old stone buildings and the hilly view again reminded me of Dunedin, so I went shopping for Moomin mugs to reassure myself that I really was in Scandinavia.

Thanks to Espen and Trine for a great festival with an interesting and diverse programme, but small enough for us artists to get to know each other.

Work In Progress

James Joyce wrote between 1914 and 1922 what has been described as the best literary work of the Twentieth Century: Ulysses. The novel tells the story of one day (Thursday, 16th June 1904) in the life of Dublin, following the steps of advertising salesman Leopold Bloom as he walks around the city. The book is divided into 18 chapters, each written in a different literary style, all corresponding to episodes of Homer’s Odyssey. Taking references from the story of the most renowned hero in Antiquity, Joyce turns the wanderings of an ordinary man into an epical journey into the life and culture of the city of Dublin, as well as into literature itself. In doing so, he developed a masterpiece whose complexity led to a myriad of interpretations and readings, which are still being discussed by scholars today.

A new reading of Ulysses is being developed by Irish net artist Conor McGarrigle, who has set himself the task of creating a series of pieces based upon James Joyce’s novel. The project is unusually large in scale for a net art piece. As McGarrigle puts it:

“It’s a big project, but it’s something I wanted to do, because I wanted to start a project that I could work on over a long period of time, because a lot of what I did before was short, self-contained and have no follow-on, which is how a lot of net art is like”.

But it is not just a long term project, it is also ambitious and risk-taking to work on such important literary reference. McGarrigle admits the complexity of this task and specifies the limitations to it:

“I am not going to do Joyce, I am not going to try to do ‘Ulysses online’, because that would be crazy. What I want to do is tell a story, a different story but use the structure of Ulysses”.

Just as Joyce used Homer’s structure for the Odyssey because he “couldn’t make a better one”, McGarrigle uses Joyce to tell his story about Dublin:

“I couldn’t beat Joyce’s structure, so I would use the same, but also because Joyce’s Ulysses is so caught up with Dublin… the Dublin we have today is Joyce’s Dublin”.

The net artist has already created two of the eighteen pieces to shape his version of Ulysses. The first piece, Cyclops refers to chapter 12 in the book, in which Leopold Bloom enters Barney Kiernan’s pub and discusses with a fierce nationalist named the Citizen, a scene that an unnamed narrator describes. McGarrigle sets this piece in Temple Bar (Dublin’s “official cultural quarter”), where artist Artie Doyle (his everyman equivalent to Leopold Bloom) is constantly watched by four surveillance cameras: these represent both the single-eyed Cyclops of Homer’s Odyssey and the anonymous narrator in Joyce’s Ulysses. Each camera controls a different zone. In zone 1, Artie Doyle walks next to the Arthouse building, a former multimedia centre for the arts now closed. The windows of the building have been replaced by moving images of anti-war protests. Just as Joyce projected his literary vision of Dublin onto the real city, so does McGarrigle with a digitally manipulated vision that he defines as an “enhanced city”. In zone 2, Artie meets Clancy, the art critic, and they have a conversation which mirrors that of Bloom and the Citizen. McGarrigle reproduces sentences heard from artists and curators in Dublin. The willingness to exclude foreigners from Ireland manifested by the Citizen in Joyce’s book is turned into the exclusion of emerging artists from the art world. In zone 3, Artie is caught in a fog of names of Irish artists, which recalls the Citizen’s list of Irish Heroes of antiquity. Once again, it is tradition preventing the emergence of new art. Finally, in zone 4, the user takes the Cyclops (or narrator) role in observing passersby and revealing their thoughts, just as Joyce does using the interior monologue in his characters. All in all, the piece is mainly narrative, permitting a limited interaction, although it is in some cases presented as an open system (the surveillance camera images, for instance, are not real-time webcam shots, but still images which compose a closed animation). McGarrigle admits to this:

“I started with something more self-contained, no interaction whatsoever, but I see more as it moves on, maybe add some collaborative pieces where I work with other artists, and then pieces where users can interact with them. But it’s an early stage, so as I look into each episode, I think about how it will be done, and then when it comes to a certain size, I will have to link them all, but that is another challenge”.

The second piece in the series is Proteus, which is based upon chapter 3 of Ulysses, in which Stephen Dedalus walks along the beach in Sandymount strand. Joyce uses in this chapter the technique of stream of consciousness to reveal Stephen’s thoughts. In McGarrigle’s piece, the walk along Sandymount is replaced by the more contemporary trip in a DART train that takes Artie Doyle to Dublin’s city centre. This is a meditation piece in which there is no interaction because we are invited to watch Artie’s thoughts display in a stream of pictures as the train passes by the serene skyline of Sandymount beach. Finally, the image fades to black as we are moved to interrogate “the ineluctable modality of the visible”: we close our eyes but still hear the train bumping on the tracks. The world is still there.

In these two pieces, McGarrigle successfully combines Joycean references with contemporary situations, thus taking Joyce’s novel to today’s Dublin whilst creating a different story. Still, there are sixteen more chapters and many possible readings for each of them. Joyce used a different point of view and literary style for each chapter, and McGarrigle likely does the same, incorporating the many different techniques already displayed in net artworks.

What you see is almost what you get

‘What You See Is What You Get’ (WYSIWYG) is a term meaning that what you see on the screen is what you will get on output. However for artists who produce work that is output online, the reality is that what you see is almost never what you get, or more specifically what someone else will get. The sheer number of platforms, processor speeds, browser softwares, screen resolutions, font size settings etc. means that a piece is rarely the same on the artist’s screen as it is will be on the screens of the audiences.

Rather than battling against the huge fluidity of viewing conditions, idealword.org actively explores this intrinsic feature of digital art – what you see is almost what you get. For site creator Enrique Radigales, this ‘almost’ describes’ a blurred circumstance, a space for the translation between the digital and analogue states, the relationship between the contemporary human being and its coexistence with computerized environments.”

On first appearance, IdealWord is a periodically updated gallery of computer-assisted sketches. In the piece EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, we see twelve figures in suits. The scene is familiar: posture and proximity of the twelve suggests they are jurors, yet the large size of the image (2290 x 1215 pixels) requires the viewer to scroll horizontally and vertically, observing individuals or small groups instead of the twelve as a whole. This method of ‘partial display’ – large images that require scrolling to view – is intentionally used by Enrique to further draw our attention to the peculiarities of the author/viewer relationship, as well as to focus our attention on the composition and drawing technique itself.

The visual style of Enrique’s work is an intriguing blend of hand and computer drawn. The process he terms ‘MouseStrokes’ involves creating each image line-by-line, a technique that has more in common with engraving than the processes normally used in the creation of digital images. This makes the site visually unique – there are not many sketch artists who would choose such a laborious method – but the implication of engraving is a clever one, as the reproduction of engravings through printing can also be seen as a much earlier form of ‘what you see is almost what you get’.

In keeping with the tradition of reproduction, each piece on IdealWord is available as a downloadable pdf for viewing and printing offline. Enrique again anticipates the slippage from artist to viewer, and highlights the problem of ‘correct’ reproductions, by providing (different) A1 or A4 pdfs of the same image, in addition to the myriad options found within each user’s pdf viewing software and printing hardware: “the home printing revolution… offers a different reading of the serialization of a contemporary work: each user has a copy according to his/her printer and the paper he/she uses.”

Yet IdealWord’s beauty is not merely surface deep. Each drawing contains texts that have been visually camouflaged within the image. These hidden texts – in a variety of styles, and from often surprising sources – are visible by selecting and copy-pasting the piece into a blank text document, or by viewing the HTML source code.

For example, in EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE the sub-text is taken from an article describing software ‘mind tools’ and the development of artificial emotional intelligence via biofeedback, psychometrics or other computer-human interaction. A dynamic relationship is created from title to image, image to text, and text back to title; in this case perhaps asking us to question ’emotional intelligence’ in a general philosophical sense and in the specific practical case of the psychometric testing of jurors.

In DIGITAL VS ANALOGICAL the surface image depicts two wrestling figures (D & A?). Copy-pasting the page into a basic text editor reveals the letters of ‘digital’ and ‘analogical’ repeated as a process poem, formatted precisely with underscore lines. However we again experience the slippage from author to viewer: the way we actually see this poem depends entirely on our hardware and software settings.

There are more ambiguities. Copy-pasting each page into a more ‘advanced’ text editor such as Word will only copy the image and not the hidden text. Alternatively, if we view the text within the HTML source code, it naturally appears punctuated by code tags (D etc) – and although these tags may seem to be extraneous noise, we see in the pdf versions that these code tags often remain, though their formatting and appearance is now fixed. The texts sometimes also appear as illegible transcriptions over the image, creating what Enrique calls ‘stains of text’: used as an illustrative compositional technique (creating depth and texture), but also to offer yet another alternative appreciation of the text with image.

Despite the multiple levels of intention and interpretation, one of the first things you notice about IdealWord is the lack of pretension. We see a piece as soon as we arrive on the site, and there is pleasantly little in the way of artist’s statements and other pre-explanatory blurbs. Of course, the visitor will see as much as they want to see: the sub-texts are hidden, and therefore could be completely missed by the casual viewer. But the success of IdealWord is that it can be appreciated on any level, and we are perhaps made more aware that the choice of what to make of each piece we see is always up to us. Through this simple trick of emphasising the variety of possible ‘ways of seeing’, Enrique shows a great understanding of the constraints – what you see is almost what you get – and the possibilities of the digital medium: “The work created by digital artists is ready to develop its own language and a discourse specific of new media and, more specifically, of net art. It would be a mistake to ignore the possibilities of the metanarrative within this process. While we walk along this way towards a specific language we cannot create digital shadows following our analogue equivalents.”

Quotes taken from email interview with CJ, 02/2005; translation provided by Gemma Deza

prototype (test release) project Dreamlogs – by Christophe Bruno

My first visit to Dreamlogs by Christophe Bruno left me more than a little confused, but interested enough to do a bit of digging to try and figure out what was going on. There’s not much in the way of concrete instruction as to how the ‘idea association engine’ is intended to be used, though, for a project in the ‘testing stage’ this is not an insurmountable problem–particularly for a piece of web art, where it’s not unsurprising for fully realized pieces to come with no instruction at all beyond the feedback one gets from clicking around and trying things.

So I clicked around and tried some things.

On the way I learned that Dreamlogs are “The new world order” and “confront the temporality of a dreamed life with the infinite dimensionality of speech” and “an idea association engine”. “They propose another way to surf on the Internet, by disentangling the discourses that have interlaced over time” and “a new interface to the Global Text: a non-utilitarian and non-local alternative to search engines”. Cool, I’m up for that. Now, what do I do?

Choose my target language…Check.

Choose a sentence or part of a sentence, ok, put some words in…Check.

Optional: put more words in to “modulate” my search. Hrm. Since I don’t know exactly what that means in this context (though the “+” is a good clue), I probably don’t need it, yet.

Go!

Magic happens in the background, and, then I see poured onto the page a bulleted list of text excerpts from what I presume are web pages, each bulleted item showing my word(s) highlighted in the text. OK.
I’m with you so far. Now what? Read some new instructions on the left side. So…I can save it now (seems silly), end the process and start again (good to know but not yet) or do what I’m supposed to do, which is click on any words I see anywhere in the bulleted list items.
When words are clicked they appear in the new search box, right under a display of the current (previous) search(es). OK. So, I’m doing a little free associating. Cool. Clicky clicky. Clicky. Clicky Go!

“No (or very few) results were found, click here to relaunch”

Ooops. Must of done something wrong. Hrm. OK, relaunch.

Work my way back to where I was and this time be sure to pick fewer new words to search on. OK. I get it, I guess. Well. Sort of. Where’s this going?

Let’s think about this. I can put any search terms in and I get a slice of the pool of context that surrounds my terms. I can then pull new terms from that context (so they are, by definition, related, at the very least by proximity), and grab new slices of (at least proximally) related context. What for? I need to check out some of the related materials and see if I can get a handle on what’s going on here.

Back out to the first inside page. Lots of ways to go. FAQ of limited practical use. Paints the concept in brush strokes so broad I still don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. Maybe there is no “supposed to be doing”. Eeep. Possible I suppose.

Back out to the first inside page. Let me do some reading on Christophe Bruno. Wow, cool. A ton of extremely intense art. Claims the earliest piece of search engine art. Excellent. I spend three hours checking out other projects Christophe has done or been involved in (my favorite so far: The Google AdWords Happening, but that should not suggest I only found one thing to enjoy, I thoroughly enjoyed the bulk of what I found).

OK, so lots of search engine explorations. Dreamlogs is certainly a logical extension of that. I’m still missing something, though. I do some more reading in and around the Dreamlogs site and reread the FAQ to see if I can puzzle out some usage clues from it.

I gather I’m supposed to be adopting a discursive position and working to its opposite position in a perhaps fixed number of steps. Why would I want to do that? Nevermind, let’s try doing that.

Maybe I’m just not properly wired for free associating out of a limited pool of context in order to bridge opposing discursive positions. Maybe I’m overthinking the whole thing and I need to just have some fun with it. Oh, what’s this? View Current Dreamlogs.

Oh, okay, there’s a whole other thing happening here. After I get my steps all taken, a blog is created on the fly that contains an entry for each of my steps. The entry is composed of an image, an excerpt
from a web page, a “read more” link to the actual page in its natural habitat, a “posted by” credit, and two numbers I can’t really figure out: Interest, and, Correlation With Previous Post. I can guess what they might signify, but, I can’t figure out how, in the context of this whole experience, I’m supposed to use or influence or be influenced by them. Alright, so let’s make some and save them and see what they look like as blogs.

I made two. In the first I started with a beginning of the day phrase and figured I’d try to make it to the end of a day. Not exactly an opposite discursive position, but, not a purely random surf, either.
I’d learned that longer phrases had a tendency to return no results, and single words return a huge amount of results, so I settled in for three to four word phrases and generally kept to phrases that were naturally occurring mostly intact within the blocks of context I was presented with. When I saved it, I learned that the posts appear in descending order, last first and first last. Not a major problem, but, would have been nice to know at the outset (if I’ve been paying attention when I looked at the other finished Dreamlogs, I could have figured that out, so, partially my own fault).

In the second, knowing that the final piece was going to be presented in reverse order, I set out to compose a poem in reverse order that would (as near as possible) end as it began. The phrases I selected to further search on were now chosen in an interactive fashion, visually scanning the context pool while attempting to build lines that would stand on their own and be readable as a poem in either direction (at the line level of granularity). Instead of pulling phrases out of the context, I was pulling single words from all over the page in the order I wanted them to appear. Totally do-able, but my Correlation With Previous Post scores dropped to ridiculously low numbers, as did my Interest numbers. Maybe it’s like golf, and I’m supposed to score low! Or maybe not.
So, it all boils down to: I haven’t been able to figure out what to do with Dreamlogs. In a way, it’s like doing collaborative writing exercises with someone else, only in this case the someone else is a search interface to the text of the web. I can see it being in improvement over a human in the range of context to associatively draw from, but that means trading relevancy for number of results, quality for quantity. I can see it as a way to get at associations and connections that might not normally present themselves, but I don’t see how it’s an improvement over myriad other generative techniques, including but certainly not limited to just garden variety surfing. I do, however, love the building of the blog to house each finished Dreamlog, and, to me, viewing the finished Dreamlogs of others was more interesting than the process of building them myself.

Main image by Anne Helmond.

Curation Mastication Preservation

There is a lot of current talk about curation and preservation of media artworks. If you logged on to the New Media Curating list or Empyre, or checked their archives for January 2005, you would see ample discussion on the subject. It appears that artists and curators are suddenly considering the longer-term implications of archiving and curating (in the context of historical consideration) their artwork. Not that artists (particularly those working in digitalis) haven’t been above hosting their works and acting as personal archivists, and Furtherfield itself is just one such site that hosts archives of new media artworks.

A seminar bringing together individuals from organisations such as the Guggenheim in New York and Art Research Communication, the Edinburgh-based company developing new media projects, took place on Saturday, the 29th of January 2005. A joint venture between Vivid, the new media art organisation in Birmingham and the University of Central England invited speakers: Caitlin Jones, Martijn Stevens, Chris Byrne, Andy Webster with Jon Bird (giving a combined presentation) and Sarah Cook.

First to speak was Caitlin Jones from the Guggenheim, who chose to discuss curation issues from the vantage point of the Variablemedia project, the Guggenheim’s attempt to preserve digital works of yesteryears. Caitlin’s paradigm that she works within is formed by considering how Performance artists document and re-enact their work. The impermanence of live performances and how we might capture this in some way provides an opportunity for thinking, at the very least, about what we might have to deal with to ensure continued appreciation of the work.

The Musealisation of Digital Art, the project that Martijn Stevens is involved in, offers a chance to consider how work that may be primarily web-based, or at least exist within some virtual context, can be shown within the bricks-and-mortar environment of the traditional gallery. When net.art works are created within the home environment and most often are viewed either in the same environment or often in the workplace, how do galleries propose to deal with this dichotomy?

I feel a rift exists (despite attempts to create the illusion of this being otherwise) between traditional galleries and their online counterparts. Just as many .Com companies came to realise that you couldn’t base your business on the same models that real-world businesses operated within, so it is that real-world galleries have to begin to understand that they may try to capture the fleeting moment of the digital art work, but they’re only ever going to be playing catch-up with the internet. New business models need to be considered for this type of gallery if the traditional galleries wish to be a part of it.

With a break of sixty minutes, mid-session, attendees were allowed to enjoy lunch and spend some time having informal discussions. Jon Bird and Andy Webster’s Tabular Rasa video was playing in a room off to the side of the main seminar room. It could be argued that lunch is among the most important parts of attending seminars. As much for the chance to get to know fellow attendees as it is to have one-to-one chats with the speakers.

When Chris Byrne took his turn at the altar of digital confession, he chose to sit down. Can’t say I blame him. Chris chose to open his talk with a video tale about a caller trying to “buy” a piece of the Internet in terms of real estate purchasing. The video raised a laugh amongst the audience, setting a good tone for his talk. Chris explored ideas about the location of artworks and location-sensitive issues around curating new media work. Chris works mainly in Scotland. Separating his work from that addressed by Martijn Stevens, Byrne tries to understand how physical works change context with location. Showing examples of work that have occupied everything from small churches in remote fishing villages – with a satellite uplink that was on such a small incline to the earth’s surface that if someone parked their car nearby, they blocked the signal – to media labs placed in landscapes across the Scottish plains that housed artists.

Andy Webster and Jon Bird make a good double act. I mean that in a positive way. They acted against each other in a performance that mirrored the very process of curation that they were telling us about. There are many types of presenters and different ways of discussing subjects. The best are often like this one. Webster and Bird have taken a very experimental approach to developing models for curating. When trying to separate a selection of artists’ films for projection onto cityscapes, they chose to rely on Andy Webster’s experience working with Artificial Intelligence and the algorithms used for some simple decision-making processes. An interesting solution to a difficult problem. And probably one of the few ‘creative’ methods of curating a project that has been used for some time. Some discussion on the subject revealed that people felt the process was somehow ‘wrong’ and inaccurate, but perhaps this is because Bird and Webster have captured the essence of what many curators like to think of as an intangible process and one based on years of curatorial engagement.

Sarah Cook is co-editor of CRUMB (Curatorial Resource for Upstart Media Bliss), the website and discussion forum for new media research. Her talk looked at re-enactments, particularly the work of Nina Pope & Karen Guthrie, who have taken part in historical re-enactments to gain an understanding of how we bring past artistic endeavours into contemporary curatorial concerns. Nicely book-ending the seminar against Caitlin Jones’ talk about updating historical digital media works. Cook wondered what original work might be present if we re-create the projects in modern terms. Stepping away from purely digital works, she wondered how technology might help mediate artwork re-enactments. As part of this discussion, she previewed the projects being developed at FACT for an upcoming summer exhibition.

The difficult job of chairing the discussions fell to Helen Cadwallader of the Arts Council England. Never an easy job to chair discussions around these issues, as there is always a varying number of viewpoints for every attendee. Good chair-people manage to allow the flow of the discussion to move outwards from the papers’ main issues and into the concerns that have arisen within the audience’s minds. Helen discussed the current’ state-of-the-art’ as part of her opening speech.
So, how far did the speakers go in solving the problems of new media preservation and curation? Of course, the answer is that there will never be one satisfactory solution or methodology, only differing schools of thought. I cannot help wondering if the whole point of digital art is the ephemerality of it. Maybe we aren’t creating works that will live on forever or at least into the next century. Like Performance art, perhaps the best place for historical contextualizing artworks is from the observers’ memories. But of course, none of us wants to believe that, myself included.

This talk was the final one in a series that Vivid and UCE have presented, with a range of speakers from Brian Duffy and his Modified Toy Orchestra to Electronic Literature within the context of Space. The complete archive of papers and transcripts of discussions arising from the presentations will be published sometime in 2005 by Article Press.

Thanks to Kaye Winwood and Sian Evans at Vivid for their help writing this article.

A walk through three Mexico City blogs

This review touches cursorily on one of the many Mexico City blog cliques. Its members are for the most part unpublished writers who started their blogs between the years 2001 and 2002. Their loosely connected network is evinced by their blogrolls and occassional appearances in each other’s blogs. Some of the blogs are still active and some have become dead links. This review focuses on the way in which two bloggers that belong to this clique write about the city. It starts with the blog of poet/journalist Luis Martignon.

Perixcopio [0] is the lyrical rendition of Martignon’s life in a blog. For the people who know him, the blog may sometimes prove too hard to read from a critical distance. Those who don’t know him, tend to approach the blog with incredulity. The reason is that Martignon always seems to be at the edge of an abyss. [1]

The anger and desperation that we find in his texts are not uncommon in this part of the world. [2] Perhaps they are “specific effects that this city has on the emotions of its inhabitants”. In any case, Martignon stands out among other bloggers in his fascination with the city. And he is unwavering in his position. Even if the city does not treat him too kindly, his poetry is still going to be enraptured by it. [3]

We find numerous mentions of the Mexico City subway in Clvaro Ernesto Obregn’s two blogs. One particular poignant passage is the end of Hard Pop. [4] Clvaro has finally moved out of his parents house and the physical distance between him and his brother is expressed in terms of the subway.

Clvaro created Hard Pop in 2003 for the sole purpose of posting his first novel. It is interesting to note this in light of Blogger’s endorsement of this year’s NaNoWriMo. [5] Although Clvaro’s other blog [6] was also started with the intention of posting a few poems and short stories, it eventually developed into a more conventional online diary.

The city is the necessary backdrop to Clvaro’s two blogs. It is practically impossible to conceive of his stories without the city. And he seems to delight in weaving the urban landscape into his writing. We find elaborate descriptions of Mexico City throughout his blogs. Take for example, the first half of the “Cola de Straub” chapter in Hard Pop.

In his blogs, Clvaro frequently appears travelling in the city. He’s either on his way to work, school or just out partying. As a matter of fact, many of his entries chronicle the nights when he and his friends set out searching for something to do. We are witness to their overindulgence in drugs and British pop music. Along the side, we see them accomplish the not so easy feat of crossing the city. [7]

This review is something of a reduction. It focuses on a particular aspect of three blogs that belong to a particular blog clique within the vast Mexican blogosphere. My hope is that it serves as an starting point, as an invitation to follow the link.

[0]perixocopio

[1]perixcopio_2002_12_01

Unshaved … he tries to get up but all his bones hurt. There is blood in his nose … he is anxious, nervous, he doesn’t know what to do. It’s Monday. He repeats to himself: “There’s not much time left.” Almost no time left.

[2]perixcopio_2001_12_01

At that time of the day, the subway is fucking death … you can see the fatigue, the disgust and the desperation in [everyone’s] faces. They are fed up and it shows.

[3]perixcopio_2003_11_01

The stories of the city are too boring if told before bedtime. That’s why it’s better to go out and take a walk. The name of a city like this one is solitude. Solitude is nothing short of being alive.

[4]hardpop.blogspot.com

[5]blogging-your-novel-part-one.pyra

[6]astroman-x.blogspot

[7]astroman-x.blogspot

Lexicon, an open-source software piece by Andy Deck, begins with a page containing two sparse, rectangular black-and-white images, each resembling a maze. Contained within the image located at the top of the page is a pull-down menu. When selected, the menu displays six choices (256×256, default size, 512×512, 640×640, 768×768, and 1024×1024) that allow the viewer to determine the size of the performance space where s/he has the opportunity to generate visual effects based on Java scripts conceptualized around a particular word. Centered in the image toward the bottom of the page is a tiny icon, also a black-and-white representation of a maze. This icon serves as a navigational motif throughout the entire piece; when clicked, it takes the viewer to the site maze, which serves as the work’s navigational “hub.” Sandwiched between these two maze-like images is the title of the work, rendered in a blocky, outlined font.

Protruding from the left and right sides of the site maze are the hyperlinked words “read” and “write,” respectively. Slyly nestled within the site maze – it took me a number of visits to this particular page before I even noticed them – are the words “about,” “help,” “lexicon,” “words,” and “codes.” Because the piece is not immediately intuitive, those who are unfamiliar with Deck’s work would likely benefit from clicking on “about,” which takes the viewer to the “About Lexicon” page in which Deck describes in straightforward and readable language the ideas that have informed Lexicon’s development. Deck also explains how one might interact with the piece, from creating what he dubs “interactive montage” to composing scripts that can be added to its presently existing vocabulary. The participation and collaboration he encourages points to the conceptual foundation of Lexicon, which rests in large part with the open source philosophy of transparency: software source code belongs in the public domain, subject to public review, manipulation and development. In my mind, Lexicon also poses two interrelated questions: to what degree can (and/or should) open source diminish or eradicate what can be referred to as “the artist’s touch”? Should such diminishing or eradication be used as a yardstick to measure the success of the work?

As someone who is only partially familiar with Deck’s work, his narrative piqued my curiosity and provoked me to find the performance area where I could play. After clicking on several of the hyperlinked words embedded within the narrative and examining the various pages, I concluded that the “Lexicon scripting” page must be where I could try my hand at interacting with the piece. In the upper left hand side of the page are sixty eight buttons, each containing a different word, from “action” to “zap.” The words are alphabetized, and all letters of the alphabet are represented. On the right hand side of the page is a large, rectangular text field, with the word “script” above it, the words “clear” and “help” on its right, and an arrow located underneath its bottom edge.

Thinking at first that my entries needed to be complete sentences, I typed in “chaos ensued when I hit the bullseye,” “chaos” and “bullseye” being two of the sixty eight words, and pressed the arrow. The result was a new page displaying a square “canvas” smattered with random words, either black or white with black outlines, of varying sizes and fonts. Not realizing I could continue to click on the canvas to generate another word smattering, I pressed the “back” button on my browser and typed in another sentence constructed around the choices “streaker,” “win,” and “waffle”: “a streaker wanted to win a sweet honey waffle.” This time, all that appeared on the canvas was the letter “a.” Assuming I must have done something wrong, I clicked on the small maze icon in the upper right hand corner of the canvas to see if I could find a page with additional instructions.

It was the “Publicly-contributed word/code scripts” page, accessible by clicking on the word “read” in the site maze, that clued me in. Near the top of the page is the word “Index,” with a vertical list of hyperlinked dates and times categorized under “today,” “yesterday,” and “this week.” Playing with the submissions of past viewers, I noticed that most had created word combinations from the sixty eight buttons instead of creating sentences (it appears that words not represented on a button are extraneous and don’t count), and that a greater number of words generally (but not always) produced more interesting results. I also discovered that I could change the appearance of the image contained within the canvas by clicking within its borders and drawing on it by dragging the cursor. This is when the piece became addictive. I spent a considerable amount of time trying different word combinations, attempting to match up the black-and-white graphics with specific words, and contemplating Deck’s (and perhaps other Java-proficient contributers’) visual interpretation of these words. Some words, such as bullseye and sinkhole, are represented more literally, while others are represented by a more playful and freewheeling interpretation. At some point during my experimentation I found the pages in the site that contained textbook definitions and the source code for each word.

Because I do not know how to program in Java, the one component of the work I was not able to experience was contributing some source code and seeing the results. I was also not able to decipher whether other viewers have been adding and/or manipulating already existing source code. This led me to wonder if it would add to my appreciation of the work if I would be able to identify the contributors’ different styles with regards to the graphics their programming generates – making explicit Deck’s exploration of public creativity in cyberspace – or if it would simply be a distraction. It also led me to wonder about the requisite level of expertise one ought to have when critiquing Internet art works. A piece such as Lexicon serves as an example, since there are aspects of the work that are, for all intents and purposes, inaccessible to me.

This is by no means a criticism of what I consider to be an intriguing and intellectually cohesive piece, nor do I necessarily consider it an inherent flaw or weakness. Rather, it leads me to ask, would an art critic who knows how to program in Java, and thus able to explore all of the work’s nooks and crannies, be the most able to understand and appreciate the work? While most would not insist (to the best of my knowledge) that the most qualified critics of paintings are painters, sculptors of sculptures, etc., is there something “different” about Internet art? I wonder if it is apt to compare a work such as Lexicon to a house with a large number of rooms. I have a key that opens most of the doors of these rooms – but not all. To what degree should this matter?

Welcome to Hack A Day (beta), a web-zine project that is feverishly “dedicated in cataloging all the best hacks and D.I.Y projects on the Internet”. This mischievous group do emphasize that it is in beta mode, although since Oct 7, 2004 there have been plenty of explorative hackers out there willing to contribute their everyday, creative hacking experiences with others via this very informative and useful web site. It is a non-art parallel to runme.org.

There are many inventive submissions on this site. An old 1940s phone is turned into a Bluetooth headset, an etch-a-sketch is turned into an electr-o-sketch, which attaches to a hacked mouse, a guide to hacking the ipod remote and how to control it in various other ways, like wiring up your jacket, or wrist watch. This site has all the info, connections, signals and protocols to pull it off.

Phillip Torrone, who set up the ‘Hack A Day (beta)’ site with some other enthusiastic friends, says, “i thought it was time to have one spot on the web with all the things you can do with iPods, digital cameras, consoles, portables, locks, macs, pcs, anything that can be changed, updated or hacked. A lot of the desire to do this is so i don’t have to hunt around as much for ideas. The goal is for anyone who has an old pda, a tivo, an atari, an ipod, xbox, or any device just sitting around, then hits hackaday.com, bang, sees all the things that folks can do with it to void the already expired warranty or get more out of it”.

Not only is this a great project with an accessible format and a refreshingly playful attitude, it successfully breaks down the tiresome barriers that specialists, geekdom sites and affiliated groups often inadvertently create. It is a geek’s paradise, yet simultaneously a welcoming forum for those who are truly interested in extending their electronic equipment but are usually put off by much of the usual mystifying jargonistic language. Anyone can use this site, regardless of their hacking experience. Just go to Hack A Day (beta), and I am sure you will find something that will improve or enhance your knowledge of hacking. It is straightforward and direct, communicating in a way that challenges the fetishism around the use of technology.

Stanza’s Amorphoscapes contains twenty audio-visual Shockwave pieces built using generative principles, with varying degrees of interactivity. The works currently on view were made between 1998 and 2003.

While many may think of Stanza mainly in terms of the interactive sound elements of his apparently prolific output in interactive sound art (Stanza also curates the Soundtoys.net site and has many other projects featured at www.stanza.co.uk), the visual element of the amorphoscape pieces has a strong presence. As Stanza says in the introduction to the Soundscraper Amorphoscape, “It’s not about sound at the expense of the visual element. My work is about the marriage and synthesis of the audio visual potential exploring the internet as a medium in its own right”. Though, having said that, Stanza also envisages some of the amorphoscapes having a second life as gallery installations or immersive environments.

He elaborates: “Amorphoscapes are a new type of image and a new type of painting. A definition could be: ‘a self contained online image experience’. They react to users and are in turn influenced by the users movement.”

The work on the site divides between several pieces that have a dark dystopian feel, and some more colourful and more playful, lighter work. Cancer is, unsurprisingly, an example of the former and like all members of this ‘sub-family’ it uses no colour, and the sound is a brooding ‘dark ambient’ soundscape that evokes the work of Alan Splet (sound designer for several David Lynch films): claustrophobic breathing sounds and the distant rumble of what might be an operating theatre in a Victorian hospital. The piece is based on cancer cells generating, moving in parallel, ‘birthing’ new cells and killing off old ones.

Cancer is generative but not interactive, while other pieces allow you to affect the audio or the visuals. In Multiplicity, the visual forms are more concrete and you can click on square elements to change the sample loop. But the music is still threatening, and again the visuals are black and white.

Traces, meanwhile, is described by the artist as a “a sort of ‘drawing machine'” — but it is not clear what the controls do (there is no clear visual feedback on their effects). It’s not a machine that you feel you could ever master. And Subverted (or Subvergence?) blows up samples of programming and mark-up code, recycling them in an unholy quick-fire cut-up.

Subverted is one of another sub-family of amorphoscapes that use ‘found objects’ as the molecules from which online paintings are generated. Where Subverted uses code, Chemikix uses symbols from organic chemistry, and Genomutant uses chromosome diagrams from the genome project — presumably a sketch for Stanza’s more extended Genomixer piece at www.genomixer.com. Some of these work better visually than others. The replicated chromosomes generate visuals more redolent of mass-production machinery than the human beings whose ‘code’ they constitute.

Alongside these darker amorphoscapes are some that are more purely abstract, and less claustrophobic, sonically and visually, in their sense of space. Landscapes falls into this category, and Automonton (aka Convergence) is a kind of friendly-sister-piece to Subverted: similar in construction, but more even-handed and less threatening in tone. Sublime lives up to its name: another generative, non-interactive piece, it is like a speeded up version of Brian Eno’s video sculptures, with its rich colours, constantly bleeding and fading. (Is it supposed to be speeded up like this? I wonder if viewing 1999 artworks on a computer with a 2003 processor makes everything run in fast forward?)

So Stanza’s portfolio of amorphoscapes demonstrates a range of approaches that blend audio, visual and haptic senses in different ways, to different effects. But what I found all the pieces shared was a deliberate lack of transparency of process (or of interaction, in the pieces where interactivity was available). I was never quite able to figure out fully what was going on. Even though three or four of the interactive pieces seemed to have the same layout of visual controls, the feedback from using these controls was so oblique that I never completely got the hang of which element had what effect. In early examples of the ‘soundtoy’ genre, such as those produced by the antirom collective, the interaction style was often openly perverse, but you were still able to get the hang of it after a bit and almost ‘play’ the toy like an instrument. You never feel that you could play an amorphoscape. It has its own mind, and it will take only passing and unpredictable notice of what you do to it.

This feeling gives an interesting twist to speculation about how the amorphoscapes might operate on a larger ‘canvas’, away from the Internet. Stanza has written: “Amorphoscapes are audio visual paintings, and can be installed into ‘real’ environments, where the movement of people in the room or gallery triggers the interactivity within the work. They could be thought of as drawing and painting machines, in the future to be projected, onto buildings, on clothes and on cars, and on large plasma screens in your living room.” When an amorphoscape goes out into the world, the terms under which it generates and interacts change, subtly but significantly. It moves from the private realm to the public, and viewers’ expectations of control and transparency alter accordingly. I’d like to see it.

No Playstation. No TV. Real Life. For a week.

‘Being Boring’ an evolutive net.film by Fran Ilich.

The story is quite simple: 2 girls lose their TV so they have to find a life of their own until the TV is repaired, which will take at least a week. A week without Telenovelas, without MTV, without the Discovery Channel, without Big Brother, without TV ads, without talk shows, without Coca-Cola ads, no world news updates, no dream cars to win, no money to cash in, and worse, all those full days with nothing to do.

Fran Ilich – novelist, filmmaker, media-artist, director of the narrative media seminar of the Universidad Internacional de Andalucia, in Sevilla (Spain), and curator of borderhack showing here an evolutive net.film that deals with addiction.

Episode 1, opens with a ‘We have to find a life’ statement. They try to re-invent their own time using various strategies. They call emergency numbers to find out if someone can help them, share their last valium. Become tourists in their own town, run like Athenian athletes and they inhale canned air to overcome their huge boredom. Chatting on the internet even leads them to the idea of making the ‘revolution of media’ as they call it, with nothing to revolutionize, no manifesto, just by pressing the ‘enter’ key on their keyboards and wearing ‘the revolution will not be televised’ and ‘psychic TV’ t-shirts.

When watching these girls trying their best to deal with their TV addiction, and voting to choose what will happen next, one cannot help but think about the Real TV dimension of the 17 films. Nothing to do means nothing to see, Fran Illitch invites the visitor to share the girls’ idleness.

As Fabrice Richard said in a recent interview: “A high dose of TV would make a fool out of anybody. These young girls are TV junkies. And drugs have always been a way of escaping a boring everyday life. But what is the point in showing young good-for-nothing girls crying about the absence of their television? Is the answer to be found in the artist warning us (at the beginning) that the work’s title is, Being Boring?”

The story is bathed in an excess and juvenile hysteria, dealing with a monumental fiasco, for they cannot bypass their TV addiction. They finally find themselves in front of the reparation store waiting for dawn to come, for their TV to come back home, and for their nightmare to end.

Other net.films by Fran Ilich can be found at http://delete.tv/net.films. Fran is currently curating the exhibition ‘another narrative is possible!’ at the Centro multimedia del Centro Nacional de las artes, http://www.cenart.gob.mx/html/cmmp.html in Mexico City.

Fabrice Richard is an ex-student of the “political sciences”school. He is studying about art’s relationship with its environment, and is running towards a “specialised studies” diploma dealing with the cultural policies of towns.

To take a snapshot is to capture a moment of time. A decision is made by the photographer, the shutter is pressed and there you have it. What Jess Loseby has done is to discover the photos of others by searching for particular phrases via a search engine and seeing what images are brought up by keywords like “at the shops” or “in the lane”. It’s a bit like finding photos at a flea market that have been arranged by subject matter. There is an anonymity that comes from not knowing the people in the photos, yet there is also the intimacy between the subject and the photographer in the most successful images: whether it’s a dead on gaze at the camera, or a vulnerability that might only be allowed to be captured by someone trusted.

” A remnant of the witness. In places I have never been, people I have never seen Jess Loseby finds other people’s moments and instils new meaning by choice of focus.”

The piece opens up with an image that has one central point in focus and the rest blurred out. Almost imperceptibly the focus shifts to a different subject and then slowly returns to the first. Then equally slowly the image changes altogether. On the bottom of the screen the keyword search is indicated with blinking text. This is the format of Jess’s piece. Initially, I spent some time clicking on the screen expecting interaction and thinking that the focus points might be due to where my mouse was. Once I realized this was not the case I settled down to observe the work and found myself utterly engrossed. The slow pace of the piece and the lack of interactivity work in Jess’s favor. One is forced to just observe, and take time doing it. After a bit I found it impossible to watch the shifting within the images and not create a narrative. Some of them seem to simply create different protagonists. For example “at the shops” focuses on a man facing the camera on the street who seems to be just caught on film rather than posing for the photographer. The image shifts and the focus rests on a woman walking in the other direction. The feeling is not of a relationship between the two subjects. Rather simply two different stories that could be told depending on who is seen clearly.

As there are many different images which are manipulated in the same manner, the piece runs the risk of becoming a bit gimmicky or turning into merely a guessing game where the viewer is only trying to ascertain who will come into focus next. I found this to be particularly true with images like “up a mountain” and “at the end”. These had less human interaction within the chosen image and thus ran the risk of becoming an exercise of the technique and rather flat with no new dimension added by the manipulation. Conversely, “afterwards” and “out at night” were two that stood out as having additional depth through Jess’s choices. In “afterwards”, in the center of the photo there is a woman in a formal dress on the beach with a bouquet of flowers looking down and smiling. There are a few other women in the image out of focus and on the periphery and the back of the man in the foreground. With the woman in focus it is as though whatever is the occasion, it belongs to her. The moment is seen through her perspective. When the focus shifts she becomes blurred out and it is the man in the foreground, observing the scene with his back to the camera who becomes the subject. With this shift in focus the meaning in the image changes. Now it is as though he is an outsider looking in. He is the only man in the picture and compositionally he is removed and the sharp focus reinforces this. Perhaps there is a relationship between the man and woman, or perhaps we are simply privy to their points of view on a particular day. It is open to interpretation, but regardless of the meaning the manipulation creates a connection between the viewer of the image and the subject.

“Out at night” shows some older couples dancing. At first the man in the central couple is in focus. Although he is part of a couple, his being singled out creates a sense of isolation and loneliness. When the image shifts focus it is to a woman who is part of another couple. Again there is a sense of isolation, but now a connection has been created between these two people and one wonders if they are unknowingly soul mates.

Jess created an interesting exercise: put in search words, choose among the images that correlate, and manipulate them in a particular manner. Through the timing, selection and choices this work at times transforms to more than an exercise and becomes instead mini-narratives that reveal more about human nature and through our interpretation can reveal us to ourselves.

Belgrade, Friday 16 July 2004, 7.15pm: 45 minutes before show time and the internet connection has gone down. As I mentally prepare to cancel the performance, Donna identifies the problem and organises women to rip up cables, bypass the router and improvise a long line to the stage. Suddenly, we’re back online and the fifth performance of swim by avatarbodycollision begins only ten minutes late. I perform the opening routine, plug in my laptop and there are my fellow Colliders, performing on stage in Belgrade from London, Helsinki and New Zealand.

This drama unfolded at the end of the Eclectic Tech Carnival (/etc), and the women who came to our rescue were the tutors and participants of the event. Organised by the Gender Changers together this year with local women’s activists Zene na Delu (Women at Work), the aim of /etc is to provide a fun and supportive environment for women to exchange technical skills, explore the innards of the hardware and learn the hows and whys of open source software. Workshops ranged from Linux basics to juggling, Perl to cyberformance, and security issues to screen-printing – all taking place within a carnival atmosphere.

Because I was performing, assisting with another performance and teaching a workshop, I wasn’t able to participate in as many of the workshops as I wanted – but just being in the environment was inspiring. All around me were women discussing the intricacies of wireless networks, pouring through screens of code, sticking little screwdrivers into the open guts of computers and generally having a good time doing it. They came from all over Europe as well as many local women; all the tutors were voluntary and many were using their holidays to participate.

So who are these Gender Changers? A gender changer is an adaptor that connects ports and plugs. Not surprisingly, ports and plugs with pins that stick out are called male, and with holes are called female. When you want to join male-male or female-female, you simply bring a gender changer into the picture and ta-da, gender becomes fluid (if only it were so easy in real life… ). The founders of Gender Changers were amazed by the sexualisation of computer parts and decided to adopt the name. For the group, a Gender Changer is someone who addresses the imbalance of computer knowledge and skills between men and women. Since 1999, the Gender Changers have been “encourag(ing) women to crash computers and to put it all back together again. Preferably with an improved installation” from Amsterdam to London, Toronto, Philadelphia, Athens and now Belgrade.

The philosophy of the Gender Changers is one of sharing and facilitating learning in a self-directed, hands-on environment: less lecturing and more DIY practical experimentation. The structure of the week was very open, in keeping with the carnival theme. Instead of a fixed schedule determined beforehand, the programme was finalised the day before it all began. Everything that was scheduled took place at more or less the scheduled time, and as more people arrived during the week, further workshops were offered and slotted in. An HTML workshop was taught online by a tutor in Canada using IRC, and the software I was teaching, UpStage, was used on the final day to give an online presentation about the whole event for friends and family afar.

Daily warm-ups, juggling workshops and the “Pippi Kalora HubDub session” as well as an evening programme of performance and socialising ensured that there was plenty of activity AFK. Some women worked during the week on a large collage, replicating the /etc logo with computer ephemera and other objects. Most of us managed to screenprint a t-shirt and even a rabbit got involved in the leathercraft workshop.

The venue was Rex Cultural Centre, the main site for new media events in Belgrade. Its big hall was designated a women-only space, with most of the workshops happening there and a couple spilling over into the smaller CybeRex. As well as Avatar Body Collision’s performance of swim, local performers Act Women presented their satirical infomercial “Transkuhinski Raj”. Long evenings were spent in kafanas over dinner and there was a bit of late-night lurking around fountains in city parks with bottles of beer.

The first Eclectic Tech Carnival took place in Pula, Croatia in 2002, last year it happened in Athens, Greece, and already plans are afoot for /etc 2005 in a location to be announced. Each event has been organised by local women inspired by the previous /etc, and by the desire to create a positive space for women to learn about and play with computers. As long as this grass-roots desire exists, there will be an /etc. What drives /etc, and what brought the internet back from the dead for our performance of “swim”, is this spirit of co-operation, sharing and of getting on and doing what needs to be done.