User's Guide to "OSS"

The greatest struggle for net.art is to prove its autonomy. Marshall
McLuhan's useful insight, that the content of every new media is
generally the previous media, reminds us of the potentially
schizophrenic nature of art as it changes over time. For net.art,
autonomy means making art that is truly native to its medium.

Jodi never had this problem. They've been website-specific since the
beginning. Working on the internet, Jodi's goal has been to exploit gaps
within HTML to create a particularly code-oriented, degraded computer
aesthetic. "404," Jodi's first foray into interactive web art (albeit
underdeveloped), turned a mirror on its audience and attempted to invert
the utility of web page forms. With "OSS," their most sophisticated
project to date, the duo continues to explore the margins of computer
programming. Yet here they stretch outward, past their normal creative
purview to chart new ground.

Issued on both CD-ROM and as a stand alone application, OSS has the
ability to mimic a computer operating system. Once launched, OSS hijacks
the computer and forbids it from functioning normally. Like an operating
system, OSS controls the appearance and functionality of the entire
visual environment including desktop and pull-down menus. Within this
counter-intuitive (if not frightening) interface, OSS presents the user
with a series of abstract, computer-based aesthetic experiences, many of
which continue the chaotic, "computer virus" style seen at the Jodi web
site (http://www.jodi.org). Using CD-ROM however, Jodi is able to obtain
a much more immersive effect. Images and shapes take over the entire
screen, not simply within an internet browser window.

The OSS CD-ROM (I'm viewing it on a Macintosh) has four basic areas,
each with cryptic names like "#Reset;" or "%20 ." These four basis areas
plunge the user into different visual environments. A fifth area, the
folder named "****," contains 255 small (6k) SimpleText pictures and
folders. Each of these is represented by an icon. Dozens more icons
spread over the desktop. As icons, they provide the visual raw materials
for OSS's original four areas.

"%20 " takes the desktop at face value, then electrocutes it. The
desktop begins to shake uncontrollably, then looses all vertical-hold
and slides ungracefully off the screen. The colors begin to modulate,
and the screen flickers. Degradation of the desktop can be arrested
somewhat by moving the mouse, or via keyword commands. Experiment.

"#Reset;" resembles op-art. Images scroll up and down the screen, moving
so rapidly that new shapes begin to appear out of the interference
patterns between shapes–like the spokes on a quickly moving cart
appearing to rotate backwards through optical illusion.

"**** ***" emulates the computer's desktop environment, but reproduces
it in horrible disarray: windows are spawned endlessly; the mouse draws
a line as it moves, rather than performing its normal function as
faithful point-and-click tool; the pull-down menu options are
transformed into cryptic, useless orniments. There seems to be no way
out. Look for hyphens in the pull-down menus–they allow you to change
the desktop background and mouse drawing color.

The "O00,0" environment is the least interesting. A frustrating game of
"pin the tail on the donkey," the user must click on a target "+"
without being able to see the mouse pointer. Being blindfolded with a
mouse is no fun. Hit control-q for quick escape. But before you leave,
note the URLs that appear at the top of the screen. Each of the 738 "pin
the tail" targets is dutifully organized as a sparate web page in a
folder at http://www.jodi.org/usemap/coords/. Exactly why is unclear.

Jodi is abstract art for computers. In their work, content has been
completely subordinated to agressive visuals. Focusing specifically on
those moments where computers break down (the crash, the bug, the
glitch), Jodi discovers a new, autonomous aesthetic. Not for the faint
of heart yet certainly a historic work, OSS is available on CD-ROM or
for free download at http://oss.jodi.org.

[This review will appear in a forthcoming issue of ARCONOTICIAS.]