RHIZOME DIGEST: 11.08.02

discussion

Posted Nov. 7 2002 19:00

RHIZOME DIGEST: 11.08.02

RHIZOME DIGEST: November 8, 2002 Content: +editor's note+ 1. Rachel Greene: this week +announcement+ 2. Kathy Rae Huffman: Where Do We Go From Here? 3. chris@cryptic.demon.co.uk: REMOTE +work+ 4. YAEL KANAREK: WORLD OF AWE- mRB - prototyping a super-toy +review+ 5. cristine wang: Mckenzie Wark on the Theology of the Spectacle +report+ 6. Andreas Broegger: Report from Electrohype + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 1. Date: 11.8.02 From: Rachel Greene (rachel@rhizome.org) Subject: Editor's Note Thanks to those who participated in the survey about membership fees. We'll present the results of the poll and concurrent discussion in next week's Digest. If you haven't had a chance to contribute to the Rhizome community campaign, now is the time: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/support/?dig10_05">http://rhizome.org/support/?dig10_05</a> That page also features the cool, artiana we send to supporters – the Cary Peppermint shirt is a huge hit in the Greene household – get one for yourself, and help Rhizome be a self-sustaining community!! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +ad+ David Byrne on northern european Blip Hop music and others in LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL special issue no 12. on PLEASURE. Orders from journals-orders@mit.edu for Table of Contents see <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.leonardo.info/lmj">http://www.leonardo.info/lmj</a>. CD features experimental music from EASTERN EUROPE curated by Christian Scheib and Susanna Niedermayr. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 2. Date: 11.8.02 From: Kathy Rae Huffman (kathyraehuffman@cornerhouse.org) Subject: Where Do We Go From Here? Where Do We Go From Here? Curated by Kathy Rae Huffman, Cornerhouse Cornerhouse, Manchester: 16 November - 22 December, 2002 Cornerhouse is delighted to present Where Do We Go From Here? a new media exhibition by internationally renowned artists, desperate optimists, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Eva Ursprung and Heimo Ranzenbacher, Mike Stubbs. The artists utilise digital film, internet, sound and video within four installations which analyse the social implications of movement, time and space. The media used create a participatory role for the viewer within an immersive cinematic environment where interaction is key. All of the pieces convey different aspects of psychological behaviour, both in individual and social situations, creating powerful statements about the nature of human activity as observed through the lens of a camera. Observing systems of behaviour, and reflecting upon the cycles of activity they represent, gives context to the question: Where do we go from here? desperate optimists (Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor) observe transient behaviour in their new work Night Bus (2002), a triptych which explores eccentricity in late night transit centres - reflective spaces, places of the poor, the left over, and the exhausted partygoer. The piece explores the inter relationships with the various cities, the people in those cities and their late night experiences. This UK Premiere of horror chase (2002) by Kevin and Jennifer McCoy portrays an endless cycle of flight and pursuit. This software-driven, digital, single-shot, film projection recreates the famous Evil Dead 2 'chase scene'. The projected nature of the piece heightens the incredible tension of terror created by the cycle of pursuit and chase, adding a physical proximity to the work. Eva Ursprung and Heimo Ranzenbacher¹s collaboration was born out of their individual experiences whilst travelling and the realisation that everyone has a sense of place. R.E.M (2002) is an installation that engages the live audience with a projected image that creates a psychological test within the Rapid Eye Movement of the light source. An acoustic space is created via sound bytes recorded from people in 22 countries expressing their feelings about space. Visitors can add their own responses to notions of space via a chat terminal and live camera. Mike Stubbs brings space and movement into personal and autobiographical reflection with Donut (2001), a visual poem on the bravado of lad culture in the UK and his personal obsession with fast cars. Donut is a multi-screen installation about the drawing of a perfect circle, but the creator is a driver not an artist, the canvas is asphalt and the medium is a car. Donut is the term used by young fast car enthusiasts to describe a circle of burnt rubber made by spinning a rear wheel drive car on the spot. It represents bravado and skill on the part of the driver who is usually part of the car cruising culture, one of Britain¹s biggest underground movements. The soundtrack to the video has been produced by Scanner, using CB radio and other communication technologies and the video produced by artist Gina Czarnecki. Curator of Where Do We Go From Here? Kathy Rae Huffman is also Director Visual Arts at Cornerhouse. Formerly director of Hull Time Based Arts, Kathy¹s specialism lies in web based initiatives, she is a collector of new media works and a curator who pioneered support of artists¹ work centred in media theory and practice. Kathy¹s extensive experience and international track record in the fields of visual arts and new media means that she is well placed to lead Cornerhouse¹s exhibition programme in a new direction. This is the first of a series of forthcoming exhibitions at Cornerhouse themed by their exploration of the inter-relationship between content and media used: 11 January - 23 February, 2003 Victor Burgin: Listen to Britain, 7 March - 13 April, 2003 Imaginary Balkans, 9 May - 22 June, 2003 Lab3D: The Dimensionalised Internet. EVENT: Where Do We Go From Here? A Discussion on Art and New Media Internationally recognised leaders in New Media discourse, the artists in Where Do We Go From Here? will discuss their work with the exhibition curator, Kathy Rae Huffman on Saturday 16 November, addressing some of the wider issues around artists using new media and the interdisciplinary nature of current artistic practice, both in the UK and internationally. -Ends- For further information please contact Jude Holmes on 0161 200 1517 or email jude.holmes@cornerhouse.org Images available on request www.cornerhouse.org (apologies for receiving this message more than once) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +ad+ Digital H@ppy Hour, 11/13, 6pm, $8 "Simulation and the Viewer as Performer." What happens when viewers of interactive work are transformed into performers? Explore the implications of such phenomena in new media today with moderator Amy Taubin, panelists Manuel DeLanda, Sandra McLean, Robert Stratton(Remote Lounge).<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.thekitchen.org">http://www.thekitchen.org</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 3. Date: 11.1.02 From: chris@cryptic.demon.co.uk Subject: REMOTE +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ REMOTE new media artists respond to the Scottish Highlands +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The Iona Gallery, Kingussie, Inverness-shire Exhibition: 4-16 November 2002 Open Mon-Fri 1-5pm Sat 10am-12pm. Admission free What happens when urban realism and rural romanticism collide? An exhibition featuring seven artists invited to respond to the physical and social environments in the Cairngorms through residencies in the area during Summer 2002. Thomson & Craighead will exhibit new work 'The Price of Freedom' - a modified book form appropriating lines from John Barbour's epic poem, 'The Bruce', as domain names offered for sale; and 'Making a case for the twinning of Newtonmore and Las Vegas', an open public letter accessible online. r a d i o q u a l i a's 'listening_stations' project resulted from a residency at makrolab - a temporary art and science laboratory located near Blair Atholl during the summer of 2002. The work is part of ongoing research to make audible via an online radio station astronomy signals intercepted from space, including the planet Jupiter and the Sun. Simon Fildes and Katrina McPherson, both based in Newtonmore, are showing a number of projects including an interactive sound sculpture, web-journeys and found objects inspired by the A889 road from Dalwhinnie to Laggan, dubbed 'the most dangerous road in Britain'. Cavan Convery, presents 'Ground Truth' - an on-line Geographical Information System of data, collected by a remote roving platform that records images and sound, overlaid on an extraordinary 3-D contour map of the Cairngorms offering sentimental personal discoveries. Following the exhibition, the works can be experienced as part of HOST, New Media Scotland's online project space at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://host.mediascot.org">http://host.mediascot.org</a> Artists' Talk: 3-5pm, Saturday 16 November 2002. Refreshments provided. Admission free. Chair: Dr Anna Paterson, writer and journalist, University of St Andrews. Author of 'Scotland's Landscape: Endangered Icon' (Polygon, 2002). Further information at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.mediascot.org">http://www.mediascot.org</a> REMOTE is a collaboration between New Media Scotland and Highland Research, Newtonmore. Supported by the Scottish Arts Council; Highland Council; Moray, Badenoch & Strathspey Enterprise; Highlands & Islands Enterprise Broadband 4 Business; Scottish Natural Heritage; makrolab; Dalwhinnie Distillery. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ REMOTE Forum exploring the geography of new media culture +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 11am-4pm, Monday 18 November 2002, The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh Tickets £10 / £5 concessions. Lunch and refreshments provided. Pre-booking essential. Please contact The Fruitmarket Gallery on tel: 0131 225 2383 or email: education@fruitmarket.co.uk A one-day forum, gathering together leading media academics and writers Lev Manovich and Sean Cubitt as well as REMOTE artists Thomson & Craighead, r a d i o q u a l i a, Simon Fildes and Katrina McPherson, and Cavan Convery. Chaired by Sarah Cook and Chris Byrne, the presentations and discussions will question popular notions of urban monopoly on new technologies, and the construct of 'rural' as being 'remote.' Further information at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.mediascot.org">http://www.mediascot.org</a> REMOTE Forum is a collaboration between New Media Scotland and The Fruitmarket Gallery. Curated by Iliyana Nedkova and supported by the Scottish Arts Council; University of Waikato, New Zealand; Moray, Badenoch & Strathspey Enterprise; Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Dalwhinnie Distillery. ——————————————————– info@mediascot.org ——————————————————– New Media Scotland tel: +44 131 477 3774 P.O. Box 23434, Edinburgh EH7 5SZ fax: +44 131 477 3775 Scotland, UK <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.mediascot.org">http://www.mediascot.org</a> ——————————————————– + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 4. Date: 11.4.02 From: YAEL KANAREK (yael@treasurecrumbs.com) Subject: WORLD OF AWE: mRB - prototyping a super-toy WORLD OF AWE: mRB The mRB is a prototype of a fictional super-toy in the form of a ring. A collaboration between Yael Kanarek and Bnode (Judith Gieseler and Innes Yates), the project elaborates on Kanarek's ongoing interdisciplinary project, World of Awe, which is based on an original narrative that uses the ancient genre of the traveler's tale to explore the connections between storytelling, travel, memory, and technology. The collaborative project investigates the diffusion of techno-scientific knowledge into popular culture through a fictional super-toy ? the moodRingBaby. According to the narrative the toy resembles an advanced Tamagotchi. Taking a hypothetical, reverse-engineering approach, Kanarek and Bnode began speculating on the origins of this fictional toy. The process has produced a prototype called the mRB. THE WEB COMPONENT <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.worldofawe.net/mRB">http://www.worldofawe.net/mRB</a> The project utilizes a 3D web interface that allows the user to browse various aspects of the mRB for clues to its origin, experiences, and character. An exploratory interface provides access to five different components of the mRB: Skin, Input, Memory, CPU and Output. Each component contains experiences which demonstrate function and process. THE INSTALLATION AT EYEBEAM <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.worldofawe.net/mRB/installation/">http://www.worldofawe.net/mRB/installation/</a> The mRB installation is on view as part of the Beta-Launch exhibition at Eyebeam from October 16 through December 1, 2002, located at 540 W. 21st Street, between 10th & 11th Avenues. The exhibition is open Wednesday-Sunday, 12 - 6 PM. The installation displays the five different functions of the ring and multiple rings created with a 3d printer made available through the R&D residency at Eyebeam. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 5. Date: 11.8.02 From: cristine wang (cristine_org@yahoo.com) Subject: Mckenzie Wark on the Theology of the Spectacle [Originally appeared on Nettime.org (November 5, 2002) Mckenzie Wark speaks on the Theology of the Spectacle]: Masayuki Kawai "About a Theological Situation in the Society of the Spectactle" Queens Museum of Art, New York, 3-10 Nov guest curator Cristine Wang There is something untouchable about the major works of Guy Debord, founder and animating force of the Situationist International. As someone who famously declared "we are not about to play the game", he is not so easy to assimilate into the play of institutional signifiers that is the art world. What makes Masayuki Kawai's video so fine is that it pretty much ignores the question of what it means to appropriate and rework Debord's work. This video just does it, and in fine style. What one learns, in the process, is that recession or not, Japanese commodity culture still furnishes the kinds of images that really do seem to bear out Debord's thesis. As Debord writes, "the whole life of those societies in which modern conditions of production prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. All that was once directly lived has become mere representation." This is a world in which "that which is good appears, and that which appears is good." The spectacle is not just an accumulation of images, "it is rather a social relationship mediated by images." Of course Debord made his own film version of his classic work, The Society of the Spectacle. Part of the problem with that film is that Debord was using the image culture of mid century France, which was far from being the most highly developed of the time. Kawai's video, on the other hand, is effective precisely because one seems to peer over the brink of a future the bulk of the world has yet to quite enter. I'm not in a position to assess Kawai's development of the Debordian thesis from one viewing, but there too, this is a work of some value. There's something static, unreflective in the ways in which the thesis of the spectacle is usually taken up. Debord's empahsis on separation has its limitations in a world in which the vectoral and connective property of media seems more telling. The alienation Debord identifies hinges on a somewhat static understanding of a necessity that pre-exists its rupture in the commodity economy. It's not that Kawai has resolved these issues in the Debordian thesis. The video seems to me to offer a very elegant restatement and adaption of the classic situationist position. But he does offer a very useful artwork with which to think these issues through. Masayuki Kawai: "About a Theological Situation in the Society of the Spectactle" single channel video Queens Museum of Art 3-10 Nov guest curator Cristine Wang <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.asiasociety.org/acaw">http://www.asiasociety.org/acaw</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.queensmuseum.org">http://www.queensmuseum.org</a> McKenzie Wark is a New York-based media theorist, critic, and the author of three books, including "Virtual Geography" (1994); "The Virtual Republic" (1997); and "Celebrities, Culture and Cyberspace" (1998). <a rel="nofollow" href="http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors0/warktext.html">http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors0/warktext.html</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +ad+ Metamute continues with its specially commissioned series of articles. The latest are Stewart Home on Martin Amis, Benedict Seymour on Border Crossing, and Nat Muller in conversation with Palestinian filmmaker Azza El Hassan. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.metamute.com">http://www.metamute.com</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 6. Date: 11.8.02 From: Andreas Broegger (broegger@hum.ku.dk) Subject: Report from Electrohype A report from Electrohype Malmö, Sweden October 23-27 (exhibtion) October 24-25 (conference) Although one of the most advanced regions in the world in terms of digital infrastructure, providing its 23 million inhabitants unprecedented access to digital services, Scandinavia is also characterized by a significant lack of conferences, festivals, and exhibitions dealing with digital technology in explicitly artistic terms. Being both conference and exhibition, "Electrohype" is a welcome exception to this rule. Based in the Swedish city of Malmö, the first Electrohype took place in 2000, and the organizers are now upgrading Electrohype to a regular Scandinavian biennale for digital art. The exhibition provided the opportunity for Scandinavians to visit Marek Walczak and Martin Wattenberg's Apartment (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.turbulence.org/Works/apartment">http://www.turbulence.org/Works/apartment</a>), observe John Simon's algorithmic art up close in his Every Icon and Color Panel v1.0 (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.numeral.com">http://www.numeral.com</a>), and get a sense of Lisa Jevbratt's data package-measuring work Out of the Ordinary (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://dma.sjsu.edu/jevbratt/ooo">http://dma.sjsu.edu/jevbratt/ooo</a>). Of work and artists perhaps less familiar to rhizomers, it is worth mentioning Spanish artist Federico Muelas' installation "Dripping Sounds", experimenting with a translation of the flow of ink in water into sound (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.sva.edu/mfacad/featuredstudents/fede.html">http://www.sva.edu/mfacad/featuredstudents/fede.html</a>). Quoting J.W. Goethe, and comprising an old-fashioned water container and ink dripping device, lighting and lenses for projection, a flushing system, photosensitive modules, and a loudspeaker system, Muelas' installation attempted to link digital technology to the technology of centuries past in both philosophical, technological and stylistic ways. Although the installation was beautifully executed, the visual side of Muelas' "Dripping Sounds" unfortunately did not translate into a very interesting audio experience. In itself leaving a lot up to the synaesthetic imagination, I suppose. Swedish artist Thomas Broomé presented his AI and biosensor-based projects at the conference, many of which appropriate medical, surveillance and military technology for creative or playful purposes, although maintaining a sense of edgyness (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.interactiveinstitute.se">http://www.interactiveinstitute.se</a>). In the Electrohype exhibition, Broomé displayed his tongue-in-cheek "HellHunt" project (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.lordsoflegacy.com/hellhunt">http://www.lordsoflegacy.com/hellhunt</a>), searching the web for any occurence in pictures of a diabolic symbol (the reversed pentagram). Finding evil axes in even the most innocent corners of the web, Broomé's algorithm combines the absurd with disturbing perspectives. Among the projects involving the spectator in a more direct way, "Rekyl" by Danish collaborators Oncotype, Subsilo, Dinesen and Christiansen (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.oncotype.dk/noodlefilm.phtml">http://www.oncotype.dk/noodlefilm.phtml</a>), exemplified the give-and-get condition of interaction. By speaking into a microphone in front of a video image projecting statistical information about the Danish population you could break through to the other side of this monotonous surface, to a place where individuals told stories about personal experiences. At the same time, however, your voice was distorted by the system, an interesting if highly frustrating "recoil" making listening and speaking at the same time very difficult. For every word spoken, more seemed lost to the ear. C. Anders Wallén's video installation "jour et nuit" was another example of interaction where a "meeting" is made difficult (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.vis.se/caw">http://www.vis.se/caw</a>) As you entered the installation, a man in the video would leave his room. Leave, and he would re-enter. You could subject your own body to digital displacement in Norwegian Ellen Røed's installation "Feedback", employing delayed video projections of visitors' shadows on the walls mixed with the actual shadows of their presence… The two-day long Electrohype conference tried to follow up on the recent trend of "software art", as evidenced in recent festivals like Transmediale 2001 (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.transmediale.de/01/en/software.htm">http://www.transmediale.de/01/en/software.htm</a>) and Readme 2002. As one of the organizers and jury members of the latter event, Olga Guriunova mainly argued for the critical possibilities (even responsibilities) of alternative software production. By contrast, John F. Simon Jr. aligned his creative programming with modernist icons like Mondrian and Stuart Davis rather than revolutionary forces opposing software giants. Taking the example of artist Graham Harwood's modification of a poem by William Blake (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.scotoma.org/lungs">http://www.scotoma.org/lungs</a>), Josephine Bosma argued for the relevance of looking at code and programming on several levels. Code as perhaps the vehicle of some sort of artistic "style", as investigated by the Whitney Artport's CODeDOC project (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://whitney.org/artport/commissions/codedoc/index.shtml">http://whitney.org/artport/commissions/codedoc/index.shtml</a>), coding as a way of "thinking" (as John F. Simon Jr. also talked about), but first of all code as a processor of cultural and poetic content and form as in the work of Graham Harwood. Bosma also expressed a skepticism towards the trendiness of the term "Software Art" (as in: the next big thing after net.art), but also an interest in the more narrow term "code art" (as promoted by Florian Cramer). In a flashback to curator Jack Burnham's show "Software" at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1970, I gave a talk comparing today's software art to the art and technology projects of an age where they did not speak of "software art" in literal terms, but rather metaphorically of art as a kind of "software". Many questions remain to be answered in relation to the idea of software art, and perhaps some answers can be found by looking back to Burnham's views in 1970, and his later disillusion with a fusion of art and technology. One question is definitely how to bridge the gap between an allegedly revolutionary, critical software practice, and the mainstream usage of software (that is, if you really take the idea of "revolutionary" or "critical" seriously). Or how to bridge the gap between artists creating with software and the art world which has long since forgotten about exhibits like Burnham's from 1970. In this respect, software artists and software art curators have not yet moved from their own little ivory tower to the control tower of society, to quote McLuhan. Certainly, Scandinavia could be the ideal region for implementing software changes on a larger cultural, aesthetic and economical scale, with the Scandinavian governments traditionally emphasizing "functional design for every citizen". For that, however, we will need more electrohype. Andreas Brøgger Copenhagen, Denmark ——————- broegger@hum.ku.dk + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 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. Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law and are gratefully acknowledged at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/info/10.php">http://rhizome.org/info/10.php</a>. Our financial statement is available upon request. Rhizome Digest is supported by grants from The Charles Engelhard Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Rhizome Digest is filtered by Rachel Greene (rachel@rhizome.org). ISSN: 1525-9110. Volume 7, number 45. Article submissions to list@rhizome.org are encouraged. Submissions should relate to the theme of new media art and be less than 1500 words. For information on advertising in Rhizome Digest, please contact info@rhizome.org. To unsubscribe from this list, visit <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/subscribe">http://rhizome.org/subscribe</a>. Subscribers to Rhizome Digest are subject to the terms set out in the Member Agreement available online at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/info/29.php">http://rhizome.org/info/29.php</a>. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +