RHIZOME DIGEST: 6.25.04

discussion

Posted June 24 2004 20:00

RHIZOME DIGEST: 6.25.04

RHIZOME DIGEST: June 25, 2004 Content: +announcement+ 1. Ryan Schoelerman: Radio Art: Audio Research Test 2. Rachel Greene: ISEA2004: NEW WEBSITE LAUNCHED] 3. Lina Dzuverovic Russell: Electric Weekend, London, 26 & 27 June +opportunity+ 4. Kevin McGarry: FW: assistant curator at the science museum 5. geoffrey thomas: New Media/Video Production Instruction Position @ Florida Atlantic University 6. Luci Eyers: [] low-fi call for proposals for commissions '04 7. Kevin McGarry: New Genres Department Manager + assistant, SFAI 8. Kevin McGarry: FW: Oslo National College of Arts - Professors in Fine Art +work+ 9. Brett Stalbaum: Topographic Landform Interpretation Experiment +scene report+ 10. ryan griffis: The Privilege of Broken Windows + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 1. Date: 6.21.04 From: Ryan Schoelerman <Ryan@elintartslab.org> Subject: Radio Art: Audio Research Test Working to return radio art programming. A group of artists has been organized to celebrate our independence by taking over the KUCI 88.9FM station for a 24hour live improvised show on the 4th of July. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.elintartslab.org/art.html">http://www.elintartslab.org/art.html</a> If you live in the SoCal area then tune in for some truly free radio programming. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 2. Date: 6.25.04 From: <rachel@rhizome.org> Subject: ISEA2004: NEW WEBSITE LAUNCHED] NEW ISEA2004 WEBSITE WITH PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS LAUNCHED - <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.isea2004.net">http://www.isea2004.net</a> The site introduces the biggest media culture event of the year by highlighting the programme taking place in Helsinki, Tallinn and on a multi-venue cruiser ferry (August 15-17) connecting the harbour cities. The site features artist profiles, speakers, projects and themes. Stay tuned for daily up-dates, and check it out! ISEA2004, the leading symposium on new media culture, is shaping up to be an incomparable mid-August destination for a programme-filled experience on electronic arts, music, research and technology. The cruise on the Baltic Sea provides a multicultural forum for networking and pleasure. The unique experience extends from custom-made buffer-dinners to ferry's gyms, night clubs, pools and sun decks. Even the television programme on the ferry is a part of the comprehensive experience. Tickets: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.isea2004.net/tickets">http://www.isea2004.net/tickets</a> Group discounts (30% off for groups of 6 or more): contact Mika Minetti, mika@isea2004.net, +358 40 7192280 _______________________________________ *** ISEA2004 - PICK-UPS *** CRUISE: AUGUST 15-17 TALLINN: AUGUST 17-18 HELSINKI: AUGUST 19-22 TOP ARTISTS SPIN THE HOUSE DURING THE ELECTRIFIED CRUISE Collaboration between Montreal-based MUTEK festival on electronic arts brings AKUFEN, CRACKHOUSE, SKOLTZ_KOLGEN and DEADBEAT to ISEA2004. On the ferry, Akufen will play 'Music for Pregnancy' - a work that thrilled crowds at Tate Modern some time ago (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.isea2004.net/mutek">http://www.isea2004.net/mutek</a>). One of the world's leading VJs, CHARLES KRIEL (UK), has promised to drop dancefloor bombs and introduce the latest VJ technologies during his house act ( <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.isea2004.net/kriel">http://www.isea2004.net/kriel</a>). FELIX KUBIN ('refreshingly perverse', the Wire), the German-born pioneer of electro-acoustic music and electronic pop, takes over the Riviera deck (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.isea2004.net/kubin">http://www.isea2004.net/kubin</a>). The pool party continues with the underwater soundscapes created by 2Linja. The Finnish-British band ROGER will add elegance and insight to Northern electronica while mixing in with the FUCHS-ECKERMAN collective's bewildering FutureDJ project, thus creating a DJ set of the future (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.isea2004.net/roger">http://www.isea2004.net/roger</a>). Aboard the ferry, you also get to experience screenings of interactive films, installations such as the locative sound installation 'Float' by TUOMO TAMMENPÄÄ (FI) and TAMAS SZAKAL (HU) that will turn the ship's route into music ( <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.isea2004.net/float">http://www.isea2004.net/float</a>). WEARABLE TECHNOLOGIES & MACHINE THERAPY: LEADING MEDIA-LABS PRESENT THEIR INNOVATIONS During the Baltic cruise and the conferences in Tallinn and Helsinki, leading media labs from allover the world present their innovations, future products and interdisciplinary projects. KELLY DOBSON (MIT media lab, USA) brings her MACHINE THERAPY session to the ferry's gym ( <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.isea2004.net/dobson">http://www.isea2004.net/dobson</a>); THE SARAI MEDIA LAB (IND) introduces its innovative research and creative projects in urban culture and new media, and its initiator SHUDDHABRATA SENGUPTA is one of the keynote speakers in Helsinki (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.isea2004.net/sarai">http://www.isea2004.net/sarai</a>). KATHERINE MORIWAKI (USA) presents proposals, prototypes and specific outcomes of her research examining wearable technologies, fashion, emerging communication infrastructures, networks and the body in Tallinn ( <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.isea2004.net/moriwaki">http://www.isea2004.net/moriwaki</a>). LOCATIVE MEDIA LAB (CA) comes to Helsinki with their location-based media installation Trans-Cultural Mapping as part of the ISEA2004 wireless experience. MAKROLAB (SLO) will host 8 biologists researching the climate, weather and telecommunication in a mobile laboratory, which this time finds its place on a small island in front of Helsinki (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.isea2004.net/makrolab">http://www.isea2004.net/makrolab</a>). STORYMUPE is a mobile storytelling application created and developed for ISEA2004 by NOKIA Research Center and HIIT Mobile Content Communities research project. Cruise participants can join the game by using java clients in their mobiles, SMS, web or camera phones. LEON CMIELEWSKI and JOSEPHINE STARRS (AU), world-famous for their animations, bring their interactive Floating Territories game aboard the ferry. Cruise participants get to build tribal allegiances and reflect their own migration history. TOP SPEAKERS AT HELSINKI AND TALLINN CONFERENCES Keynotes at the major ISEA2004 conferences held in Helsinki and Tallinn include MICHEL MAFFESOLI, MACHIKO KUSAHARA ( <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.isea2004.net/kusahara">http://www.isea2004.net/kusahara</a>), JOANNA BERZOWSKA ( <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.isea2004.net/berzowska">http://www.isea2004.net/berzowska</a>), JULIAN WEAVER ( <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.isea2004.net/weaver">http://www.isea2004.net/weaver</a>), ERKKI HUHTAMO ( <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.isea2004.net/huhtamo">http://www.isea2004.net/huhtamo</a>) and MATTHEW FULLER. In Tallinn, the Wearable Experience comprises project presentations of state-of-the art ubiquitous computing in fashion and cultural practices. In Helsinki, Wireless Experience maps current emerging cultural and social practices of mobile and other wireless media. ________________________________ m-cult, centre for new media culture (www.m-cult.org), is the main organiser of ISEA2004, coordinating the programme and managing the event across the cities and on the ferry. Other organisers in Helsinki include the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (www.kiasma.fi) and Media Centre Lume (www.lume.fi). In Tallinn, the main partner Estonian Academy of Arts (www.artun.ee) works in collaboration with the Center for Contemporary Arts (www.cca.ee). + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Rhizome is now offering organizational subscriptions, memberships purchased at the institutional level. These subscriptions allow participants of an institution to access Rhizome's services without having to purchase individual memberships. (Rhizome is also offering subsidized memberships to qualifying institutions in poor or excluded communities.) Please visit <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/info/org.php">http://rhizome.org/info/org.php</a> for more information or contact Rachel Greene at Rachel@Rhizome.org. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 3. Date: 6.25.04 From: Lina Dzuverovic Russell <lina@thewire.co.uk> Subject: Electric Weekend, London, 26 & 27 June ELECTRIC WEEKEND 26/27 June 2004 Electric Avenue Studios & Ritzy Cinema Brixton, London <a rel="nofollow" href="http://electra-productions.com/electric_weekend/">http://electra-productions.com/electric_weekend/</a> Featuring: Emma Hedditch, Learning To Love You More (Harrell Fletcher & Miranda July), low-fi & Rachel Baker's 'node drawing' activity, The People Speak, CyberMohalla (Sarai Media Lab). Screenings: Destroy All Monsters, Lightning Bolt, Wolf Eyes, Paper Rad, Dear Raindrop, Kevy B, The Space Hijackers, Chicks On Speed, Joanie 4 Jackie video chainletter and a brand new programme of videos from Cuba. —— Electric Weekend celebrates the launch of b3 media's Electric Avenue Studios in Brixton with a weekend of free events at the new venue, plus a film programme at the nearby Ritzy Cinema, curated by Electra's Lina Dzuverovic-Russell and guests. Over two days, groups and individuals with shared interventionist sensibilities will take part in conversations, workshops, interventions, tactical media initiatives, social hacking, noise videos and participatory artworks. These encounters are geared towards mapping, connecting and supporting the diverse media arts initiatives across London and outside, focusing on DIY approaches to the use of public space and technology. […] + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 4. Date: 6.19.04 From: Kevin McGarry <Kevin@rhizome.org> Subject: FW: NEW-MEDIA-CURATING assistant curator at the science museum From: Sarah Cook <sarah.e.cook@SUNDERLAND.AC.UK> SCIENCE MUSEUM. LONDON JOB TITLE: ICST (Information, Communication and Space Technologies) Assistant Curator GRADE: Yellow LOCATION: South Kensington REPORTS TO: Senior Curator, ICST No OF STAFF SUPERVISED: Will vary as the successful candidate will occasionally supervise the work of volunteers BRIEF DESCRIPTION: To assist with the creative and innovative interpretation of information, communication and space technologies and relevant collections, principally via projects, for and with all our audiences, to support the delivery of the Science Museum¹s business plan and strategy. The successful candidate will have an appropriate degree or equivalent in a relevant discipline e.g. science, technology, history etc. Oral and written communication skills are essential for a range of specialist and non-specialist audiences including both adults and children. The candidate will also have presentation skills; interpersonal skills for effective working within teams and with the public and organisational. The candidate will be able to present objects and collections in a creative and innovative was to a wide variety of audiences. S/he will research and deliver, under direction, outputs across a range of media engaging with a variety of audiences (exhibitions, publications, electronic products etc). Therefore experience of handling and assessing objects, basic documentation and more detailed cataloguing under direction or basic research experience will be beneficial. PAY: Yellow - £17,472 - £22,880 CLOSING DATE: Thursday 24th June 2004 FURTHER INFORMATION: Jags Patel, 0207 942 4683 or via email j.patel@nmsi.ac.uk + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 5. Date: 6.20.04 From: geoffrey thomas <thomas@fau.edu> Subject: New Media/Video Production Instruction @ Florida Atlantic University FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY, Department of Communication, is seeking an Instructor in New Media Production at its Davie campus, to teach courses in the Departmentâ??s BA in Multimedia Studies, which includes sequences in Film & Video Studies and Multimedia Journalism. The Department seeks a scholar of digital art and new media practice with expertise in new media as art and communication. Ideal candidates will cross media platforms and have experience in creating and analyzing multimedia texts. Candidates must be able to offer instruction in the integration of text, image and audio. Applicants should possess practical skills in more than one of the following media platforms: digital photography, computer-based imaging technologies, web and graphic design, and multimedia authoring. Applicants must also be proficient in Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Studio, and have some experience in scripting. The position is a renewable nine-month, non-tenure track appointment beginning August 2004. Salary: $35,000. The teaching load is the equivalent of four courses per semester, and includes teaching introductory and advanced interactive multimedia courses, as well as managing the Departmentâ??s Proteus website and serving as a web design consultant for the College of Arts and Letters. MFA, MA, or equivalent professional experience required. All candidates must have an active production record. Application deadline: July 16, 2004. Send letter of application, cv, letters of recommendation, and samples of creative work to: Dr. Eric Freedman, Chair, New Media Search Committee, Department of Communication, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, FL 33431-0991. E-mail (for questions only): efreedma@fau.edu. For detailed information on FAU, visit our web sites at: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.fau.edu">http://www.fau.edu</a> and <a rel="nofollow" href="http://proteus.fau.edu">http://proteus.fau.edu</a>. Florida Atlantic University is an Equal Opportunity/Equal Access Institution. + + + FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY, Department of Communication, is seeking an Instructor in Video Production at its Davie campus, to teach undergraduate courses in television and video production. The video production component of the Departmentâ??s BA in Multimedia Studies emphasizes documentary and experimental modes; the curriculum is designed to give students a solid grounding in field and studio techniques, while developing personal voice and point of view. Courses emphasize the relation between practice and theory, underlining key aesthetic and critical concerns. The position is a renewable nine-month, non-tenure track appointment beginning August 2004. Salary: $35,000. The teaching load is the equivalent of four courses per semester, and includes teaching introductory and advanced production courses, as well as managing the Departmentâ??s multimedia labs on the Davie campus. MFA, MA, or equivalent professional experience required. All candidates must have an active production record. Application deadline: July 2, 2004. Send letter of application, cv, letters of recommendation and samples of creative work to: Dr. Eric Freedman, Chair, Video Production Search Committee, Department of Communication, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, FL 33431-0991. E-mail (for questions only): efreedma@fau.edu. For detailed information on FAU, visit our web sites at: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.fau.edu">http://www.fau.edu</a> and <a rel="nofollow" href="http://proteus.fau.edu">http://proteus.fau.edu</a>. Florida Atlantic University is an Equal Opportunity/Equal Access Institution. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Rhizome is now offering organizational subscriptions, memberships purchased at the institutional level. These subscriptions allow participants of an institution to access Rhizome's services without having to purchase individual memberships. (Rhizome is also offering subsidized memberships to qualifying institutions in poor or excluded communities.) Please visit <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/info/org.php">http://rhizome.org/info/org.php</a> for more information or contact Rachel Greene at Rachel@Rhizome.org. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 6. Date: 6.22.04 From: Luci Eyers <giraffe@easynet.co.uk> Subject: [] low-fi call for proposals for commissions '04 [] low-fi commissions ¹04 [apologies if you receive this more than once] This is an open call for proposals for 5 net art commissions. We are wanting to support some new work by artists already working with network technology. low-fi is an artist collective focusing on net art. More info below and on our site: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.low-fi.org.uk/commissions">http://www.low-fi.org.uk/commissions</a> bw, low-fi [] Call for proposals low-fi welcomes proposals for 5 commissioned art projects from artists working with networked technology/internet. We are open to international applications. A successful proposal could be realised either wholly online; or could be partially online and partially in some other media or event/performance based. However the internet will need to be an integral component. We are aiming to extend artists' current practice by offering financial assistance to the successful applicants. The fee for each commission will be £1,500. low-fi will curate an exhibition of the commissioned projects collaborating with Iliyana Nedkova [ <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.mediascot.org">http://www.mediascot.org</a> ] the Associate Curator at Stills Gallery, Edinburgh [ <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.stills.org/">http://www.stills.org/</a> ]. Proposals should include details on how their proposed project would work in a gallery based installation. Please also include some indication of installation requirements, especially those that go beyond the basic provision of equipment, network connection and rudimentary construction (such as screens, plinths &c.) The show will run at Stills Gallery from April - June 2005. [we will not accept proposals which are: - for home pages of documentation for projects that exist entirely offline - for projects which have already been produced] In order to submit a proposal please download and complete the application form: [] URL: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.low-fi.org.uk/commissions/application_04.txt">http://www.low-fi.org.uk/commissions/application_04.txt</a> Then email it to us at low-fi@low-fi.org.uk [] Deadline: 15 July '04 [] LOW-FI [] <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.low-fi.org.uk">http://www.low-fi.org.uk</a> [] net art locator + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + For $65 annually, Rhizome members can put their sites on a Linux server, with a whopping 350MB disk storage space, 1GB data transfer per month, catch-all email forwarding, daily web traffic stats, 1 FTP account, and the capability to host your own domain name (or use <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.net/your_account_name">http://rhizome.net/your_account_name</a>). Details at: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/services/1.php">http://rhizome.org/services/1.php</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 7. Date: 6/22/04 From: Kevin McGarry <Kevin@rhizome.org> Subject: FW: New Genres Department Manager + assistant, San Francisco Art Institute From: calls@theredproject.com June 18, 2004 PRIVATE POSITION AVAILABLE JOB DESCRIPTION" TITLE: New Genres Department Manager REPORTS TO: VP Academic Planning and Operations SUPERVISES: New Genres Assistant Manager STATUS: Full-time; Supervisory; Exempt GENERAL DESCRIPTION: Provide ongoing administration of department, including supervision, maintenance and development of department facilities and equipment; provide technical assistance and instruction to students, faculty and staff. QUALIFICATIONS: BFA or equivalent experience required, MFA preferred; demonstrated commitment to the arts Working knowledge of all digital video equipment including small production and post-production video work; ability to perform light repairs on, instruct others in the use of, and maintain video equipment Full understanding of design of digital editing suites Relevant office skills including basic budgeting and bookkeeping Computer experience including Word and Excel (or similar programs) Excellent interpersonal skills, especially the ability to work with students, faculty and artists Specialized training in electronic and video equipment desirable Supervisory experience preferred APPLICATION PROCEDURES: Send a cover letter and resume to: Human Resources, Job #NG 03 San Francisco Art Institute 800 Chestnut Street San Francisco, CA 94133 Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute?s main campus is located in the heart of the city?s North Beach neighborhood. Fully accredited, it offers an undergraduate BFA and a graduate MFA degree, Post Baccalaureate certificate, community education programs and a range of public programs. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, SFAI has a strong commitment to the principle of diversity, and in that spirit seeks a broad spectrum of candidates from historically underrepresented groups. ++++++++++++++++++++ June 18, 2004 PRIVATE POSITION AVAILABLE JOB DESCRIPTION" TITLE: Assistant to New Genres Department Manager REPORTS TO: New Genres Department Manager STATUS: 50%-Time during the academic year (mid-August to end of May); off during the summer GENERAL DESCRIPTION: As the Assistant to New Genres Department Manager, provides technical and administrative assistance in the maintenance and use of facilities, including video, audio, computer hardware and software. Maintain and supervise equipment check out. QUALIFICATIONS: Experience with/working knowledge of digital video production techniques and equipment, including computer applications i.e. Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, After Effect 5; experience with and working knowledge of multi-platform computer technology; Desktop publishing, system utilities. Experience with and working knowledge of Audio production techniques and equipment. Ability to work well with students, faculty and visiting artists Excellent administrative, organizational and communication skills Some college level education preferred. APPLICATION PROCEDURES: Send a cover letter and resume to: Human Resources, Job #NG 04 San Francisco Art Institute 800 Chestnut Street San Francisco, CA 94133 Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute?s main campus is located in the heart of the city?s North Beach neighborhood. Fully accredited, it offers an undergraduate BFA and a graduate MFA degree, Post Baccalaureate certificate, community education programs and a range of public programs. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, SFAI has a strong commitment to the principle of diversity, and in that spirit seeks a broad spectrum of candidates from historically underrepresented groups. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 8. Date: 6.22.04 From: Kevin McGarry <Kevin@rhizome.org> Subject: FW: Oslo National College of Arts - Professors in Fine Art 1) MA studies 2) photo/film/video From: calls@theredproject.com The Oslo National College of the Arts The National Academy of Fine Art The Oslo National College of the Arts was established in 1996. The College is comprised of the previous the National College of Art and Design, the National Academy of Fine Arts, the National Academy of Dramatic Art, the National College of Operatic Art and the National College of Ballet and Dance, all of which now function as departments within the college. The National Academy of Fine Art, established in 1909, provides the highest education within Fine Art in Norway and has an international network and a developing dynamic milieu. The academy is, as a part of Oslo National College of the Arts, in organisational development.. The academy has 105 students and 22 staff, of whom 14 are teaching staff. ————————————————————————- Professor in Fine Art, specialization MA studies The Bachelor of Fine Art degree at The National Academy of Fine Art is a three-year integrated professional education for training artists. An MA course is currently being developed at the academy and there is a vacant position as Professor to lead the course of MA studies starting January or August 2005, for a term of six years with the possibility for applying for an extension period of another six years. The Professor will lead the development and be involved in the teaching of the MA course. It is expected that the professor?s teaching role will run parallel to his or her own research and development. We seek a person with a high international artistic and theoretical profile and an active international network. Pedagogic qualification and practical teaching experience must be documented in the form of education, experience from teaching at higher or lower level, developing of curriculum, teaching material, student and collegial assessment or in other relevant way. The selection process will lay an emphasis on the applicants personal suitability and qualities he or she can bring to the position. The appointed person must abide by those rules and regulations etc. that at any time apply to state institutions generally, and universities and colleges in particular, and must be prepared for organisational and work situational changes which might occur in the future. The position is paid according to Governmental pay regulations code 1013, Professor, pay scale 62-65 (N.kr 426.500 ? 451.300) according to qualifications. For a particularly well qualified applicant a higher pay scale may be considered. A 2% legalised premium will be deducted from the salary for the State Pension Fund. Provided the conditions met, severance pay can be paid for up to one year after one six year term and up to two years for two terms. The Board at the Oslo College of the Arts is the final appointing authority. The government workforce shall represent Norwegian society?s cultural breadth. It is an aim to form a balance with regards to age and male/female ratios, as well as encouraging persons from the ethnic minorities to apply for vacant positions. Further information about the position can be obtained from Dean Michael O?Donnell or Head of Administration Britt Wold, tlf (0047) 22 99 55 30. The application should be directed to the Oslo College of the Arts, department the National Academy of Fine Art, St.Olavsgt. 32, 0166 Oslo. The application, with an accompanying CV, should be presented in 5 ex. Publications, photo material and other documentation can be presented in one ex. Any part of the application submitted after the application date will not be considered by the assessment committee. Application date: 15.09.04 ————————————————————————- Professor in Fine Art, specialization Photography and Video/film The Bachelor of Fine Art degree at The National Academy of Fine Art is a three-year integrated professional education for training artists. An MA course is currently being developed. At the academy there is a vacant position as Professor in photography and Video/film starting August 1st 2005, for a term of six years with the possibility for applying for an extension period of another six years. The Professor will lead the development and teaching within the field of photography together with video and film at the academy. It is expected that the professor?s teaching role will run parallel to his or her own research and development. We seek a person with a high artistic profile and international exhibition experience. We require an extensive artistic practice, on the highest level and of international standard and breadth within the field. Pedagogic qualification and practical teaching experience must be documented in the form of education, experience from teaching at higher or lower level, developing of curriculum, teaching material, student and collegial assessment or in other relevant way. The selection process will lay an emphasis on the applicants personal suitability and qualities he or she can bring to the position. The appointed person must abide by those rules and regulations etc. that at any time apply to state institutions generally, and universities and colleges in particular, and must be prepared for organisational and work situational changes which might occur in the future. The position is paid according to Governmental pay regulations code 1013, Professor, pay scale 62-65 (N.kr 426.500 ? 451.300) according to qualifications. For a particularly well qualified applicant a higher pay scale may be considered. A 2% legalised premium will be deducted from the salary for the State Pension Fund. Provided the conditions met, severance pay can be paid for up to one year after one six year term and up to two years for two terms. The Board at the Oslo College of the Arts is the final appointing authority. The government workforce shall represent Norwegian society?s cultural breadth. It is an aim to form a balance with regards to age and male/female ratios, as well as encouraging persons from the ethnic minorities to apply for vacant positions. Further information about the position can be obtained from Dean Michael O?Donnell or Head of Adminstration Britt Wold, tlf (0047) 22 99 55 30. The application should be directed to the Oslo College of the Arts, department the National Academy of Fine Art, St.Olavsgt. 32, 0166 Oslo. The application, with an accompanying CV, should be presented in 5 ex. Publications, photo material and other documentation can be presented in one ex. Any part of the application submitted after the application date will not be considered by the assessment committee. Application date: 15.09.04 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 9. Date: 6/21/04 From: Brett Stalbaum <stalbaum@ucsd.edu> Subject: Topographic Landform Interpretation Experiment Topographic Landform Interpretation Experiment A geo-referenced walking work at Racetrack Playa Death Valley National Park May 15th 2K4 Brett Stalbaum (Text with complete illustations: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.paintersflat.net/landform_interpret.html">http://www.paintersflat.net/landform_interpret.html</a>) Navigational inquiry++ The history of navigation is addressed across many disciplines. Interestingly, the history of land navigation is barely existent in almost any literature, no doubt because it represents a fundamental pre-historic aspect of nominal hominid experience; predating the particular hominid Homo sapiens. Although there are many resources on orienteering and land navigation ("how to"), very few of these engage in historical, genealogical, or cognitive analysis. The history of navigation as a technology generally seems to 'begin' in the literature with the citation of celestial navigation techniques (and the development of related technologies, often in reference to sea navigation), which were developed over time to traverse larger distances than the domains typically wandered by small scale, non-industrial (hunter-gatherer), pedestrian cultures; although there is, quite interestingly, no shortage of literature on small scale, non-industrial seagoing cultures. The history of navigation somehow connotes voyages of exploration, dislocation, or endeavors involving significant distance; not quotidian walks to the water hole or shorter overland journeys between patches of resource in the landscape. Navigation over smaller distances, the matter of how humans navigate in the landscape using tactical landmarks and other opportunistic features for orientation (foliage change, animal trails, geology, human markings such as cairns, shelters, rock art, etc.) via the use of concepts such as mental maps or "cognitive maps"[1], has been a matter of research explored a to a great degree in archeology, anthropology, cognitive science, and psychology. Presently, navigation is mediated by maps as well as wireless technology such as GPS, location aware mobile phones, and wireless networks that deliver traditional internet connections. Somewhere in the interstice between innate navigation, the history and techniques of applied land navigation, the history of navigation technology utilized for long distance travel, and contemporary networked navigation should lie a theory that somehow encompasses both voyages of exploration requiring well developed cultural technologies for wayfinding over long distances (long paths) and the types of cognitive and cultural processes that let one move in a motivated manner toward a food cache when hungry, or in a more contemporary sense, toward an entertainment station when bored, or through the lobby, up the correct escalator, and down the correct corridor for the next meeting (short paths). Terminology and background In an attempt to lay some groundwork for some such theory, I speculate that there is something to be learned from the study landform interpretation, which I view as the analysis of the meaning of land formations relative to human bipedal navigation, because it collapses all of the above concerns (from bio-innate navigation to wireless) into a single, potentially comprehensive unit of study. I propose that this is a more expansive notion than "terrain association"[2] as a component of orienteering practice, because it is free to draw from numerous interdisciplinary approaches, while maintaining an analysis that unites what C5 has recently identified theoretically as the coextensive nature of the long path and the short path.[3] This leaves space for the proposition that there exist other ways of interpreting landforms (particularly computationally mediated methods) that are perhaps even visible and learnable by soldiers or hikers. It supposes not only an experimental field comparing database techniques for landform interpretation against typical landform interpretation utilized in terrain association and land navigation, but more generally a potential framework in which to test some more abstract theoretical constructs related to the interoperation of people and computation (via communications networks) in the landscape. "Landform Interpretation" was also chosen as the term for this experiment because it is the closest match to the specifics of the experimental interdisciplinary domain which simultaneously allows for the scope of the inquiry to expand in the direction of our primary discipline area: art. Another possibility was "Landscape characterization" which refers to a sub discipline of environmental science relating to monitoring conditions and documenting landscape dynamics, utilizing remote sensing and pursuing identification and quantification of ecosystem stressors through the use of geographic information systems and statistical analysis. Yet another, "Landform characterization" is closely related to "Landscape characterization", yet it is specific to geology. Both "landscape characterization" and "landform characterization" are bounded somewhat narrowly by well developed scientific disciplines. "Landscape interpretation" by contrast often implies historical and cultural analysis in the framing of, or scholarship regarding, the meaning of place. "Landform interpretation" is somewhat more satisfactory than the previous, because it is specifically drawn from the science of geography, which has always been a discipline with broad interdisciplinary applications and influences. Thus this particular experiment as a walking artwork infused by interdisciplinary influences is best characterized as landform interpretation as I have defined it. Landform interpretation as an area of study also has more freedom to draw eclectically from an interdisciplinary pool of research including quotidian/pedestrian/urban/suburban navigation as well as sport/trekking land navigation in non-urban, non-suburban, non-developed 'natural' or 'wild' environments. General disciplines which seem to contribute well developed research into related questions of human bi-pedal navigation in culturally mediated and/or 'wild' environments are psychology, geography (particularly GIS), archeology, architecture, military studies, and art. As an art experiment, this project is particularly interested in the potential overlap between eclectic, interdisciplinary sources and the tradition of walking works as practiced by artists such as Hamish Fulton, Richard Long, Dominique Mazeaud, and Teri Rueb. Landform abstractions utilized in land navigation Perhaps the most basic of contemporary resources on land navigation that imply both strategic (long) and tactical (short) modes of pedestrian land navigation combined with a coextensive set of abstractions and techniques for applying those abstractions to orienteering practice are to be found in military training documentation. Two typical documents that present interpretive abstractions of landforms for use in land navigation are the U.S. Navy's Seabee Combat Handbook Volume 1 (chapter 5 - Land Navigation)[5] and the U.S. Department of the Army's, Map Reading and Land Navigation[6] manual. The schema for landform recognition I utilized in the walking experiment at Racetrack Playa is taken from the latter. Interestingly, this training text encourages trainees to think of the landforms in terms of very general statistical characterizations. For example, "A hill is an area of high ground… the ground slopes down in all directions", while "A ridge is a sloping line of high ground… you will normally have low ground in three directions and high ground in one direction…" This implies that landforms are recognized based in part on simple conceptual relations of high to low ground. Refer to Table 1 for the complete list of landform abstractions and a breakdown their high ground to low ground characteristics. Table 1 - Landform abstractions useful in land navigation, utilized by the U.S. Army in training recruits. (Text with complete illustations: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.paintersflat.net/landform_interpret.html">http://www.paintersflat.net/landform_interpret.html</a>) Hill, 0/4 "A hill is an area of high ground. From a hilltop, the ground slopes down in all directions." Ridge, 1/3 "A ridge is a sloping line of high ground. If you are standing on the centerline of a ridge, you will normally have low ground in three directions and high ground in one direction…" Spur, 1/3 "A spur is a short, continuous sloping line of higher ground, normally jutting out from the side of a ridge. A spur is often formed by two rough parallel streams, which cut draws down the side of a ridge. The ground sloped down in three directions and up in one direction." Cliff, 1/3 "A cliff is a vertical or near vertical feature; it is an abrupt change of the land. When a slope is so steep that the contour lines converge into one 'carrying' contour of contours, this last contour line has tick marks pointing toward low ground." Saddle, 2/2 "A saddle is a dip or low point between two areas of higher ground. A saddle is not necessarily the lower ground between two hilltops; it may be simply a dip or break along a level ridge crest. If you are in a saddle, there is high ground in two opposite directions and lower ground in the other two directions." Draw, 3/1 "A draw is a less developed stream course than a valley. In a draw, there is essentially no level ground and, therefore, little or no maneuver room within its confines. If you are standing in a draw, the ground slopes upward in three directions and downward in the other direction. A draw could be considered as the initial formation of a valley." Valley, 3/1 "A valley is a stretched-out groove in the land, usually formed by streams or rivers. A valley begins with high ground on three sides, and usually has a course of running water through it. If standing in a valley, three directions offer high ground, while the fourth direction offers low ground." Depression, 4/0 "A depression is a low point in the ground or a sinkhole. It could be described as an area of low ground surrounded by higher ground in all directions, or simply a hole in the ground." These abstractions, which are used in combination with navigation techniques and technologies such as the magnetic compass, topographic maps (which are forms of analog computers)[7], and the more recently the global positioning system (GPS), have presumably emerged through some genealogical development process in the spaces between practical experience with effective military land navigation (throughout a long history), and the need to introduce new recruits to effective land navigation skills on an ongoing basis. Interestingly, the abstractions (not limited to but including cartography) and techniques (methods for bringing such abstractions into coordination with practical and effective motion in the landscape), serve not only military strategic planning and tactical implementation, but are also widely employed in military logistics. Logistics are arguably the most important, influential, yet least romantic area of endeavor in contemporary military science. Much as database is the foundation of new media, feeding its every pixel, logistics are the foundation of military effectiveness, literally feeding its troops and machinery. Nevertheless, war narratives have tended toward and tend to the tactical and strategic situations and implications, just as much of new media has focused on user interface and the societal implications of new technology. Database and supply-chain management simply are not as sexy as interfaces where one might witness motion, sound, and action. But they the positions from which the formal aspects of both multimedia and the war machine are projected. The performance The walk was performed on an expedition with my students to Racetrack Playa, an alluvial clay filled depression measuring some 5 Kilometers south to north and over 2 Kilometers west to east in places. The notion behind the larger performance was to develop a distributed interpretation of place through the lens of contemporary art practice, and informed by ideas about socially distributed computation and cognition.[8] My interpretive experiment was to utilize GPS and a magnetic compass to identify landforms in centrifugal orientation to the playa, in order to experience the landforms personally, identify more complex configurations of landform, and to characterize and process the data collected into images utilizing the C5 Landscape database. This later activity was intended to further software development by adding useful features to the software, and to test some assumptions regarding a certain attribute (more on this later) generated and stored in the database. The process was as follows: As I circumnavigated the edges of the playa, I looked for good examples of the landforms identified in Map Reading and Land Navigation, also occasionally noting landforms that did not easily fit the model. When I had identified a landform, I would perform the following: 1. Take a photograph with the landform roughly centered in the picture 2. Take a GPS waypoint[9] 3. Record the azimuth to the landform from the waypoint using a magnetic compass 4. Take various notes about the site, including image number, waypoint number, landform, etc. (See Figure 2) Upon my return, (utilizing the C5 Landscape Database and the GD library, and some custom code for this project to overlay track log and waypoint data, and to project lines of direction), I processed the data collected and produced the following image (Figure 1) which superimposes the GPS track log of my walk, (yellow), the waypoints (red) and the azimuths (projected in green) from each waypoint in the direction of the landform. Because I followed botanical edge of the racetrack, note that my track is circumscribed by the actual edge of playa (where the elevation changes.) The remaining figures in the paper are the photographs showing the visible landscape in the direction of the azimuth readings taken at the various waypoints. The figure captions show the waypoint number, UTM coordinates of the waypoint from where the photo was taken, the azimuth reading, the landform, and a brief notes taken on site. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.paintersflat.net/landform_interpret/racetrack.png">http://www.paintersflat.net/landform_interpret/racetrack.png</a> (Text with complete illustations: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.paintersflat.net/landform_interpret.html">http://www.paintersflat.net/landform_interpret.html</a>) As an Art Experiment As mentioned earlier, I see this work as operative in the general category of walking art works. Much as artists such as Long and Fulton take pictures on their journeys, so have I, including one produced from a database and software that I have been developing for C5. This image, (Figure 1), characterizes the entire performance and provides an object of comparison between the photographs. An important difference from the work of Long and Fulton is of course is that these photos and the image produced are geo referenced. But I draw much inspiration from these artists, particularly the work of Long, who has this to say about his practice: "My art isn't about urban culture… in a way I didn't give these issues any thought. You know, it seemed a right and natural thing to do, particularly to go to places like Exmoor and Dartmoor, which are really abstract, empty. The fact that they're just rolling moorland, that they're almost plateau-like, was very useful, especially for the early works. I was very conscious, then, that it gave me the opportunity to make a type of art by walking in a completely new and original way, particularly those early, formal, ritualized walks: walking in straight lines or perfect circles, measuring time."[10] Though I draw inspiration from this, I want to point out that the formal and ritualized aspect of my walk is different; focused purely on data collection, and the analysis of landforms. I also draw inspiration from other walking traditions. Teri Rueb's work was among the first work I became aware of to utilize dynamic geo referencing in her practice; I believe the work "Trace" (1997) to be an important early GPS work in the walking art mode. And for Dominique Mazeaud, I picked up two items of trash to dispose of that I discovered along my trek, one of them a ribbon tied to an escaped party balloon that eventually fell to Earth on the eastern side of the Racetrack. While on the issue of art, I'd like to take a moment to comment on the recent development of the meme "locative media" that has become popular in the new media art critical context over the course of 2003 and 2004. While it is nice to see a number of developments over the past 10 years (GPS art, PDA art, software art, mobile art, wireless art, net art) converge somewhat into a single meme that in some way encapsulates the trajectory (in computing arts) from screen to hand to body to bodies situated geographically, the meme (just as any) also presents the simultaneous and unavoidable narrowing of the range of practice. As I mentioned earlier, geography is one of the most naturally interdisciplinary of scientific endeavors; just as what is nominally called art practice (especially in the computing in the arts discipline area) is also massively interdisciplinary. It would be a shame to see a term like "locative media" cause practice to devolve critically into a narrow range of practice, especially before Geographic Information System (GIS) art is taken up and explored more thoroughly. Another point worth making is that the history of navigation has spawned numerous technologies that which deserve analysis alongside the new meme. Are inventions like Mercator projections, the astrolabe, quadrant, sextant and magnetic compass "locative media"? It may be complained that these technologies do not report the location of the back to a panoptic surveillance context or distributed, collaborative network, but actually they were almost always implemented alongside systems of logging and position fixing (though most rigorously in military contexts of course), that enforced exactly such a regulatory gaze. Certainly truckers in the United States who are required to log the number of miles and hours they have driven will understand clearly that a roadmap and a paper log can function as locative media. Experimental Objective The Landform Interpretation Experiment at Racetrack Playa was also intended to collect data and perform analysis in order to test some suppositions regarding the utility of "topographic_descriptor" attribute of the UTM_POINT_STATS table, which is part of the C5 Landscape database. Specifically the experiment tests how the C5 Landscape Database functions as an alternative to models commonly utilized for landform recognition common in orienteering and wayfinding, particularly as utilized by the military. The attribute is a TINYINT (a byte) where the bits represent the elevation trend in the cardinal and primary intercardinal directions. (See table 2.) It is intended to be useful in landform interpretation for the purposes of land navigation, and also in pattern matching algorithms intended to determine landscape similarity across wide expanses. This test goes exclusively to the former, however. The individual bits taken as a whole represent the center point of a one kilometer square area. Based on that point, the bits are set to one if the elevation in the direction represented by the bit is higher than the point represented by the record, and zero if is less than or equal to the point represented by the record. This provides a simple, storage efficient characterization of the surrounding landscape. One of the main suppositions regarding this element is that it would bear some relationship to topographic landform characterizations utilized in way finding, though it is unclear whether it does so by itself, or in some combination with other attributes (such as percentile, standard deviation, or contiguous modality percentage), or at all. The experiment is a way of exploring what correlations may exist between these and traditional landform characterizations. Figure 20 - SQL for UTM_POINT_STATS table (Text with complete illustations: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.paintersflat.net/landform_interpret.html">http://www.paintersflat.net/landform_interpret.html</a>) The topographic descriptor for the area surrounding each point is presented is presented in Table 2 below. The sample size is not however sufficient to answer the above questions, but notably even for a small sample, it does not indicate any strong correlations even after rotating the bits in an attempt to match terrains. This does not indicate likely usefulness in landform interpretation unless perhaps used in conjunction with other metrics. While the assumptions regarding the utility of the topographic descriptor in the above SQL are likely incorrect, its utility as a pattern match for similar general topography (regardless of the landform abstractions specified in Map Reading and Land Navigation) requires further experimentation in the form of further walking work. Table 2 - Data collected during walking work, racetrack playa, May 15th 2K4. (Text with complete illustations: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.paintersflat.net/landform_interpret.html">http://www.paintersflat.net/landform_interpret.html</a>) Notes: [1] Kaplan, Steven, "Cognitive Maps in Perception and Thought", published in Image and Environment, cognitive mapping and spatial behavior, Roger M. Downs and David Stea, editors, Aldine Publishing Company, Chicago IL, 1973, ISBN 0-202-10058-8 [2] U.S. Department of the Army, MAP READING AND LAND NAVIGATION, FM 3-25.26 (FM 21-26) <a rel="nofollow" href="http://155.217.58.58/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/3-25.26/cover.pdf">http://155.217.58.58/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/3-25.26/cover.pdf</a> Chapter 11, Terrain Association: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://155.217.58.58/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/3-25.26/ch21.pdf">http://155.217.58.58/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/3-25.26/ch21.pdf</a> [3] These notions are theory-in-progress, at this time still internal to C5. [4] I am involved with C5 (www.c5corp.com) as collaborator on GIS, database and large scale installation and walking works, as well as theory. I also work with Paula Poole in conceptually related but really quite different works that produce conceptual paintings and digital prints. (www.paintersflat.com). [5] U.S. Navy, SEABEE COMBAT HANDBOOK, VOLUME 01, NAVEDTRA No: 14234 CENTRAL EDITION 1993 <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/navy/nrtc/14234_fm">http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/navy/nrtc/14234_fm</a> .pdf <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/navy/nrtc/14234_ch">http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/navy/nrtc/14234_ch</a> 5.pdf [6] ibid. Chapter 10, Elevation and Relief: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://155.217.58.58/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/3-25.26/ch20.pdf">http://155.217.58.58/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/3-25.26/ch20.pdf</a> [7] Hutchins, Edwin, Cognition in the Wild, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1995. ISBN: 0262082314. "[o]n some types of nautical charts it is easy to measure the direction (course) and the distance between any two locations represented on the chart." (54) See also pages 61-62. [8] Please refer to <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.racetrackplaya.net">http://www.racetrackplaya.net</a> for more information on the class project. [9] Waypoint 001 in my Garmin Vista GPS was already used, so the auto numbering started from 002. [10] Interview with Richard Long, from Artists, Land Nature, Mel Gooding and William Furlong, 2002 Cameron Books, Harry N. Abrams Inc., NY. NY. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 10. Date: 6/24/04 From: ryan griffis <grifray@yahoo.com> Subject: The Privilege of Broken Windows A Report on Two Conversations: Geography, Imagination, and the Traffic in the Everyday (San Diego - Institute of the Americas, UCSD) + A Dialogue on Urbanisms (Centro Cultural Tijuana), May 27/28 The drive back to Los Angeles from Tijuana was a bit louder than the initial drive South. A busted out rear window on my anonymously dull Corolla made 80 miles per hour on I-5 sound more like I was approaching the sound barrier at 30,000 feet. The window must have been broken by someone who mistook my travel bag for something more valuable, like a purse. It was surely an unpleasant surprise for the person, who realized this only after finding a half-used tube of toothpaste instead of bundles of cash, credit cards, or a passport. I'm recounting this banal anecdote not because it speaks to where it happened, but because of how it pulled me from the distanced, comfortable conversations about culture I had just attended, and reminded me that what was being talked about is not an abstraction that exists somewhere else, but is an ongoing process of negotiations and movements within a material system of asymmetrical distribution. The conversations I'm referring to were part of the inSite_05 series of panel discussions and art events that explore the complex border ecology of the San Diego-Tijuana region. Since 1992, inSite has brought together cultural workers of all kinds to foster discourse about this US-Mexican border zone, as well as add to the larger body of work on social, political and economic borders in general. inSite_05's programmatic theme is "Bypass," a broad concept that continues inSite's historical mission and participates in the current art world interest in formulating cultural utopias. On 27 and 28 May, two Conversations, the third and fourth in a series organized by San Diego-based art historian Sally Yard, were held, one at the University of California, San Diego, the other at the Centro Cultural Tijuana. The first, held at UCSD's Institute of the Americas, and entitled "Geography, Imagination, and the Traffic in the Everyday," included presentations by Arjun Appadurai, Judith Barry and Sally Stein. If there was a unified theme to the panelists' talks, it was a concern for the role of visual culture in formulating understandings and new possibilities for social relationships. Appadurai, a professor of social sciences who has written on different aspects of globalization, discussed the "politics of hope," often referring to his current work with housing activists in Bombay. For Appadurai, "hope" is a socially generated and reproduced meme, so to speak, that is the product of a social imaginary, or what he calls the collective "work of the imagination." The social imaginary is responsible for both the positive and negative aspects of culture according to Appadurai, and was discussed in terms of the coexistence of both repressive and emancipatory organizations in Bombay. Underlying this seeming contradiction of experience (something arguably present in varying degrees everywhere) is what the speaker refers to as the "capacity to aspire" - the cognitive map of life possibilities that determines the decisions available to each of us. Multimedia artist and writer, Judith Barry (US), presented an illustrated thesis that connected the phenomenological orientation of early minimal and land art to the ongoing development of critical site-specific art practice. Tracing the interest in ephemerality and action-based experience to Tony Smith's famous account of his nighttime drive on the incomplete New Jersey Turnpike through Robert Irwin's development of an incidental optics, Barry brought her discussion up to the present with Francis Alÿs' "When Faith Moves Mountains" work that involved the displacement of an entire sand dune in Peru and the recent "My Doomsday Weapon" performance by Jakob S. Boeskov that spread (fictional) rumors across the net of a rifle that shoots traceable microchips into unsuspecting civilians. The moderator and respondent, Sally Stein, followed with a fairly brief polemic on the role of information communication technologies in the construction of social spaces. Stein, a historian of photography and media teaching at UC, Irvine, as well as a self-described "elected outsider" to cell phone culture, projected a series of photographs picturing cell phone users in urban space and invited the audience to turn on their cell phones to create a participatory "multimedia experience." While the presentation was humorously critical of these new "umbilical cords" of communication, it is the technology's role in facilitating both connection and isolation that was of interest to Stein. "We may be more 'connected' more often, but to whom?" she asked. Are our social circles more inclusive or exclusive as a result of how we choose to use communication devices? In the open discussion that followed, many questions, both directly connected and tangential to the formal talks, were raised regarding the role of visual culture in the various current geopolitical situations surrounding US foreign policy. Of particular interest was the power assigned to images, and the emerging technologies that allow for their quick, and global, dissemination, exemplified by the photographs of US military abuses in Iraq. This was followed by a related line of questioning about the importance of narrative in some recent art, similar to the perceived "allegorical impulse" of the 1980s. The next evening's event, entitled "A Dialogue on Urbanisms," at the Centro Cultural Tijuana, while still centered on concepts of borders and the cultures that operate in such spaces, was concerned with the material structures that make up border zones, rather than actions occurring within them. Tijuana-based Raúl Cárdenas talked about a recent series of projects undertaken by Torolab, a collective he helped form in 1995 to investigate the spaces of the Tijuana/San Diego border zone. This series of projects included work with nine Tijuana families to co-design new residential structures using modular building materials as one way that the group is exploring the concept of "emergency architecture." This is not a response to catastrophic situations, but rather a structural answer to necessities by those needing them, rather than by architects and urban planners - or what were called "human," as opposed to "architectural" conditions. Next, architect and curator, Peter Zellner presented a photo essay called "Culture or Bust," that looked at the booming area of the Inland Empire, a vast collection of suburbs just east of Los Angeles. The essay, a project by ValDes, a non-profit co-founded by Zellner, used photographs (by California-based photographer Alex Slade) and info graphics to explicate the current decline of urban LA and the rise of low density, suburban communities that are, for the most part, unplanned. "Culture or Bust," theorized one potential reason for the problem: while LA attempts to "revitalize" its downtown with new, high profile structures (the Gehry designed Disney music hall) and other examples of "high culture" (plans for "Gallery Row"), the 'burbs prioritize such mundane things as communications infrastructure and providing low cost, large spaces for business. But, as Zellner made clear, the Southern California suburban boom has huge costs. In order to accommodate the population that must commute from the Inland Empire to the more urban coastal counties for work each day ("supercommuters" they're called), there are plans to construct a massive freeway tunnel, under the Santa Ana Mountains between LA and Riverside. José Castillo, an architect working in Mexico City, looked at the periphery of large urban centers to find what he called the "pathologies of urbanisms." The problem of urbanism, according to Castillo, is one of knowledge as much as of physical space. Using Mexico City as primary source material, Castillo illustrated a theory of urban space as a complex set of coexisting languages, where the margins form a kind of "horizontal Babel" made up of informal organization, much like creative slang and creole linguistics. All three speakers performed an interest in the periphery and marginal, whether it is represented by disenfranchised residents of Tijuana or the very different examples of suburban sprawl in Southern California and Mexico City. This connection was taken up in some of the questions posed by audience members, one questioning the authority given to Western scholarship and practice in analyzing global problems while another wondered about the use of language that seemed to naturalize the development of suburbs, when it's been well documented that they are actually a product of deliberate planning and regulation, at least in the US. When I arrived at the North-bound US border post, I showed my passport, stated the purpose of my visit and said that I had "nothing to declare." Thanks to the national origin of my passport, the process took under two minutes, and I was home in less than two hours. I wasn't even stopped at all crossing into Mexico (the security is all focused on traffic moving in the other direction). The broken car window became a uniquely urban symbol for me, not because it speaks to an "urban condition," but because the imaginary border between the private and social urban space is often depicted as constantly threatened - by difference, by density, by the proximity to the problems of others. In the car culture of Southern California (or the suburban US Midwest for that matter), the moving second home of one's car is just another protective border used to quarantine the inside from the outside. As I headed north for LA, my attempts to describe the discussions to a friend by cell phone were drowned out by the noise of public space rushing past at 80 miles per hour. Ryan Griffis For more info: inSite <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.insite05.org/">http://www.insite05.org/</a> ValDes <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.lab71.org/issue04/l71section180/l71section180.html">http://www.lab71.org/issue04/l71section180/l71section180.html</a> Torolab <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_1001/ob/ob07.html">http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_1001/ob/ob07.html</a> My Doomsday Weapon <a rel="nofollow" href="http://events.thing.net/Boeskov_text.html">http://events.thing.net/Boeskov_text.html</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Rhizome.org is a 501©(3) nonprofit organization and an affiliate of the New Museum of Contemporary Art. 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 Kevin McGarry (kevin@rhizome.org). ISSN: 1525-9110. Volume 9, number 26. 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>. 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