RHIZOME DIGEST: 12.20.02

discussion

Posted Dec. 19 2002 19:00

RHIZOME DIGEST: 12.20.02

RHIZOME DIGEST: December 20, 2002 Content: +editor's note+ 1. rachel greene: BIG CHANGE – MEMBERSHIP CONTRIBUTIONS +opportunity+ 2. Rachel Schreiber: teaching opportunities at MICA 3. Indi McCarthy: Beall Center Call for Proposals 4. Tapio Makella: Call for essays - open source politics and cultural practices +announcement+ 5. doron golan: Dow can't stamp out parody websites… 6. Randall Packer: Multimedia- From Wagner to Virtual Reality 7. LEONARDO (mk): Uncanny Networks by Geert Lovink +feature+ 8. PROPAGANDA@0100101110101101.ORG: The World in One's Pocket? + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 1. Date: 12.20.02 From: Rachel Greene (rachel@rhizome.org) Subject: BIG CHANGE – MEMBERSHIP CONTRIBUTIONS Following phone, email, and face to face debates over the last few months across Rhizome lists, Rhizome's Board of Directors, friends and staff, we have decided to make mandatory a contribution to Rhizome, with a minimum of $5 per year. If you missed these discussions, and want a description of how we spend money, or the current funding situation for American non-profits, email me, I'm happy to color in the (sober) picture. I like to see this new requirement as rhizomatic (though admittedly unfamiliar in the email-list genre), in the sense that members, roots and nodes will directly support and nourish the larger organism. Ethics here at HQ are that we *value* Rhizome's projects and community, the future and past of new media art history, and hope people can *value* it too, with a minimum donation equivalent to a couple cappuccinos. Additional details: we will still give away thank-you-gifts at certain levels… a 30-day grace period for new members begins January 15, and anyone who has given recently, their membership will be extended from the date of that gift. Fridays will be free and open to all. See <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/support/membership_policy.php">http://rhizome.org/support/membership_policy.php</a> for more information. We have lots cooking, in terms of our current programming, commissions, events, improvements, and will be focused on new fundraising verticals: we're looking forward to 2003. Next Rhizome Digest will be January 3, 2003!! Happy holidays, rachel + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 2. Date: 12.17.02 From: Rachel Schreiber (rschreib@micamail.mica.edu) Subject: teaching opportunities at MICA Searches are being conducted for the following full time teaching positions at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art), Baltimore, MD: Interactive Media Photography (with digital emphasis) Graphic Design Art History, specialty in new media or performance Please pass this along to anyone who might be interested. The details on how to apply can be found on the MICA web site (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.mica.edu">http://www.mica.edu</a>), follow the links to "career opportunities." Short job descriptions below: Position: Interactive Media. The Maryland Institute College of Art invites applications for this full-time permanent position with an initial two-year renewable contract and continuing 3 and 5 year contracts in a non-tenure institution.  Begins: Fall, 2003. The College seeks a creative individual with the skills, experience, and personal commitment necessary to teach one or more of the following: 2D or 3D Interface design; programming/scripting for Internet and building interactivity w/micro-controllers. Teach 9 credits per semester of intro to advanced technology courses; develop advanced level classes; participation in departmental operations including advising, committee service departmental and student activities. Required qualifications include a MFA degree or equivalent professional experience; knowledge of contemporary issues; outstanding portfolio of professional work; three years college level teaching experience beyond Teaching Assistantships or equivalent professional experience. Position: Full-time appointment to the Department of Photography. The Maryland Institute College of Art invites applications for this full-time permanent position with an initial two-year renewable contract and continuing 3 and 5 year contracts in a non-tenure institution. Begins: Fall, 2003. The College seeks a senior level photographer/artist/educator to teach 9 credits per semester. Successful candidate will teach intro to advanced level, in the undergrad photography and foundation programs, including computer-related courses. (Min. 2 sections of Photo Digital classes and 1 section of foundation Electronic Media and Culture). Seeking experienced candidate who can build strong digital photo curriculum to complement existing program, and develop new advanced level classes in computer related photography areas. Additionally, position will require involvement in departmental operations, student advising, serving on committees, and participation in department and student activities. Must be able to teach basic to advanced, conventional and digital photographic imaging using Macintosh platform. Requirements include: MFA or equivalent; Minimum of 3 years teaching in relevant fields beyond Teaching Assistantships or equivalent professional experience. Position: Full-time appointment to the Department of Graphic Design. The Maryland Institute College of Art invites applications for an initial two-year renewable contract and continuing 3 and 5 year contracts in a non-tenure institution. Begins: Fall, 2003. The College seeks a graphic designer who will bring strong visual and critical abilities to a vibrant, growing graphic design department that emphasizes typography and encourages students to explore old and new media across the disciplines of art and design. In addition to teaching nine credits per semester of courses that can range from the introductory to the advanced, including foundation and graduate levels, the successful candidate will actively participate in all aspects of departmental operations including curriculum development and advisement. Required qualifications include an MFA degree or professional equivalent; strong interest in design for multimedia and the Web; knowledge of digital design techniques and the aesthetics and production values of print media; and excellence in creative work as evidenced by an outstanding portfolio and professional practice. The ideal candidate will be a committed, practicing designer; an exciting colleague; and a nurturing mentor. 3 Years teaching College level teaching experience beyond TA preferred. Art Historian, Contemporary Art MARYLAND INSTITUTE COLLEGE OF ART The Department of Art History invites applications for a position in contemporary art. A specialty in new media and/or performance is particularly welcome. Ph.D. and demonstrated commitment to excellence in teaching required. Position involves teaching visual art students at undergraduate and graduate levels, service on committees, participation in foundation year courses, and begins September 1, 2003. Send letter of application, c.v., sample syllabi, an example of published work, and three letters of recommendation to Art History Search, Maryland Institute College of Art, 1300 Mt. Royal Ave., Baltimore, MD, 21217, tdemos@mica.edu. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 3. Date: 12.20.02 From: Indi McCarthy (indi@uci.edu) Subject: Beall Center Call for Proposals Beall Center for Art and Technology University of California, Irvine Call For Proposals 2003-2004 The Beall Center for Art and Technology supports artistic exploration and experimentation in new technologies through a competitive research and exhibition grant program. Deadline for Spring Application: February 1, 2003 <a rel="nofollow" href="http://beallcenter.uci.edu">http://beallcenter.uci.edu</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://beallcenter.uci.edu/">http://beallcenter.uci.edu/</a> Indi McCarthy Assistant Director Beall Center for Art and Technology University of California, Irvine 712 Arts Plaza, Claire Trevor School of the Arts Irvine, California 92697-2775 T: 949.824.6206 F: 949.824.4197 <a rel="nofollow" href="http://beallcenter.uci.edu">http://beallcenter.uci.edu</a> The Donald R. and Joan F. Beall Center for Art and Technology is a research and exhibition center that explores new relationships between the arts, sciences, and engineering, promoting new forms of creation and expression using digital technologies. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 4. Date: 12.19.02 From: Tapio Makella (tapiob@translocal.net) Subject: Call for essays: open source politics and cultural practices mediumi 1.4 open source (please distribute) call for proposals: open source politics and cultural practices mediumi the Finnish web journal for media culture publishes its fifth theme number mediumi 1.4 open source in English. This call is for submissions articles, essays, reviews that address the economical or legal logic and various cultural/social politics regarding open source software. We are particularly interested in approaches that view software from the user or user group point of view, situating the software in its cultural and social context. Open source software is often technically exclusive in its development and description. In which ways could open source become more accessible by non-programmers or non-sysadmins? What kinds of research projects, archives or meta-archives address the user end of open source? In many ways open source economy is far from optimal, since without complimentary strategies it does not provide resources to renew, research and develop further. What kind of models can be created to maintain networked development, free non-commercial distribution yet generate sustainable economies? How to protect open source and open knowledge from becoming approprietarized (sic!), while enabling also commercial non-exclusive use? While an increasing amount of technical knowledge is not publicly available, creating accessible software, related knowledge archives, and learning environments has become an acute political issue. What kind of policies or civil action is necessary to guarantee this? What kind of artistic or cultural interventions are taking place that address open source as not only a tool or a movement, but as a terrain for creative work? submissions We invite submissions in the following categories: Article/essay 3000-4500 words Interview/dialogue 2000-3000 words Review of project, event, book 1500-2500 words mediumi is a forum for researchers and practitioners of new media culture. However we also wish to have the articles accessible for wider audiences interested in new media. Please keep this in mind when submitting eg. by explaining the more advanced technical or theoretical concepts! December 27th, 2002 - 100-150 word abstracts sent to mediumi 1.4, guest editor, Tapio Mäkelä, tapio.makela@m-cult.org January 20th, 2003 - Final deadline for full texts. The journal will be launched in February 2003. mediumi is published by m-cult, centre for new media culture in Helsinki, Finland. mediumi forms a part of m-cult.net, information and communication server for the Nordic new media cultural scene. (English version launched in 1/03). <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.m-cult.net/mediumi/">http://www.m-cult.net/mediumi/</a> mediumi@m-cult.net Tapio Makela tapio@translocal.net mobile tel. +358-40-7223949 fax +358-40-7821771 Researcher, Department of Media Studies, University of Turku, Finland Board member, m-cult, Finnish Association for Media Culture, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.m-cult.org">http://www.m-cult.org</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +ad+ Mute, issue 25, is out this week. Conceptually and volumetrically expanded, (involves more cartographic & artists' projects & has doubled the pages), this new bi-annual volume is phat. Articles on: WarChalking, the Artists' Placement Group and Ambient Culture and more. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.metamute.com">http://www.metamute.com</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 5. Date: 12.13.02 From: doron golan (doron@computerfinearts.com) Subject: Dow can't stamp out parody websites… RTMark Press December 13, 2002 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Paul Hardwin: <a rel="nofollow" href="mailto:phardwin@yurt.org">mailto:phardwin@yurt.org</a> DowEthics.com: <a rel="nofollow" href="mailto:info@dowethics.com">mailto:info@dowethics.com</a> DOW, BURSON-MARSTELLER CLAMP DOWN ON FAKE WEBSITES But companies find it harder to stifle criticism Two giant companies are struggling to shut down parody websites that portray them unfavorably, interrupting internet use for thousands in the process, and filing a lawsuit that pits the formidable legal department of PR giant Burson-Marsteller against a freshman at Hampshire College. The activists behind the fake corporate websites have fought back, and obtained substantial publicity in the process. Fake websites have been used by activists before, but Dow-Chemical.com and BursonMarsteller.com represent the first time that such websites have successfully been used to publicize abuses by specific corporations. A December 3 press release originating from one of the fake sites, Dow-Chemical.com, explained the "real" reasons that Dow could not take responsibility for the Bhopal catastrophe, which has resulted in an estimated 20,000 deaths over the years (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.theyesmen.org/dow/#release">http://www.theyesmen.org/dow/#release</a>). "Our prime responsibilities are to the people who own Dow shares, and to the industry as a whole," the release stated. "We cannot do anything for the people of Bhopal." The fake site immediately received thousands of outraged e-mails (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.dowethics.com/r/about/corp/email.htm">http://www.dowethics.com/r/about/corp/email.htm</a>). Within hours, the real Dow sent a legal threat to Dow-Chemical.com's upstream provider, Verio, prompting Verio to shut down the fake Dow's ISP for nearly a day, closing down hundreds of unrelated websites and bulletin boards in the process. The fake Dow website quickly resurfaced at an ISP in Australia. (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://theyesmen.org/dow/#threat">http://theyesmen.org/dow/#threat</a>) In a comical anticlimax, Dow then used a little-known domain-name rule to take possession of Dow-Chemical.com (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://theyesmen.org/dow/#story">http://theyesmen.org/dow/#story</a>), another move which backfired when amused journalists wrote articles in newspapers from The New York Times to The Hindu in India (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://theyesmen.org/dow/#links">http://theyesmen.org/dow/#links</a>), and sympathetic activists responded by cloning and mirroring the site at many locations, including <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.dowethics.com/">http://www.dowethics.com/</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.dowindia.com/">http://www.dowindia.com/</a> and, with a twist, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.mad-dow-disease.com/">http://www.mad-dow-disease.com/</a>. Dow continues to play whack-a-mole with these sites (at least one ISP has received veiled threats). Burson-Marsteller, the public relations company that helped to "spin" Bhopal, has meanwhile sued college student Paul Hardwin (<a rel="nofollow" href="mailto:phardwin@yurt.org">mailto:phardwin@yurt.org</a>) for putting up a fake Burson-Marsteller site, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.bursonmarsteller.com/">http://www.bursonmarsteller.com/</a>, which recounted how the PR giant helped to downplay the Bhopal disaster. Burson-Marsteller's suit against Hardwin will be heard next week by the World Intellectual Property Organization (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://reamweaver.com/bmwipo/wipo.html">http://reamweaver.com/bmwipo/wipo.html</a>). Hardwin, unable to afford a lawyer, has composed a dryly humorous 57-page rebuttal to the PR giant's lawsuit (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.reamweaver.com/bmwipo/response.htm#reality">http://www.reamweaver.com/bmwipo/response.htm#reality</a>). On page 7, for instance, the student notes that Burson-Marsteller's "stated goal is 'to ensure that the perceptions which surround our clients and influence their stakeholders are consistent with reality.'" Hardwin goes on to assert that his satirical domain is doing precisely that, by publicizing "academic and journalistic materials about Burson-Marsteller's involvement with and relationship to, for example, Philip Morris and the National Smoker's Alliance, a consumer front group designed to create the appearance of public support for big-tobacco policies; Union Carbide and the deaths of 20,000 people following the 1984 disaster in Bhopal; and political regimes such as that of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and more recently Saudi Arabia following the events of September 11; and to properly associate them with the relevant Trademark so that they may be understood accordingly by Internet users." In response to the suit's claim that "a substantial degree of goodwill is associated with [the Burson-Marstellar Trademark]" Hardwin offers much "evidence to the contrary" including "a newspaper headline in which the Complainant is characterized as 'the Devil.'" The primary goal of RTMark (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://rtmark.com/">http://rtmark.com/</a>) is to publicize corporate subversion of the democratic process. Just like other corporations, it achieves its aims by any and all means at its disposal. RTMark has previously helped to publicize websites against political parties (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://rtmark.com/othersites.html#fpo">http://rtmark.com/othersites.html#fpo</a>), political figures (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.rtmark.com/bush.html">http://www.rtmark.com/bush.html</a>), and entities like the World Trade Organization (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.gatt.org">http://www.gatt.org</a>) and the World Economic Forum (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.world-economic-forum.com">http://www.world-economic-forum.com</a>). + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 6. Date: 12.17.02 From: Randall Packer (rpacker@zakros.com) Subject: Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality MULTIMEDIA: FROM WAGNER TO VIRTUAL REALITY Expanded Edition in Paperback edited by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan foreword by William Gibson, coda by Laurie Anderson published by W.W. Norton "This book is one start toward a different sort of history…. I recommend this book to you with an earnestness that I have seldom felt for any collection of historic texts. This is, in large part, where the bodies are buried. Assembled in this way, in such close proximity, these visions give off strange sparks." - from the foreword by William Gibson Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality, edited by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan, is now available in an expanded paperback edition with a foreword by William Gibson and a new coda by Laurie Anderson. This collection of seminal essays by artists, scientists, and critical theorists chronicles the history of multimedia, and has been expanded to include texts by Richard Bolt, Char Davies, Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, Janet Murray, and Jeffrey Shaw. Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality presents the history behind the interfaces, links, and interactivity we all take for granted today. It traces a fertile and fascinating series of collaborations between the arts and the sciences, going back to the years just after World War II - and even further, to composer Richard Wagner, whose ideas about the immersive nature of music theater foreshadowed our concept of virtual reality. Among the essential articles gathered in the book are the Futurists' 1916 manifesto on cinema, which declared that the new medium would unite all media and replace the book; Vannevar Bush's 1945 Atlantic Monthly essay that leads directly to the hyperlinks in today's multimedia; J.C.R. Licklider's groundbreaking idea in 1960 that people and computers could collaborate in creative work; Nam June Paik's 1984 essay proposing that satellite technology would encourage a global information art; Tim Berners-Lee's 1989 proposal for a document-sharing network, which became the basis of the World Wide Web; and William Gibson's discussion of how he came up with the word "cyberspace." With an introduction to the volume and critical commentaries on each article, editors Randall Packer and Ken Jordan lead the reader through key concepts that frame the evolution of multimedia. The book is part of a unique hybrid publication project that joins W.W. Norton, Intel Corporation, and ArtMuseum.net. Online, Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality is a dynamic, growing resource featuring hyperlinked texts, a teacher's guide, and a wealth of multimedia documentation. Please visit the site at: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.artmuseum.net/">http://www.artmuseum.net/</a> For more information: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.zakros.com/wvr/wvr.html">http://www.zakros.com/wvr/wvr.html</a> Quotes from the field: "Many of the papers that had profound impact upon my development - to say nothing of the entire industry - are all here." Donald A. Norman, author of The Invisible Computer "What a tremendous gift Packer and Jordan have given… Finally, the words and ideas of the people responsible for conceiving and building the hypermediated reality in which we've found ourselves have been collected in one place. This book may be the Primary Source for years to come." - Douglas Rushkoff, author of Coercion, Media Virus! and Playing the Future "It's a post-,post-, postmodern world, but those who forget the past are still doomed to reboot it. Excavating the fossil record of our wired culture, Jordan and Packer uncover the blueprints for the future we how inhabit." - Mark Dery, author of The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Bring "This important book brings together key texts and contexts that begin to delineate the meaningful arts of the future. Educators, artists, and students involved in art and new media and interdisciplinary programs will find this book invaluable." - Roger Malina, editor, Leonardo Journal Quotes from the press: "'Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality' reads like a Western civ of modern media." - Tony Reveaux, Film/Tape World "The best guide yet on a subject of central importance to anyone interested in the future of media, and the growing marriage between art and science….The collection is historically significant, given that nobody has ever woven together the different threads, thoughts and impulses that become multimedia, a new form both of media and culture…. The book flows skillfully from one idea to the next, each section building on the one that preceded it." - Jon Katz, Slashdot "In the Norton Anthology tradition, Packer and Jordan bring together seminal contributions that artists and scientists have made to the field of computer-human interaction… An evocative whirlwind tour through 100 years of work… Excellent…" - S. Joy Mountford, Wired "[MULTIMEDIA is] a key source book in the field of art, science and technology. This book is excellent in all respects." - Annick Bureaud, Leonardo Digital Reviews "Readers interested in the history of multimedia should be enthralled by this collection of hard-to-find essays…. A remarkable blending of past and present, these essays remind us that today's wondrous inventions didn't just spring into existence out of nothingness." - Booklist "An important book that brings together for the first time articles from many different disciplines and viewpoints… It should be a basic text for anyone who is learning to merge art with technology." - Boston Globe "A juicy compendium of historically significant, future-forward essays." - Flaunt "A compendium of classic writing about information technology and its role in society [filled with] some inspired choices." - Lingua Franca "The editors bring together the major writings by multimedia pioneers in order to foster a greater understanding, and appreciation, of its precedents, roots, and revolutionary potential." - Choice MULTIMEDIA: FROM WAGNER TO VIRTUAL REALITY Expanded Edition in Paperback edited by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan foreword by William Gibson, coda by Laurie Anderson published by W.W. Norton, $19.95 now available ISBN 0-393-32375-7 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +ad+ See who made the list of all-time greatest digital works in the 10th Anniversary New York Digital Salon issue of LEONARDO, Volume 35, Number 5. Curators for the issue include Christiane Paul, Steve Dietz, Benjamin Weil, Joel Chadabe, Lev Manovich, and others. Order your copy @ <a rel="nofollow" href="http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/">http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 7. Date: 12.19.02 From: LEONARDO (mk) (isast@well.com) Subject: Uncanny Networks by Geert Lovink Uncanny Networks: Dialogues with the Virtual Intelligentsia by Geert Lovink For Geert Lovink, interviews are imaginative texts that can help to create global, networked discourses not only among different professions but also among different cultures and social groups. Conducting interviews online, over a period of weeks or months, allows the participants to compose documents of depth and breadth, rather than simply snapshots of timely references. The interviews collected in this book are with artists, critics, and theorists who are intimately involved in building the content, interfaces, and architectures of new media. The topics discussed include digital aesthetics, sound art, navigating deep audio space, European media philosophy, the Internet in Eastern Europe, the mixing of old and new in India, critical media studies in the Asia-Pacific region, Japanese techno tribes, hybrid identities, the storage of social movements, theory of the virtual class, virtual and urban spaces, corporate takeover of the Internet, and the role of cyberspace in the rise of nongovernmental organizations. Interviewees included Norbert Bolz, Paulina Borsook, Luchezar Boyadjiev, Kuan-Hsing Chen, Cãlin Dan, Mike Davis, Mark Dery, Kodwo Eshun, Susan George, Boris Groys, Frank Hartmann, Michael Heim, Dietmar Kamper, Zina Kaye, Tom Keenan, Arthur Kroker, Bruno Latour, Marita Liulia, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Peter Lunenfeld, Lev Manovich, Mongrel, Edi Muka, Jonathan Peizer, Saskia Sassen, Herbert Schiller, Gayatri Spivak, János Sugár, Ravi Sundaram, Toshiya Ueno, Tjebbe van Tijen, McKenzie Wark, Hartmut Winkler, and Slavoj Zizek. To order: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/">http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 8. Date: 12.13.02 From: (PROPAGANDA@0100101110101101.ORG) Subject: The World in One's Pocket? >From "Springerin", Oct 2002 > <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.springerin.at">http://www.springerin.at</a> The World in One's Pocket? The Net project "VOPOS" by 0100101110101101.ORG by Vera Tollmann In December of last year, the European Union and the European Space Organisation agreed to set up a European venture as competition for the American Global Positioning System (GPS) by 2005. The non-military system "Galileo" is to consist of 30 satellites and cover the entire globe. [1] The EU argues that this decision is aimed at making it independent of the GPS - which is still used for military purposes - by giving it its own surveillance complex. The end users of this geographical location system are to include customs and the judiciary, transport and communications authorities, and tourism organisations. On May 1 the White House in Washington announced that "SA" (Selective Availability), which caused civilian equipment to give more imprecise results, would no longer operate. These two decisions show what a central role satellite systems will play, or already play, in everyday life, alongside the telecommunications systems of telephone and internet. These developments, leading towards an ever more perfect universal surveillance method, have not gone without comment from activists [2] and artists. Whereas at the end of the nineties there were mainly reactions to the - in some cases - extremely extensive installation of video cameras in public places, [3] a new technological paradigm of media art is now starting to emerge. Besides Web-based works about the surveillance of data transfers, [4] the first artists have already begun working with the GPS, such as the documenta participants tsunamii.net. This involves a Web-related approach: tsunamii.net looked for correspondences on the Web to the real places they passed on their travels. The focus is on an alternative mapping of the internet. The current project by 0100101110101101.org, which has the awkward name "VOPOS" - a reference to former East German police as representatives of a historical surveillance state that shows little more than a "radical chic aesthetic" -, also functions partly via GPS. Tanio Copechi and Renato Pasiopani, as the operators of 0100101110101101.org call themselves, carry a GPS transmitter around with them. It sends the data it receives to a server via mobile phone, and this data is then visualised on the web site by means of software. With the aid of a digital street map of Barcelona, which is where the two Italian artists claim to be, users can see which street they are in - whether just one or both of them is an open question. The clock can also be turned back - this means it is possible to vaguely reconstruct the route taken through the city by the "surveillees". But "VOPOS" has nothing to do with a sociological interest in the erratic wanderings of everyday life, as the situationist approach would suggest; it is a criticism of the potential of the GPS: who uses the coordinates it provides, and what does the electronic profile that can be deduced from them reveal? The two artists do not just illustrate the way the GPS functions within a larger communications complex; their artist strategy is also expressed in their refusal to give their identity and provide a level of narrative that could explain why they visit the places they do (unless someone knows the city very well and thus has options for interpretation). It is equally impossible to verify whether they really were at the positions marked or not. "VOPOS" therefore also remains a game involving reality and fiction, information and disinformation. For a knowledge of the way the system could potentially function suffices to enable one to critically take up the surveillant's perspective. As the second part of the long-term project "Glasnost", "VOPOS" continues the planned collection of comprehensive, person-specific data. The first phase - which still exists on the web site - consisted in the project "life_sharing". [5] 0100101110101101.org put the local hard disk of their computer onto the Web, thus making their private e-mails, project sketches and software publicly available. What is the artistic added value of this project? To what extent is it only a preparation for something that can be commercially exploited later? After the experiences with the "Big Brother" series, a similar scenario using GPS technology would also be imaginable: one group - the surveillants - has to hinder another group - the "surveillees" - in carrying out the game task allotted to them. "VOPOS" operates precisely at the ambivalent point between affirmative slogans like that of one mobile phone manufacturer - "Put the world in your pocket" -, and the non-commercial production of transparency. Translation: Tim Jones Notes: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://0100101110101101.ORG">http://0100101110101101.ORG</a> 1 <a rel="nofollow" href="http://europa.eu.int/comm/energy_transport/de/gal_de.html">http://europa.eu.int/comm/energy_transport/de/gal_de.html</a> (Galileo homepage) <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/dz-01.12.01-003">http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/dz-01.12.01-003</a> (Report on the decision in favour of Galileo, 1 December 2001) 2 <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.bigbrotherawards.at">http://www.bigbrotherawards.at</a> 3 See the Surveillance Camera Players: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.notbored.org/the-scp.html">http://www.notbored.org/the-scp.html</a> 4 See the Software Carnivore: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/carnivore">http://rhizome.org/carnivore</a> 5 See Marina Grzinic: "Das Leben zurückgewinnen". In: springerin 1/01, p. 10 ### Anything has been said about this renegade cyber-entity, accused of being "simple thief", dubbed as "media dandy" and "cultural terrorists" or, simply, "shit". 0100101110101101.ORG prdouced some of the most perfect media exploits of the last years, such as the creation and diffusion, at the opening of the 49th Venice Biennial, of the computer virus "biennale.py" or the memorable spoof of the Vatican website: almost identical with that of the Holy See, but with slight deviations. HTTP://0100101110101101.ORG + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Rhizome.org is a 501©(3) nonprofit organization. If you value this free publication, please consider making a contribution within your means at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/support">http://rhizome.org/support</a>. Checks and money orders may be sent to Rhizome.org, 115 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012. 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