[This thread started on July 17 regarding a collaborative web
project initiated by Mark Tribe and MTAA entitled: unseen #100
"The light that falls across the ceiling of the room that shows
us the end of the day as night is slowly making its way into our
sight–AKA It's now safe to turn off your computer–." Several
ideas were proposed. A group from Rhizome Raw finally decided
on a monitored, 24hr web project involving twelve or more
participants filling 2hr time slots. The project is being
executed today, Thursday the 29th. The proceedings are as
follows.]
+ + +
t.whid (twhid@spacelab.net)
MTAA (M.River & T.Whid Art Associates) are proud to announce the launch
of our newest WebSite Unseen #25: Ten Digital Ready-Mades. WebSite
Unseen #25 was commissioned by Patricia Harris, she found out about
WebSite Unseen through the Fluxlist listserv.
+ + +
Mark Tribe (mark@rhizome.org) responded:
when are we going to talk about my website unseen–#100–? I'd be
psyched to collaborate with you guys on it.
+ + +
Mark River (mriver102@YAHOO.COM) wrote:
Okay Mark, here is a way to work on this together. T Whid and I have
been thinking about working on one of the wedsite unseens with a group
of people for some time. This could be the time and rhizome could be the
stage. So, anyone who wants to think about this project, please join in.
Anyway, the work that Mark Tribe picked up (about 3 months ago) was…
#100.
The Light That Falls Across the Ceiling of the Room that Shows Us
The End Of The Day As Night is Slowly Making Its Way Into Our Sight
–AKA It's Now Safe To TurnOff Your Computer—
So, here are some random thoughts to begin with…We (MTAA) have been
thinking about this title as a look at duration. What is a work that
would take 24 on the internet to look at?…24 hour down load?…24 hour
animated image?…I don't know what it could be yet. The image that I
was thinking about is Hopper's woman sitting on a bed looking out the
window. I was also thinking about exhaustion and the time when you stop
activity. This is why that title came last on the website unseen list.
oh, yeah…and I was thinking about sleep.
+ + +
Aleksandr Vladimirskiy (avladim@amnh.org) wrote:
m, do you mean something like jennycam or another one of those "slice of
life" voyeur trips? or do you mean you are wandering how to recreate the
poetic enigma of a moment?
+ + +
Mark River (mriver102@yahoo.com) replied:
interesting…well the website unseen are made so that they can move
from domain to domain so the backend needs to be portable. A web cam
might be tough. I do like the thought of the empty space of a cam. The
mccoys have a good webcam office site and wolfgang's empire state cam is
one of my favorite net art works…"the moment" may work closer to what
we should go for…but, it may more difficult to pull off. Poetics can
fall flat for me without secondary content that create context. hmmmm…
+ + +
Michael Daines (mdaines@home.com) responded:
mmm… i like this very much…and for just what purpose do i like
it?–a file–even a text file containing only the words of the
project–is put in to some sort of archive. cross-platform support
would be pretty good.
+ someone looking at the project decides to download the file.
+ this brings them to a script that sends the file, piece by piece,
delayed, so that the download takes 24 hours.
+ maybe the file is an page of html with a form that asks the person who
downloaded it to write about their experience throughout the past 24
hours. the experiences are kept in a central place for all to look at.
maybe, maybe not.
+ or, somehow, the action of downloading–or something–forces the
looker-on to not use their computer for 24 hours.–hehe… a virus…–
then they write in about it.
+ + +
Mark River (mriver102@yahoo.com) added:
There was a whole trajectory I was going with here. Much of it had to do
with the atemporality of the Net. For example, I'm waiting anxiously for
the release of the Casio CamWatch, as I want to try to do some
time-lapse photography with it for use in gifs. In another vein, I was
thinking of the compression and expansion of time through computers.
What if we wanted the 36-hour day? We can simulate it. No problem. We
can endlessly replicate it as well.
Imagine 36 scenes of day and night from all around the new 150% world,
all displayed concurrently in real time on the net.
We can also compress time or hopelessly expand it–24-hour Psycho,
anyone?–using this technique. What about a year-long day? A
ten-second day? Waiting for a year for a bullet fired from a gun to hit
its victim, and then waiting six months to watch the entry and exit of
the bullet.
All in sim time, all the sim time.
+ + +
Mark Tribe (mark@rhizome.org) tabled:
I picked #100 for three reasons:
First, because it was last one on the list;
Second, because it has the longest and most beautiful title: "The Light
That Falls Across the Ceiling of the Room that Shows Us The End Of The
Day As Night is Slowly Making Its Way Into Our Sight–AKA It's Now Safe
To Turn Off Your Computer–
Third, because the title reminds me of a photo I took in college. It was
a long exposure of the tree shadows, cast by a streetlight, that crawled
across the ceiling above my bed at night. I still have the photo in a
box somewhere in my closet, and it reminds me of laying in bed at night,
staring at the ceiling and thinking.
This could be a more personal project, maybe not conceptually driven but
more experiential or narrative.
The end of the title could be a good place to start: "AKA It's Now Safe
To Turn Off Your Computer."
+ + +
Mark River (mriver102@yahoo.com) tabled:
Okay…here are some more opening thoughts…
T Whid -"from this point forward m.river and t.whid will only discuss
the creation of WebSite Unseen #100 publicly on the RHIZOME_RAW list. we
encourage any interested subscribers to contribute their thoughts and
ideas to the creation of the project."
Okay, no off list chat on this project for T and I. Open source.
Mark Tribe - "this could be a more personal project, maybe not
conceptually driven but more experiential or narrative. the end of the
title could be a good place to start: 'AKA It's Now Safe To Turn Off
Your Computer.'"
Yes, even with this being worked on as a group, the personal still is
sometimes the best voice. The end of the work will be important. So far
the two directions seem to be endless looping–Pat had some ideas on
this–and a sorta letting free–as in the virus and captive screen saver
as in …Yael Kanarek–"one idea that comes to my mind is a sleepy
screen saver that once it takes over the screen it doesn't let go for 24
hours unless you shut down."–
Michael Daines- "maybe the file is an page of html with a form that asks
the person who downloaded it to write about their experience throughout
the past 24 hours. The experiences are kept in a central place for all
to look at. Maybe, maybe not."
I like the idea of personal input into whatever happens–as a sorta side
bar to the action–…again this is something to think about in relation
to this work being easy to move from domain to domain. Mark, where is
this going to be when you have it? Whid, easy or no?
+ + +
James Buckhouse (buckhous@stanford.edu) responded to Mark Tribe:
Maybe collect from the web images that in some way fit Mark Tribe's
description –starting with the punctum and searching for the
source…can you transfer a pre-chosen punctum from image to image? I
think Mark's description is beautiful.
+ + +
t.whid (twhid@spacelab.net) added:
1) Clerical note, i think that any post regarding this project should
have the characters: '#100' (without the single quote marks) in the
title somewhere so that people who are completely not interested can
filter the posts out.
2) Some background info: Mriver came up with the title, I came up with
the with the AKA section. It's what appeared after the software shut
down sequence on a windows 95 machine i used to use at one of my last
jobs telling you it's ok to turn the power off to the machine. I always
thought it was funny. As if someone might be physically hurt if it
weren't safe turn off your computer. Example of a Ready Made title I
suppose.
The direction the project is going now isn't what I was thinking at all.
I was thinking of something very literal. a flash piece. a illustration
of a room with the light falling across the ceiling, animated. It's
moving very slowly…
But i'm totally open, maybe we can combine all the ideas somehow,
together…
+ + +
Eryk Salvaggio (fluxis@mediaone.net) added:
Indeed, "Its Now Safe To Turn Off Your Computer" implies a conceptual
focus on the offline world. Post-productivity.
Perhaps, if we get enough volunteers, we divide the day–12 participants
= 2 hours each–and document 2 hours in that persons day, spent outside,
or somewhere besides "producing." various media. Photos, writing, html,
flash, etc. 12 pieces–or more, or less–
Then we could cut these split portions into a single narrative–24 hours
in the life of strangers connected only by the internet in a manner that
has got nothing to do with technology.
Could make for some very nice starting/stopping, nonlinear sort of
narratives….a collage of "offline life" united only by an online
collaboration; "safe to turn off the computer," it all clicks quite well
in my head.
Using the "beam of light" as a navigation tool. Like a sundial.
+ + +
Yael Kanarek (yael@treasurecrumbs.com) thinking of the punctum:
Somehow I feel that a good lead here could be mark's photo. I'm very
curious to see it. mark, do you think you could find this photo, scan it
and send it around?
I also think that even though the source is open to ideas the piece
should still preserve some of the privacy/solitude suggested in the
title. I think that what twhid was visualizing is very compelling.
+ + +
Michael Daines (mdaines@home.com) in response to Erik Salvaggio:
I agree, and would be interested in volunteering to participate.
Consider: much of personal writing on the web–or at least how I observe
it–is about things that are offline, and at its best, captures a
certain time period with some degree of clarity and depth, and shares
that with the reader. But the documenting of course would not have to
be done with "personal writing".
Because, I assume the aim is to have 12 *pieces*, which certainly
doesn't impose that much of a limit on… form. The only limit, and it
is that good kind that allows one to expand as much as possible within
it, is the limit of 2 hours–or more, or less–. Perhaps one could
consider their thoughts in a certain period of time and attempt to
transcribe them. All of your experiences. What they connect to. As
long and in-depth as possible, or the opposite if you want.
+ + +
Pall Thayer (pall@fa.is) added in regards to process:
We could also think of "It's now safe to turn off your computer." as
something that might be said to a "computaholic" at the end of his final
therapy session. How about a downloadable pdf manual titled, "How to
break free from your computer in just 24 hours." The last line would of
course be, "It is now safe to turn off your computer."
+ + +
Mark River (mriver102@YAHOO.COM) responds to the group:
1. CPVLurker rocks my net art street creed.
2. As for the rest of the 100, all this is a good start. I think we
should go with Eryk's idea of 2 hour units over a 24 hour day. Although
what each person does with the units is up to each person. When all of
it is done, we can talk about the ways to join each section together to
make a whole. Below is a sign up for slots. I put Tim and I at the front
and the end slots. Team up with someone if you want. I'll work with
anyone on another time slot (I'm easy). Tim, is this direction cool with
you? I know it is away from what we talked about in june but it seems
good. You can still make the sunlight animation. Mark Tribe, please send
me that picture if ya find it (or any image). Oh…I'll try to put
roughs of what I'm doing up on line so that we can keep this open. Feel
free to do the same. One of my favorite parts of working with T Whid is
seeing him roles his eyes and shake his head when I put up rough
drafts…poor spelling…dull code…etc.
Anyway…jump in:
12-2am—M River
2-4am
4-6am
6-8am 8-10am
10am-12pm
12-2pm
2-4pm
4-6pm
6-8pm
8-10pm
0-12pm —T Whid
+ + +
Cristine Wang (crisarc@hotmail.com)
2-4am…
+ + +
Alex galloway (alex@rhizome.org)
I'll take 8-10pm…
+ + +
R.Anderson (mail@theguy.org)
Count The Guy in: 2-4pm.
+ + +
Onelove (rudydes@idirect.com)
Put me in for 4-6 am.
+ + +
Patrick Lichty (voyd@voyd.com)
To reiterate, as I didn't see it come across 12-2p.m.
+ + +
Michael Daines (mdaines@home.com) added, regarding the time slot:
4-6pm please. unless of course it's been taken and I haven't seen that
it has.
+ + +
Philly (philly@netcom.ca) added, regarding the time slot:
I'll go for 2-4 pm
+ + +
t.whid (twhid@spacelab.net) tabled:
I think we should have one person, one time. So Cristine or The Guy
–very funny site btw–need to volunteer for another time. If you signed
up and yer not on the #100 TIME LIST, send it back to RHIZOME with the
entire #100 TIME LIST with your time included, not just the time you
want. If we get more than twelve, then we can ask for volunteers to take
one hour, or half hour or whatever. hopefully by the end of thursday
july 18, 2000 we can have a complete list.
How do MTAA get your files?
1. Post it on the web in a compressed format, .zip or .sit is good, and
post the url on RHIZOME. ie http://www.yourserver.com/myproject.sit
–don't email the file to RHIZOME_RAW please. this is best as it keeps
the project open and everyone else can download the files, check them
out, and then comment on them on RHIZOME.
2. If you don't have access to a web server, you can email it to
twhid@mteww.com, please compress it and try to keep it under 1 megabyte.
don't post it to RHIZOME, as it will not be fun for everyone to have to
download any large files. you can post a copy of your message to RHIZOME
sans attachment describing your project so as to keep everything as
transparent as possible. others can then ask you to send them the file.
–off RHIZOME of course, sorry to keep harping on that–, then we can
all comment, argue, critique, etc.
MTAA can handle any normal web formats, .swf, .gif, .jpeg, .png, .html.
MTAA are mac based so don't send any windows-only files–like .exe–
+ + +
Eryk Salvaggio (fluxis@mediaone.net) finalized:
Very important to keep this list as current as possible:
12-2am—M River
2-4am–crisarc
4-6am—onelove
6-8am—????????–one38 if no one else takes it–
8-10am—j.allan
10am-12pm—buckhous
12-2pm—lichty
2-4pm—r.anderson/"philly"
4-5pm—michael daines
5-6pm—chris burne
6-8pm—yen/eryk salvaggio
8-10pm—the guy/alex galloway
10-12pm–T Whid
