RHIZOME DIGEST: 1.12.02

discussion

Posted Jan. 11 2002 19:00

RHIZOME DIGEST: 1.12.02

RHIZOME DIGEST: January 12, 2002 Content: +editor's note+ 1. beverly tang: Rhizome.LA Sound Art Event–Jan 28, 2002 +work+ 2. brody: ADAM_KILLER & WHITE_PICNIC_GLITCH +opportunity+ 3. Jaka Zeleznikar: call–Break 21 festival 4. Lev Manovich: Two Digital Artists Positions At Ucsd: DEADLINE 1/18/02 +announcement+ 5. Ulrich Wegenast: Web Art & Online Voting at 15th Stuttgart Filmwinter +interview+ 6. alex galloway: "You'll show me yours"–Interview with Mark Daggett + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 1. Date: 1.7.02 From: beverly tang (b@sublimina.com) Subject: Rhizome.LA Sound Art Event–Jan 28, 2002 Los Angeles, CA–Rhizome.LA is pleased to announce the lineup for Monday, January 28, 2002. The event will consist of musical performances by Kim Cascone, Steve Roden and Sutekh, and a panel discussion with sound artists Matt Bonal, Kim Cascone, David Cotner, J.Frede, Steve Roden and Sutekh. A new genre of music has developed over the past couple of years. Some fans call it "microsound," "glitch," "lowercase," or "post-digital," but like a hologram, the genre can change radically as one shifts their perspective. The boundaries of music have been further blurred due to recent advances in digital audio technology and as a result new issues have challenged the mainstream notions of music. The composers participating in this Rhizome.LA event will help shed some light on these issues by participating in a panel discussion chaired by Beverly Tang. The bleeding edge of musical aesthetics will be examined and promises to provide much in the way of cultural stimulation. Later in the evening there will be concerts by Steven Roden, Sutekh and Kim Cascone. Mr. Roden works with small incidental sounds that tend to be filtered out by most listeners. Roden uses digital technology to bring out these invisible worlds of sound for us to hear. His work can be likened to "hearing sound as if you were looking through a microscope." Sutekh, best known for his work in the California style of electronica, will perform textural sound experiments constructed with otherworldly mixtures of synthetic and found sounds. This will prove to be a rare and special treat for all Sutekh fans. Kim Cascone will complete the evening with a dense field of synthetic sounds created with custom software developed in Max/MSP. Cascone's work is titled "Dust Theories" and was recently performed on a European tour last fall. Rhizome.LA, an offshoot of Rhizome, is an event series that presents new media art to the public in Los Angeles. Rhizome.org is an online platform for the global new media art community. A nonprofit organization based in New York City, Rhizome's programs support the creation, presentation, discussion and preservation of contemporary art that engages new technologies in significant ways. For more information about Rhizome.org, and to become a member of the Rhizome community, go to <a href="http://www.rhizome.org">http://www.rhizome.org</a>. Location: Whose Café, 6320 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood; (323) 462 8500 Date: Monday, January 28, 2002 Time: 7:30pm Price: $5-10 Sliding Donation <a href="http://rhizome.org">http://rhizome.org</a> <a href="http://rhizome.org/LA">http://rhizome.org/LA</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +ad+ Artistic Environments of Telepresence on the World Wide Web" by Luisa Paraguai Donati and Gilbertto Prado addresses the use of live images in artistic spaces. Find out what events you'll participate in via the web. Pick up a copy of LEONARDO's Digital Salon, Volume 34 Number 5 and visit:@: <a href="http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo">http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 2. Date: 1.10.02 From: brody (brody@tmpspace.com) Subject: ADAM_KILLER & WHITE_PICNIC_GLITCH ADAM_KILLER, 2000 computer game conversion www.tmpspace.com/adam_killer WHITE_PICNIC_GLITCH, 2001 computer game conversion www.tmpspace.com/white_picnic_glitch My history is up for grabs. I will set up trade alliances, and enter into truces. Or will I just let my Babylonian Bowmen rain terror down on my enemies' heads. I will lead a team of specialists into an abyss of vast caverns, snake-like passageways and luring dead-ends. I will command squads with precision and power using a GPS, night-vision, battlefield computers, and modular body armor. My unique magic system allows me to change the spells and creatures I bring into battle each time. I will stay frosty as the world explodes around me and my mission goals change on the fly. I will customize my squad into specialized experts in snipercraft, demolitions, and stealth. I will drive them crazy with impossible challenges like giant pyramids and microscopic fairways. I will tread lightly, the depths belong to twisted cults, mutants, and hideous creatures that were never meant to exist. I will catch all the rip-roaring action from film-quality multiple camera angles: cockpit, chase close, chase far, dash, television camera, sides, front, ground, sliding, and even skycam views. I will plow through snow packed roads, bust out from a wall of fog and be blinded by oncoming rain. All while piloting the most badass 'Mechs ever. <a href="http://www.tmpspace.com/adam_killer">http://www.tmpspace.com/adam_killer</a> <a href="http://www.tmpspace.com/white_picnic_glitch">http://www.tmpspace.com/white_picnic_glitch</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +ad+ **METAMUTE ECHELON COMPETITION WINNERS: Metamute announces the winners of the Echelon competition. 1st prize: The Avatar Group - Isis, followed by runners up: Tessa Laird - Pink Noise and Edward Lear - The Owl and the Pussycat Assassinate the EuroFeds. Read all the entries: <a href="http://www.metamute.com/mfiles/index.htm">http://www.metamute.com/mfiles/index.htm</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 3. Date: 1.7.02 From: Jaka Zeleznikar (jaka@jaka.org) Subject: call–Break 21 festival Break 21 6th International Festival of Emerging Artists May 19th - 24th, 2002 Ljubljana, Slovenia <a href="http://www.break21.com">http://www.break21.com</a> Organiser K6/4, Kersnikova 6, Ljubljana, Slovenia BREAK 21 - Statement of Purpose The festival is dedicated to younger, not yet recognised artists who modulate their artistic expression within research artistic practice. The age limit has been abandoned by this year's festival to be able to follow the theme more thoroughly. Besides artistic works, selected through Call for Applications, selectors have the opportunity to invite authors, whose known works may add up to the entire exhibition of the chosen theme. However we will prefer the latest projects, which are, in our opinion, important for the discourse, pursued by the festival, in the selection. In the year 2002, the festival's construction will differ from the last five editions. We will invite only the artists, who are indispensable for the presentation or installation of their works, to Ljubljana; the rest of them will be presented with their works. Holders of the programmes will take up the roles of selectors since they have already been connected to permanent activities of the K6/4 board. The festival will thus obtain the content frame, which can already be detected in the current activities of the K4 club, which will provide the sound, the Kapelica gallery, which covers the field of the visual arts and performances, and the Kiberpipa, which covers the field of cybernetics, video and film production. We also invited a few associates, who specialise in the field of cartoons, animated films, short films, web art, designing, culinary art and fashion to help us in the selection. Custodians of the festival (we invited them from Zagreb, Croatia, this year) proposed the theme, which, we believe, opens an extremely important, stigmatised and taboo field in totalitarianism of the consumer society. Custodians will make a selection of applicants together with selectors/advisors, who are experts for specific artistic fields. Concurrently, uniform criteria of the selection are being guaranteed. We tend to create the selection and the Break 21 festival upon explicit artistic projects, texts, and not numerous exhibits to be able to reflect upon the selected field precisely enough, since the selected field will be presented in the collection of texts after the festival. We expect around 60 participants, including artists, researches, engineers, theoretician and publicists to participate at the festival. In the postproduction of the festival, a catalogue on CD ROM will be published. Later on, we will publish a printed collection of texts and artistic project, presented at the Break 21 festival, and projects, which influenced the development of the selected theme greatly, for which we would like to become the reference in the future. <a href="http://www.break21.com">http://www.break21.com</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +ad+ STATE OF THE ARTS SYMPOSIUM * UCLA APRIL 4-6, 2002 * RHIZOME DISCOUNT * <<a href="http://www.eliterature.org/state">http://www.eliterature.org/state</a>> ELO invites Rhizome subscribers to join leading web artists, writers, critics, theorists for the seminal e-lit event of 2002. Rhizome subscribers who register before FEB 15 2002 may register at ELO member rates ($25 discount). + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 4. Date: 1.9.02 From: Lev Manovich (manovich@ucsd.edu) Subject: Two Digital Artists Positions At Ucsd: DEADLINE 1/18/02 TWO TENURE-TRACK DIGITAL ARTS POSITIONS at VISUAL ARTS DEPARTMENT, University of California, San Diego <a href="http://visarts.ucsd.edu">http://visarts.ucsd.edu</a> COMPUTER ARTIST. Assistant Professor, tenure-track, beginning July 1, 2002. Salary commensurate with qualifications and experience and based upon UC pay scales. We seek an artist with a proven exhibition record whose work exhibits an in-depth understanding of computing and its relationship to contemporary art and its discourses. UCSD is a research university that actively promotes and supports creative work and advanced research in computing within a broadly interdisciplinary arts department that includes studio, media, and art history, theory and criticism. Opportunities for developing research include grants, state- of-the-art facilities including CRCA (Center for Research in Computing and the Arts), the Supercomputer Center, and the new California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, and cross- campus collaborations. Teaching will include both graduate seminars and undergraduate courses, including courses in an Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts Major with the department of Music. Candidates must demonstrate in their work and teaching a substantial engagement with the computing arts and their relationship to broader discourses of contemporary art and culture. MEDIA ARTIST. Assistant Professor, tenure-track, beginning July 1, 2002. Salary commensurate with qualifications and experience and based on UC pay scales. We seek an artist with a strong exhibition record who works in video, film, and/or photography and who is also seriously engaged with new media, one whose practice will inventively bridge our highly ranked programs in media and the digital arts. UCSD is a research university that actively promotes and supports creative work within a broadly interdisciplinary arts department that includes studio, media, computing, and art history, theory, and criticism. Opportunities for developing research include grants, state-of-the-art facilities, and cross-campus collaborations. <a href="http://visarts.ucsd.edu">http://visarts.ucsd.edu</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 5. Date: 1.10.02 From: Ulrich Wegenast (ulrich_wegenast@HOTMAIL.COM) Subject: Web Art & Online Voting at 15th Stuttgart Filmwinter the warm up of the 15th Stuttgart Filmwinter has started! From now on you can visit the nominated internet submissions for the new media competition on our web site: <a href="http://www.filmwinter.de">http://www.filmwinter.de</a> You can vote for the best internet project. The best web site will be awarde the City of Stuttgart Prize for New Media amounting 2.000 Euro. The voting ends on January 20 at 2 p.m. The award ceremony takes place on the 20th at 8 p.m. at the Stuttgart Filmhaus, Friedrichstr. 23 A. You find the voting form under "programme" and "International Competition New Media". + + + Additionally there will be the opening of the first Filmwinter Warm Up exhibition at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Solitude 3. Today, Thursday, January 10, an exhibition with two installations by the British media artist Imogen Stidworthy opens at 8 p.m. <a href="http://www.filmwinter.de">http://www.filmwinter.de</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 6. Date: 1.9.2002 From: alex galloway (alex@rhizome.org) Subject: "You'll show me yours"–Interview with Mark Daggett Keywords: privacy, gaming, design, browser [Mark Daggett is an artist and graphic designer. His work has been displayed at PS1, Ars Electronica and the Whitney Museum's "Artport." He has also developed games and DVD's for major motion pictures including "The Matrix" and "The Perfect Storm."] + + + Q: You recently released a screen saver called "Deskswap" (<a href="http://www.deskswap.com">http://www.deskswap.com</a>). Can you explain what it is and how it works? Daggett: "DeskSwap" is an online screensaver that allows people to exchange images of their desktop with each other. When the user stops using their computer, "DeskSwap" starts as a normal screensaver. It quickly takes a snapshot of the user's screen and uploads it to the "DeskSwap" server. Since screensavers only become active during periods of inactivity, "DeskSwap" catches candid images of the user's desktop. "DeskSwap" has two modes a "peer to peer" mode where the user's can choose a specific person to swap desktops with and a "round robin" mode where the user joins a ring of other people who trade with each other. Q: How many people use "DeskSwap" on a regular basis? Do you have users who are upset about swapping their desktops with other people? Daggett: "DeskSwap" does raise several issues about privacy, but for the most part the users of "DeskSwap" are either not bothered or not aware of those issues. Most of the people who are hot and bothered about privacy don't install the software. Presently there are almost 20,000 "DeskSwap" users since the project launched in September. Q: That's a lot of people. Can you talk about your collaborative process… Did you have to team up with programmers to create a system robust enough to accommodate so many users? Was the collaboration an enjoyable experience? Daggett: Yes, it is a lot of people but according to the developers the server can easily handle more. In addition the server can be distributed so that others can run their own server, which would make "DeskSwap" infinitely scalable. Originally, I built the piece myself, I made a working demo as a proof of concept and showed it around to my friends and other developers and tried to drum up interest in the project. Derrick Woolworth who is an uber-programmer friend of mine really liked the idea but in his words thought the programming was "a pile of shit." He offered to re-write the server for me. Vincent Toms offered to write a new client for me and together we all came up with the version of "DeskSwap" that is available today. I have had very painful collaborative experiences with other developers in the past mainly because I was not clear what I wanted them to develop for me. It was helpful that I already had a working model for them to work from. In general, they were very good to put up with my crazy sometimes ill- informed ideas about peer-to-peer technologies; a common response to my questions would be "Why would you want to do that?" The thing that made this collaboration work was that ultimately I made lots of technical concessions and they labored intensely to make sure the client and server had all the functionality I was hoping for. Q: Your work often takes the web browser itself as a type of artistic medium. Can you describe the blur technique used in your "Blur Browser"? (<a href="http://www.flavoredthunder.com/dev/browser-gestures/">http://www.flavoredthunder.com/dev/browser-gestures/</a>)? Daggett: The "Blur Browser" is a part of a larger series called "Browser Gestures." "Browser Gestures" is an ongoing series of applications that reinterpret what a browser is. Originally, these experiments were started to unsettle the page metaphor, which dominates how people typically expect web sites to be displayed. In the case of the "Blur Browser" it takes the page that the user requested and anti-aliases the contents of the page until it becomes an abstract color field. Q: But it's more than anti-aliasing, right? It's computer feedback. The analogy I use is to close-circuit video. If you point a video camera at it's own monitor the image starts to fold in on itself in an endless feedback loop. This is essentially the same visual technique you are using, only on a computer. How did you discover this technique? Daggett: That is a good comparison. The "Blur Browser" does create a feedback loop when it starts. Since the user can guide the direction of the blur with the movement of his/her mouse some very interesting vortex type effects can be created. I discovered the technique the same way I imagine the video artist discovered the feedback loop. The video artist pointed the camera and the monitor to see what would happen and I did the same with the computer: I fed the visual output back in as input for the imaging subroutine. Q: What other techniques have you experimented with? Daggett: I am working right now on various types of image processing, along the lines of the blurs but with more depth and subtleties. In addition to the imaging effects I am experimenting with real-time 3D. Q: What do you like most about 3D? The relationship to gaming? The immersive quality? Daggett: I am very interested in the pop culture significance of 3D gaming to today's society. I imagine that if Warhol was painting today that his celebrities might be Mario or Lara Croft. Since games have become so technically sophisticated it's easier for the player to use these game characters as surrogates for entertainment's sake. For game players these characters are more interesting role-playing objects than imagining oneself as the lead in a movie. They truly have become celebrities and idols for many of the players. I am working with real time 3D engines now mainly because of the fluidity of motion that they provide. 3D games and environments are immersive because people desperately want to believe in them. So I have a willing audience who are going to give me the benefit of the doubt because they are in search of entertainment and escapism. Because they assume I am going to entertain them, the audience is completely receptive to whatever I want to give them. Q: You also work as a game designer. Do you ever call upon your game- making skills while crafting an art project? What are some of the skills that cross over between the two genres? Daggett: I am part of the "garage game" scene, which is a group of basement developers that make small games for fun and sometime (very rarely) for profit. It is an enjoyable way to make games. The same programming skills that I use in making games often are used in my art and the reverse is also true. Also I find that sometimes organizing my art projects the same way I might lay out my games helps clear up exactly what I am trying to accomplish in my work. The trick of course is to make sure that the art still develops through the process of making it and that the structure is not so rigid that innovation and inspiration aren't stifled. Q: What are your future projects? Daggett: I am working on a follow up to "DeskSwap" right now. It is going to be a virus greeting card system, I think. I'll know more as it starts to work. I am also working on some 3D environments. Oh, and I am going to write a book and I am going to lose 30 pounds. <a href="http://www.deskswap.com">http://www.deskswap.com</a> <a href="http://www.flavoredthunder.com/dev/browser-gestures">http://www.flavoredthunder.com/dev/browser-gestures</a> <a href="http://www.flavoredthunder.com">http://www.flavoredthunder.com</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Rhizome.org is a 501©(3) nonprofit organization. If you value this free publication, please consider making a contribution within your means. We accept online credit card contributions at <a href="http://rhizome.org/support">http://rhizome.org/support</a>. Checks may be sent to Rhizome.org, 115 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012. Or call us at +1.212.625.3191. Contributors are gratefully acknowledged on our web site at <a href="http://rhizome.org/info/10.php3">http://rhizome.org/info/10.php3</a>. Rhizome Digest is supported by a grant from 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 Alex Galloway (alex@rhizome.org). ISSN: 1525-9110. Volume 7, number 2. 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 href="http://rhizome.org/subscribe.rhiz">http://rhizome.org/subscribe.rhiz</a>. Subscribers to Rhizome Digest are subject to the terms set out in the Member Agreement available online at <a href="http://rhizome.org/info/29.php3">http://rhizome.org/info/29.php3</a>.