<br />RHIZOME DIGEST: May 22, 2005<br /><br />Content:<br /><br />+announcement+<br />1. Jess Loseby: doc-u project: participate (resent)<br />2. Chuck Mobley: C5 @ San Francisco Camerawork<br />3. Soil Media Suite: International Symposium & Event: re:mote regina<br /><br />+opportunity+<br />4. robert rowe: teaching position: multimedia, Fulltime Temporary - for fall<br />2005<br /><br />+interview+<br />5. Emil Bach Soerensen: An Experience with Your Body in Space! -Interview<br />with Camille Utterback<br /><br />+commentary+<br />6. Geert Dekkers: Fwd: <nettime> The Ghost in the Network<br />7. Joy Garnett: Art & Blogging: Recap<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome is now offering organizational subscriptions, memberships<br />purchased at the institutional level. These subscriptions allow<br />participants of an institution to access Rhizome's services without<br />having to purchase individual memberships. (Rhizome is also offering<br />subsidized memberships to qualifying institutions in poor or excluded<br />communities.) Please visit <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/info/org.php">http://rhizome.org/info/org.php</a> for more<br />information or contact Kevin McGarry at Kevin@Rhizome.org or Lauren Cornell<br />at LaurenCornell@Rhizome.org.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />1.<br /><br />Date: 5.18.05<br />From: Jess Loseby <jess@rssgallery.com><br />Subject: doc-u project: participate (resent)<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.doc-u.co.uk">http://www.doc-u.co.uk</a><br /><br />doc-u is an interactive installation made up of visual self-documentation.<br />The project exploits user-friendly technology (mobile phone cams and<br />Macromedia Flash) to allow multiple images to be shown simultaneously. The<br />project focuses on the beauty of the ordinary, the domestic and the lo-tech<br />.The installation draws on popular culture and a viewer's familiarity with<br />concepts of self-documentation, video diaries and docu- soaps to encourage<br />participation and overcome fear of technology.<br /><br />Jess Loseby and the Babylon Gallery (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.babylongallery.co.uk/">http://www.babylongallery.co.uk/</a>) have<br />been holding workshops with schools and community groups local to the<br />gallery using 5 mobile camera phones. The participants were asked to<br />randomly document themselves and their environment in a set time. They were<br />encouraged not to delete or alter any images, as part of the aesthetic of<br />the installation was to highlight the beautiful 'accidents' and to dismiss<br />attempts to 'make art'. The project is now open across the Internet to<br />everyone. If you would like to participate please see the guidelines below.<br />There is no age limit, focus or geographical restriction placed on the<br />submissions. The youngest participant in the project is currently 3 years<br />old - the oldest, 70!<br /><br />Doc_u is online now at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.doc-u.co.uk">http://www.doc-u.co.uk</a> and will be shown at the<br />Babylon Gallery Saturday 11 June - Sunday 24 July<br /><br />Participate [and win a phone!]<br /><br />doc_u is now open to anyone who would like to participate in the project.<br />You can enter a doc_u by yourself or in small (3 or under) groups. If you<br />would like to participate you will need:1. A mobile phone with a camera (If<br />you live in the UK, near the Babylon gallery you can borrow a "library<br />phone" to use in the project. Email jess@rssgallery.com for more<br />details.]2. An email account3. If you are under 16, you will also need a<br />signed consent form from a parent or guardian. These are available at this<br />url: <br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.doc-u.co.uk/permission.htm">http://www.doc-u.co.uk/permission.htm</a><br /><br />Participants will be entered into a Competition to win the 5 mobile camera<br />and video phones used in the making of this artwork (winners from groups<br />will still win a phone each). To be eligible for the competition you must:<br />a) include a contact email or phone number with your submission<br />b) if under 16, you must have returned a signed consent form from a parent<br />or guardian (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.doc-u.co.uk/permission.htm">http://www.doc-u.co.uk/permission.htm</a>).<br /><br />Please see <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.doc-u.co.uk">http://www.doc-u.co.uk</a> for guidelines, online or email submission<br />and information. <br /><br />doc_u <br /> <br />Internet and Babylon Gallery 2005<br /> <br />Jess Loseby<br /> <br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.doc-u.co.uk">http://www.doc-u.co.uk</a><br /> <br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome Member-curated Exhibits<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/art/member-curated/">http://rhizome.org/art/member-curated/</a><br /><br />View online exhibits Rhizome members have curated from works in the ArtBase,<br />or learn how to create your own exhibit.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />2. <br /><br />Date: 5.19.05<br />From: Chuck Mobley <chuck@sfcamerawork.org><br />Subject: C5 @ San Francisco Camerawork<br /><br />C5 Landscape Initiatives<br />May 24-June 25, 2005<br />Opening Reception: Tuesday, May 24, 5-8 pm<br />C5 artists include: Steve Durie, Bruce Gardner, Amul Goswamy, Matt Mays,<br />Joel Slayton, Brett Stalbaum, Jack Toolin and Geri Wittig.<br /><br />San Francisco Camerawork presents The C5 Landscape Initiative, an exhibition<br />featuring work by C5 Corporation, a new media collective based in San Jose,<br />California. The Landscape Initiative is the culmination of three years of<br />research and documentation of C5's performative expeditions into the<br />landscape through Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and big data<br />analyses. C5 is interested in how people interact with data, and how data<br />influences the way we interact with our environment.<br /><br />The exhibition will include media installations that blend innovative uses<br />of digital technologies to explore, navigate and map the landscape on both<br />sides of the globe. Presented through work generated by database software<br />developed by C5, this exhibition features digital photographic prints,<br />fabricated sculptural objects, 3D visualizations and digital video. The<br />exhibition will allow viewers to interact with C5's expeditions, while<br />exploring our relationships to the land in a data driven world.<br /><br />Through a collaboration with the Whitney Museum's Artport site,<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://artport.whitney.org">http://artport.whitney.org</a> you will be able to access The C5 Landscape<br />Initiative GPS Media Player. The GPS Media Player creates an implicit<br />timeline and meta narratives for each of the Landscape Initiative projects.<br />It provides a means of documenting the projects from their point of common<br />inception, data and process.<br /><br />San Francisco Camerawork is located at 1246 Folsom Street between 8th and<br />9th<br />Gallery Hours: 12-5 pm, Tuesday-Saturday<br />Gallery Admission is F R E E<br />For more information please visit:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.sfcamerawork.org">http://www.sfcamerawork.org</a><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.c5corp.com">http://www.c5corp.com</a><br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />3.<br /><br />Date: 5.19.05<br />From: Soil Media Suite <ngsoil1@accesscomm.ca><br />Subject: International Symposium & Event: re:mote regina<br /><br />re:mote regina is an experimental symposium and international net-based<br />festival that links new media practitioners and theorists from diverse<br />areas through a mixture of live and online presentations.<br /><br />The first festival took place in Auckland New Zealand in March 2005<br />(<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.remote.org.nz">http://www.remote.org.nz</a>). The second in the series 're:mote regina' is<br />about to be held on Friday, May 20 at Soil Digital Media Suite in, Regina,<br />Canada. (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.soilmedia.org/remote">http://www.soilmedia.org/remote</a>).<br /><br />re:mote: regina will feature on-site and online presentations analysing<br />the way that digital technologies can augment collaborations across<br />geographical and cultural distance. Artists and commentators from<br />Capetown, Auckland, London, Vancouver, Banff, Montreal, Los Angeles,<br />Toronto, and Newcastle will presentation their work via live video stream to<br />an audience in Regina. Artists from Regina and Saskatoon (Saskatchewan)<br />will also present their work onsite. re:mote regina is to be an ongoing<br />series of events, which will take place at locations around the world.<br />re:mote: auckland was the global premiere of this series.<br /><br />re:mote explores questions like: what does it mean to be remote in an<br />electronic art world? Are there 'centres' and 'peripheries' within a world<br />increasingly bridged, criss-crossed and mapped by digital technologies?<br />Can technologically mediated communication ever substitute for<br />face-to-face dialogue? Is geographical diversity a factor in contemporary<br />art production? Is remote a relative concept?<br /><br />Particpants include:<br />Jen Hamilton (Regina, Saskatchewan)<br />Dr. Shiela Petty (Regina, Saskatchewan)<br />Dr. Daryl Hepting (Regina, Saskatchewan)<br />Trevor Cunningham (Regina, Saskatchewan)<br />Jirayu Uttaranakorn (Regina, Saskatchewan)<br />Jeff Mortens (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)<br />Carrie Gates (Saskatooon, Saskatchewan)<br />Jon Vaughn (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)<br />Sarah Cook (Newcastle, UK)<br />Marc Tuters (Montreal, Canada)<br />Thomas Mulcaire (Capetown, South Africa)<br />Matthew Biederman (Los Angeles, USA)<br />Zita Joyce (Auckland, New Zealand)<br />Adam Willetts (Auckland, New Zealand)<br />The Gates (Vancouver, Canada)<br />Adam Hoyle (London, UK)<br />Toby Heys (Montreal, Canada and UK)<br /><br />Proceedings will be streamed live and a chat room is available. For more<br />information about how to participate remotely please visit:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.soilmedia.org/remote/where.html">http://www.soilmedia.org/remote/where.html</a><br /><br />For a schedule and timezone converter please visit:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.soilmedia.org/remote/when.html">http://www.soilmedia.org/remote/when.html</a><br /><br />Additionally, with the second in this series (re:mote regina) the remote<br />series is experimenting with telematic workshops. Utilising standard<br />technologies it is hoped a model for these workshops can be established.<br />The first trial of this model will be a workshop on MAX/MPS/Jitter lead by<br />Matthew Biederman. Matthew will be leading the workshop from Los Angeles<br />and the particpants will be in SoilMedia Lab (Regina, Canada).<br />re:mote regina<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.soilmedia.org/remote">http://www.soilmedia.org/remote</a><br /><br />re:mote regina is a collaboration between r a d i o q u a l i a and<br />Soil Digital Media Suite.<br /><br />r a d i o q u a l i a<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.radioqualia.net">http://www.radioqualia.net</a><br /><br />SoilMedia Lab<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.soilmedia.org">http://www.soilmedia.org</a><br />Soil wishes to acknowledge funding support from the Department of Canadian<br />Heritage, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the<br />Daniel Langlois Foundation for the Arts and SMPIA.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome.org 2005 Net Art Commissions<br /><br />The Rhizome Commissioning Program makes financial support available to<br />artists for the creation of innovative new media art work via panel-awarded<br />commissions.<br /><br />For the 2005 Rhizome Commissions, seven artists were selected to create<br />artworks relating to the theme of Games:<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/commissions/2005.rhiz">http://rhizome.org/commissions/2005.rhiz</a><br /><br />The Rhizome Commissioning Program is made possible by generous support from<br />the Greenwall Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation<br />for the Visual Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />4. <br /><br />Date: 5.19.05<br />From: robert rowe <rowe@bradley.edu><br />Subject: teaching position: multimedia, Fulltime Temporary - for fall 2005<br /><br />The Multimedia Program at Bradley University seeks a faculty member with<br />cutting edge digital production skills to teach and create in an innovative<br />undergraduate program.<br /><br />Anticipated Position for Academic Year 2005-2006: Temporary Instructor,<br />Full-Time, Multimedia. The Multimedia Program at Bradley University is<br />seeking a technologically sophisticated candidate to fill a full-time,<br />non-tenure-track position requiring teaching and creative production.<br /><br />Responsibilities<br />Teach interactive-program production courses in Multimedia, including (from<br />among) web work, CD/DVD/Kiosk development, video production, digital<br />photography, and/or animation/virtual environments; conduct New Media<br />creative production; provide the Slane College with multimedia training and<br />support.<br /><br />Rank<br />Temporary (non-tenure-track) Instructor. Temporary full-time positions are<br />contracted for one-year appointments that may be renewed for additional<br />one-year appointments at the discretion of the university.<br /><br />Qualifications<br />Required: Bachelor's degree in new media-related discipline. Record of<br />successful university teaching. Cross platform experience relevant to an<br />Apple computing environment. Evidence of successful (professional and/or<br />published) multimedia design and production experience. Facility with<br />production software, for example including Director, Dreamweaver, Photoshop,<br />InDesign, Final Cut, Avid, Quark, Flash, PowerPoint, LightWave, QTVR, or<br />similar software). <br /><br />Preferred: Professional computer-related job experience. Video production<br />and/or animation experience a plus.<br /><br />Salary<br />Appropriate to degree requirements.<br />Starting Date<br />August, 2005. <br /><br />Application<br />Applicants may send digital files of application materials. Hard copy of<br />application and vita/resume also required, along with contact information<br />for three current references to:<br /><br />Edward Lee Lamoureux, Ph. D.<br /> Director, Multimedia Program<br /> Bradley University<br /> Peoria, IL 61625<br /><br /> ell@bradley.edu<br /><br />Online or digital materials may be submitted as supplementary aspects of the<br />application file. Review of applications will begin immediately and continue<br />until position is filled.<br /><br />Bradley University, highly rated by U.S. News and World Report, is an<br />independent, comprehensive university enrolling 6000 students. Midway<br />between Chicago and St. Louis, Peoria hosts numerous professional arts<br />organizations and is home for many interactive media firms and outlets.<br /><br />The Multimedia Program is in the Slane College of Communication and Fine<br />Arts with the Departments of Art, Communication, Music, and Theatre Arts and<br />consists of approximately 100 majors (and additional minors) taking course<br />work in Art/Graphic Design, Communication/Audio and Video, Multimedia, and<br />supporting departments (music, computer science, education, sociology). The<br />program is unique among its peers and offers students and faculty numerous<br />opportunities for professional and collaborative sponsored projects.<br />Bradley's renowned Caterpillar Global Communication Center, completed in<br />1996, is home to the Multimedia Program and the Department of Communication.<br />The CGCC houses computer labs, videoconference facilities, high-end<br />multimedia classrooms and technology and the interdisciplinary<br />radio-television facilities associated with the Department of Communication.<br />The Multimedia Program also utilizes facilities in the Heuser Art Center,<br />the home of Multimedia's other interd!<br /> isciplinary partner, the Department of Art.<br /><br />Visit Bradley University online at: www.bradley.edu<br />Visit the Slane College of Communication and Fine Arts at:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://gcc.bradley.edu/slane/">http://gcc.bradley.edu/slane/</a><br />Visit the Multimedia Program at: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://gcc.bradley.edu/mm/">http://gcc.bradley.edu/mm/</a><br />Bradley University is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer.<br />The administration, faculty and staff are committed to attracting qualified<br />candidates from groups currently underrepresented on our campus.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />5.<br /><br />Date: 5.17.05<br />From: Emil Bach Soerensen <emilsoe@m2.stud.ku.dk><br />Subject: An Experience with Your Body in Space! -Interview with Camille<br />Utterback<br /><br />Originally published at Artificial, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.artificial.dk">http://www.artificial.dk</a><br />Article with images and links:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.artificial.dk/articles/utterback.htm">http://www.artificial.dk/articles/utterback.htm</a><br /><br />An Experience with Your Body in Space!<br />- Interview with Camille Utterback<br /><br />Camille Utterback, a digital artist from New York, is famous for her<br />interactive installations and her use of advanced video tracking technology.<br />Emil Bach Soerensen met her for a talk about Untitled 5, a generative<br />artwork where the physical presence of the audience has agency in a real<br />time painting process. Utterback received one of the transmediale.05 awards<br />for this piece. The talk about Utterback's video tracked universe turned out<br />as an alternative route involving visions about the artwork as an opening,<br />intuition in the process of coding and a strong claim for embodiment in the<br />digital age.<br />Q: You just won an award for your piece Untitled 5 here at Transmediale.<br />Congratulations! Maybe you should describe the work with your own words, now<br />that we are standing in front of it.<br /><br />A: Ok! Well, I sometimes thought of it as a living painting, but this isn't<br />quite right because it has a momentum that is more like a kinetic sculpture.<br />It's a system that has rules about how things can move in it, and then these<br />rules are combined to make an overall composition. We can watch these people<br />that are walking through! The first thing that happens when you enter the<br />video tracked area is that you see grey marks around your body. Then your<br />trajectory is filled with a red line. As soon as you have left your<br />position, other little marks appear along that line. This is marking<br />different kinds of time. The little grey lines are there immediately but<br />they don't leave any trace, they are just the immediate presence.<br /><br />Q: The presence of the body in spaceâ?¦<br /><br />A: Yes exactly, and then the path is the more boiled down idea of how you<br />moved. Basically it's your centre point that I'm tracking. This is showing<br />where you have moved over time. It's also paying attention to the speed of<br />your movement since this will determine the size of the marks on the<br />trajectory line, so it creates variation this way as well. Let's look at the<br />piece again! What happens now is that he has moved across the line that the<br />other person put, and all these greenish marks that were along the first<br />person's path got pushed out of the way, and then they draw as they return<br />to their original location. It's like second or third order movement because<br />the marks don't draw when they are pushed out of the way; they draw when<br />they are going back. In this work I am conceptually interested in thinking<br />about movement or connections between people. I'm making an abstract<br />visualization about how people intersected in time.<br /><br />Q: Layering traces of different persons - is that adding a social dimension<br />to your work? At the press conference you said that Untitled 5 is not very<br />socially or politically engaged. How social is your work?<br /><br />A: I think it is socially engaged, because obviously people have some<br />dynamics with each other in front of Untitled 5. You can have more than one<br />person negotiating how to move in the video tracked area. If they are<br />friends or not friends they might interact differently. Strangers might<br />start moving in different ways when they see each others movements here, so<br />it's definitely a social piece. And â?? I don't know if this is very social<br />- but it's definitely a process of discovering and exploring yourself in the<br />piece.<br /><br />Q: You also said to the press that your piece creates some kind of an<br />opening. Can you try to explain that a bit more?<br /><br />A: Ah! It is hard to talk about that without sounding weird or spiritual but<br />I do feel that if people have an experience in this piece where they are<br />open to questioning things, thenâ?¦<br />I think the process goes like: â??Oh this thing is reacting to me!' And then<br />you ask: â??Well, how is it reacting to me?' There is nothing written in<br />here, so the only way to discover that is to try things out, and you start<br />thinking: â??What happens if I try this? What happens if I try that?' I<br />think this questioning mode puts you in a state where you are present, aware<br />and very open. And I also believe that you are most creative, when you are<br />in that kind of mode. As an artist I have to put myself in that mindset to<br />make the work.<br />I guess it's about allowing yourself to be in a space where you don't really<br />know what you are doing and where you don't really know what is going on,<br />but where you are engaged. I like to think that helping people to have that<br />kind of experience might change how they approach things in a very<br />subconscious way after they leave this space. I don't know if it is possible<br />to transfer the experience directly, but I feel strongly that it is<br />important to have these kinds of open spaces in our social reality.<br /><br />Q: This sounds very much like an artist in general, and it goes for many<br />works of art. But in terms of being a computer artist I tend to think of<br />programming as something rational. And you talk about being intuitive and<br />loosing yourself. How do these two sides correspond? Rational programming<br />and being intuitive at the same timeâ?¦<br /><br />A: Well, how I work drives some of my friends crazy! I think there are<br />different ways for working with technology. It is complicated and you do<br />have to code and sit down and work out these problems, which is a little<br />less direct than using a paintbrush. The more you do it, the more it becomes<br />like using a paintbrush, but it still doesn't feel quite so viscerally<br />connected to me.<br />I think some artists work in a way where they have planned everything, and<br />have a very specific vision or goal for what they are trying to do. Then you<br />can almost hire someone, to do the technological part of the work. But I am<br />doing my own programming and I have to do that because I didn't have a<br />specific vision about how this piece should look like when I started. I<br />began playing and developed these systems. In the same way as you would<br />compose a painting I layered it together in the end. But it was always trial<br />and error. In that process you get to a lot of dead ends where you feel:<br />â??Oh it's really ugly today'. You have to not freak out when you get to<br />these dead ends and stay open to your ideas.<br /><br />Q: Maybe you can you tell a bit about the technical aspects of your work?<br />For someone who is not into programming already!<br /><br />A: It is pretty simple. A video camera is an excellent input device, because<br />it gives so many points of information. A computer mouse is one point in<br />action-wise space. But if you think about all the pixels in a camera image<br />as information, it really contains a lot of information about the space!<br />Now, the tricky part is to decipher that image to decide where a person is.<br />I do that by take a still image of the space with nobody in it when the<br />program starts, and then I'm working at every frame that is coming into the<br />camera and comparing it to the picture of the empty space to tell if there<br />is somebody there. The difference between the images is the person.<br />What is a little harder is to figure out from frame to frame if it's the<br />same person. It is amazing what we do automatically in our brains! Like the<br />idea that just because someone is here, and now here, it's the same person.<br />The only way that I can do that is to compare if the image of the person is<br />overlapping in the different frames. When they overlap by a certain amount<br />I'm going to assume that it's the same person.<br /><br />Q: And it might not beâ?¦<br /><br />A: Right! When it's not, it's because we were become to touch shoulders and<br />then come back apart. Then it's impossible for me to tell exactly what<br />happened. And there is also another problem which is philosophical but<br />interesting. How do I decide if a person is standing still? What is the real<br />definition of stillness? In coding you are making assumptions and<br />simplifying things to a certain degree. My rule about stillness is that a<br />shape is overlapping between frames in time and the centre of it is not<br />varying by more than say 20 pixels. But that is arbitrary, I could say 5<br />pixels, and then you would have to be so still that nobody could do it.<br /><br />Q: We are obviously standing in front of some kind of an interface here, but<br />not a normal Human Computer Interface. What is your opinion about interfaces<br />if we talk about computer culture in general? In which way do you think the<br />design of HCI is developing and how can your work inspire for the<br />development of new designs or new ways of perceiving HCI?<br /><br />A: I don't know if video tracking will become a practical interface for<br />doing the work tasks we have to do on our computers. But I hope that if<br />people see this piece then afterwards they might be a little pickier about<br />the interfaces that are surrounding us more and more. Everything has its own<br />interface. You are an interface and the bank machine is an interface. But a<br />lot of the interfaces that we are surrounded by are designed terribly, so<br />they make us feel stupid and frustrated.<br />It is like the classical problem about the door handle. Donald Norman is a<br />writer and designer and he talks about how you see everywhere these doors<br />that have the sign â??PUSH' or â??PULL' on them, which is absurd. What it<br />means is that the handle looks exactly the same on both sides, so you have<br />no clue whether you are supposed to push or pull. If the door handle is<br />designed well, you don't even think you just push or pull because it is so<br />obvious from how the handle is that this is what you should do. Even though<br />there are these signs people are always doing the wrong thing! I think it's<br />a very good lesson about design that people react in an amazing and<br />intuitive way to the things they meet. If you get frustrated by a design,<br />it's not you but the designer that is dumb. With HCI it's the same problem -<br />it's a little more complicated than with the door but it is the same issue.<br /><br />Q: What you are saying is that HCI has to work in a more intuitive way?<br /><br />A: I don't know if it needs to be more intuitive, but it needs to be well<br />designed, so that your instincts about how it should work make sense. Here,<br />with the video tracking, I give you a clue which should make you understand<br />something about the system. Part of the problem is that with interfaces you<br />don't necessarily have a real world metaphor or experience with it. So since<br />it is all virtual you have to be even clearer about the clues that you give<br />people. This is why the whole desktop metaphor caught on so well at first,<br />because it gave people a way to think about these paths. To delete something<br />is abstract, but everybody knows what it means to throw something in the<br />garbage can, so that icon helped people to understand the activity.<br />Now the desktop metaphor is starting to be not functional. There are tons of<br />interfaces where this metaphor becomes unwieldy. We have so many files now<br />that there are better ways to show information than by using folder<br />structures. So probably interfaces based on desktop metaphors will migrate<br />into other ways of showing information. Anyway, I hope that people who have<br />an experience with Untitled 5 can maybe also make the leap to say: â??Why do<br />these other experiences with HCI have to be so frustrating?'<br /><br />Q: So it is about giving people good experiences with computers?<br /><br />A: Yeah! I think most people who see this piece don't think that they are<br />having an experience with a computer or a computational system. I think they<br />are having an experience with their body in the space. Machines and the<br />technology disappear when it becomes part of our life. We don't think of<br />turning on the light as having an interaction with technology, but of course<br />it is. You are having a very complicated interaction with the whole system<br />of electricity; including wires, switching machines etc. But because the<br />interaction is not causing you problems, and you understand the metaphor for<br />switching on the light, it disappears from our thinking about it as<br />technology because it just works!<br /><br />Q: Does it matter to you where your works are exhibited? I mean, we are now<br />at a festival for new media art, but when the technology behind the pieces<br />disappear the works could as well be exhibited on any art festival?<br /><br />A: Yes, definitely. This topic was part of what we were talking about in the<br />panel discussions. Is it bad in a way to show this work in the context of<br />new media, because does that mean that it's not just contemporary art? But I<br />think the reality is that it is still hard for a lot of traditional art<br />spaces to show a piece like this. They are not sure how to talk about it,<br />and they are not sure how to sell it. Yet! And it does involve some amount<br />of cables and cameras etc.<br />It is important for me to be in a festival like this. Also, because when you<br />are with other people dealing with similar issues, you get a lot of good<br />feedback. I had a gallery show in New York recently and I even got a review<br />in Art in America which is a big art publication, but it was not helpful to<br />me at all, because all the review did was to describe very basically:<br />â??Here is the piece and when you move it reacts to you'. It didn't say<br />anything about the aesthetic issues and all the things that we have been<br />talking about! People on this festival are thinking about these issues, so I<br />get a lot of good feedback which I wouldn't get in other contexts. Hopefully<br />that will change over time.<br /><br />Q: We already talked about crossing the border to design. You are both an<br />artist, you teach on Parsons School of Design and you have your own firm,<br />Creative Nerve, which, in addition to your works, is trying to see how your<br />artistic ambitions can be transformed into design and communicative<br />strategies. I know that you have done pieces for Children's Museum in<br />Pittsburg and for The American Museum of Natural History. How do you see<br />that artistic ambitions, and now we are talking about digital art, can be<br />transformed into new designs and new ways of communication?<br /><br />A: Occasionally I have done pieces where there is a specific goal of<br />communicating something through the work. For The American Museum of Natural<br />History, the show that I was in was about the human genome, and it was a<br />very didactic exhibit. They wanted an experience for people that made them a<br />little more self reflective. My piece was exhibited in the last room, where<br />you saw yourself on a screen, but turned into letters. We were hoping that<br />this experience would raise some awareness in people about the question:<br />â??What is a representation of yourself?'. DNA describes a certain way of<br />looking at yourself, but you are so much more than that, which was what they<br />were trying to show in the exhibit.<br />My work is trying to bring the bodily experience back into technology. You<br />always use your body. You use your body when you are typing on the keyboard<br />and when you are moving the mouse around. But these activities are only<br />activating a very limited amount of our body and a limited amount of your<br />knowledge about the world. It could be interesting to take some of the other<br />things we do really well or know well into account. Human beings have<br />evolved over millions of years and we always had a body, which we sometimes<br />tend to forget! Using the body is actually how we first learn about the<br />world.<br /><br />Q: So, this is important to remember as things get more and more digital and<br />immaterial, you would say!<br /><br />A: Yes! A lot of my works deal with the sense of embodiment. I have a piece<br />called Liquid Time which is playing with the idea that in English you say:<br />â??Where do you stand on this issue? What is your point of view?' All these<br />things imply that you have a body somewhere in the world, and that we use<br />the body to refer to consciousness or intellect. So I'm really interested in<br />the idea that we have a body and how integral that is to who we are and how<br />we function and that it sometimes gets lost in all our media.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Support Rhizome: buy a hosting plan from BroadSpire<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/hosting/">http://rhizome.org/hosting/</a><br /><br />Reliable, robust hosting plans from $65 per year.<br /><br />Purchasing hosting from BroadSpire contributes directly to Rhizome's fiscal<br />well-being, so think about about the new Bundle pack, or any other plan,<br />today!<br /><br />About Broadspire<br /><br />Broadspire is a mid-size commercial web hosting provider. After conducting a<br />thorough review of the web hosting industry, we selected Broadspire as our<br />partner because they offer the right combination of affordable plans (prices<br />start at $14.95 per month), dependable customer support, and a full range of<br />services. We have been working with Broadspire since June 2002, and have<br />been very impressed with the quality of their service.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />6.<br /><br />Date: 5.17.05<br />From: Geert Dekkers <geert@nznl.com><br />Subject: Fwd: <nettime> The Ghost in the Network<br /><br />The last post wasabout something on nettime, not rhizome. So to correct<br />myself – here's the piece to which I referred…<br /><br />Cheers <br />Geert <br />http:/nznl.com <br /><br />Begin forwarded message:<br /><br />> From: Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker <galloway@nyu.edu><br />> Date: 16 mei 2005 18:56:01 GMT+02:00<br />> To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net<br />> Subject: <nettime> The Ghost in the Network<br />> Reply-To: Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker <galloway@nyu.edu><br />> <br />> The Ghost in the Network<br />> <br />> In discussing the difference between the living and the nonliving,<br />> Aristotle points to the phenomena of self-organized animation and<br />> motility as the key aspects of a living thing. For Aristotle the<br />> "form-giving Soul" enables inanimate matter to become a living organism.<br />> If life is animation, then animation is driven by a final cause. But the<br />> cause is internal to the organism, not imposed from without as with<br />> machines. Network science takes up this idea on the mathematical plane,<br />> so that geometry is the soul of the network. Network science proposes<br />> that heterogeneous network phenomena can be understood through the<br />> geometry of graph theory, the mathematics of dots and lines. An<br />> interesting outcome of this is that seemingly incongruous network<br />> phenomena can be grouped according to their similar geometries. For<br />> instance the networks of AIDS, terrorist groups, or the economy can be<br />> understood as having in common a particular pattern, a particular set of<br />> relations between dots (nodes) and lines (edges). A given topological<br />> pattern is what cultivates and sculpts information within networks. To<br />> in-form is thus to give shape to matter (via organization or<br />> self-organization) through the instantiation of form–a network<br />> hylomorphism. <br />> <br />> But further, the actualized being of the living network is also defined<br />> in political terms. "No central node sits in the middle of the spider<br />> web, controlling and monitoring every link and node. There is no single<br />> node whose removal could break the web. A scale-free network is a web<br />> without a spider" [1]. Having-no-spider is an observation about<br />> predatory hierarchy, or the supposed lack thereof, and is therefore a<br />> deeply political observation. In order to make this unnerving jump–from<br />> math (graph theory), to technology (the Internet), to politics ("a web<br />> without a spider")–politics needs to be seen as following the necessary<br />> and "natural" laws of mathematics; that is, networks need to be<br />> understood as "an unavoidable consequence of their evolution" [2]. In<br />> network science, the "unavoidable consequence" of networks often<br />> resembles something like neoliberal democracy, but a democracy which<br />> naturally emerges according to the "power law" of decentralized<br />> networks. Like so, their fates are twisted together.<br />> <br />> Rhetorics of Freedom<br />> <br />> While tactically valuable in the fight against proprietary software,<br />> open source is ultimately flawed as a political program. Open source<br />> focuses on code in isolation. It fetishizes all the wrong things:<br />> language, originality, source, the past, status. To focus on inert,<br />> isolated code is to ignore code in its context, in its social relation,<br />> in its real experience, or actual dynamic relations with other code and<br />> other machines. Debugging never happens through reading the source code,<br />> only through running the program. Better than open source would be open<br />> runtime which would prize all the opposites: open articulation, open<br />> iterability, open practice, open becoming.<br />> <br />> But this is also misleading and based in a rhetoric around the relative<br />> openness and closedness of a technological system. The rhetoric goes<br />> something like this: technological systems can either be closed or open.<br />> Closed systems are generally created by either commercial or state<br />> interests-courts regulate technology, companies control their<br />> proprietary technologies in the market place, and so on. Open systems,<br />> on the other hand, are generally associated with the public and with<br />> freedom and political transparency. Geert Lovink contrasts "closed<br />> systems based on profit through control and scarcity" with "open,<br />> innovative standards situated in the public domain" [3]. Later, in his<br />> elucidation of Castells, he writes of the opposite, a "freedom hardwired<br />> into code" [4]. This gets to the heart of the freedom rhetoric. If it's<br />> hardwired is it still freedom? Instead of guaranteeing freedom, the act<br />> of "hardwiring" suggests a limitation on freedom. And in fact that is<br />> precisely the case on the Internet where strict universal standards of<br />> communication have been rolled out more widely and more quickly than in<br />> any other medium throughout history. Lessig and many others rely heavily<br />> on this rhetoric of freedom.<br />> <br />> We suggest that this opposition between closed and open is flawed. It<br />> unwittingly perpetuates one of today's most insidious political myths,<br />> that the state and capital are the two sole instigators of control.<br />> Instead of the open/closed opposition we suggest the pairing<br />> physical/social. The so-called open logics of control, those associated<br />> with (non proprietary) computer code or with the Internet protocols,<br />> operate primarily using a physical model of control. For example,<br />> protocols interact with each other by physically altering and amending<br />> lower protocological objects (IP prefixes its header onto a TCP data<br />> object, which prefixes its header onto an HTTP object, and so on). But<br />> on the other hand, the so-called closed logics of state and commercial<br />> control operate primarily using a social model of control. For, example,<br />> Microsoft's commercial prowess is renewed via the social activity of<br />> market exchange. Or, using another example, Digital Rights Management<br />> licenses establish a social relationship between producers and<br />> consumers, a social relationship backed up by specific legal realities<br />> (DMCA). Viewed in this way, we find it self evident that physical<br />> control (i.e. protocol) is equally powerful if not more so than social<br />> control. Thus, we hope to show that if the topic at hand is one of<br />> control, then the monikers of "open" and "closed" simply further confuse<br />> the issue. Instead we would like to speak in terms of "alternatives of<br />> control" whereby the controlling logic of both "open" and "closed"<br />> systems is brought out into the light of day.<br />> <br />> Political Animals<br />> <br />> Aristotle's famous formulation of "man as a political animal" takes on<br />> new meanings in light of contemporary studies of biological<br />> self-organization. For Aristotle, the human being was first a living<br />> being, with the additional capacity for political being. In this sense,<br />> biology becomes the presupposition for politics, just as the human<br />> being's animal being serves as the basis for its political being. But<br />> not all animals are alike. Deleuze distinguishes three types of animals:<br />> domestic pets (Freudian, anthropomorphized Wolf-Man), animals in nature<br />> (the isolated species, the lone wolf), and packs (multiplicities). It is<br />> this last type of animal–the pack–which provides the most direct<br />> counter-point to Aristotle's formulation, and which leads us to pose a<br />> question: If the human being is a political animal, are there also<br />> animal politics? Ethnologists and entymologists would think so. The ant<br />> colony and insect swarm has long been used in science fiction and horror<br />> as the metaphor for the opposite of Western, liberal democracies. Even<br />> the language used in biology still retains the remnants of sovereignty:<br />> the queen bee, the drone. What, then, do we make of theories of<br />> biocomplexity and swarm intelligence, which suggest that there is no<br />> "queen" but only a set of localized interactions which self-organize<br />> into a whole swarm or colony? Is the "multitude" a type of animal<br />> multiplicity? Such probes seem to suggest that Aristotle based his<br />> formulation on the wrong kinds of animals. "You can't be one wolf," of<br />> course. "You're always eight or nine, six or seven" [5].<br />> <br />> Ad Hoc <br />> <br />> Unplug from the grid. Plug into your friends. Adhocracy will rule.<br />> Autonomy and security will only happen when telecommunications operate<br />> around ad hoc networking. Syndicate yourself to the locality.<br />> <br />> Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker<br />> <br />> + + + <br />> <br />> [1] Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Linked (Cambridge: Perseus Publishing,<br />> 2002), p. 221. <br />> <br />> [2] Ibid. <br />> <br />> [3] Geert Lovink, My First Recession (Rotterdam: V2, 2003), p. 14.<br />> <br />> [4] Ibid., p. 47.<br />> <br />> [5] Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (Minneapolis:<br />> University of Minnesota Press, 1987), p. 29.<br />> <br />> <br />> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission<br />> # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,<br />> # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets<br />> # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body<br />> # archive: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.nettime.org">http://www.nettime.org</a> contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome ArtBase Exhibitions<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/art/exhibition/">http://rhizome.org/art/exhibition/</a><br /><br />Visit the third ArtBase Exhibition "Raiders of the Lost ArtBase," curated by<br />Michael Connor of FACT and designed by scroll guru Dragan Espenschied.<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/art/exhibition/raiders/">http://rhizome.org/art/exhibition/raiders/</a><br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />7.<br /><br />Date: 5.18.05<br />From: joy.garnett@gmail.com<br />Subject: Art & Blogging: Recap<br /><br />Special to Rhizome: Art & Blogging: Recap<br />NEWSgrist - where spin is art<br />Wednesday, May 18, 2005 at 09:46 AM in Panels + Roundtabels | Permalink:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2005/05/art_blogging_re.html">http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2005/05/art_blogging_re.html</a><br /><br />[image] < L to R: Chris Ashley, Patrick May, and Liza Sabater.<br /><br />Last night's Blogging and the Arts Part 2 at the New Museum was fun.<br />Nice to finally meet some veteran bloggers whom I admire, and good to<br />see old bloggy/art pals. I offered an abbreviated version of the talk<br />I gave in Sept '04 at Columbia (and later elsewhere) about that ol'<br />frivolous copyright dispute hurled at me last year. Since I usually<br />present this story in the context of open source culture, art and<br />appropriation, fair use and copyright, survival skills for artists<br />etc., it felt good to do so in light of the blog phenomenon–without<br />which I would have had nothing much to tell in the first place. I put<br />some nice screen shots together.<br /><br />Liza followed with a condensed recap of her recent forays into the<br />realm of activist blogging, and invited us to check out her new sister<br />blogs and other new developments over at culturekitchen. She mentioned<br />a relatively new nonprofit org called CivicSpaceLabs.org that<br />proffers an interesting model for building open source community<br />software. She dashed in straight from their all-day Users Conference<br />at The Tank in mid-town. That Liza's a busy one.<br /><br />Next came Patrick May, who described the logic behind his experimental<br />portfolio-cum-blog, hexane.org. He has written a program that<br />publishes one's portfolio–just as it is organized on one's hard<br />drive–as a blog while preserving things like categories. A clever<br />publishing tool specifically conceived for visual artists, that allows<br />them to avoid redundant tasks (like creating duplicate subdirectories<br />and folders to upload images…yuck). And one ends up with not yet<br />another static site, but a portfolio-blog that has feeds and can be<br />aggregated. Very cool. Patrick is part of the artists' community<br />OpenGround.<br /><br />Last was Chris Ashley who took more time (it's nice being last), waxed<br />philosophical about weblogs and their potential, and commented on how<br />he (we) rely on weblogs as opposed to Art Mags for up-to-date<br />information. Frankly, he could have gone longer and I would have been<br />happy to keep listening. He also showed us some of his html work and<br />its precursors, and talked about the contrary notion of art as an<br />"open source" phenomenon. And yes, about how blogs function as test<br />beds for artists and are part of a process-oriented mindset.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome.org is a 501©(3) nonprofit organization and an affiliate of<br />the New Museum of Contemporary Art.<br /><br />Rhizome Digest is supported by grants from The Charles Engelhard<br />Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for<br />the Visual Arts, and with public funds from the New York State Council<br />on the Arts, a state agency.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome Digest is filtered by Kevin McGarry (kevin@rhizome.org). ISSN:<br />1525-9110. Volume 10, number 21. Article submissions to list@rhizome.org<br />are encouraged. Submissions should relate to the theme of new media art<br />and be less than 1500 words. For information on advertising in Rhizome<br />Digest, please contact info@rhizome.org.<br /><br />To unsubscribe from this list, visit <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/subscribe">http://rhizome.org/subscribe</a>.<br />Subscribers to Rhizome Digest are subject to the terms set out in the<br />Member Agreement available online at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/info/29.php">http://rhizome.org/info/29.php</a>.<br /><br />Please invite your friends to visit Rhizome.org on Fridays, when the<br />site is open to members and non-members alike.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br />
